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Apple Refutes Report On iPhone Threat To China's National Security
An anonymous reader writes "Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers," the company said Sunday in a bilingual statement on its China website. Users have to make the choice to enable the iPhones to calculate their locations, while "Apple does not track users' locations — Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so," the company said. The statement was in response to allegations by China's top state broadcaster that iOS7 software and its "Frequent Location" service posed a security risk. The data can be accessed easily, although labelled as "encrypted," and may lead to the disclosure of "state secrets," CCTV said.
to anyone that wan't in a coma over the weekend
The reason China is "suddenly" afraid of the new iphone has nothing to do with security.
The NSA's actions will be regarded as the modern Smoot-Hawley which set forth the collapse in sales in one of America's last major export industries that set it into motion.
Though in fairness to the NSA, the American people are to blame for their "want my cake and eat it too" mentality on intelligence gathering. When it was discovered that the CIA did a lot of Really Bad Things because, shocker, that's par for the course in normal boots on the ground intelligence work we switched to electronics surveillance and created this mess.
Only No Such Agency gets the data so it is like no tracking at all.
Right, right... If you believe that, I have some government transparency to sell you.
As much as I love Apple's hardware and services their online services have always been pretty poor. Do we really think the company behind .Mac, or rather, MobileMe, er, iCloud would be competent enough to log and manage the amount of data this would require?
"As we have stated before, Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services."
could just as easily mean, 'we havent worked WITH govt agencies.. but when they told us to step aside and let their devs in to commandeer a subroutine, we turned a blind/black-box eye'
We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will. It’s something we feel very strongly about.
oh, they 'feel strongly' about it? how comforting. and how do they define 'allow'? notice they dont say govt/others never HAD or HAVE access, just that it's not 'allowed'.. mmmkay..
Saying it ain't so don't make it not so.
Apple failed to mention the bit about, if a US government agency had contacted them and requested information or for a backdoor to be put into their device, they'd be required by federal law to lie about it or face charges of treason. In fact, given how unrestrained the NSA is at this time, this press release may have even been written at the request of a national security letter. It's terrifying that this is where we're at... but here we are none the less.
Next up, the NSA releases a statement: "Edward Snowden is a traitor and a jerk! Look how he's hurting nice companies like Apple!"
Apple has so far not responded to reports its devices are not hypo-allergenic.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
What? To who? When?
And which OS is designed in a more secure way to protect users?
As an example, what OS has the supermajority of banking malware?
We need to answer all the questions. Consumers really SHOULD know.
Snowden reveal something curious about Apple gear.
Curious in that Apple iPhone was the only piece of gear that could be relied upon to be cracked. Any model.
That strongly suggests cooperation with intelligence agencies in the west.
If I was China I would ban western products.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Since when have things like factual information and exposure of lies ever made a difference to the Chinese? (or Apple for that matter?)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Seriously? From your location?
Are they really that stupid?
"This guy was a X Y Z coordinates yesterday... that has to be a secret nuclear base, and we somehow manage to get all the codes and what not from our location data, we're so great!" .. No... It doesn't work that way.
I know that the NSA could easily be tapping iPhones and have backdoors into them (and probably do) but this seems like a colossal over-reaction by the Chinese media. CCTV is claiming that the "Frequent Locations" feature could somehow be used to leak state secrets, but that doesn't make sense for any number of reasons:
1. According to the ZDNet article, the feature in question is entirely opt-in and disabled by default. They don't seem to have proof that the switch is merely for show (as in, it's transmitting the data regardless of whether or not you've opted in) which means there's a very easy fix for this - don't turn it on, or turn it off if it's on.
2. Also from the ZDNet article, the feature apparently causes the phone to keep a local copy of location data in regards to frequently-visited areas for use in other applications. It's not clear whether this data is actually transmitted anywhere - Apple said the device only keeps a local copy, but with the NSA around it's entirely possible it transmits it somewhere. If what Apple is saying is true, obtaining a copy of the data requires physical access to the device. If you've had your phone stolen and didn't lock it, chances are that you have much bigger privacy concerns than someone obtaining your location data, especially if you're in the Chinese government.
3. CCTV claims that the device can somehow be used to leak state secrets, but this seems like FUD. The only way I could see this happening (and being useful) is if someone who works on a submarine or other restricted area (nuclear sites, missile silos, etc) happened to have their phone stolen or was intentionally giving their phone to someone, but I'm fairly certain their military doesn't allow outside devices into restricted areas (the US military sure doesn't) and if someone's intentionally giving away the data that's another problem altogether.
Couple this with the fact that China has smartphone manufacturers located in-country that only sell within China, and you have what looks like FUD designed to get people to stop switching to the iPhone and instead buy a phone made by a state-friendly manufacturer.
More Chinese jingoism, just another attempt by China to prop up their economy
The actual claim that the Chinese make is that a new feature in iOS collects location data on the phone (which it does), and if the phone gets stolen or hacked, someone might see that data and that could have all kinds of consequences, worst case consequences for China's national security. So there was _no_ claim that Apple was involved or helping in any spying at all.
To a software developer it should be obvious that if Apple wanted to spy on you, the presence or absence of this feature wouldn't make the slightest difference whatsoever. If Apple can secretly send data that were openly collected on your phone, they could equally easily secretly send data that was secretly collected on your phone.
To a non-developer, it should be equally obvious that there are hundreds of features with the same national security implications, like word processors, spreadsheets, note-taking applications and so on and so on. Probably applications that are far more dangerous. I would expect a word processor to contain much juicier information than a location log.
obviously china knows something that apple doesn't.
they probably also put lead in everything to give us all cancer like they do with all of the children's toys they produce.
The damage caused to the intelligence community is only a fraction of the damage US corporations will have to endure.
The issue here is trust. Once you betray it, you never fully get it back. Ever.
This is why US companies need to fight this tooth and nail. Because when the truth finally does come out ( and it always does eventually ) it's pretty much THEIR ass that is left hanging in the wind. Regardless if the company is innocent or not, if the trust is gone, so are you. The government picks up the tab for the intelligence community so a trust issue there isn't going to cause them to go bankrupt. Take this into consideration the next time the government knocks on your door and asks for " help " in tracking the bad guys.
It's similar to how I see Law Enforcement anymore. They're not all bad people, but the few idiots they cover for or allow to wear the badge destroys the trust I have in them as a whole. To the point where I no longer trust any of them sadly.
Last time, we went to war. And let's face it, military payloads are America's largest export industry.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They did not refute China's claim, they only denied it....
Software must be audited to be sure there's no backdoor... Only open source is secure (including open source silicon) If I were NSA I had built a backdoor in hardware, much more effective and software independent
That is a denial of the accusation, not a refuation of it.
Now I will grant that they probably CAN'T refute it, and that this does not mean that the accusation is true. That doesn't make a denial a refutation.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Doh! A perfect lie from Apple and they should know better.
NSA trolls as well as all serious US agencies have right to gag Apple from informing anyone of the data it has sold on to them.
Isn't that what Snowden was all about?!
Such a meaningless statement because it isn't backed up by any consequences. How about "Apple will pay 1 billion US dollars to any individual or organization that has any information collected by Apple provided to any government organization, direct or indirect". At least then anyone compromised by Apple will be able to afford a good legal defense.
"Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services."
What about government contractors?
"We have also never allowed access to our servers,"
So does Apple lease servers?