PFAS compounds are everywhere and are a major health risk. There are many lawsuits being filed for many different products. I came across this article about how you can attempt to reduce your exposure. I say “attempt” because they are literally all around us:
How to reduce your exposure to PFAS: Avoid microwave popcorn, water-resistant makeup, nonstick pans
By Michael Hawthorne
Chicago Tribune
Sep 10, 2022 at 5:00 am
PFAS are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances used for decades in firefighting foam and to make products such as nonstick cookware, stain-repellent carpets, waterproof jackets and fast-food wrappers that repel oil and grease.
They are commonly known as forever chemicals because they don’t break down in the environment. Some accumulate in human blood and take years to leave the body.
Long-term exposure to tiny concentrations of certain PFAS can trigger testicular and kidney cancer, birth defects, liver damage, impaired fertility, immune system disorders, high cholesterol and obesity, studies have found. Links to breast cancer and other diseases are suspected.
The chemicals are difficult to avoid. They have been found in people and the environment around the world. But government officials and nonprofit groups offer suggestions about how you can reduce your exposure.
- Consider having your drinking water tested. In Illinois alone, more than 8 million people in the state get their water from a utility where at least one forever chemical has been detected. If PFAS are detected in your water, the nonprofit NSF recommends filters capable of reducing concentrations of forever chemicals.
- Household dust is another source of exposure. Use HEPA filters when vacuuming, dust with wet cloths and mops and wash hands frequently, especially before eating.
- Cut back on fast food, greasy carryout food and microwave popcorn because they often come in PFAS-treated packaging.
- Choose cosmetics and other personal care products without “PTFE” or “fluoro” ingredients. Any that claim to be water-resistant likely are made with PFAS. The nonprofit Environmental Working Group maintains a database to help identify which shampoos, dental floss, makeup and other personal care products do and do not contain PFAS and other toxic substances.
- Look for products that haven’t been pretreated to resist stains and skip optional stain-repellant treatment on new carpets and furniture.
- Avoid nonstick cookware and kitchen utensils made with PTFE or PFAS. If the product label says it is PFOA-free, it still might contain other forever chemicals.
- Stain- and water-resistant clothing and outdoor gear can contain PFAS. Look for retailers that have policies restricting use of the chemicals.
Sources: Consumer Reports, Environmental Working Group, Green Science Policy Institute, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Stay safe ya’all!
Thank you for reading today's post. Have an InterStellar Day! ~PrP
What is the most gangster move by a studio executive?
Building in California can be a complete nightmare relative to other states.
George Lucas was considering building a movie studio in Marin County, California. The locals there pushed back super hard on his proposal, saying it would lead to traffic jams and other inconveniences.
Lucas Studios realized shortly thereafter that they’d not be able to build on his 1000 acre area because of all this pushback.
Out of the blue, a few years later, the county suddenly changed its tone and Lucas was able to build his studio.
It was later revealed that Lucas was going to let builders construct low income housing there instead. The region has an average income of $90K.
This alarmed everyone because it would hurt housing prices and attract crime.
So now, they are building his studio.
In Ancient Greece, Socrates had a great reputation of wisdom. One day, someone came to find the great philosopher and said to him:
– Do you
know what I just heard about your friend?
– A moment, replied Socrates. Before you tell me, I would like to test you the three sieves.
– The three sieves?
– Yes, continued Socrates. Before telling anything about the others, it’s good to take the time to filter what you mean. I call it the test of the three sieves. The first sieve is the TRUTH. Have you checked if what you’re going to tell me is true?
– No, I just heard it.
– Very good! So, you don’t know if it’s true. We continue with the second sieve, that of KINDNESS. What you want to tell me about my friend, is it good?
– Oh, no! On the contrary.
– So, questioned Socrates, you want to tell me bad things about him and you’re not even sure they’re true? Maybe you can still pass the test of the third sieve, that of UTILITY. Is it useful that I know what you’re going to tell me about this friend?
– No, really.
– So, concluded Socrates, what you were going to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor useful. Why, then, did you want to tell me this?
I met Socrates again – in this life – while doing past life regression therapy.
Dave Chappelle recently claimed that when Teddy Roosevelt invited Booker T Washington over to the White House, Teddy received so much flak from the media for it that he supposedly said, “I will never have a nigger in this house again.”
