Apple caved under pressure from China. The explanation Cook gave is not just an embarrassment, it calls into question the veracity of all of his other statements.
Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths?
And why should the US government be satisfied with a fully encrypted iMessage given that Apple will cave to demands given enough pressure?
> Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths?
At least in China, you can probably assume iMessage is back-doored given that iCloud content in mainland China is operated by a Chinese internet company. Apple quietly posted this last week on their support page:
"iCloud services in China mainland are now operated by Chinese internet services company Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data Industrial Development Co., Ltd., (GCBD). This allows us to continue to improve iCloud services in China mainland and comply with Chinese regulations."
It goes on to say:
"iCloud services and all the data you store with iCloud, including photos, videos, documents, and backups, will be subject to the new terms and conditions of iCloud operated by GCBD."
Your comment has made a really really deep impression on me. For the past several years, I’ve been a hardcore Apple loyalist only for their stance on privacy and security.
It’s time to stop being deluded. I’m going to stop paying premium for apple and assume all my devices are hostile by default.
I agree that Apple's stated rationale for removing the HKmap.live app is embarrassing and the removal is a capitulation to China's government.
The reasons China's government has decried the app are bogus, but those false reports and allegations do not originate with Apple.
However, Apple appears to be accepting those reasons at face value and probably because Apple is kowtowing.
Regarding whether iMessage is free from backdoors, Apple has given no reason for anyone to believe they are outright lying about the technical features of their software and hardware or their position regarding privacy.
In other words, Apple appears to be caving into pressure from the Chinese government and Apple are openly admitting this surrender.
However, Apple has not to date lied about what they are doing and we do not yet have a reason to doubt their representations about the security of their encryption.
>Apple caved under pressure from China. The explanation Cook gave is not just an embarrassment, it calls into question the veracity of all of his other statements.
What veracity? He is a businessman in a trillion dollar company. He says what pleases the market -- the domestic and the foreign one, not his personal beliefs...
The first priority is always profits or growth.
If one sincerely cared for the environment for example, would stop tons things that Apple is doing, not just one. The CEO of a multinational churning consumer gadgets by the shit-loads only cares for the environment to the degree that said caring doesn't impact the bottom line.
>Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths?
Well, that's an easier thing to answer, because there would be leaks from Apple employees (NSA had leaks, for Apple it would be many times easier) if that was the case. Tons of engineers would know.
>And why should the US government be satisfied with a fully encrypted iMessage given that Apple will cave to demands given enough pressure?
Because Apple will also cave to their demands.
Besides it's another thing to please some foreign customer by caving in to remove an app (especially if said foreign customer is a sovereign state and the app is anti-policy -- companies are not in some obligation from the US or otherwise to side with protesters), and another thing to e.g. cave in to China and give them a backdoor to iMessage as you seem to imply as a potentiality. In fact the latter would be treason (or close) for a US-based company and have much more serious repercussions...
Tim Cook previously said "not on our platform" before and people warned about censorship and centralized control that would eventually harm to the most dependent users. This is the direct outcome of such a policy where a few have ultimate power over the masses. It's a sad development for Apple.
> Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors
That's an easy one: the encryption happens client side and thus any backdoor has to sit on the clients and, if it exists, would be available to security researchers. There is no guarantee of it happening, but I believe some of those researchers reverse engineer whatever binary apple published and then check it for backdoors.
Of course there are still tricks that apple could pull, like adding backdoors only to targeted phones, changing the filesystem to present one version of the binary to the OS command that executes it and another to anyone else (like security researchers), extracting the unencrypted message contents using chips that sit on the memory bus (e.g. baseband), etc. But these tricks are harder to pull off and are still detectable as they happen on end-user devices.
They definitely won't say "yeah there is a backdoor". Ultimately, you need to trust them.
> Apple caved under pressure from China. The explanation Cook gave is not just an embarrassment, it calls into question the veracity of all of his other statements.
I was thinking about the complexity of the world the other day, and how so many people hold diametrically opposed beliefs, but often based on solid reasoning and genuine facts. How could this be?
