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Apple Pulls 25,000 Apps From China Amid a Barrage of State-Media Criticism (wsj.com)
Apple has pulled more than 25,000 illegal apps from its App Store in China after coming under fire from state media for not doing enough to filter out banned material. From a report: "Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China," Apple said in a statement Monday. "We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store." The removals were reported earlier by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday, which said 25,000 apps were pulled. Apple didn't confirm that number. It offers more than 1.8 million apps in China, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Removing 25,000 apps would amount to about 1.4% of that total.
I wish my country would do more to stop multinationals shitting all over our people and their rights.
Gambling can be harmful and from what I see of the local casinos, it seems to particularly affect Asians. Well done to the Chinese government for protecting their people.
Apple, specifically Cook, Google, and other tech companies will protest to the world the tiniest slight of possible discrimination, perceived or real, with the force of their full companies & reach, but they all will immediately drop to their knees and suck China's red cock while ignoring every major and documented human violation and discrimination over there. Along with the Middle East as well.
"Hey, we have to have a major protest if a man can't go into the female bathroom with little girls, but we don't give a fuck about gays being killed with govt support or actual female discrimination."
Thanks Ivan-san.
Here are the facts:
1) It is incredibly slow and inefficient, taking an excessively long time to sort hosts files and remove duplicates. By the author's own accounts, the software was poorly and inefficiently written. The author responded with a link to testimonials that have thoroughly been debunked, as described later in this post.
2) It is written in an arcane language, Object Pascal, because the author hasn't learned any superior alternatives like C or scripting languages like Python.
3) It is written now to run on Linux, but the author is a novice with Linux. You are trusting someone to secure your Linux system who doesn't actually know much about Linux.
4) Development of the Windows versions have stalled and new releases are unlikely because the author is too cheap and broke to pay for a new Windows computer. The author indicates that the Windows version is complete. In reality, it has been abandoned.
5) Reviews are for the Windows version and are snippets taken out of context from longer posts that are critical of the software and/or its author. The reviews are extremely misleading. The author conveniently does not provide links to the original comments, likely to increase the difficulty of finding the original posts and reading the generally negative context.
6) The author's promised BSD and MacOS versions, the release of which is supposedly imminent, are horribly behind schedule. The author recently claimed that they are being tested. However, more recently, the author moved the goalposts and stated that no specific BSD version is needed because of Linux binary compatibility. This change indicates the author is ignorant of the operating systems that you are trusting him to secure. Furthermore, it is partially false because OpenBSD no longer has Linux binary compatibility. The author has failed to provide updates on the status of the MacOS version.
7) The software is closed source, preventing audits of the source code that would ensure malicious code is not embedded. The extremely vindictive nature of its author, as evidenced by years of hostile posts on public forums, makes the embedding of malicious code a very real concern. The author has since claimed that Steven Burn of MalwareBytes audited the source code and found it clean. It is unclear whether building the audited source code can reproduce the binary that is distributed. It is also unclear whether this is an audit of the current version or a previous one. Regardless, even if the current version is clean, it is entirely possible that future versions might not be clean.
8) The hosts files are not actually created or curated by the author. Instead, they are obtained from several third party sources. These third party files are freely available and the functionality of the author's software can easily be duplicated by anyone willing to download these freely available files.
9) The author has claimed to have blacklisted every single ad server in existence, a highly dubious claim. He has since denied making such a ridiculous claim, further raising questions about his integrity.
10) The software relies on a blacklisting approach, which is inherently inferior to whitelists. Despite more than ample evidence favoring the use of whitelists, the author aggressively criticizes them in favor of his blacklist approach.
11) The result is a massive hosts file that makes DNS resolution incredibly inefficient. The author disputes this, repeatedly parroting claims that his software speeds computers up in multiple ways.
12) Despite paranoid claims that critics.of his software are mainly webmasters and advertisers, the author is almost certainly the most prolific spammed on Slashdot. He repeatedly advertises his software despite years of requests to refrain from doing so.
13) The author clearly suffers from a number of undiagnosed mental health issues including narcissistic personality disorder. These issues render him virtually unable to interact normally with other people and make him incredibl
Unfortunately Profit/Ethics is still much larger than 1.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
So Apple is supposed to ban "prohibited content including pornography, gambling and counterfeit goods." That sounds ok, but I wonder what the other prohibited content is. Does it include private free speech, without the Chinese government able to listen in?
The same WSJ article says,
Apple depends on China for about one-fifth of its revenue. When sales in the market fell 26% in the three months ended in March 2016, Apple’s stock tumbled to a low of $90.34 within months.
I wonder if Xi is trying to scare Tim Cook, hoping Cook will pressure the US government into backing down on tariffs against China.
It sounds like you might have depression.
...with a simple photo.
https://brilliantmaps.com/population-circle/
Tim Cook and pals still think they have a future and they need their investors to believe it and keep investing, but the truth is that they killed the company years ago and it's just taking time for the various bits of the corpse to stop wiggling.