What Chappelle is referring to is the famous Oct. 16, 1901 dinner where he hosted Booker T. Washington at the White House. Washington was president of the Tuskegee Institute and the most influential black leader in the United States. As Washington later wrote in My Larger Education, “It was merely an incident that had no thought or motive behind it except the convenience of the President.”
That dinner didn’t have any precedent: No black man had ever been invited to dine with the president before, at least not as relative equals. Roosevelt gave no thought to having the president of a university fine at the White House.
It wasn’t a formal dinner, just a quiet event; there was no agenda. The only other people there were the president’s wife, daughter, three sons and one of the president’s friends.
The only publicity was a two-line press release the following day, but the event kicked off a firestorm of protest across the South, with newspaper editorials condemning Roosevelt’s action to various degrees. The condemnation was not so much in Roosevelt meeting with Washington but having a meal with him.
As the Tampa Morning Tribune wrote on Oct. 20: “Washington is, no doubt, a very respectable negro, the leader of his race, a man whose influence among his people is far their betterment and unlifting. But even an educated negro has his place, and it is not at the dining-table of the chief magistrate of the republic.”
A letter published in the Oct. 29 issue of the Jacksonville Metropolis newspaper. It was authored by resident E.Y. Harvey who wrote, “Not from Southerners nor Democrats alone do we hear the protest against the President’s action, but it is the voice of the American people. Eating at the same table means social equality. Social equality means free right of inter-marriage, and inter-marriage means the degradation of the white race. When the white race yields social equality with the negro it has defied the laws of God, and he will sweep them from the earth.”
It was the furor raised by the newspapers that resulted in the comment by Roosevelt. It had nothing to do with Washington or African Americans.
In Dewey Grantham’s 1958 paper Dinner at the White House: Theodore Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, and the South (it might be old, but it’s still cited frequently) Grantham quotes from Roosevelt’s personal letters in the wake of the incident:
“At the same time, he was angered by the attacks against him and he let it be known privately that he would have Booker T. Washington ‘to dine just as often as I please’ ─ he would not be intimidated by ‘the idiot or vicious Bourbon element of the South.’ ‘If these creatures had any sense they would understand that they can’t bluff me,’ the President wrote his friend Henry Cabot Lodge.”
Roosevelt did continue to invite Washington to the White House, but he made sure to schedule the meetings for midmorning so as to not cross mealtimes.
Did the Nazi German army have comfort women as the Japanese Imperial Army did in World War 2?
Great question. The short answer is “Yes”.
But you may be interested in the long answer. Let me start with a quote from a veteran answering a question by a younger German man about Wehrmacht brothels 40 years after the war:
“The first time I went I was a lad of 17-½ and still somewhat of a virgin, I never had intercourse but had done other things with the local girls. With my pockets filled with the ‘regulation equipment’, I went to the brothel in St. Laurent. I was very nervous and did not know what to expect. When my turn came I went into a room with a very good-looking girl about my age from Slovakia. She had dark hair and big breasts. Sex with her was great, even though I didn’t know what she was saying. We weren’t supposed to pay them in the Army brothels, but I gave her some money anyway. The worst part was when she spread her legs and I had to spray her with the can of disinfectant. Only then would she sign my card. You had to bring back the empty can with the pass. If you didn’t spray or bring it back you got two weeks extra labor and guard for punishment.”
The main reason why Wehrmacht brothels were established was to stop the spread of venereal diseases among its soldiers. It was said that the Wehrmacht lost more soldiers to sickness from venereal diseases in the first months of the occupation of France than during the fighting in May and June 1940. Therefore, street prostitution was banned, condoms and disinfectants were issued to soldiers, and prostitutes had to confirm their correct use in writing, as described above.
But who were the women in the brothels? And how did they get there? In the case of France, some had worked in brothels before the war. Some had been street prostitutes. The Nazis and the French police sent street prostitutes to prison or internment camps, along with female resistance fighters and some female criminals. They could get out of the camps if they “volunteered” to work in brothels, which many did.
However, things were different and far worse in Poland or the Soviet Union. Young women were brutally rounded up on the streets and forced into brothels. Some women were as young as 15. According to medical examinations, in a group of young women rounded up in the Ukraine, 85 % were virgins.