If you think about it, the modern world is so complex, with so many facts (some of which are actual facts, some of which are popular opinions now considered to be fact), with all of the inter-connected, Nth order cause and effect going on, how is a person who wants to be as objective as possible supposed to actually come up with a reasonable model of what's going on, even if they're willing to put in the work? People skilled in communications and the psychology of persuasion can pick and choose a subset of "facts" and put together plausible and completely contradictory descriptions of the very same story, and done correctly it's very difficult even for the vigilant to know you're being duped. So what's a person to do?
What I came up with is the idea that yes, one should indeed take "facts" into consideration, including some sort of notion of trustworthiness for each fact, but what's missing is the value of lies in coming up with one's model of reality. So, when trying to figure out what the real deal is on any given situation, don't first look for the facts, but rather the obvious lies - if you can find obvious lies or misrepresentations of reality coming from powerful (politicians or corporate leaders) or influential people (the media), this is probably a good trail to follow to lead you toward the most important parts of the truth. Of course, there's lots of complexity involved here as well, you have to consider the nature of the bias from the messenger, compare versions of the lie across different outlets, etc etc etc, but in many cases I suspect this is a highly productive approach for maximizing the correctness of one's models.
So in this case, as the article points out, "However, over the past several days we received credible information....that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence". Obviously a lie, although in this case, considering Tim Cook's no dummy I expect he knew everyone would know he's lying, so I wouldn't form any specific conclusions on this, other than money >>> honesty and principles for him, but why should we expect more from him than any other important person in Western society....this is just how we are. Despite the wonderful sounding platitudes we tell ourselves, this is our culture. And the Achilles heel that I believe China will be able to continue to exploit indefinitely, because I simply can't see it ever changing, it has become so normalized that hardly anyone can even recognize it anymore.
EDIT: Thinking more, with this being so obvious once you're aware of it, I can't imagine this is a unique theory I've come up with. Does anyone know a name for this style of thinking?
The US isn't a closed market and can't effectively eject Apple from the market. While I disagree with the choice Apple made, it's a very rational one. Permanent removal from China would probably be worse for freedom in China over 20 years, and massively worse for Apple in the short term.
No company should be expected to back or foment a revolution somewhere, from my perspective they're looking out for their own beet interest and the best interest of their customers.
I am not surprised by this. I always thought Tim Cook talks a good talk, but fails to walk the walk when the stakes at hand is real. He’s fine with standing up to the CIA/FBI because he knows it’s good PR for business and the US government cannot do anything without a lengthy court fight that is mostly fair. Same with other US domestic issues such as DACA, sane sex marriage, etc.
But when it comes to the PRC government, he caves immediately because the threat is real. He knows he CAN and probably WILL lose access the Chinese market and manufacturing capacity, and there’s no court system to appeal—-the system is rigged and controlled by the CCP. Therefore, principles bow down before revenue.
Personally I don’t care what Tim Cook and Apple does to get and keep access to Chinese market, but I am disgusted by hypocrite with the high rhetoric about privacy, human rights, etc., but compromising immediately when $$$ is at stake.
When did he stand up to the CIA? As far as standing up to the FBI, the impetus behind that was to cover up another lie. Apple had told customers "it's not technically feasible" for Apple to respond to data requests and got a mountain of free press for it. The FBI showed a method by which Apple could obtain the encrypted data on those devices. Soon after, that claim disappeared from Apple's "Privacy" marketing page. https://gizmodo.com/apple-wont-turn-over-your-phones-data-to...
Complying with the data request would have given users who had their data obtained standing to sue Apple, so Apple's willingness to litigate the issue went so far as the cost of the lawsuits it wanted to avoid. The FBI dropped the case not because it didn't think it could win but because it could access the data more quickly using another vendor's data extraction service.
Can I play devil's advocate for just a moment? Gruber asks for evidence. His only complaints seems to be the lack of evidence and a question of whether the app violates local (Hong Kong) law. Cook's memo directly addresses both of those issues:
> However, over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present. This use put the app in violation of Hong Kong law.
So then, is the complaint simply that Cook is not providing direct evidence of these claims? Is that a reasonable expectation? What evidence could Cook provide that would directly tie violence (we know that Hong Kong protesters have committed violence) to this particular app? It seems like everyone agrees that this app was useful for organizing Hong Kong protests, and that some Hong Kong protesters have committed violence and broken local laws.
