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TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

arstechnica.com

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Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#71

Post by phone8675309 »

reaperducer wrote: post #65
phone8675309 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also now the market that all movies must target in order to be successful.

They're also now the market that all movies must target in order to be successful. It depends on your definition of "successful." You can have a successful movie and not distribute it in China. It won't make the absolute maximum number of dollars possible on planet Earth, but it can still be a successful movie.

> You can have a successful movie and not distribute it in China. It won't make the absolute maximum number of dollars possible on planet Earth, but it can still be a successful movie.

The business success or failure of a movie is entirely determined by how much money it makes. To maximize that success (or even to be considered a success), you must publish in China.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#72

Post by rootusrootus »

Jonanin wrote: post #57
anon9001 wrote: post #38

Technically, what's going on here? "CAID" isn't a public iOS technology, and the article doesn't say what it means. Some googling returns: https://mmachina.cn/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/MMA%E4%B8%AD%... Apparently it means "CAA Advertising Id", where "CAA" appears to be the "Creative Artists Agency", some sort of Chinese advertising group. (edit: wrong organization, it's actually "Chinese Anonymization ID", not a gro…

The story is that major Chinese companies and the state are working together to develop an alternative to Apple’s IDFA. While aggressively pushing back against companies in the U.S. tracking users, Apple seemingly doesn’t mind having a double standard for China.

> Apple seemingly doesn’t mind having a double standard for China.

That seems to be the case with many businesses. Nobody wants to lose that entire market just to stand on principle.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#73

Post by mrweasel »

kingaillas wrote: post #50
imglorp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a $2.2 trillion dollar company with $200 billion in cash. They can easily afford to do the right thing. If they offered a private device and said to all governments "take it or leave it" then those governments would answer only to their people if they banned the device. Of course, name one public corporation that would leave a little cash on the table, ever, to do the right thing.

I think China has some extra leverage to deploy here: China can respond "We leave it. Oh, one more thing: our domestic market is off limits to you. Pray we don't alter the deal further by kicking your manufacturing out too."

Kicking out Apple manufactoring won’t happen, because it’s actually dangerous to Chinese manufactoring. Apple is currently one of the only companies who could deal with being banned in China. It won’t be cheap or easy, but Apple could move manufactoring. They already have a deal with an Indian company who makes older iPhones for the indian market.

Apple is also one of the few companies who can either absorb the additional cost or even pass it on to customers.

But IF Apple was to move manufactoring it would set a dangerous precedence for other companies and potentially start a supply chain completely outside China.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#74

Post by anon9001 »

DLay wrote: post #62
anon9001 wrote: post #38

Technically, what's going on here? "CAID" isn't a public iOS technology, and the article doesn't say what it means. Some googling returns: https://mmachina.cn/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/MMA%E4%B8%AD%... Apparently it means "CAA Advertising Id", where "CAA" appears to be the "Creative Artists Agency", some sort of Chinese advertising group. (edit: wrong organization, it's actually "Chinese Anonymization ID", not a gro…

Here is the CAID spec: https://web.archive.org/web/20210316035745/docs.trackingio.c...

That's very helpful and adds a lot of clarity.

You can tell from the code that the "exploit" here is abusing keychain sharing.

iOS has a feature where you can pack a surprising amount of generic data into keychain storage, intended for passwords or auth credentials.

iOS also lets app developers opt-in to shared credential storage, so that if you have multiple apps, the user only needs to login once. Here's a blog post on how to do it: https://evgenii.com/blog/sharing-keychain-in-ios/

A little-known quirk of the iOS keychain is that it persists across app installs. This is useful because if multiple apps share credentials in the keychain, you don't want uninstalling one app to log you out of other apps.

If an American company tried this (looking at you Branch.io), would it be banned by Apple? Maybe? That seems to be the controversy here.

Perhaps Apple needs to rethink its keychain sharing API and make the user opt-in to credential sharing.

Also a keychain management tool would be nice, so users can see what data apps are permanently storing on their devices (even if the app is uninstalled).

