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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

#781

Post by keyme »

kumarharsh wrote: post #779

But the app was also being used to track the whereabouts of law enforcement officers, and the HK rioters have not exactly been peaceful. I'm not usually on Apple's side. Their holier-than-thou marketing speak, walled garden and crippled Safari browser are enough to send me to an early grave with blood pressure. But I think Apple might be correct in this particular instance given the fraught nature of the situation th…

This is NOT a matter for a private company to decide on. That's the issue here.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#782

Post by drclau »

rorykoehler wrote: post #175
simonh wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it is ethical for a company to require it's employees to break the law?

If the law is unethical yes. “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

And, in this case, the company will decide what laws are unethical?

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#783

Post by tikiman163 »

The whining about Apple is astounding. Nearly everyone complaining about the lack of freedom of choice in here has an android phone and just wants to smarm it up.

We get it, you warned them about the possibility of Apple doing this, only that was never your point before. It's always been about the freedom to develop without having to pay to do so. The fact the end user side was locked on certain settings has never been about the possibility that Apple could remove apps to aid a government agenda.

Personally I use Android too, but I'm a developer and never liked Apple's development ecosystem. My point is the end user signed a terms of use when the bought the phone and the majority of people complaining about this issue didn't buy one because they didn't want to agree to it.

The majority of the whining going on here is no different than straight guys complaining about the existence of gay guys. The issue doesn't affect you, and your opinions are getting annoying.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#785

Post by dTal »

lighthazard wrote: post #731
gadabout wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just because you disagree with someone's comments doesn't make them a bot. They look pretty human to me.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#786

Post by azinman2 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #687
Steltek wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy is cheap to engineer because it involves not doing things or hiring more people. They won't allow actions, won't sync data, won't pursue advanced ML, etc etc. It's a clever way to say, "Keeping up with Chrome/Android is hard".

This is the worst take here. Whether Apple is sincere or not about privacy long term, they've created dedicated hardware IPs for doing ML on-phone to get around doing it in the cloud. This is not easier than just shipping all the data to AWS.

I can tell you from the inside that everything I've seen is genuine, even though it makes doing ML-based projects very difficult. That said, I'm very disappointed in this removal as to me it flies against the value.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#787

Post by skykooler »

api wrote: post #428
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because the locked-down nature of the iPhone is always made out to be an all-or-nothing policy. I legitimately don't understand why. There are real benefits to having a curated, sandboxed, and audited selection of safe, quality software. Most users should never need to leave such an environment What is necessary is an escape hatch—one that doesn't involve continual software reinstalls, or outright buying new har…

I spoke with a former Apple dev on this topic once. He says that you can opt out of code signing and the App Store on Mac because that's a professional OS, but for iOS the security rationale for not allowing that is that it's geared for less tech-savvy users. Paraphrasing: "If there is a way to opt out, malicious apps and sites will con users into doing it to get malware on the phone." I can't totally disagree. To ha…

So where's the "professional" phone OS? It seems to me that if you want to stay in the Apple ecosystem you're stuck with iOS whether you know what you're doing or not.

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#788

Post by mehhh »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #696
mehhh wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app has root, it can easily break out of the APK and ensure reinstallation just like other Android malware does. Factory resetting might work if the system partition is not modified, but that covers only a portion of Android devices.

The app does not have root. It just requests a lot of permissions.

> An app analysis tool shows that this app––MFsocket.apk––gains ROOT access to an Android phone

Source: https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2019/07/spyware-used-on-phones...

Re: Apple Removes HKmap.live from the App Store

#789

Post by [deleted] »

jethro_tell wrote: post #672
mehhh wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China forces the Uighurs and anyone who visits their region (Xinjiang) to install malware on their Android: https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/294389-china-is-installin... Banning sideloading forced China to use iOS exploits, which are ephemeral and not consistently effective. Installing apps outside a repository (like on most Linux distros) is a dual edged sword, Apple and Google are poor stewards of their software…

It seems like this app is also ephemeral? you just uninstall it after they've ripped all your data. So as usual you should cross borders with an empty phone, no?

[deleted]
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