Please don't take this as some statement of political support for any particular government, company, or group. I'm attempting to address the specifics of this memo and Gruber's complaints. I am not attempting to make any argument of the form "the Hong Kong protests are [good, bad] and therefore any tool that helps the protesters is [good, bad]." The overall merits of the Hong Kong protests are not, from what I can tell, relevant to Apple's decision to ban this app or Gruber's complaints about Apple's decision and memo.
Gruber is taking Ceglowski and HKmap.live's comments at face value, but they aren't disinterested actors. They both have (admirable) agendas in the pro-democracy protests. Of course they're going to characterize the app in the best light possible (it's so you can avoid the protests and avoid inadvertently running into cops).
Apple most likely did get legitimate examples of the app being used for that, and that was all the pretext they needed to remove it. The real issue is that the CCP is also likely holding a gun to their head both in the state newspaper but also privately. And obviously Apple isn't going to light themselves on fire which is what people really want to see them do.
Then there's the bad faith critics that are using this as an opportunity to say they're hypocrites because they are politically active on various issues (like the encryption fight with the FBI), as if it isn't because they're protected by the rule of law in Western nations and they aren't in China.
Ultimately everyone understands this. The real original sin is the fact that the West normalized relations with China in the first place [1]. Corporations like Apple aren't going to liberate China, and they can't even if they wanted to. The US and other countries could decide tomorrow to sanction China and Apple and every other business would be unable to do business with them. They could treat China like North Korea or Iran. That's a political question for governments, not corporations.
> The inspection team has complete access to the network system. Inspection can cover both the technical aspects of the network system and the data/information maintained on the servers. See Article 10. The inspectors can fully access the system and they are permitted to copy any data they find. See Article 15. The only restriction on the inspectors copying the data in your company’s system is that the inspectors must provide you with a receipt. Though Article 10 “restricts” access to matters involving national security, the definition of national security in China is so broad that there is no real limitation on what can be accessed, copied and removed.
This is honestly the most disappointing part of this entire saga. That Apple’s leadership realized that this is an issue, that the company’s employees do too, and that they think it’s appropriate to send out an email to placate the company but contains no real information and falls apart immediately if you look at it for longer than a couple seconds.
It's already known that iCloud in China is operated by a state-owned telecom (GCBD) see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217920 so they could use the data to track the protestors.
So why the outcry about this? In the end, for-profit companies will do what gives them profit. You should not rely on them for anything that won't give them profits.
> You should not rely on them for anything that won't give them profits.
You’re absolutely right and for the vast majority of companies put in this position I wouldn’t be happy about their decision but I definitely wouldn’t hold it against them. That said, if ever there were a company in the history of the world whose users are rabidly loyal enough, whose economic contributions in China are substantial enough, and with the “Fuck You Money” necessary to do what’s right when it comes to China, it’s Apple.
And when you consider that Apple launched themselves into America’s living rooms with the “1984” commercial, I might even go so far as to say that Apple could have leaned in to whatever negative consequences they may have suffered as a result.
The single page app at https://hkmap.live/ opens on iOS with a note telling you how to add it to your Home Screen.
That gives you a custom app icon, which opens as a live full screen map app w/o browser chrome.
This open mechanism to “sideload” what a regular user can’t tell the difference from an App Store app was the original iPhone app distribution strategy for both live and offline HTML5 apps, provided to developers before the App Store existed.
It remains relatively trivial to distribute apps this way.
I'm assuming that the website still works, since it's probably the source of data for the app anyway.
At the end of the day, Apple taking down the app seems like an expected outcome, and HK is outside of the great firewall, so anyone can still access the site. What's the problem?
The cynic in me agrees, but by that logic we wouldn't be surprised to find Beige Corp selling heroin or guns to schoolchildren if it "gives them profit". What stops them? Regulation is part of it, but also having at least some interest in keeping their good name...
The silver lining here is that a lot of people are thinking hard for the first time about what it means to give up the right to install whatever software you want on your own hardware.
A devil's bargain always seems like a good deal until the bill comes due.
> In this case, we thoroughly reviewed [the facts], and we believe this decision best protects our users.