Under these circumstances, the term “prostitute” does not fit, since it may imply that they may have chosen their profession freely. Needless to say, the male-perspective term “comfort women” used in the question trivializes the suffering of the women. In most cases, women in Wehrmacht brothels were forced to work there, either violently or by the abject poverty in which they lived. They were not allowed to leave the brothels and were threatened to be sent to concentration camps if they disobeyed the rules or tried to escape. Therefore, the term “sex slaves” best fits the situtation of the majority of women in Wehrmacht brothels.
Sex slaves were found in all countries occupied by Germany, except for one: Denmark. The reason is not entirely clear, but it probably was King Christian X, who defied Nazi authority along with his fellow subjects on countless occasions and who used the authority he retained under occupation to prevent sexual slavery from being establihsed in Denmark. Norway, which had a collaborationist government under Quisling, was different. A large contingent of soldiers from the Army and the Kriegsmarine was stationed there. Norway had Wehrmacht brothels with sex slaves from France and Eastern Europe. However, no “Aryan” Norvegian women were forced into the brothels.
In France, there were hundreds of Wehrmacht brothels. Some were set up in former synagogues, such as the brothel in Brest shown below in 1940.
The Wehrmacht believed that affairs between its soldiers and local women, which often occurred, “undermined discipline” and could lead to secrets being passed on to the resistance. An emotional relationship with a sweetheart was considered far more dangerous than the regular, highly controlled intercourse with alternating sex slaves, each for a maximum duration of 15 minutes.
Wehrmacht brothels existed in France, Norway, Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Poland, in the former Soviet Union and probably also in other occupied countries such as Albania, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Hungary towards the end of the war. One source estimates that there were at least 500 brothels. Most likely there were many more.
After the war, the plight of sex slaves was universally ignored by the victors and the vanquished. In France, sex slaves – often coming from lower classes – had their hair shaved and were publicly humiliated as collaborators along with other women, while the true collaborators went free. Here is a picture of French women being publicly humiliated in the summer of 1944 in Paris.
The powerful stigma against prostitutes was amplified by the accusation of collaboration. Families had disowned their daughters, sisters and cousins who had been abused as sex slaves. Deeply ashamed, most sex slaves never spoke about their ordeal and tried to bury their past as much as they could. Trauma treatment was, of course, unavailable. Their plight was not even recognized when sex slavery in Asia under Japanese occupation started to become a more public issue in the 1990s. Most women who had been forced to be sex slaves, sadly, had to repress their memories for the rest of their lives.
Is “sex slave” an accurate term in this context? I actually hesitated when I chose that term. Some women had been prostitutes before the war. Food in the brothels was probably more plentiful and perhaps better than what a starving population had to deal with. But the women were not allowed to leave and subject to harsh punishment if they did not follow rules. I am not attached to the use of the term “sex slaves”.
Use your own judgement. If you prefer the term “prostitutes”, I don’t mind.
Were sex slaves/prostitutes victims of the “Tontes”, the public shaving and display of women during the liberation of France? Yes, they were, along with many other women, including those who cleaned the laundry and the houses of German soldiers, who worked as administrative clerks for them and who had affairs with them. It is not known how many prostitutes/sex slaves were among the victims of the “tontes”. It is known that in one of about a 100 French Départements the Departmental Resistance Committee decided not to include prostitutes in the “tontes”. They may also have been other cases where they were excluded.
Did the venerated heroes of the French resistance, who had endured so much hardship, particpate in the “Tontes”? Yes, they did. The “Tontes” were held all over France. Some female resistance fighters refused to participate. Perhaps some male resistance fighters also decided not to participate. But large crowds turned out to see the public shaming. The humiliated women were the scapegoats for a nation that had included many collaborators who styled themselves as resistance fighters on the day of liberation.
Who was considered “Non-Aryan” by the Nazis? The Nazi and SS propaganda portrayed the people of the Soviet Union (Russians, Ukrainians, Central Asians etc.) as “Untermenschen” (Sub-Humans) and thus not Aryans. But some German Army officers objected against this slander. Other European people, including Slavic people allied with the Germans such as Croats, Slovaks and Bulgarians, were not considered Untermenschen by the Nazis. I thus stand corrected and I have taken out the passage on the contradiction between Nazi racist ideology and the establishment of Wehrmacht brothels from the post.
JOKE:
A burglar broke into a house one night. Looking for valuables, he shone his flashlight around the room, when a voice in the dark said, “Jesus knows you’re here.” He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his flashlight off and froze. When he heard nothing more, after a bit, he shook his head and continued. Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires, clear as a bell he heard a voice say, “Jesus is watching you.” Freaked out, he shone his light around frantically, looking for the source of the voice. Finally, in the corner of the room, his flashlight beam came to rest on a parrot. “Did you say that?” he hissed at the parrot.
