361–370 of 634 posts
This makes me sick to my stomach. My wife just got her third Apple product. We've been happy customers. I've been following the news out of Belarus even if there isn't much hope at least the world has been witnessing. How dare they. This is just appalling.
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Sure that country can force Apple to comply with local laws. That’s how it works now.
So if an app shows an image of two men kissing, Apple should order the app makers to take it down worldwide because it's illegal in Uganda?
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You state an excellent point and I would love to see the Apple fanboys argue your point.
I love how people say Apple fanboys like it’s an insult. Is there a legitimate, better option to apple? No because the smartphone market is dominated by google and apple. At least apple pretends to care about privacy. Yes, apple are obviously hypocrites. Still better than google. If there was another viable choice I would happily go with that.
And yes, Google has been tightening the noose as well, which many people rightfully criticise, but as of now, you still have options on Android.
Tim Cook’s twitter bio[1] has the following: > “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'” - MLK Considering this and the HKmap.live[2] situations, I’d say that in his case the answer to that question is “not much”. [1]: https://twitter.com/tim_cook [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKmap.live
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Apple is completely out of place meddling in Belarus' politics. Not only that, the stance they are taking is with a dictator who stole the election ...
Apple absolutely shouldn't meddle in Belarus's politics. But if Belarusian users are using their platform to incite violence, as Apple says they are, don't they have a moral responsibility to try and do something about it?
Tim Cook’s twitter bio[1] has the following: > “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'” - MLK Considering this and the HKmap.live[2] situations, I’d say that in his case the answer to that question is “not much”. [1]: https://twitter.com/tim_cook [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HKmap.live
Maybe Tim Cook uses that quote to signal virtue and gain popularity for his own and the company brand. Haven't Apple ads used MLK before?
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> The Belarus government can just block the App store entirely and may, if Apple does not comply. So what??? Protestors are being imprisoned and tortured, they actually hanged protest organizers from trees, as a scare tactic, does Apple really want to go on public record as an enabler of this? It is ethically abhorrent, disgusting and beyond terrifying. If the team responsible for this at Apple is reading this thread…
Are you planning to dox Apple employees? That seems like the logical conclusion if you think they have blood on their hands. It seems like a little much to call Apple an ‘enabler’ for being against doxing. Just because protesters use a tactic doesn’t mean everyone needs to support it, especially if it is a tacit call to violence.
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Yes, don't worship any company or organisation, not Apple, not SpaceX, not Bell Labs, not the United States of America, none at all. Even if they do the right things now, future leadership may decide to do the opposite and lie about it, values may change, goals shift. Try to treat them as groups of strangers that change every few years, not as individuals with a personality that you somehow feel like you really reall…
Nobody wants to remove all security policies etc from iOS. I'm not sure what gave you that idea in this thread. Requiring permissions from users to access data is good, and an actually well curated app store is just as useful. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be possible to install through different avenues as well (still requiring the users permission). Yes you would get a lot of shitty software if you started in…
I think you misunderstood me there. Of course permission systems are going to stay, who in their right mind would give up this crucial innovation?
But free-as-in-freedom implies that I, the owner and user, can do whatever I want, including triggering all sorts of footguns – if I get tricked into installing CriminalBankrobberApp and giving it all sorts of permissions because I believe it legitimately needs those and won't abuse them, it's game over. A non-free iOS can simply make this impossible or so inconvenient that I'll never bother – an app that actively attacks banking apps on my device wouldn't even get on the App Store I guess – but I don't think a free-as-in-freedom iOS could possibly keep that sort of tight control, not with a 30%-of-revenue economic incentive for everyone else to normalize arbitrary distribution channels.
> That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be possible to install through different avenues as well (still requiring the users permission).
How does the user know what avenues are safe and what aren't? Isn't this just a rehash of downloading software from arbitrary websites, just with lots of app stores instead?
> but the apple store quality would probably increased significantly, because they could deny significantly more apps
And lots and lots of others, big names too, would decide to forgo the App Store entirely (even assuming some loss of visibility, those are some really easily-earned (30-x)% in revenue!), so you'd end up with an Epic store and a Steam store and a EA store and a Facebook store and an app store for each media outlet (NYT Recipes now at the NYT App Store!) and possibly for each bank and national app stores and regional app stores and a CoolBeansAppStore with neat UI tweaks and skins and a SuperDuperAppStore with all sorts of small indy apps and a SuperSecureAppStore that distributes copies of other apps with added tracking and tons of Indydev Inc App Stores, and FreeXXXAppStore that has some well-known copyright-agnostic porn apps and absolutely no rules at all and all kinds of malware and scams... pretty much like the internet back then, but with much leakier sandboxes, because there are lots of things apps must be able to do if allowed to that websites pretty much never need(ed?) to do ...
And good luck with crafting a permission system that makes all of this really transparent and clear and actionable and still isn't a huge hassle that everyone just clicks through and works even for disinterested, impatient laypeople ... That's reducing the depth of security to pretty much this single thing that people hate in its current form already.
I mean, really, I am sometimes struggling to tell what's safe and what isn't on the web, and I should tell, I'm building some of the stuff that's on the web – how is someone who's busy being a lawyer, or is elderly and kinda struggling with the latest generation of gadgets, or a stressed-out parent with zero time for ITSec studies on top, or 15 years old, etc. pp. supposed to make that call that in a similarly confusing environment, on similarly bad data – possibly worse data.
The only reason this works on Android so far is probably that the UX of using other stores or sideloading is so bad; some have tried to establish their own, but churn is just too brutal for next to everyone.
I'm not saying free and open mobile platforms cannot be done, or that there's absolutely no way to open up iOS without wreaking havoc, and I'm definitely not saying that wouldn't be really worthwhile, because I think it would be absolutely fantastic to have an open and free mobile platform – but I believe that's going to be much, much more difficult than just throwing out all the restrictions and calling it a day, because we've been there in the early internet and security-wise it was an absolute nightmare.
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Apple absolutely shouldn't meddle in Belarus's politics. But if Belarusian users are using their platform to incite violence, as Apple says they are, don't they have a moral responsibility to try and do something about it?
In some instances, like standing up to a violent, oppressive, and dictatorial regime violence is generally considered an acceptable form of political action.
Here is a source in Russian [0] saying that Apple is asking Telegram to remove messages that de-anonymize Belorussian police members, rather than blocking channels outright. I don't know whether their source is reliable, but here is the relevant snippet (google translate): > Apple says it didn’t require any channels to be removed. But they demanded to immediately remove any information that discloses someone's data o…
Police officers must not be able to act anonymously. This is not like "doxxing" anonymous Internet trolls or forum users or whatever.
> Apple says it didn’t require any channels to be removed. But they demanded to immediately remove any information
If they don't like published information, they are welcome to sue the people who published it. That is, if they are in cahoots with the US government's foreign meddling initiatives.
> that discloses someone's data on the Internet without the consent of these persons, as well as content aimed at specific people in accordance with the rules of the App Store.
Can't break the rules of the all-powerful Apple app store, now can we? Tsk tsk tsk.
> This refers to the efforts of the Belorussian opposition to 'unmask' members of the riot police by posting their personal details online.
> So what do you do if you are Apple?
Exploit my users, perform mass surveillance for the US government, breath down the neck of app makers, produce cheaply with poor employment conditions in China, and manipulate the media to fawn over me. That is, if I were Apple.
Luckily I'm not Apple and neither are you, so don't think about what you would do in a place in which you should never get to.