When I read Tim Cook's letter, this line at the end jumped out to me as super off. Even if everything else was completely true, how would this decision protect Apple users? Unless all the police have iPhones?
Positive Tinfoil hat on:
The police would have used / were starting to use presence of the app as evidence that users were participant in the protest and arrested them. Or the police would have been able compromise the users, the app or the data (but then why not keep it as a honeypot?)
Cook has said repeatedly that they can't buy the labor they have available n China ta any price anywhere in the world. It's not a problem they can throw money at unfortunately.
I hope I'm not promoting conspiracy theory so much as probability theory.
I don't think we can trust Apple not to have NSA backdoors anymore. We all know about Microsoft's reputation, but Apple may be the slimiest of them all. Everything is closed source and encrypted on the network level, so instead, we have to judge from Apple's corporate and PR behaviour.
Apple care about their branding and profits above all, and not one iota about their customers, truth, or transparency.
Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had surveillance backdoors in secret, making a complete mockery of the whole 'privacy play' they maintain as a branding differentiator against Google.
Apple's supply chain is China-based. If Apple doesn't pull app, then China's leadership probably shuts down that supply chain. China's leadership doesn't give a damn about Apple or Foxcomm or even the NBA. It's probably a real blow to Tim Cook since he is famous for setting up such an amazing supply chain. He put Apple in such a dangerous position. He caved and made up an excuse.
China isn't going to shutdown Apple's supply chain, that's revenue to Chinese companies. The threat is that they would make it more difficult for Chinese buyers of the iPhone or put regulatory hurdles in front of Apple to make it difficult to sell iPhones in China. China is one of Apple's largest markets.
That’s a double edged lever. If apple can’t make iPhones in china it can’t employ Chinese citizens, and these jobs move out of the country. So does the investment in training. Though it might clear up the market for local brands.
China isn't like the US, where Apple can use their trillions and lawyer up. China will just shut you down and take your shit. Guess where hkmap.live and the Chinese App Store employees responsible for approving it end up when that happens. Similarly if the "moral" thing for these companies to do is to divest from China, then HK will only be served by Chinese companies, and good luck trying to provide a police tracking app there too.
This is totally different from the Rockets situation, where it really is just a matter of principle over money. If Morey and the NBA stick to their guns, the NBA can just leave China, and other than some hazy concepts of goodwill and cultural exchange, nothing is lost except money.
I'd rather have Apple and others in China than without. A Chinese company capitulates immediately to the government, a multinational at least can put up some semblance of resistance, with international relations as a bargaining chip.
I understand Apple’s reliance on Chinese manufacturers, but at the same time, aren’t they sitting on roughly a quarter-trillion dollars in cash [0]? If Apple can’t use such wealth to pivot production away from China, or at least feel confident in this option as a contingency plan, then who can?
[+] [-] artfulhippo|6 years ago|reply
Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths?
And why should the US government be satisfied with a fully encrypted iMessage given that Apple will cave to demands given enough pressure?
[+] [-] president|6 years ago|reply
At least in China, you can probably assume iMessage is back-doored given that iCloud content in mainland China is operated by a Chinese internet company. Apple quietly posted this last week on their support page:
"iCloud services in China mainland are now operated by Chinese internet services company Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data Industrial Development Co., Ltd., (GCBD). This allows us to continue to improve iCloud services in China mainland and comply with Chinese regulations."
It goes on to say:
"iCloud services and all the data you store with iCloud, including photos, videos, documents, and backups, will be subject to the new terms and conditions of iCloud operated by GCBD."
Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351
EDIT: After some research, it looks like the iCloud handover actually happened last year (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/11/icloud_china_goes_t...).
[+] [-] dilippkumar|6 years ago|reply
It’s time to stop being deluded. I’m going to stop paying premium for apple and assume all my devices are hostile by default.
What the actual fuck Apple.
[+] [-] mistersquid|6 years ago|reply
The reasons China's government has decried the app are bogus, but those false reports and allegations do not originate with Apple.
However, Apple appears to be accepting those reasons at face value and probably because Apple is kowtowing.
Regarding whether iMessage is free from backdoors, Apple has given no reason for anyone to believe they are outright lying about the technical features of their software and hardware or their position regarding privacy.
