>When Apple Inc begins hosting Chinese users’ iCloud accounts in a new Chinese data center 1. get vpn 2. create US icloud account 3. ??? 4. profit?
it's not so easy without US credit/debit card
Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
21–30 of 109 posts
Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#22So don't store data in iCloud? It's perfectly possible to perform your own encryption and hold the private key yourself.
As usual with all privacy issues, most people aren't aware of what's happening behind the scenes, and companies usually don't have any incentive to be transparent about it. It would be nice if Apple gave all of its Chinese iPhone users a nice big prompt that told them their iCloud/iMessage backups can be accessed by the Chinese government from that point forward, and maybe even tell them how they can disable it in th…
Well my iCloud account in China did receive a long email from Apple before this happens, saying that they will move their iCloud servers to China, and what can be done if you do not want your data to be moved. I think they've done enough.
Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple did fight off the FBI over this issue not long ago. I'm not saying the war is over though... that was just one battle.
Yes, for one shooting event. And then it crawled back to the FBI to help it unlock the iPhone at the next shooting. https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/08/apple-fbi-unlock-texas-s...
I’m not sure that article says what you’re suggesting it says? Apple offered to "expedite [its] response to any legal process."
It’s unclear whether they’re committing to unlocking the device. Judging by the prior case, I’m not confident that they are?
Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#24Reminder: iCloud is entirely optional, even if Apple device provisoning UX uses dark patterns to hide the difference between App Store account (mandatory) and iCloud account (optional).
For E2E messaging, you can use Wire which works even on iPads or iPod touch that does not have a phone number. Create an email-only account from a desktop PC at http://app.wire.com, then use that to sign into mobile device.
Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#25Speaking as a Chinese citizen, I'd say most people already use local apps/services for almost everything, so having Apple moving servers to China won't practically have any impact on "privacy" or "human rights concerns", at least to vast majority of the population. I really appreciate that Apple is finally moving their servers to China as downloading apps and updates from App Store has been painfully slow.
iPhone has lost quite some market shares to local brands like Huawei, Xiaomi in the past few years, and more people are feeling local brands knows what people needs better. Having a faster service might actually help bringing back some market share.
Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
To Apple's non -credit, it's still tying iMessage backups to iCloud backups despite years of criticism over this. That means everyone who uses iCloud backups (enabled by default on iPhones) don't actually benefit from iMessage's "end-to-end encryption" (which isn't that safe against sophisticated hackers or oppressive authorities to begin with). I'd say people may as well forget about Apple's "privacy stance". It's n…
> iMessage's "end-to-end encryption" (which isn't that safe against sophisticated hackers or oppressive authorities to begin with) Could you support this claim please? Re: iCloud backups you're correct. So far. They're about to release iMessages-in-iCloud though, which might obviate the need to include them in iCloud backups.
iMessage uses short RSA 1280-bit keys which could be cracked by a well funded attacker.
[1]https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf
Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#27Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#28To Apple's credit there are still significant parts of their platform that remain end-to-end encrypted even in China -- meaning that Apple or any other cloud operator can't read because they don't have the keys, notably:[1] - iMessage - Keychain - Siri data And more like health, home & payments. While it's unfortunate that Apple couldn't compel China to run their government requests for data through the U.S. court sy…
I don't think that Chinese government cares for the Siri Data as much. Not many Chinese people ask "Hey Siri what is Democracy?". Keys to the cloud is the keys to the kingdom, unless someone turns off iCloud the moment they activate their phones.
Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#29To Apple's credit there are still significant parts of their platform that remain end-to-end encrypted even in China -- meaning that Apple or any other cloud operator can't read because they don't have the keys, notably:[1] - iMessage - Keychain - Siri data And more like health, home & payments. While it's unfortunate that Apple couldn't compel China to run their government requests for data through the U.S. court sy…
Aren’t all the passwords backedup in iCloud as well as all your phone backups?
It seems that China would just need to do a bit of work but they still can get every piece of data on the device.
Re: Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears
#30To Apple's credit there are still significant parts of their platform that remain end-to-end encrypted even in China -- meaning that Apple or any other cloud operator can't read because they don't have the keys, notably:[1] - iMessage - Keychain - Siri data And more like health, home & payments. While it's unfortunate that Apple couldn't compel China to run their government requests for data through the U.S. court sy…
An article by Matt Green that discussed (questioned?) some of this was on the front page earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16449326