“Yep!” the parrot confessed then squawked, “I’m just trying to warn you that he is watching you.” The burglar relaxed. “Warn me, huh? “Who in the world are you?” “I’m Moses.” replied the bird. “Moses?” the burglar laughed. “What kind of people would name a bird Moses?” The bird replied, “The same kind of people that would name their Rottweiler – Jesus!”
JOKE:
Three guys were sitting in a biker bar.
A man came in, already drunk, sat down at the bar, and ordered a drink.
The man looked around and saw the 3 men sitting at a corner table.
He got up, staggered to the table, leaned over, looked the biggest one in the face, and said, “I went by your grandma’s house and I saw her in the hallway, buck naked.
Man, she is fine!”
The biker looked at him and didn’t say a word.
His buddies were confused, because he was a badass, and would fight at the drop of a hat.
The drunk leaned on the table again and said, “I got it on with your grandma and she is good, the best I ever had!” The biker still said nothing.
His buddies were starting to get mad.
The drunk leaned on the table again and said, “I’ll tell you something else boy, your grandma liked it!”
The biker stood up, took the drunk by the shoulder, and said,
“Damn it, Grandpa, you’re drunk! Go home!”
Ahahahahh!! Love it.
He is 85 and insists on taking his wife’s hand everywhere they go. When he was asked why his wife kept looking away, he responded, “because she has Alzheimer’s”. Then he was ask, will your wife worry if you let her go? He then replied, ′′she doesn’t remember anything, she doesn’t know who I am anymore, she hasn’t recognized me for years.” Surprised, I said, “and you have continued to guide her every single day even though she doesn’t recognize you?”
The elderly man smiled and looked into my eyes and said, ′′she may not know who I am, but I know who she is, and she is the love of my life”.
I Love this story ❤️❤️
Me too. <3
Did You Know?
Despite its prevalence in action movies and war films, pulling a grenade pin with your teeth is a terrible idea—the pins are difficult to pull on purpose and require a strong pull to dislodge.
Companies Are Not Your Friend
JOE FEDEWA
Major tech companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung have legions of diehard fans. Brands are more than happy to leverage that passion to keep your wallet open. The relationship only benefits one side, though, and it’s not you.
Unrequited Love
The “relationship” between a loyal supporter and a company is essentially unrequited love. And just like romantic unrequited love, this dynamic often results in one side staunchly defending or completely ignoring the other’s faults.
It’s an entirely one-sided relationship. The company gets exactly what it wants—our money, blind support, and free advertising—while we only get what it decides we should have. You are as much the product as the actual phone, tablet, laptop, etc.
This is especially true when the product is “free.” Google does not offer Chrome, Gmail, or even the Android OS for free out of the goodness of its heart. You pay for those products with your personal information, and there’s a lot of money to be made from it.
Apple didn’t start focusing on privacy because it truly cares about protecting you. They know you’re going to give your personal information to some company, and Apple wants to position itself to look like the safest option. That doesn’t mean it’s not the safest option, but don’t think their intentions were pure.
Limiting Your Choices
One way that this one-sided dynamic plays out is the removal of choice. What does that look like? Let’s talk about Apple, which is probably the most infamous company for this behavior.
There are a few examples we could point to, but the most recent is the removal of the SIM card tray on the iPhone 14 series. You now need to be on a carrier that supports eSIM if you want to use an iPhone. This is a decision that exclusively benefits only Apple and the major carriers.
As XDA-Developer’s Adam Conway points out, this move is especially egregious even for Apple. When the company removed the headphone jack, it spun it as a good thing for future iPhones and the industry at large. Apple fans were quick to defend the decision with the arguments Apple provided.
However, Apple didn’t bother with that theater when talking about removing the SIM card tray. No defense or explanation was given. Now, you’re simply forced to use a carrier that supports eSIM if you want an iPhone 14, and it’s more complicated to get service when traveling abroad.
It may sound harsh, but Apple doesn’t care what you want. Apple knows the stranglehold it has on many iPhone users, and it actively works to deepen it. That’s the danger of locking yourself into one company’s ecosystem. Once they’ve got you invested, there’s less incentive to cater to your needs.
