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Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

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Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#731

Post by lighthazard »

gadabout wrote: post #632
__m wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? You want to meddle in politics of foreign countries?

This seems like a purposely antagonistic comment? The user was stating how freedom is much more entangled into our everyday purchase and use of our devices. Also, what happens to your mindset when the "foreign countries" are no longer foreign and now domestic?

This is a bot account. Look at user's comments. > By staying out of it. Hongkong belongs to China just as Catalonia belongs to Spain, or California to the US. Imagine China interfering with that.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#732

Post by bduerst »

simonh wrote: post #117
m0xte wrote: post #104

The privacy stance is just marketing. They have handed over iCloud keys and data to the state in China already. If they cared about privacy over market dominance that wouldn’t have happened. Unfortunately as an iOS user tied to the ecosystem this puts me in a difficult situation ethically speaking. I am sponsoring this. Perhaps I should stop buying into corporate marketing ideologies. Got burned by that before (Micro…

It's really not a matter of ideology, it's a matter of law. They either comply with Chinese law, or they risk their employees being arrested for breaking the law, or they stop doing business in China. I think they would argue that, given that all phones are subject to state surveillance, iPhone users in China are no worse off than if they were using another phone. Also since iPhones are generally a lot more secure th…

>It's really not a matter of ideology, it's a matter of law.

The FBI requesting a backdoor to terrorist iphones was the exact same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack#Pho...

Apple decided to comply with China to keep access to the market.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#733

Post by teddyh »

mehhh wrote: post #544
curt15 wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What interest would Apple have in banning GPL-licensed web apps?

Of that I am not certain, but Apple has banned VLC and many other apps, and continues to ban any GPL code from the app store: https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance

More details from FSF the next day:

https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/more-about-the-app-store...

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#734

Post by bduerst »

saagarjha wrote: post #127
Krasnol wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it "the law" also when they came up with the privacy claim around that terrorist case where the FBI needed access to a device? I mean, in the end it's the same thing as the classic "I didn't do anything wrong, I've been following orders".

The FBI specifically asked Apple to backdoor that device, rather than handing over encryption keys that they already kept.

Handing over encryption keys to access user data at rest is a backdoor.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#736

Post by teddyh »

curt15 wrote: post #537
mehhh wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a number of interesting use cases for PWAs, but part of Apple's fear is (potentially) many of their clients will migrate to PWA only, reducing App Store revenue severely. Apple also loses all code auditing and screening, meaning they can't ban GPL licensed PWAs like they ban alternative Linphone builds (as they are GPLv2), Signal Private Messenger builds (GPLv3) and only the official developer can build and…

What interest would Apple have in banning GPL-licensed web apps?

More details here:

http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/

[…]

Anyway, the message is pretty obvious: Apple won’t ship anything that’s licensed under GPL v3 on OS X. Now, why is that?

There are two big changes in GPL v3. The first is that it explicitly prohibits patent lawsuits against people for actually using the GPL-licensed software you ship. The second is that it carefully prevents TiVoization, locking down hardware so that people can’t actually run the software they want.

So, which of those things are they planning for OS X, eh?

I’m also intrigued to see how far they are prepared to go with this. They already annoyed and inconvenienced a lot of people with the Samba and GCC removal. Having wooed so many developers to the Mac in the last decade, are they really prepared to throw away all that goodwill by shipping obsolete tools and making it a pain in the ass to upgrade them?

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#737

Post by api »

rrix2 wrote: post #660
mehhh wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of that I am not certain, but Apple has banned VLC and many other apps, and continues to ban any GPL code from the app store: https://www.fsf.org/news/2010-05-app-store-compliance

They do that to "protect" their DRM and application support libraries from GPL virality which wouldn't be a problem with PWAs

GPL virality does not apply backward from app to platform. There are loads of GPL apps on Windows and on Mac outside the app store.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#738

Post by bduerst »

neighbour wrote: post #109
m0xte wrote: post #104

The privacy stance is just marketing. They have handed over iCloud keys and data to the state in China already. If they cared about privacy over market dominance that wouldn’t have happened. Unfortunately as an iOS user tied to the ecosystem this puts me in a difficult situation ethically speaking. I am sponsoring this. Perhaps I should stop buying into corporate marketing ideologies. Got burned by that before (Micro…

I have seen this posted before. Can you link me to the proof? Genuinely curious.

They did it in two steps. Apple forced users to opt into storing iCloud data in Chinese data centers, and then the Chinese Government nationalized the data centers six month later.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#739

Post by tnel77 »

journalctl wrote: post #268
stephc_int13 wrote: post #261

Blizzard and now Apple. I think this is very serious and it should be a wake-up call. As simple citizens we don't have much choices but vote with our wallets and use social networks to attack the most valuable asset of those companies, their reputation.

That’s not how this works. Apple is one of the wealthiest companies in the world, and saying “just don’t spend money there” is a bit reductionist and trivializes the problem of corporations with more power than nation-states. You need to fight fire with fire: governments of the world (especially the US government) need to create laws that restrict and punish this kind of behavior. Otherwise, I sincerely doubt Apple’s…

I am almost always against more government regulation and firmly believe in the power of our collective wallets.

That being said, I try to hear out other viewpoints because it’s entirely possible that I am wrong. So, tell me, what law would fix this situation? A law that forces tech corporations to allow free speech? Or a law that forces companies to put ethics before profits? I genuinely don’t know what law we could make that would address the issue while also being fair and enforceable. It seems a lot easier to get the people to rally behind a boycott than to get legislators to have a good idea and actually act upon it.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#740

Post by bduerst »

travisp wrote: post #235
cynix wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has testified in the US under penalty of perjury that they have not done this Craig Federighi testified that he’s not aware of them doing it. That doesn’t preclude the possibility that it has been done by someone else in the company without his knowledge.

The possibility that someone in the company is secretly (how!?) providing the Chinese government access to the encryption keys is a wildly different claim. There is no evidence that Apple has done it, and an important executive has testified that they have not, and they've publicly stated they haven't, even if you want to speculate that it has happened.

It's not a secret. Apple even made a statement to reuters at the start of the migration process where they tried to get iCloud as an exception but failed - "“While we advocated against iCloud being subject to these laws, we were ultimately unsuccessful,”

In early 2018, Apple forced their users to opt-in to migrating iCloud encryption keys and data to Chinese data centers:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh...

Chinese government nationalized the data centers six months later, gaining access to all the encryption keys and user iCloud data at rest. Apple complied:

https://mashable.com/article/china-government-apple-icloud-d...

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