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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

#61

Post by phone8675309 »

schiang wrote: post #54
tediousdemise wrote: post #28

As much as I like Apple products, it looks like the privacy buck stops at China. The western world needs to desperately work on making their supply chains independent of the CCP, lest they'd like their supply chains to be poisoned at some point in the future. I'm a big fan of Purism and everything that they are doing. I hope their software and hardware matures with the same level of polish we've come to know and expe…

China doesn't just provide supply chain anymore. They are also a huge market now because of its growing middle class. China has money to spend and US companies need to tap into that market.

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

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

#62

Post by DLay »

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...

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

#63

Post by GrayShade »

some1else wrote: post #56
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…

This reminds me of how Linkedin and many others used to upload entire phonebooks to unecrypted endpoints, making it simple for US agencies to analyze social networks of foreigners with impunity.

Did they really stop doing that?

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

#64

Post by reaperducer »

schiang wrote: post #54
tediousdemise wrote: post #28

As much as I like Apple products, it looks like the privacy buck stops at China. The western world needs to desperately work on making their supply chains independent of the CCP, lest they'd like their supply chains to be poisoned at some point in the future. I'm a big fan of Purism and everything that they are doing. I hope their software and hardware matures with the same level of polish we've come to know and expe…

China doesn't just provide supply chain anymore. They are also a huge market now because of its growing middle class. China has money to spend and US companies need to tap into that market.

China has money to spend and US companies need to tap into that market.

"Choose to" tap into that market. No company "needs" to be in China.

Just like there are thousands of companies in Europe that do not do business in the United States, and thousands of companies in Brazil that do not do business in Russia.

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

#65

Post by reaperducer »

phone8675309 wrote: post #61
schiang wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn't just provide supply chain anymore. They are also a huge market now because of its growing middle class. China has money to spend and US companies need to tap into that market.

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.

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

#66

Post by CountSessine »

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…

But they don't even need to do that - they just approach an existing adtech company with a FISA warrant and get their data. If they started their own adtech company, eventually they would be out-ed and exposed. But with a FISA warrant, it's mostly business-as-usual for everyone.

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

#67

Post by jhayward »

dylan604 wrote: post #25
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."

And how has that planning been going in those 18 months?

https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_to_move_production_from_china...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-vietnam-apple-exc...

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

#68

Post by some1else »

GrayShade wrote: post #63
some1else wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of how Linkedin and many others used to upload entire phonebooks to unecrypted endpoints, making it simple for US agencies to analyze social networks of foreigners with impunity.

Did they really stop doing that?

Ha, good question. Generally, everyone switched to HTTPS. But that doesn't protect against situations like with Yahoo, where the agencies were tapped-in after the SSL termination. I guess it's not a stretch to assume it's still going on.

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

#69

Post by CountSessine »

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.

It's a bigger choice than that for them, or for anyone. If the government requires pervasive tracking, it's either allow it or stop selling phones in China, the world's biggest market for cell phones. And given that economies of scale matter (for things like swallowing flat rate development costs for those nice SOCs they design), it's hard to say goodbye to half your market.

Samsung certainly won't take a principled stand on this and stop allowing app tracking. And in a competitive market, deciding to not sell cell phones in China means less development capital for designing the next generation of hardware. They'll start circling the drain and wind up like Motorola or HTC.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be consistent - just that choosing to not sell in China will mean losing everything outside of China eventually.

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

#70

Post by reaperducer »

tediousdemise wrote: post #32
Majestic121 wrote: post #7

"Three people with knowledge of briefings between Apple and developers also said the Cupertino, California-based company would be wary of taking strong action, despite a clear violation of its stated rules, if CAID has the support of China’s tech giants as well as its government agencies." That's chilling. I tend to have a good opinion of Apple regarding privacy protection, even though I'm not an Apple user, but if e…

China is their bottom line when it comes to fab. If China kicks Apple out, we can expect 50k dollar iPhones soon thereafter. It's sad that China has outcompeted the western world, but it makes sense when you consider the fact that they engage in human rights abuses to do so.

If China kicks Apple out, we can expect 50k dollar iPhones soon thereafter

Do you really believe that people in India spend $50,000 on the iPhones that are made in India, or are you just being hyperbolic?

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