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#75

Post by Cederfjard »

imglorp wrote: post #35
akmarinov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's about 85.3 billion reasons a year for them to not stand up to the CCP and in the end Apple's interest in privacy is mostly a tool to differentiate its offerings from the competition so they can sell people stuff.

It's a $2.2 trillion dollar company with $200 billion in cash. They can easily afford to do the right thing. If they offered a private device and said to all governments "take it or leave it" then those governments would answer only to their people if they banned the device. Of course, name one public corporation that would leave a little cash on the table, ever, to do the right thing.

Exactly. Whether a major corporation technically could do ”the right thing” at the expense of their own bottom line is a moot point, and it’d take a fundamental shift in our society for that to change. Rather, getting them to act in a way that’s beneficial to as many people as possible is a matter of economic incentives and regulation.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#76

Post by yorwba »

I wonder how that fits with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's recent notice to 136 companies to stop their excessive collection of user data by March 17 or cease operation: https://www.miit.gov.cn/xwdt/gxdt/sjdt/art/2021/art_7e5c3fa7...

Maybe the kind of collection CAID enables is considered acceptable? Or it's just a case of different departments planning past each other.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#77

Post by reaperducer »

phone8675309 wrote: post #71
reaperducer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also now the market that all movies must target in order to be successful. It depends on your definition of "successful." You can have a successful movie and not distribute it in China. It won't make the absolute maximum number of dollars possible on planet Earth, but it can still be a successful movie.

> You can have a successful movie and not distribute it in China. It won't make the absolute maximum number of dollars possible on planet Earth, but it can still be a successful movie. The business success or failure of a movie is entirely determined by how much money it makes. To maximize that success (or even to be considered a success), you must publish in China.

The business success or failure of a movie is entirely determined by how much money it makes

Even without your movement of goalposts, a movie can still be successful without being in China.

The most successful movies in history were released, and massively profitable, before China's market opened to the rest of the world.

To maximize that success (or even to be considered a success), you must publish in China.

This is simply false. There are plenty of successful businesses, movies, video games, and other enterprises that never touch China. I hate to break it to you, but China is a non-factor for the vast majority of businesses on the planet.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#78

Post by soheil »

This is a story because it's fashionable to hate on China. This has been going on in the US for years already. Using terms like CAID without an explanation to what it is makes the reader scared that China has somehow been able to infiltrate iOS to track users, this is bad journalism. CAID is a simple advertising id used across apps, there is no hacking of iOS or an incredible technical prowess on the the side of China that we should all be afraid of, etc.

The term "state-backed" in the title should be removed, HN is not a political battleground.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#79

Post by poisonborz »

mokash wrote: post #12

I will repost a comment I made about Apple and China in another post like 1.5 years ago: "Apple are beholden to China. Sure, China is a huge market for them but I think the bigger issue is manufacturing: if they piss China off they won’t have anything to sell, anywhere! I’m sure Apple execs know this and I hope they’re quickly planning to reduce, if not remove this dependency."

It's not that simple. China doing such a drastic step would make every industry flee instantly. Lots of companies already do transfer tasks to India and Vietnam, Apple included.

Re: TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround

#80

Post by RandomSpanish »

reaperducer wrote: post #60
anon9001 wrote: post #38

Technically, what's going on here? "CAID" isn't a public iOS technology, and the article doesn't say what it means. Some googling returns: https://mmachina.cn/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/MMA%E4%B8%AD%... Apparently it means "CAA Advertising Id", where "CAA" appears to be the "Creative Artists Agency", some sort of Chinese advertising group. (edit: wrong organization, it's actually "Chinese Anonymization ID", not a gro…

In the US, the analogy would be if apps had tracking SDKs in them, that fingerprinted users across apps, in order to better target them for advertisements, and then the US government can pick up that data and do whatever they'd like with it. I've never really thought about it before, but it would be pretty easy for a three-letter agency to set up an online advertising company for this purpose. They start their own ai…

There are some precedents, such as:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epdkze/muslim-apps-location-...

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