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Apple Will Store Russian User Data Locally, Possibly Decrypt on Request: Report (venturebeat.com)
After resisting local government's mandates for years, Apple appears to have agreed to store Russian citizens' data within the country, a report says. From a report: According to a Foreign Policy report, Russia's telecommunications and media agency Roskomnadzor has confirmed that Apple will comply with the local data storage law, which appears to have major implications for the company's privacy initiatives. Apple's obligations in Russia would at least parallel ones in China, which required it turn over Chinese citizens' iCloud data to a partially government-operated data center last year. In addition to processing and storing Russian citizens' data on servers physically within Russia, Apple will apparently need to decrypt and produce user data for the country's security services as requested.
After all that crap projecting that sign about *what goes in an iPhone stays in an iPhone*....
SNAFU
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
In Soviet People's Republic, government in crypt put user. Nighty, night comrade.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
So they're perfectly happy to protect your privacy as long as it doesn't affect their market share. Gotcha.
It exists in all their products.
"The Fappening" was a clear indication that Apple stores all data unencrypted, or, which could be either worse or better depending on how you see it, that people at iCloud and/or NSA etc. have unrestricted access to all the unencrypted data.
Go ahead with the usual evil Russia accusations, but know that Apple and the U.S. gov are since long all up in your iPhone pictures and movies, whether they admit to it or not.
Wrong.
The "Fappening" was a result of a list of leaked Passwords of Celebrities that used extremely-guessable Passwords.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/15/prosecutors-find-that-fappening-celebrity-nudes-leak-was-not-apples-fault/
But still, the meme lives on, because... Apple.
As to the other stuff, give me some proof (other than that likely-faked "PRISM" PPT slide), or STFU.
And then they will release a copy of all your data only it wonâ(TM)t be easy to find. First you will have to fill out some forms and sit in a lobby. Then they will show you a promotional video and then a q and a period with snacks. An attorney will explain to you how you have no rights in their building and you must follow any instructions you are given while you are perusing what amounts to your own data. These companies will have you on your knees while you lie down and let them take full advantage of your data. They will do it until the cows come home and then some. Think it just a one time pain point? No it starts all over again even before the next election
Does that make two gay guys or three?
Don't forget that Apple apparently auctions off their default search engine to Google for billions of dollars instead of using something like duck duck go.
So they will blame Google for tracking you, but they are basically selling your tracking data to them. They didn't set the default to free (so they are profiting)
They also force you to allow them to track what apps you've installed on your devices.
Apple has only gotten away with this crap because they always blame someone else. But seriously, their privacy claims are backed up more by marketing than reality
I got fed up with APL's funky keyboard and said **** APL. COBOL rules!
You can't blame Apple for this, that would be like saying that IBM shouldn't have helped the Germans in the 1930s. /s
You can't blame Apple for this, that would be like saying that IBM shouldn't have helped the Germans in the 1930s. /s
If you live in Russia you already have bigger problems than where Apple is being told to store your data.
Oh yes apple is so secure. Remember when you could log in as root without any password into macos. Such a meme.
OMG. Apple colludes with Russia! Put 'em all in prison! Hang the treasonous rat bastards who decided this was okay to do! Traitors.
Microsoft got in a snarl for keeping US accounts on UK servers or vica versa then refusing to comply with data requests.
Then there's the issue of are you allowed to encrypt communications at all as a means to evade warranted surveilance? For example, in the 70s some folks marketed an encrypted CB radio. If you recall CB radios, one of their uses was for drug running speed boats to arrange a meeting at sea. And for smuggling and illicit transport of goods in the US.
The FCC ended that one by saying CB band could not use encryption.
SO there's strong precedents that say the governement may access your encrypted communications. A lot of people chafe at this. But the point is not what is should be but what is the law and precedent. And if that precedent exists in the laws of a country then the companies need to follow it.
Where it gets tricky is when the company that is providing the offshoring doesn't exactly reside in the US
Off-shoring is a tricky bussiness. This happens in banking a lot. People hide money in offshore accounts. Now what authority does the US or any country have to interogte those accounts? If the banks are solely in another country and don't rely on US systems to do bussiness the US govt doesn't have a lot of leverage.
So why can't I offshore my e-mail. And for that matter VPN my Voip off shore so that it prohibits eaves dropping by the govt.
If my service provider is say, Yandex or Baidu, it may not have any bussiness ops in that part of it's bussiness in the US. So how does the US make them comply?
For that matter Microsoft itslef is an Irish/Dutch company so why should theyhave to comply with US data laws?
THe answer is indirect. Apple and microsoft have bussiness ops in the US and Russia that requires good relations. They can't be scofflaws on e-mail if they want to sell iphones or MS Word.