Sure, having an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and MacBook that all work seamlessly together is a great experience, but you’re being lured into a trap. What are you going to do when a company does something you don’t like: ditch all of their products or live with it? Apple is betting you’ll do the latter.
Disposable Products
Another way in which companies get what they want at your expense is repairability—or rather, the lack thereof. This is a problem that goes well beyond smartphones and computers, but that’s what we’ll be focusing on here.
Remember when nearly every smartphone—except the iPhone—had a removable battery? You could have a spare to pop in when you needed extra juice, and buy a new one when battery life degraded. It was a simple feature that extended the life of the device.
Nowadays, smartphones with removable batteries are rare, especially in the high-end class. Smartphones have never been particularly easily repairable by the average person, but that’s bled over to desktop computers and laptops as well.
It would be undeniably good for consumers—and the environment—if smartphones and computers were more easily repairable and upgradable. However, there’s more profit in selling brand new devices and making you pay to have them fixed than helping people maintain them themselves.
Companies will say sealing the battery inside allows it to be water resistant, but that’s not true. It’s certainly possible for a device with a removable battery to be waterproof—check out Samsung’s Galaxy XCover 6 Pro—but it’s a lot easier to just seal the battery inside and have one less thing to worry about.
Companies will go so far as to create their very own type of screw to make it more difficult to open up devices. Finding genuine replacement parts and repair documentation can also be a nightmare. Thanks to third-parties like iFixit, you’re not completely out of luck.
This problem has gotten enough attention that “Right to Repair” legislation has been proposed in several regions. It would require companies to offer genuine replacement parts, tools, and repair documentation. If companies cared about us, they wouldn’t need the government to step in.
Paying More for Less
You’ve probably heard about how companies use packaging tricks to make you pay more for less. For example, a can of soup appears to be bigger since it’s slightly taller, but it actually contains less soup than before. This is commonly known as “shrinkflation,” and it happens in tech too.
Streaming is a product category especially ripe for shrinkflation. The price of Netflix is regularly increased, but the catalog of movies and TV shows seems to be shrinking. Paramount+, Peacock, and the bevy of other streaming services have taken back a lot of their own programming.
We can see examples of shrinkflation in smartphones too. It used to be common to get a charging cable, charging brick, a pair of headphones, and a cleaning cloth with a new phone. Now, there are some companies that only give you the phone and cable. Has the price gone down as a result of including fewer accessories? No.
You could even argue that removing ports—like the headphone jack—is another form of shrinkflation in tech. Fewer ports mean you have to spend extra money on dongles and accessories to get the same functionality that used to be built-in. You’re paying more for less.
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and all the other companies that make the gadgets we love are businesses. The goal of a business is to make money. Sometimes that goal aligns with giving people what they want, but it often doesn’t.
Tim Cook was once asked about RCS support on the iPhone. When the person complained that his mother couldn’t see the videos he sends her due to their low quality, Cook responded: “Buy your mom an iPhone.” RCS support would improve the texting experience for Android and iPhone users, but Apple would rather passive-aggressively push more people to the iPhone.
The truth is you and I do not have a relationship with these companies—we have transactions. We are not being paid to advertise for them or defend their anti-consumer decisions. Don’t give them a free pass. They’re not your friends.
Are VPNs Broken on iPhone?
FERGUS O’SULLIVAN
People using a VPN on iPhones and iPads are not as secure as they think. Security expert Michael Horowitz as well as several VPN providers have revealed issues that affect the integrity of iOS going back for years. It could very well be that VPNs are broken on iOS, ever since iOS 13 and maybe even before.
How VPNs Work
Before we get into the details of these claims, let’s very quickly go over how VPNs work. If you already know, you can skip this bit to get to the juicy part, but if you’re new to VPNs, you may want to take the time.
When you connect to the internet, you’re sending information from your computer—let’s assume WiFi for the sake of argument—to a server run by your internet service provider (ISP). From there, you connect to the site you want, in this case, our website’s server. In this scenario, your ISP knows which site you connected to, and the site knows your IP address and thus where you connected from.
In short, a VPN reroutes your connection. From your ISP’s server, it goes to a server run by your VPN, and from there to the site you want. This makes it so the site you connected to can no longer track you back, when it tries to find out where you’re connected from, all it gets back is the IP address of the VPN server.