In other words, Apple appears to be caving into pressure from the Chinese government and Apple are openly admitting this surrender.
However, Apple has not to date lied about what they are doing and we do not yet have a reason to doubt their representations about the security of their encryption.
[+] [-] coldtea|6 years ago|reply
What veracity? He is a businessman in a trillion dollar company. He says what pleases the market -- the domestic and the foreign one, not his personal beliefs...
The first priority is always profits or growth.
If one sincerely cared for the environment for example, would stop tons things that Apple is doing, not just one. The CEO of a multinational churning consumer gadgets by the shit-loads only cares for the environment to the degree that said caring doesn't impact the bottom line.
>Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths?
Well, that's an easier thing to answer, because there would be leaks from Apple employees (NSA had leaks, for Apple it would be many times easier) if that was the case. Tons of engineers would know.
>And why should the US government be satisfied with a fully encrypted iMessage given that Apple will cave to demands given enough pressure?
Because Apple will also cave to their demands.
Besides it's another thing to please some foreign customer by caving in to remove an app (especially if said foreign customer is a sovereign state and the app is anti-policy -- companies are not in some obligation from the US or otherwise to side with protesters), and another thing to e.g. cave in to China and give them a backdoor to iMessage as you seem to imply as a potentiality. In fact the latter would be treason (or close) for a US-based company and have much more serious repercussions...
[+] [-] manigandham|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] est31|6 years ago|reply
That's an easy one: the encryption happens client side and thus any backdoor has to sit on the clients and, if it exists, would be available to security researchers. There is no guarantee of it happening, but I believe some of those researchers reverse engineer whatever binary apple published and then check it for backdoors.
Of course there are still tricks that apple could pull, like adding backdoors only to targeted phones, changing the filesystem to present one version of the binary to the OS command that executes it and another to anyone else (like security researchers), extracting the unencrypted message contents using chips that sit on the memory bus (e.g. baseband), etc. But these tricks are harder to pull off and are still detectable as they happen on end-user devices.
They definitely won't say "yeah there is a backdoor". Ultimately, you need to trust them.
[+] [-] mistermann|6 years ago|reply
I was thinking about the complexity of the world the other day, and how so many people hold diametrically opposed beliefs, but often based on solid reasoning and genuine facts. How could this be?
If you think about it, the modern world is so complex, with so many facts (some of which are actual facts, some of which are popular opinions now considered to be fact), with all of the inter-connected, Nth order cause and effect going on, how is a person who wants to be as objective as possible supposed to actually come up with a reasonable model of what's going on, even if they're willing to put in the work? People skilled in communications and the psychology of persuasion can pick and choose a subset of "facts" and put together plausible and completely contradictory descriptions of the very same story, and done correctly it's very difficult even for the vigilant to know you're being duped. So what's a person to do?
What I came up with is the idea that yes, one should indeed take "facts" into consideration, including some sort of notion of trustworthiness for each fact, but what's missing is the value of lies in coming up with one's model of reality. So, when trying to figure out what the real deal is on any given situation, don't first look for the facts, but rather the obvious lies - if you can find obvious lies or misrepresentations of reality coming from powerful (politicians or corporate leaders) or influential people (the media), this is probably a good trail to follow to lead you toward the most important parts of the truth. Of course, there's lots of complexity involved here as well, you have to consider the nature of the bias from the messenger, compare versions of the lie across different outlets, etc etc etc, but in many cases I suspect this is a highly productive approach for maximizing the correctness of one's models.
So in this case, as the article points out, "However, over the past several days we received credible information....that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence". Obviously a lie, although in this case, considering Tim Cook's no dummy I expect he knew everyone would know he's lying, so I wouldn't form any specific conclusions on this, other than money >>> honesty and principles for him, but why should we expect more from him than any other important person in Western society....this is just how we are. Despite the wonderful sounding platitudes we tell ourselves, this is our culture. And the Achilles heel that I believe China will be able to continue to exploit indefinitely, because I simply can't see it ever changing, it has become so normalized that hardly anyone can even recognize it anymore.
EDIT: Thinking more, with this being so obvious once you're aware of it, I can't imagine this is a unique theory I've come up with. Does anyone know a name for this style of thinking?
