Linked List: November 11, 2020

Wednesday, 11 November 2020

AnandTech’s Deep Dive on the A14 and What It Means for the M1 

Andrei Frumusanu, writing for AnandTech:

We currently do not have Apple Silicon devices and likely won’t get our hands on them for another few weeks, but we do have the A14, and expect the new Mac chips to be strongly based on the microarchitecture we’re seeing employed in the iPhone designs. Of course, we’re still comparing a phone chip versus a high-end laptop and even a high-end desktop chip, but given the performance numbers, that’s also exactly the point we’re trying to make here, setting the stage as the bare minimum of what Apple could achieve with their new Apple Silicon Mac chips.

The A14 is both a power-efficient smartphone chip and one of the fastest CPUs ever made, period. And the M1 is faster. Someone with access to an M1 MacBook Air submitted Geekbench 5 benchmarks today, and it outperforms every Mac ever made in single-core performance.

FTC Claims Zoom Lied to Users About End-to-End Encryption for Years, Yet Lets Company Off the Hook for Compensation 

Jon Brodkin, reporting for Ars Technica:

Zoom has agreed to upgrade its security practices in a tentative settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which alleges that Zoom lied to users for years by claiming it offered end-to-end encryption.

“[S]ince at least 2016, Zoom misled users by touting that it offered ‘end-to-end, 256-bit encryption’ to secure users’ communications, when in fact it provided a lower level of security,” the FTC said today in the announcement of its complaint against Zoom and the tentative settlement. Despite promising end-to-end encryption, the FTC said that “Zoom maintained the cryptographic keys that could allow Zoom to access the content of its customers’ meetings, and secured its Zoom Meetings, in part, with a lower level of encryption than promised.”

The FTC complaint says that Zoom claimed it offers end-to-end encryption in its June 2016 and July 2017 HIPAA compliance guides, which were intended for health-care industry users of the video conferencing service. Zoom also claimed it offered end-to-end encryption in a January 2019 white paper, in an April 2017 blog post, and in direct responses to inquiries from customers and potential customers, the complaint said.

No honest mistake here, no hair-splitting. Just flat out lies. Zoom is a garbage company with a good service.

MacOS 11 Big Sur Is Officially Licensed for Colocation Leasing 

Brian Stucki, writing at the MacStadium blog:

All of this is big news, but for me personally, there was some even more massive news. Apple has updated the macOS software license agreement for Big Sur. This doesn’t happen very often. It went from 15 sections to 16 sections. The last significant change I can remember was in 2012 when they confirmed that you could buy a Mac OS X upgrade and install it on all the Macs you own. (Yes, we used to pay for OS updates.)

More significant than a simple agreement change is that the whole section is so directly pointed at what I care deeply about with my work.

I have been working with Macs in data centers for sixteen years now. I’ve pushed through many of the “Mac mini/Xserve/Mac Pro is dead” comments and “why would you want macOS in a data center” insults. I’ve had Apple account reps very eager to introduce me to their large clients only to have Apple system engineers shoot down the whole idea as a “gray area.” Well, this new section of “Leasing for Permitted Developer Services” feels like a massive pat on the back and I’m so happy for all my friends at Apple who saw the need and have been pushing for this update.

Not coincidentally, MacStadium has already ordered over 600 M1 Mac Minis.

Actual, Completely Fair and Accurate Headline From The Verge: ‘TikTok Says the Trump Administration Has Forgotten About Trying to Ban It, Would Like to Know What’s Up’ 

All eyes are on their election-loss pants-wetting tantrum, but the Trump administration continues to embarrass itself, and alas, the nation, in other ways. Remember too that they claimed this TikTok controversy was a national security issue. Now it’s just forgotten.