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Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

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Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which features? getUserMedia is now supported in WebViews, so one can build, for instance, a FaceTime competitor that runs on Chrome on iOS, where it wasn't possible a few months ago. But the Fullscreen API still isn't supported, a blow to the web-based FT competitor. What else?

Isn't Chrome on iOS, just like every other browser on iOS, just Safari?

Well, they all use WebViews, as far as I know, but Safari has its own browser UI "chrome".

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/webview

Before iOS 14.3, getUserMedia didn't work in WebViews. See note 3: https://caniuse.com/stream

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With regards to CSAM, I think the same applies. After all the CSAM issue only exists because the US government has decided that invasive monitoring is the only way to counter CSAM. No it hasn't. There is no legislation that the government passed or enforces that says Apple must scan people's private data on their devices for CSAM. Apple decided to do that all on their own.

The specific approach isn't in law. But the requirement to scan photos stored in the cloud is. On this specific point I think reasonable to believe that Apple want to E2E iCloud photos, and their stated approach to CSAM is how they'll achieve E2E iCloud photos, while remaining compliant with the requirement to scan for CSAM they might be hosting. Now there's a very strong argument to be made that Apple have made an a…

> On this specific point I think reasonable to believe that Apple want to E2E iCloud photos

Here's the thing: if they wanted this they should have said so, because until then I'm not going to make this assumption. I can only make decisions on information I have, not on wishful thinking.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Brin's $100B can arm a lot of Russians. $100B/$60k USD = 1.6 million soldiers feed, and armed for a year. If he is a patriotic Russia who he claims himself to be, he should do that instead.

That's 1.5 times the Russian regular army, which could be tripled in a week with mobilization. Not gonna work.

It will, because the mobilisation will of course not work.

Nobody want to die for Putin. That's why he switched to mercenaries in Ukraine, because use of regular troops regularly returning to Russia in bodybags was about to become the straw which would've broken camel's back.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#384

It is important to note, that in Apple's case the problem is made worse by the fact that on iOS there are no ways to install the app bypassing the appstore. That makes Apple's cooperation with dictators and authocrats so much worse for their users. You know, the people Apple claims to care about and 'protect'.

Apple itself is pretty much an autocratic company that believes it knows best what its customers should and should not be able to do with their products. So this is not really surprising.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#385
post #363

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Well, yes. But for Russia's former satellite states things definitely improved.

I think you cherry-picked here. You are thinking about the Baltics and forgetting about places like Uzbekistan (now broke) and Kazakhstan (rich but authoritarian). And even if you say these are former republics rather than satellites, think of the mess that is Serbia. The fall of the USSR may have been overall a good thing and even inevitable, as with any huge disruption it was not an unequivocal good thing for every…

> huge disruption it was not an unequivocal good thing for every single person.

I think even in the Central Asian North Korea — Uzbekistan, a person now lives more freely, and richer than the wealthiest USSR citizens did.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#386

It is important to note, that in Apple's case the problem is made worse by the fact that on iOS there are no ways to install the app bypassing the appstore. That makes Apple's cooperation with dictators and authocrats so much worse for their users. You know, the people Apple claims to care about and 'protect'.

Rainbow flag once a month bails them out as usual.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> * Apple’s reviewer has manually concluded that it actually is CSAM* There is no manual review of the image by Apple employees. What is viewed is a derivative image, which is scaled down and blurred. It would be trivial for someone to use legal pornographic images and put it through a NeuralHash collision generator, which upon viewing the scaled down derivative image, would look like CSAM.

If that’s what you’re worried about, then if people have physical control over your phone they could just upload CSAM to your FB or Google photos from it.

There's a world of difference between someone creating a NeuralHash collision and spamming people's iMessage with false positives and actually taking the device and uploading CSAM to the cloud.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#388
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* If companies don't want to be complicit in these crimes, they need to extricate themselves from the country and cut all ties. You live in a quite simple world, no?

Keeping employees out of a country due to hostile government behavior is actually the simpler world.

If you're starting from zero, sure. Moving all employees in Russia to another country (and/or firing/replacing them) sounds like quite a major headache to me.

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#389
post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every country does exactly the same thing. They don't though. Sure, there is some level of corruption and media bias in every country but few countries have dictatorships which will threaten imprisonment (or worse) of anyone who speaks out against the current government. However I do agree with your secondary point that the solution isn't to create a tech vacuum, it's to create technology that can't be controlled b…

So in the US there was a big kerfuffle about how Russia paid for some Facebook ads and interfered with the election. Russia bad. Here you have an app that literally tells people how to vote . This is pro-US, so again, Russia bad.

This is a Russian app, overtly tied to a Russian political figure, explaining to Russian citizens how to act in their Russian election. You don't see any difference with Russia using fake US accounts to tell US citizens how to act in the US election?

Re: Google, Apple remove Navalny app from stores as Russian elections begin

#390
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can insist that if they are in the phone rental business and the ownership of the phone on their balance sheet, not if they're in the phone sales business. If you sell a product, it's pretty much illegal to control what people can and can't do with it. They can still control usage of iCloud which is a service they're renting out. Of course they don't care about CASM to switch their business model to do this lega…

Of course you can have terms of use for things you sell, I don't know why you would think otherwise. In this case it IS linked to iCloud though, as you probably know. Images are only scanned on their way to iCloud, and they won't be scanned if you don't use iCloud.

I don't think anyone who is arguing against this capability, myself included, actually believes that it will only ever be used on photos destined for iCloud, especially if state authorities start pressuring Apple to start scanning everything.
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