[+] [-] opn7d7|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lonelappde|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Aloha|6 years ago|reply
No company should be expected to back or foment a revolution somewhere, from my perspective they're looking out for their own beet interest and the best interest of their customers.
[+] [-] panda88888|6 years ago|reply
But when it comes to the PRC government, he caves immediately because the threat is real. He knows he CAN and probably WILL lose access the Chinese market and manufacturing capacity, and there’s no court system to appeal—-the system is rigged and controlled by the CCP. Therefore, principles bow down before revenue.
Personally I don’t care what Tim Cook and Apple does to get and keep access to Chinese market, but I am disgusted by hypocrite with the high rhetoric about privacy, human rights, etc., but compromising immediately when $$$ is at stake.
[+] [-] lern_too_spel|6 years ago|reply
Complying with the data request would have given users who had their data obtained standing to sue Apple, so Apple's willingness to litigate the issue went so far as the cost of the lawsuits it wanted to avoid. The FBI dropped the case not because it didn't think it could win but because it could access the data more quickly using another vendor's data extraction service.
[+] [-] dannyw|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|6 years ago|reply
> However, over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present. This use put the app in violation of Hong Kong law.
So then, is the complaint simply that Cook is not providing direct evidence of these claims? Is that a reasonable expectation? What evidence could Cook provide that would directly tie violence (we know that Hong Kong protesters have committed violence) to this particular app? It seems like everyone agrees that this app was useful for organizing Hong Kong protests, and that some Hong Kong protesters have committed violence and broken local laws.
Please don't take this as some statement of political support for any particular government, company, or group. I'm attempting to address the specifics of this memo and Gruber's complaints. I am not attempting to make any argument of the form "the Hong Kong protests are [good, bad] and therefore any tool that helps the protesters is [good, bad]." The overall merits of the Hong Kong protests are not, from what I can tell, relevant to Apple's decision to ban this app or Gruber's complaints about Apple's decision and memo.
[+] [-] Despegar|6 years ago|reply
Apple most likely did get legitimate examples of the app being used for that, and that was all the pretext they needed to remove it. The real issue is that the CCP is also likely holding a gun to their head both in the state newspaper but also privately. And obviously Apple isn't going to light themselves on fire which is what people really want to see them do.
Then there's the bad faith critics that are using this as an opportunity to say they're hypocrites because they are politically active on various issues (like the encryption fight with the FBI), as if it isn't because they're protected by the rule of law in Western nations and they aren't in China.
Ultimately everyone understands this. The real original sin is the fact that the West normalized relations with China in the first place [1]. Corporations like Apple aren't going to liberate China, and they can't even if they wanted to. The US and other countries could decide tomorrow to sanction China and Apple and every other business would be unable to do business with them. They could treat China like North Korea or Iran. That's a political question for governments, not corporations.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Communiqu%C3%A9s
[+] [-] mstaoru|6 years ago|reply
https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/10/chinas-new-cybersecurit...
> The inspection team has complete access to the network system. Inspection can cover both the technical aspects of the network system and the data/information maintained on the servers. See Article 10. The inspectors can fully access the system and they are permitted to copy any data they find. See Article 15. The only restriction on the inspectors copying the data in your company’s system is that the inspectors must provide you with a receipt. Though Article 10 “restricts” access to matters involving national security, the definition of national security in China is so broad that there is no real limitation on what can be accessed, copied and removed.
[+] [-] saagarjha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ordinaryradical|6 years ago|reply
It’s not just censorship—it’s active cooperation with an authoritarian power under the fig leaf of TOS violations. Truly astonishing.
[+] [-] troysand|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flukus|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] privateSFacct|6 years ago|reply
There are lots of apps missing from the China app store.
This whole thing about removing the app to protect users strains credibility.
[+] [-] capableweb|6 years ago|reply
And iPhone usages is comparatively small according to https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/china (Android 79% and iPhone 20%)
Then https://hkmap.live/ is available as a website.
So why the outcry about this? In the end, for-profit companies will do what gives them profit. You should not rely on them for anything that won't give them profits.
