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Apple Is Not Such a Freedom Fighter In China (latimes.com)
mi writes: Though loudly resisting the American government's attempts to make it help break into the phone of a dead scumbag, Apple is very accommodating of the Chinese government's attempts to keep tabs on the citizenry's communications. Apple has censored apps that wouldn't pass muster with the Chinese government, moved local user data onto servers operated by the state-owned China Telecom, and submitted to Chinese audits. According to James Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, "I can't imagine the Chinese would tolerate end-to-end encryption or a refusal to cooperate with their police, particularly in a terrorism case." Why the accommodation there?
At best, they're pretending to be a freedom fighter.
And it'll fool the same folks that bought Google's "Don't be evil" bullshit.
But you cannot compare the two. Citizens of the US are guaranteed certain freedoms and liberties. Citizens in China are not. That's China's problem, not Apple's. If the people of China want the same protections, they need to do something about it.
Go ahead and check my history. I'm a huge BlackBerry supporter and generally dislike Apple products. But Apple is 100% correct here.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Who ever thought Apple was a freedom fighter? They use essentially slave labor to assemble their iPhones. Bizarre.
What can I say? Business is business. This 'freedom fighter' stuff makes for good soap opera and draws a few more customers, but not much else.
Regardless, we shouldn't be depending on any large company to protect our interests. If you want privacy, you're on your own.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
China has NOT (yet) asked Apple to build a custom version of the OS that (a) bypasses the unlock count check, and (b) provides for an automated way to try pin code entry.
You say that with a great deal of certainty. Do you really think you'd know if it were the case?
Ultimately Apple is a commercial entity in it for the profit and it'll adapt to what's profitable in the region it's working in.
According to James Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, "I can't imagine the Chinese would tolerate end-to-end encryption or a refusal to cooperate with their police, particularly in a terrorism case." Why the accommodation there?
Kudos to the article submitter (& braindead slashdot "editor") for the Apple hatchet job by innuendo. Apple hasn't done anything for the Chinese gov't that it has refused to the US gov't. Everything the article fearmongers is about the "potential" of what the Chinese gov't will ask Apple, if the DOJ gets their way. There is no compelling reason for China to request modifications to degrade the phone security. Only rich chinese citizens can afford to own an iPhone, and they're all joined to the hip with party leadership.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
It's weird that Apple is always pointed out for using "slave labor" when every other manufacturer of consumer electronics is at least as bad.
BTW: have we now fully accepted the redefinition of "slave labor" to mean "voluntarily working at a job which pays the at or above the typical prevailing wage of the area in which the job is located"? Because "slave labor" used to mean something...different.
Shows just how far we've slipped down the hole to tyranny.
It used to be we would point to things done by the governments of China and other communist/repressive regimes and show our superiority that we maintain an orderly and law-abiding society without resorting to such nefarious, underhanded activities against our own citizens. Why, backdooring hardware, warrantless wiretapping, sneak and peek raids? Those are things done by tyrannies! Who would ever....in America??
Now, we ask why a private company won't give our own government the same things it gives to a repressive tyrannical regime. It should go without fucking saying why a private company would hold it's own, supposedly above board and representative government, to a higher standard than a third-world dictatorship! Are we all really so dense that the question even needs to be asked?!
Now, we can wax intellectual about whether the United States government has ever been a representative one or if freedom ever really has existed, but that's a philosophical conversation that has no place in this discussion. The fact remains is that the line we're all sold, since the day we're born, is that America is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, and our freedoms are the envy of the world and it's what makes us stand out as a beacon of liberty in an otherwise oppressive world. And now that an organization with a little bit of money and power is asking the powers that be to put their money where their mouth is, we get to see the true colors of the establishment, in all it's disgusting, ugly, hypocritical hues.
Simple as that.
"Apple said seven people for up to four weeks"
Yeah, right. Like it takes that much effort to change a constant from 10 to 10000. And it's not like they'd have to put it through a full suite of validation tests afterwards - who cares if they can still make a phone call?
Having said that, I support Apple's position, but I think they're being disingenuous with that claim, unless they're counting the lawyer's time in that figure.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
When you want to sell in China, you need to decide if you can follow their rules. If you can, then you can sell there. In the USA, where Apple was formed, you can follow the rules also, and Apple has helped the police and FBI with plenty of warrants and probably non-warranted assistance. But when you see the FBI making a request that is against the counties constitution you than make a choice. Do you ignore it and let your own country become as low as the worst places in the world, like China, or do you fight it and show the courts and the citizens what assholes and terrorists we have running the three letter agencies.
Don't forget, it's only this "ONE" phone. Except they could only keep that lie going for a day before they mentioned the other two phones that they would like cracked next, not to mention the hundreds that the New York police have lined up waiting next. When everything the FBI mouthpieces speak is shown to be a lie, then the courts should reject any argument they put forth as probable lie and throw them out of the court, if not directly into jail.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
The summary creates a strawman "Apple would probably break end-to-end encryption for the Chinese if that asked Apple to" and then chastises Apple for hypocrisy. You, like a good little lemming pipe up with "Because $$$".
It would be like if I said: "publicly wjcofkc is against pedophilia, but privately he is probably a pedophile--while is wjcofkc such a hypcrotical pedophile?".
Apple is being ordered to do something that China has NEVER ordered Apple to do - to create software to let them censor.