On top of that, the VPN also encrypts the connection between your computer and the VPN server in what’s called a VPN tunnel. This means that your ISP no longer knows what you’re doing either, as well as making it a lot harder for anybody to find out what you’re doing should they intercept your connection.
VPNs and iOS
However, according to cybersecurity researcher Michael Horowitz—who said “retired computer nerd” would be more accurate in an email to How-To Geek —iOS users aren’t afforded the full force of this protection. As he explains in detail in his blog post, when an iPhone or iPad user engages their VPN while a connection is still active, not all of the data being transferred through the connection will stay in the tunnel.
Horowitz did most of his testing on an iPad, which runs on iPadOS, a slightly different version of iOS which runs iPhones. However, they can be considered identical for the sake of these tests.
In this case, you can think of the VPN connection less like a tunnel and more like a hose. When a VPN does its job, all the water being poured through comes out on the other side. However, with this iOS issue, some of the water is coming out of the hose in transit—hence the use of the word “leak.” These leaks are caused by an issue in iOS and are not due to any problems with the VPNs themselves.
Also, it should be noted what is being leaked is encrypted data, not, as you may expect, IP addresses or other DNS issues. The result is that iOS users that run into this issue probably still can’t be tracked, the VPN is still doing its job in that sense. Since it’s encrypted, the leaked data is also not at particular risk, thankfully. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not a pretty serious flaw.
Dropping the Ball
It’s not just a problem because of technical reasons: As Horowitz himself notes, Proton, developers of ProtonVPN, first pointed it out in March 2020, more than two years ago. When Proton reached out to Apple about this problem back then, the company was told it was “expected.”
As Horowitz found out through further testing, Apple has not fixed it in any iteration of iOS since. When Horowitz reached out to Apple himself, he got more or less the same reply ProtonVPN did and was told things were “working as designed.” This seems odd, especially as the leak is proven beyond a doubt.
Not that Apple did nothing: Apparently, since iOS 14, there’s a switch that iOS developers need to turn on in their code to make this problem go away. However, according to the developers Horowitz spoke to, there’s an issue that it only works with some VPN protocols—the set of rules that determine how VPNs talk to other machines—not all of them. Some of the more popular protocols apparently won’t work with this flag, including OpenVPN and WireGuard.
Possible Fixes for Leaking iOS VPNs
However, for the short term, there seems to be another fix, which was discovered by VPN provider Mullvad a few years ago. It involves connecting to the VPN as normal, then enabling airplane mode, turning off Wi-Fi and then disabling airplane mode again. Horowitz, for his part, claims it doesn’t always work, however, so you may not want to risk it.
Another option is to use a VPN that will kill any open connections on startup. The only one that seems to be able to do that now is Windscribe—you need to check “Kill TCP sockets after connection” in settings—but we have no doubt others will follow now that the word is out.
For now, though, the only thing you can do is, as Horowitz recommends, connect your Apple mobile devices through a VPN router. This way, your whole network is using the VPN at the same time, and thus the separate iPhones and iPads can’t leak anymore . Note, though, that if you do this you may want to disable mobile data so you can’t fall back on that should your router fail, for whatever reason.
Other Issues
All this is pretty bad, but this may not be the end of it. Horowitz is expecting even more iOS issues to arise from further testing. For one, there’s an issue that was flagged by security researcher Matt Volante in 2018 and again by tracking protection app Disconnect in 2022. In these cases, it appears developers can choose to have their iOS apps circumvent the VPN tunnel.
If this is the case, this is a huge deal for all iPhone users, but especially those in countries where the internet is censored. As Disconnect points out, most Russian apps have to be approved by the Russian government, meaning that there’s a good chance those apps will make use of this loophole.
Did Apple Break VPNs?
Right now, the only thing that seems clear is that we’ve only discovered the first few feet of the rabbit hole. Apple seems to have made a bit of a mess of VPN security, which we guess can happen, but doesn’t seem to have assigned particularly high priority to fixing these problems. At the time of writing, we don’t know if this issue still exists in the just-released iOS 16, but considering Apple’s lack of a reaction so far, we’re not holding our breath that it was fixed.
While you could argue that there’s no real problem because users’ data is not at risk, it does feel a little sloppy, especially coming from a company like Apple, which likes to proclaim how security and privacy conscious it is. Though it’s up to individual consumers to decide how this will affect their relationship with the company, it does feel like Apple has dropped a ball and not picked it up here.