[+] [-] elliekelly|6 years ago|reply
You’re absolutely right and for the vast majority of companies put in this position I wouldn’t be happy about their decision but I definitely wouldn’t hold it against them. That said, if ever there were a company in the history of the world whose users are rabidly loyal enough, whose economic contributions in China are substantial enough, and with the “Fuck You Money” necessary to do what’s right when it comes to China, it’s Apple.
And when you consider that Apple launched themselves into America’s living rooms with the “1984” commercial, I might even go so far as to say that Apple could have leaned in to whatever negative consequences they may have suffered as a result.
[+] [-] Terretta|6 years ago|reply
That gives you a custom app icon, which opens as a live full screen map app w/o browser chrome.
This open mechanism to “sideload” what a regular user can’t tell the difference from an App Store app was the original iPhone app distribution strategy for both live and offline HTML5 apps, provided to developers before the App Store existed.
It remains relatively trivial to distribute apps this way.
[+] [-] wonnage|6 years ago|reply
At the end of the day, Apple taking down the app seems like an expected outcome, and HK is outside of the great firewall, so anyone can still access the site. What's the problem?
[+] [-] blacksmith_tb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bgee|6 years ago|reply
Please stop spreading lies unless you have evidence to back up your claim.
From [0]: "Apple has never made user data, whether stored on the iPhone or in iCloud, more technologically accessible to any country's government."
Disclaimer: mainlander here.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21209190
[+] [-] cageface|6 years ago|reply
A devil's bargain always seems like a good deal until the bill comes due.
[+] [-] scarface74|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Wowfunhappy|6 years ago|reply
When I read Tim Cook's letter, this line at the end jumped out to me as super off. Even if everything else was completely true, how would this decision protect Apple users? Unless all the police have iPhones?
[+] [-] throwaway-571|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willis936|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] vineyardmike|6 years ago|reply
I wonder if they have to do this to keep their supply-chain open. Now would be a good time to take that $200bn and invest in some new factories.
[+] [-] wmeredith|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindfulhack|6 years ago|reply
I don't think we can trust Apple not to have NSA backdoors anymore. We all know about Microsoft's reputation, but Apple may be the slimiest of them all. Everything is closed source and encrypted on the network level, so instead, we have to judge from Apple's corporate and PR behaviour.
Apple care about their branding and profits above all, and not one iota about their customers, truth, or transparency.
Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had surveillance backdoors in secret, making a complete mockery of the whole 'privacy play' they maintain as a branding differentiator against Google.
[+] [-] reaperducer|6 years ago|reply
https://pastebin.com/dFyftCuZ
As for me, I sold my Apple stock yesterday. Tim won't miss my $10k. But I won't miss him when I am able to move to a better platform.
[+] [-] asdf333|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ogre_codes|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LgWoodenBadger|6 years ago|reply
If it can happen to Apple it can happen to anyone.
[+] [-] nico_h|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wonnage|6 years ago|reply
This is totally different from the Rockets situation, where it really is just a matter of principle over money. If Morey and the NBA stick to their guns, the NBA can just leave China, and other than some hazy concepts of goodwill and cultural exchange, nothing is lost except money.
I'd rather have Apple and others in China than without. A Chinese company capitulates immediately to the government, a multinational at least can put up some semblance of resistance, with international relations as a bargaining chip.
[+] [-] anonimouse1234a|6 years ago|reply
I am an Apple employee (Cupertino) and I did not receive this email.
It also reads different than other Tim emails, which never mention specific things such as credible reports and the language seems off.
I also did not here any colleagues mention such an email, and usually it pops up for everyone at the same time and it becomes a topic.
This email pastebin is a fake
[+] [-] _iyig|6 years ago|reply
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/apple-now-has-tk-cash-on-han...
[+] [-] equalunique|6 years ago|reply
1) Android users win this round.
2) Would be great to have some kind of whiz-bang P2P decentralized federated mesh-networked version of Hkmap.live.
3) My opinion on Apple has not improved.
[+] [-] scarface74|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SmellyGeekBoy|6 years ago|reply
There are no winners in this game, only losers. Google make similar concessions for the Chinese government.
I say that as an Android user.
[+] [-] throwaway99zsh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubbingalcohol|6 years ago|reply