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Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

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Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#61

Post by [deleted] »

bobthepanda wrote: post #58
Aloha wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How would permanent removal be worse? iMessage is not magically more free than other messaging apps available in China.

[deleted]

Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#62

Post by awat »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #54
Aloha wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Permanent removal from China would probably be worse for freedom in China over 20 years, I'm curious about how you came to this conclusion.

Agreed, not to hijack, but I fail to see the that $ORG not being at the table Vs. them constantly redefining morality for their actions to be at the table to be a less worse outcome.

Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#63

Post by toasterlovin »

dmix wrote: post #41
Despegar wrote: post #26

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 al…

Why not ban Waze for their police reporting feature?

The answer is probably: Stay Tuned.

Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#65

Post by throwaway-571 »

SiliconAlley wrote: post #7
Mindwipe wrote: post #3

Tim Cook is a crook and a moral coward. Single signature signing authorities for software will always be inevitably used for evil, and here it directly has been. Apple does have a choice here. An easy one. It could remove the requirement that all iOS apps have to be signed to run on Apple devices. Simple. And at that point the Chinese government have no further way to blackmail them. But Apple has decided it's future…

Honestly, as a person who prizes Apple’s products and happily depends on them for work, personal life, etc. I think Tim Cook needs to either open up sideloading or be promptly fired and replaced by somebody who will. None of this sits well with me. It is a situation we do not need to be in. I agree that he is a moral coward, and in far too important and dangerous a position to be so.

The first duty of public companies is to the shareholders. Users fuzzy feelings figure very little in the incentive structure. Sideloading is probably too damaging to the short term profits of the company to be on the table. Or it might not even be a question worth considering for the board .

Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#66

Post by Aloha »

curt15 wrote: post #57
Aloha wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Permanent removal from China would probably be worse for freedom in China over 20 years How does Apple advance freedom in China?

I'm presuming a local company would be even more willing to bend than Apple is, and would do so more often.

Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#67

Post by Aperocky »

stupidcar wrote: post #60
baddox wrote: post #9

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…

No, the complaint is not that Cook is not providing direct evidence, and it is a complete misrepresentation to suggest so. It makes your protestations of disinterest rather suspect, as those of supposed "devil's advocates" so often seem to be. The complaint is that Cook's claims are extraordinary and seemingly impossible on their face because of the fundamental nature of the app in question. Its purpose is to show th…

I don't understand why people would flag comments as 'suspect', have we reached McCarthyism or the hyper sensitive Chinese level yet? Why is it impossible for people to address the opinions and reasons within a comment specifically without resorting to 'suspecting the motives of the individual'? In other words, why does the motives of the individual matters to you if the opinion expressed within the comments can stand by themselves?

Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#68

Post by bgee »

capableweb wrote: post #34

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. 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, f…

> iCloud in China is operated by a state-owned telecom ... so they could use the data to track the protestors.

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

Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#69

Post by derefr »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #54
Aloha wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Permanent removal from China would probably be worse for freedom in China over 20 years, I'm curious about how you came to this conclusion.

For one thing, pretty much every Android device made for the Chinese market has had its OS adulterated in some way, at OEM build time, at the behest of the Chinese government. Whereas, Chinese resellers can't really adulterate an iPhone's OS; there's just the one OS image (per model), signed and sealed by Apple, and if China wants to put a rootkit on it, they'd have to convince Apple to put it into that same base-image where any random security researcher (outside of China's reach to quash publication) might find it.

(And yes, either way the phone's baseband will be adulterated by Chinese ISPs at the government's behest, but modern smartphones isolate themselves from their baseband pretty well, so this only matters if you're using your phone as a phone [calling/texting], instead of as a tablet with a data modem.)

Re: Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up

#70

Post by Aloha »

awat wrote: post #62
bcrosby95 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Permanent removal from China would probably be worse for freedom in China over 20 years, I'm curious about how you came to this conclusion.

Agreed, not to hijack, but I fail to see the that $ORG not being at the table Vs. them constantly redefining morality for their actions to be at the table to be a less worse outcome.

I think the act of them being at the table is more likely to move the needle on the Chinese side.
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