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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

#101

Post by nickfromseattle »

president wrote: post #76
artfulhippo wrote: post #2

Apple caved under pressure from China. The explanation Cook gave is not just an embarrassment, it calls into question the veracity of all of his other statements. Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths? And why should the US government be satisfied with a fully encrypted iMessage given that Apple will cave to d…

> Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths? At least in China, you can probably assume iMessage is back-doored given that iCloud content in mainland China is operated by a Chinese internet company. Apple quietly posted this last week on their support page: "iCloud services in China mainland are now operated by Ch…

Microsoft has the same setup for Azure.

>Get a physically isolated instance of Azure for your cloud computing services—operated by 21Vianet, a company based in China.

Besides censorship and spying on users, China probably doesn't want it's company's data hosted in a place the US's 3 letter agencies can access it via an NSL.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/chin...

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

#102

Post by paulryanrogers »

bgee wrote: post #68
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

Is that true of the company they've contracted to manage iCloud in China?

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

#103

Post by ummonk »

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?

Incidentally, I think that measures by Uber to identify riders who are cops and deny them rides should have gotten Uber the same treatment as any other organized crime syndicate.

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

#104

Post by charred_toast »

Apple has their hands tied because of all the factories churning out their products that would come to a standstill if the Chinese government decided it wanted to. It's sad and unfortunate, but what other business decision would a CEO make if 80-90% of their future revenue stream disappeared overnight? Can someone else help me play devil's advocate? In any case, if we're so innovative as a country why can't we make more stuff here, that's the only solution, not globalism. This scenario is an unintended consequence of globalism. Apple isn't intentionally being bad, they probably don't have a choice, right? They put too many eggs in one basket. You can say too bad, but when the banks were bailed out, I was saying they deserved to go under as well.

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

#105

Post by losteric »

nickfromseattle wrote: post #101
president wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths? At least in China, you can probably assume iMessage is back-doored given that iCloud content in mainland China is operated by a Chinese internet company. Apple quietly posted this last week on their support page: "iCloud services in China mainland are now operated by Ch…

Microsoft has the same setup for Azure. >Get a physically isolated instance of Azure for your cloud computing services—operated by 21Vianet, a company based in China. Besides censorship and spying on users, China probably doesn't want it's company's data hosted in a place the US's 3 letter agencies can access it via an NSL. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/global-infrastructure/chin...

AWS is working on it too. Internally, the region is very much treated as untrustworthy.

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

#108

Post by cromwellian »

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…

Apple was in a similar situation with the FBI asking to unlock suspected terrorist phones, and they pushed back.

Let's not give them a pass here, as it's quite obvious why they're accepting the Chinese statements at face value, because of how dependent they are on the Chinese market.

This is about money, not principles.

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

#109

Post by threeseed »

rndgermandude wrote: post #33
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…

Even if the alleged crimes allegedly abused the app (something certainly not endorsed by the app makers), the same can be said for a lot of other apps. Thieves use facebook to look for people who give details on when they are on vacation for example. Snapchat and Skype and kik and whatapp and every other social messaging and social media app and service is abused by pedo criminals grooming their victims. etc But thos…

This app specifically lists where the police are. That is its primary purpose.

Comparing it to Facebook or Snapchat makes absolutely no sense.

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

#110

Post by mercutio2 »

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?

Is police reporting illegal in the countries in which Waze operates?

I don’t buy that HKMap did anything illegal, but asking for equivalence with an app which is doing something vaguely similar in a jurisdiction where any of those things are perfectly legal seems to be missing the point.

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