They put very high profit margins over everything and thus moved all production to China for the cheap labor and lack of environmental controls. They pretended they simply could not be profitable employing middle class Americans, even though [a] Apple originally rose to greatness while employing Americans in America and [b] far smaller and less-wealthy companies were doing fine and were profitable making stuff in America with Americans.
In order to manufacture in China, Apple management made the same short-sighted moron moves many other American businesses made: they "partnered" with Chinese "businesses" (arms of the Chinese govt/party/military) and they had to teach the Chinese everything important about the product, its tech, and manufacturing it. After that point, it's only a matter of time before a Chinese entity replaces Apple. It's already impossible to buy a cell phone made in America, where cell phones were invented. No amount of Apple software or services can stop the inevitable end and the only thing uncertain is the date the company is de-listed at the stock exchange. This move is part of the proof that China is already in the driver's seat re Apple.
You are not even trying in your trolling.
Their primary concern is increasing profits, which happens by increasing the revenue (getting as close to a monopolist as possible) and lowering the costs (a.k.a. optimizing the workforce and lowering the tax burden).
In established oligarchies, where "the law" is drafted between lobbyists and legislators over expensive lunches paid by the former, Apple is in compliance because they write the laws.
In places like China, where the ruling elite is more aligned to an ideology, they listen and obey.
The job of Apple isn't to ask for more "democracy" in China. That's the job of the US government.
Make Ameruca Enslaved Again, apple official sides with communists instead of pushing free speech and destruction of the great firewall of china.
Steve Jobs wouldn't have allowed this to happen.
China is a severely repressed communist country. How these tech companies never understood this is beyond me? The US and Europe is a far cry from the controlling nature of a socialist or communist country. I would have to say Apple is losing out in places like China, India and elsewhere because Apple is not the Golden child like it is in the US and EU.
I'll just leave this here
/.
MamaHuhu (YouTubeHome)
When Chinese Can't Afford The Latest Apple Product
Old news, really, but what the American people don't know about Chinese culture is why moronic posts about organ harvesting, and "human rights abuses" are as perennial as the grass on
China's firewall prevents western corporations from denying the government vital and private information of its citizens. Soon, a generation will have passed since Yahoo first agreed to grant this access to its servers residing on Chinese soil. It is a simple proposition: Want to Do Business in China? Agree to oversight.
The western default is Why Would Any Country Deny Google/FaceBook/Amazon? And most of the world has acquiesced to this seemingly innocent proposition of dominance. Yet, everyday westerners learn of some new way their private data is used without their permission or comprehension.
About Permission: Imagine a TOS agreement written in Chinese or Russian on every website you see that's accompanied by pervasive multimedia advertising insisting you massacre your indigenous peoples, force minorities to live in ghettos, bankrupt a middle class when hospitalized, require three times more food and eight times the energy, recklessly endanger another with commodity-based weapons and force your daughters to choose between 4/5th pay, domesticity, or sex work.
Just an exercise.
Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
So.... do we see the problem with centrally controlled app stores that don't allow easily adding other sources yet?
but apparently not via Apple Store apps.
"Governments have been dominated by the corporate entities and citizens have ceased to matter in public policy" true in
walled garden of green indirectly controlled by the communist government! could you imagine hitler and stalin working with apple? beautiful cooperation, would make things truly great! i am sure the communists will try to make it great too!
Locking people in with no way of installing unapproved apps makes Apple even more evil than Google!
"Touch the devil and you can't let go."
1.) Users disagree w/ you by DOZENS https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...
2.) ObjectPascal is #12/20 on the TIOBE index (& has never left top 20 since 2001) - FAR from "arcane" (like C++, it's a classic here to stay).
3.) I've used Linux & *NIX before you were BORN most likely (*NIX thru the 80's & Linux on/off since 1994)
4.) Windows version doesn't need anymore work (see #1 reviews of it above).
5.) see #1 above for EXACT QUOTES registered /.ers stated
6.) BSD version IS done in latest Linux model (BSD keeps binary compatiblity w/ Linux afaik).
7.) My source was audited by Steven Burn of Malwarebytes (not some amateur) who hosts it & recommends it also
APK
P.S.=> Part #2/2 coming & it's obvious you FEAR me resorting to lies & hiding by unidentifiable anonymous... apk
8.) Part of my PERSONAL hosts file's created by me. I give users the method to do the same via my program.
9.) SHOW ME where I said "ALL" adservers: Like vs. malware it's an ongoing process.
10.) Whitelists = maintenance & false positive nightmare (so are wildcards) - hosts specifics aren't.
11.) Resolution's FASTER via hosts (blocks don't matter: you don't intend to get to 'em) via fav. sites you spend most time @ online @ TOP of hosts CACHED IN RAM locally (faster vs. dns & no chance of redirect poisoning).
12.) Hosts do MORE for LESS, natively, vs. other so-called 'solutions' w/ less bugs & complexity for exploit.
13.) You're a psychiatric pro who did a formal exam of my alleged mental condition while in a professional psychiatric environs? No. You're a libelous troll HIDING from me via UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous STALKING me!
APK
P.S.=> ENJOY YOUR DOWNMOD, in addition to PART #1/2 here dusting you https://apple.slashdot.org/com... ... apk