SO it's totally reasonable that if you are going to comply with a country's data and privacy laws you do it as they prescribe. It's not a moral decision.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Apple will comply with the local data storage law, ... Apple will apparently need to decrypt and produce user data for the country's security services as requested.
So they'll stand up to OUR government in 2016 (Apple won't decrypt a phone for the FBI Info link) but they'll lower their standards for foreign governments?
No matter which way you fall on this issue -- SHOULD have or should NOT have -- this is wrong.
If Apple is "The Angel of Privacy everywhere" then they should stand up for no decryption. If they take the stance "the local government makes the choice and we'll follow", then they should have decrypted the phone.
"But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone." Link
So if other governments ask for it, it's OK? Expect weasel words soon: it's not OK, but they made us do it against our will. We couldn't sell there if we didn't do it. There's a chance it might be accessed, but think of all the good information they now have access to they didn't before.
I'm not a particular fan or enemy of Apple (they produce good products that don't meet my Bang for the Buck requirements) but you're actively doing things for our frenemies that you wouldn't do for our country?? And don't give me that "we're standing up for what's right" bit, you're certainly not standing up Over There.
"Oh, but politics isn't our job." Just TRY that one.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
moddown
They make a big noise about privacy, but actions like this, speak louder than their words.
stamp out!
"EVIL APPLE following the local laws in other countries!!! How is that being SJW OF THE WHOLE WORLD??? Protest EVIL APPLE!!!"
I have a hard time imagining buying a computer where the manufacturer, rather than me (the owner), would have the key that decrypts the data I've stored on it. WTF kind of luddite regression is going on with this garbage?
If people are going to buy these kinds of Blue Light Specials, they ought to be warned that they aren't up to level of technology that you find on everything else made in the last 50 years. Perhaps iOS devices should be required to have a big sticker on the front of the box, saying "WARNING: THIS IS UNUSUALLY INSECURE, COMPARED TO, OH SAY, A MS WINDOWS 3.0 MACHINE OR A VIC-20" simply in the interests of basic consumer protection and fraud prevention.
No. The data was unencrypted and was taken directly from the inside. Apple is one of the most valuable brand the country has, and damage control is priority #1.
There is no way any individual or small group of individual would be able to successfully gather enough contact information on over a hundred young celebrity women, and somehow magically discover that they all had easy to guess passwords, discover that by chance they were all using iPhone and iCloud, and then be able to counter two-factor authorization and other security meassures, and finally get inside.
This was someone who had unrestricted access (certain iCloud employees and NSA, possibly some branches of "law" enforcement), who could happily search for every cute celelbrity girl in the system and download everything when there was a positive match.
Your idea, and what's regurgitated in the traditional media, that some evil hacker just need to rub his hands and press a few keys and buttons on a phone, does not correlate with reality.
If you use an iPhone and iCloud, then your shit is up for grabs by the people on the inside. Now STFU.
The iCloud key bags are stored on computers owned and operated by the Chinese government. They donâ(TM)t need to ask apple to bulk search everyoneâ(TM)s iCloud account. Apple will bend over backwards and do the same in Russia. They only care about privacy when it suits their bottom line
Where your data is no longer yours. And can be inspected on request. Oh how 1984.
Next all those alexa and google home devices will have their recordings inspected.
Not to mention the "not our fault" if your cloud service stops working, and little to no recompense if your drive or icloud drive gets fubar'ed over by some support idiot (plenty of examples of people not being able to get help from google to recover their data when google *ban* their account for some other service or incorrect flag)
Seriously, get off the cloud and stop trusting other people to keep your data secure.
This trite argument being made by the looks of Google, Apple, and Facebook of "we just comply with local laws, and we really just want to serve the users in that other country" would have very interesting implications in the 1940s.
Would Apple have happily served the many good folks err "volks" of Germany (AKA "Deutschland" or "the fatherland") and still been a "good" company as it complied with the local eugenics laws and the holocaust?
If that smartphone is spying on the user and trying to figure out if he or she might be a smidgen Jewish and then contacting authorities and auto-booking passage on the nearest boxcar to a camp...... well THAT's just "complying with the local laws" isn't it???
If a smarphone is photometrically measuring the user's head and sending the data to the Reich's phrenology agency for a friendly follow-up, what could possibly be wrong as long as it's in compliance with local laws?
I suppose it would also be fine for Apple to block all apps and news sources that Herr Geobbels at the propaganda ministry "requested" to be blocked "in accordance with local laws", right?
Tim Cook and company are full-on evil in the loving embrace of the largest and most powerful fascist country in human history, and they deserve the total scorn of any free decent human being who still has a soul. If filthy lucre will lure a company into doing business in China, then that company would absolutely have done business with the Third Reich; both regimes are fascist police states. China may pretend to be communist, but they are actually the best example of the fascism that Mussolini invented.
Not every country has the same laws, so if you want to offer services in those countries you have to adhere to them.