There is a huge difference between refusing to let someone sell encryption, and allowing them to create and sell encryption, then demanding they break it.
If Apple obeyed the US in this task, then China would demand they do the same. In the end, China would end up having the same espionage ability that the US demanded.
Look, the phone should have it's encryption broken. But the NSA should do it themselves instead of trying to get a private corporation to do it for them.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The other way of seeing is that Apple is choosing which battles to fight. You can't win them all and you would be foolish to try.
Apple is an American company, in the USA, a country that has strong ideals about civil liberties, so fighting this in on home turf makes a lot of sense. China is more complicated, since it is not a country with strong ideals about civil liberties, it is not Apple's home turf and it probably wouldn't take much for Apple to be excluded from that market, not mention potential diplomatic issues. If Apple can't win a civil liberty fight back home, what chance does it stand in China. Remember what happened to Google.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
If Apple cared about "protect[ing] our customers' personal data [apple.com]" as it claims to Apple wouldn't distribute proprietary, user-subjugating software to its users.
Conveniently Forgetting, of course, it's massive contributions to several F/OSS Projects, and it's release of several NEW F/OSS Projects (Bonjour, WebKit, LaunchD, GrandCentralDispatch, Klang, OpenCL, Swift, etc).
So, you can just FOAD, Neckbeard!
Now, go back to your Mom's basement and leave us grownups alone.
Not only do they have to do validation on the OS, they'd have to let other people do validation on the OS. You have to be guaranteed that it doesn't change or wipe any data in the process, and you have to be able to prove that it doesn't because otherwise the data is invalid. Otherwise, it doesn't really have a legal leg to stand on. For the FBI's fishing expedition, maybe that matters less, but anything that goes to court needs to be validated for forensic purposes.
So they have to remove the limit on attempts, provide a method of attack (that is, allow someone to enter passcodes without touching the screen), and ensure that it doesn't have any deleterious effects on the data on the device.
Just because all the companies do it doesn't mean it's good.
It also doesn't mean it is bad. Over the last 30 years, factory jobs in China have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of abject poverty. Anyone who thinks that is "bad", has never done 16 hours of stoop labor in a mosquito infested rice paddy. Because, for most of these people, that is the alternative.
It is absurd to call it "slave labor" just because a flabby white American wouldn't want the job.
1. Even during the worst stretch the suicide rate at Foxconn was lower than that for China or the US.
2. I'm not sure why it is Apple's fault that China has a lower quality of life. If Apple pulled their business from China and instead built the phones using robots in the US, do you think that would help the average Chinese person? The average Chinese worker IS getting a raw deal, but that blame rests squarely on the shoulders of their economic system & government.
3. Obviously a "few pennies per day" is hyperbole. Can you find a way to make your point without lying?
4. You still seem to have no idea what "slave labor" is. Just to be clear, you are saying that slavery as practiced in the 19th century in the US was no worse than what is currently happening at Foxconn in China?
If you want a job, you have exactly one choice
Nonsense. If you actually believe that, you should get a passport and go to Shenzhen. There is factory after factory, about 100m apart. There are plenty of options, and labor is in short supply.
16 hours a day for a few pennies
More nonsense. A typical factory worker in Shenzhen earns about $30 for an 8 hour day. Many work overtime, but no one is required to. In surveys, the factory workers biggest complaint is that they want to work LONGER hours, so they can earn more money faster. Many of them are women separated from their children back on the farm, trying to earn as much money as they can, as quickly as they can, so they can go back home to their families. Stop trying to project your values onto people you don't understand, who have very different priorities.
under the worst possible working conditions
Chinese factories are nowhere "the worst". They are far better than the farm jobs these people left behind.
and living in a barracks next to the factory.
The dormitories are provided as a convenience for migrant workers. No one is required to live in them, and many do not.
That qualifies as slave labor very nicely.
Hogwash.
I haven't forgotten them, but I'm not willing to accept that they should cloud the argument most proprietary software users face today, particularly on trackers (cell phones, mobiles) where nonfreedom is rampant and for which Apple takes full responsibility.
I enjoy CUPS, for instance, now just as I enjoyed it before Apple bought the software and thus took over the copyright from EasySW. But CUPS isn't commonly found on trackers as far as I know. It'll be interesting to note if the contribution to Clang you point out continues when Clang gets to a point where Apple is satisfied with its utility. Brad Kuhn has said he expects that contribution to end once the software is good enough to let Apple remove the GNU Compiler Collection ("GCC", Apple's long-time multi-language compiler) entirely (probably due to Apple's perverse anti-GPL zealotry which is rooted in not getting away with copyright infringement against the Free Software Foundation back when Steve Jobs ran NeXT). We've already entered a time when Apple's compiler basically can't be used in freedom. This is hardly the testament to Apple's contribution to software freedom you tried to make it out to be.
And I know that proprietors and their sycophants in the open source movement are keen to cite marketshare/popularity as an important topic (mainly because they're both eager to distract people away from talking about software freedom where they know they have nothing to offer). So it's ironic to note how unpopular LaunchD, Bonjour, GrandCentralDispatch, and Swift are. LaunchD & Bonjour aren't needed on free systems due to free reimplementations of their functionality elsewhere. Bonjour doesn't even wholly qualify as free software; only some of it is licensed under an Apache license. Your namecalling and bullying attempt at distracting people away from talking about the lack of software freedom for iThing users is falling apart.
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