Apple CEO Tim Cook: 'Privacy Is a Fundamental Human Right'

I don't know what the issue with is with criticizing.

Personally, hearing stories about their ID's being taken from them, working 2 weeks+ non stop, being forced to fill out forms a certain way, workers committing suicide, etc..are all cringe worthy to me.

Not to say there are no benefits...but that does not mean it can't be better. I'd like to read interviews of people who worked there to see if the job was what they were expecting, worse, or better.

> I don't know what the issue with is with criticizing.

No issue, abstractly. But it seems to me that in this case, Apple is providing opportunities that many people are choosing them for themselves, opportunities that they would otherwise not have. And for the crime of not providing even better opportunities, Apple is being characterized as exploitative. That seems unreasonable and unfair.

> I'd like to read interviews of people who worked there to see if the job was what they were expecting, worse, or better.

I would too. From what I know, it's complicated, and contrary to what a lot of people would expect. For example, there really has been massive discontent at Foxconn, etc. -- because they weren't given as much overtime as promised.

Do I wish that people had better opportunities? So, so dearly. This is probably the deepest emotion/feeling I have in my life, the sense of how fortunate I have been compared to how difficult the lives of others have been, when many of them are just as smart, just as hardworking and resourceful as I am, but were simply born in circumstances that did not grant them as much opportunity as I have enjoyed. This is a big part of why I am in China and why I study Mandarin.

But saying Tim Cook earns "too much", or that factory workers are "exploited" because they make choices that we wouldn't, were we to be magically swapped into their bodies, but with our abilities, or some other imaginary situation that has never existed, is not very understanding of the situation, or fair or productive.

The key, I think, is to realize that if you were the "exploited" workers, you would make the same choices. Really. If you were them, you would do the same thing. Then I think it's more clear that Apple is providing avenues toward better lives, which I see as a very good thing.

> What general purpose computers (even phones and tablets) do you see going this direction

Windows. Microsoft, as usual, is late to the party, but Win10 is clearly a step towards the walled garden model. It's not there yet, but stuff like their built in app store and removing choice form the user betray the direction MS intends to take Windows.

Intel CPUs. Why do you think there has been a push for SecureBoot and the new SGX instructions? Hardware support is needed if you want to change WinTel boxen form a General Purpose Computer into a locked down appliance. That hardware support now exists in Skylake and later Intel CPUs. Intel even says on their website that the SGX instructions are about creating "trusted" enclaves that software vendors can use that cannot be accessed by someone with physical hardware access.

> So when is this slippery slope going to start?

It started many years ago. Some of us have been warning about these problems for almost twenty years. When we warned that these technologies were coming, we were laughed at because the threat didn't exist yet. When implementations started to show up, we were ignored because nobody was using those tools yet to lock down systems. Now they are slowly starting to turn on, and you've been given yet another warning. Do you intend to wait until the OS is fully locked down? Or do you want to start to fight for your right to run a General Purpose Computer while you s till have the ability to do so?

Today there was even a thread on HN about homebrew having to work around OSX "System Integrity Protection". Sure, you can disable SIP by jumping through a few technical hoops most people won't understand. Are you going to fight back against this trend, or are you going to wait until you cannot disable SIP "for security reasons"?

Just because you've been ignoring these steps doesn't mean they are not happening.

> TPM

The TPM is only key storage and hashing to check the bootstrap chain-of-trust. The TPM never had any "locking" features. Why are you ignoring all the other hardware changes that have happened after the TPM? Active Management Technology (AMT), Software Guard Extensions (SGX), and UEFI SecureBoot have all happened after the TPM.

> And what about users who want a phone that is locked down for security purposes?

You know what would work a lot better? A hardware switch that had to be flipped to install (sudo) software, and had to be flipped back to boot as normal.

> Why shouldn't we be able to choose the phones we want

Of course you have that choice. That doesn't mean it's a smart choice. You're pushing the (incorrect) assumption that security is in conflict with the end user being able to control their own property. Locking your car door does not require giving up your ability to modify the car's engine. There are other ways to provide security. More importantly, the concept of freedom means that some people will do stupid things with that freedom, but we respect their right to make those mistakes. The answer to malware apps isn't removing everybody's right to use the products they buy as they like, but to educate users and write better UIs that help guide novices.

edit: (accidentally clicked submit before I was done)

"We believe in privacy" except when it affects our bottom line. We will totally sell you out if you're in China and 100% allow the government to censor your requests. We say we believe in privacy in the West because dumb people believe us but really were just all about that cashhhhhhh.

>Security? What security? Every single release with iOS has been totally broken

Here's a recent report from computerworld - Malware infections delivered via mobile networks - Windows 80%, Android 20%, "iOS and other operating systems were at nearly negligible percentages"

Nothing's perfect but iOS isn't that bad.

(Window's numbers seem to be mostly pcs with tethering. "Data generated from scans by Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Security Guardian technology, which is deployed worldwide by both mobile and fixed-line networks, and monitors traffic from more than 100 million devices")

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2984444/mobile-security...