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Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

nytimes.com

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Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#141

Post by eridius »

zapita wrote: post #83

Presumably Telegram doesn't know for sure why Apple is blocking updates... They are most likely getting stonewalled, with Apple not responding to any of their requests for information. Telegram suspects that Apple is trying to appease Russian censors while keeping a low profile and plausible deniability. Perhaps Apple is buying time and showing goodwill to Russia while they negotiate a deal - who knows? Acting on the…

Your assumptions are probably wrong. Most likely Telegram does know why they're being blocked, they just aren't saying because they want people to assume malfeasance on Apple's part and they're hoping bad PR will convince Apple to approve whatever it is that they're currently rejecting.

Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#142

Post by tylerlastovich »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #10
scosman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you're basically promising the censorship resistant future" where did telegram say anything remotely like that? They did an ICO for a utility coin. They have been honest about being centralized. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you're putting words in their mouth and accusing them of theft for not meeting your fabricated expectations.

ICO is short for Initial Coin Offering. And the coin is cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies are only valuable when they are not censorable. This is why there's a controversy around coins like XRP (from Ripple) because most of the coins are owned by Ripple and their architecture is designed in a way that they can very well censor transactions. But even Ripple pales in comparison to something like Telegram, because Telegr…

I am willing to bet that you haven't read the Telegram white paper. (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ucUeKg_NiR8RxNAonb8Q55jZha0...) They didn't raise all that money to build out their chat app. They are looking to make a digital currency that can handle volume and is practical for day-to-day purchases, compared to the primarily speculatory coins that exist right now. The $1.7B they raised came from 175 accredited investors that purchased the entire supply of utility tokens in the pre-sale.

Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#143

Post by zapita »

eridius wrote: post #141
zapita wrote: post #83

Presumably Telegram doesn't know for sure why Apple is blocking updates... They are most likely getting stonewalled, with Apple not responding to any of their requests for information. Telegram suspects that Apple is trying to appease Russian censors while keeping a low profile and plausible deniability. Perhaps Apple is buying time and showing goodwill to Russia while they negotiate a deal - who knows? Acting on the…

Your assumptions are probably wrong. Most likely Telegram does know why they're being blocked, they just aren't saying because they want people to assume malfeasance on Apple's part and they're hoping bad PR will convince Apple to approve whatever it is that they're currently rejecting.

You might be right... I think it's fair to say we're both guessing.

To me it just doesn't seem logical to resort to such a "nuclear option" over a review disagreement, instead of just complying, negotiating, or at least working around the problem in a creative technical way. It's not like Telegram is changing in some fundamental way since the last review... What could Apple be telling Telegram that is such a massive showstopper?

Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#144

Post by gergles »

wafflebear wrote: post #76
anderber wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All this points to me is the risks of owning a phone whose only way to add apps is to go through one company's own discretion. Unlike in Android where you can easily install apps from other app stores or just download the file.

Not applicable to Telegram, but if the app is open source and you have a Mac (!) you can install it using Xcode. Since Signal is actually open source, you can install it even if Apple decides to block it in the future (if you have a Mac).

Do note that it will only run for 7 days unless you pay Apple $100 a year for the privilege of running code on your own device.

You can reinstall it every 7 days for free though!

Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#145

Post by ex3ndr »

dannyw wrote: post #136
masonlee wrote: post #78

Does this dispute imply that Apple backdoors its own iMessage end-to-end encryption on states' request?

The new iMessages in the Cloud claims to be 'end to end encrypted', which is true, but omit the fact that a copy of the key is stored with Apple in your iCloud backup... https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 "Messages in iCloud also uses end-to-end encryption. If you have iCloud Backup turned on, a copy of the key protecting your Messages is included in your backup" Given that almost everyone has iCloud backup ena…

Backups are encrypted.

Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#146

Post by ex3ndr »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #3

I'm surprised that nobody is talking about how Telegram raised pre-ICO of billions of dollars even when it was obvious that this type of censorship will be possible. Mobile apps should not do ICO, period. It's irresponsible for someone to try stealing uneducated people's money while promising something that's impossible to achieve. Realistically speaking there are only two players in the market: Google and Apple, bot…

Wat? ICO was private and only accredited investors was allowed.

Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#147

Post by caf »

cookiecaper wrote: post #118
danShumway wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of don't understand this. Nobody is forcing anyone to use sideloading. Heck, Android phones by default have sideloading turned off in the settings so you can't even accidentally do it without going through a bunch of warnings. Unless Android phones have an extra side-channel I don't know about, I just can't imagine someone sideloading an app on one of them unless they explicitly have decided the benefits outwe…

Like most security features that can be trivially disabled, if it's simple to turn it off, bad actors will just say "OK, first click 'Turn this off', just click 'Yes' on all the mumbo-jumbo that comes up, and then you can use our software that will give you [free money/a better love life/etc]". Many people who would've gotten far enough to install the app in the first place will be able to follow the prompts to disab…

What would be more interesting is how many users who have stepped through that process to install the Amazon apps, have then gone on to use the same process to sideload malware.

This is because it is actually pretty reasonable to make the judgement that Amazon is trustworthy enough to sideload their applications despite the dire warnings, so what you really want to find out is how many people are making unreasonable judgements on what is trustworthy enough to sideload.

Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#148

Post by ocdtrekkie »

walrus01 wrote: post #130
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android is almost as locked to Google Play as Apple is to the App Store, to the effect that no vendor has made a successful business selling phones without the Play Store. While they've finally fixed it, for years, they used scare tactics to prevent sideloading by insinuating it as a security risk, requiring you allow "less secure apps" in order to sideload. Most applications won't run without Play Services even if y…

Regarding your first paragraph, all of the Chinese domestic versions of Android have been totally successful without the official Play Store. The manufacturer such as Huawei, zte, oppo, etc installs the Chinese app stores as part of the OS load. What you wrote applies to the English language market.

This is a half truth. You are right in that Chinese companies have succeeded without the Play Store, but for one key reason: Google isn't in China. Literally the only place Android is open is where Google voluntarily isn't keeping it closed.

Re: Telegram App Says Apple Is Blocking Updates Over Dispute with Russia

#150

Post by jpetso »

logicallee wrote: post #119
veidr wrote: post #110

This is a fundamental problem with the single DRM-enforced app store model that Apple innovated, and which has been widely copied and lauded. Once you implement that, you have to toady up to whatever governments exist, including oppressive/murderous regimes, to be in their markets. If your ecosystem is just console video games, say, it's not that big of a deal; you have to either censor some games or don't enter cert…

But Apple has to obey the laws of the United States. Here is an alternative viewpoint: If Apple is based in the "right" country (that believes in freedom) -- and I think you and I seem to agree this is the case, because you don't mention anything bad about the U.S., mentioning only Russia and China by name, and with descriptions like "vile shit", "mass murder", "oppression" --, then the U.S. government should be doin…

It kind of isn't up to the U.S. government. It's about how you structure your organization to have the right incentives to do the right thing.

Apple and numerous other businesses are beholden to shareholders, whose #1 demand is profit. Many shareholders are located in the U.S. - so far, so good.

At some point, the business decides that more profit is best obtained through international expansion. Apple extracts money from Europe, China, Russia etc. and delivers the desired returns. Yay.

The flipside is that if those returns are in danger of disappearing, there's now an immense pressure to stop that from happening. I don't believe the U.S. government can even help Apple if they don't want to be helped - their primary incentive is not preservation of diversity and free speech, but satisfying the shareholders.

Possible fixes:

a) Avoid conflicts of interest. Apple is not an American company at this point, it's an international company. So, limit your market reach to regions that align with your principles, i.e. don't expand to Russia and China. Of course, this can never work because public companies are legally obligated to maximize shareholder returns. Which leads to,

b) Put incentives in place to prefer doing the right thing over the profitable thing, i.e. don't sell a voting majority of your business to investors who will sacrifice principles for money.

Both of these fixes mean sacrificing market share to other, less morally grounded businesses, because you don't get to be a world leader in selling stuff by playing fair. You can't go back to playing fair once you depend on being a world leader. Apple literally can't do anything about it because of what its incentives are, and if it aligned those differently then it wouldn't be the big Apple that we give a shit about.

I don't believe there's a solution to this except supporting a decentralized market and educating others about why that's important. Apple is a lost cause, they're at the point of no return. They couldn't fix it if they wanted to. Let's make sure they're only one of several viable options going forward.

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