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How Apple is paving the way to a ‘cloud dictatorship’ in China

150 points by tonyztan 9y ago

microcolonel 9y ago
Apple has been so perfectly gentle with the Chinese government that their phones were allowed to show up in this year's CNY broadcasts.
hackme1234 9y ago
I wonder would China ban Apple if they refused to do this? Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government?
- IntronExon 9y ago
  For money and to keep some other player from that money. I don’t think this is a particularly difficult thing to understand, you just need nuclear-grade powers of rationalization and greed.
  - cschep 9y ago
    But how would not selling iPhones in China, on principle, help anyone? The perfect world where Apple tells China what to do doesn't exist. Ok. We know that. Now what? Bail? Why? Stick around and play by the rules and play the game and maybe someday make 1% positive difference? Seems like the lesser of two evils to me.
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      I recognize that rape, robbery, assault and murder are sadly inevitable parts of human life, but I refuse to participate in, aid, or abett it. The inevitability of wrong-doing is not license to be a doer. So it’s not the lesser of two evils, it’s just participation in evil for profit.
      - ribosometronome 9y ago
        Do you pay taxes to a country that has a violent military presence in the Middle East (or any other conflict area)? Or to a local police department that has any history of unnecessary force to police non-violent crimes? Most of us do. We don't have much of a choice. We could choose to earn so little that we don't have to pay much or anything in taxes or move elsewhere but, well, we want to live better that or live in a specific area.
        IntronExon 9y ago
        This isn’t even good whataboutism, it’s downright lazy. Apple is a giant corporation that avoids taxes, not a citizen with few or no choices. This is a business maximizing profit, by choice, in another market.
    - CaptSpify 9y ago
      Just because someone is going to get screwed either way, doesn't mean it's OK to be the one screwing them. Apple claims that they care about the privacy of their users, but this demonstrates that they don't care at all.
      - prewett 9y ago
        No it doesn't. It demonstrates that Apple respects the laws of the country it operates in. Apple has no moral responsibility to force its privacy views on other countries, and it has no power to do so anyway. Furthermore, Apple has a responsibility to respect the choices of other people. If China had a democratically elected government that choose to intercept all communication crossing its borders, I think Apple would have a moral obligation to either respect that or not do business there. The present government is in power partly because the previous government was so bad that the peasants preferred the Communists, so you could even argue that the present government is there by the will of the people, in some limited sense. We can't just force other people to have our standard.
        IntronExon 9y ago
        We can’t force anything, but profiting from it is another story which contains a moral dimension regardless of your ideological stance. There is no legal responsibility, but morals are sticky. For what it’s worth though, I appreciate your demonstration of the rationalization I mentioned in my first comment.
        CaptSpify 9y ago
        Yes, it does. Apple has the option to not do business there. They can simply walk away. And by walking away, they are allowing other people to hold onto their own beliefs, while not encouraging them. > Furthermore, Apple has a responsibility to respect the choices of other people. If China had a democratically elected government that choose to intercept all communication crossing its borders, I think Apple would have a moral obligation to either respect that or not do business there. The present government is in power partly because the previous government was so bad that the peasants preferred the Communists, so you could even argue that the present government is there by the will of the people, in some limited sense. We can't just force other people to have our standard. I don't really disagree with this, but I'm not sure what it has to do with what I posted. Not doing business with a group of people because you disagree with how they want that business done is completely unrelated to "forcing other people to have our standard".
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  > I wonder would China ban Apple if they refused to do this? Yes. > Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government? China is Apple's second or first largest market, depending on the quarter.
  - mmrezaie 9y ago
    > Yes. I am not sure how you can know that. I am actually sure Apple would have lost some market but not much and there could have been stuff they could do to let it happen rather than now just giving up everything to any authoritarian government. Maybe Apple could have gained some respect and then market share if they would have stood firm. With this new management, Apple has become just focused on business (income) not what they were known to be passionate about.
    - mattnewton 9y ago
      We know that because China has banned western tech companies in the past when they don’t play ball. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-facebook-banned-china.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-f... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China Also twitter and Snapchat.
      - dwringer 9y ago
        As I understand it, Google actually had been cooperating with China's censorship requests, but didn't like it, and Google made the decision themselves[1] to relocate offices [ED: web search was moved but Google maintains offices in mainland China] to Hong Kong rather than continue self-censorship. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/23/google-china-censorship-hong-kong https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/23/google-ch...
        seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Google didn't "relocate" to Hong Kong, their offices in Wudaokou kept running, they just shutdown their Mainland-based webserver.
- castis 9y ago
  > Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government? Money, and continued market dominance.
- oh-kumudo 9y ago
  They will ban iCloud in China, for sure.
outsidetheparty 9y ago
So is literally every tech company working in China. > The Chinese state relies upon private enterprise to implement social credit and extend its tentacular reach. Top-tier concerns like Alibaba’s Alipay, Tencent, Baidu, the mobility-on-demand service Didi Chuxing, and the massively popular dating site Baihe either contribute significant elements of the system’s architecture or incorporate its rulings into their services. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/chinas-dangerous-dream-of-urban-control/553097/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/china... I'm not at all arguing Apple is right to do this (in a moral sense. Certainly it's right in a purely financial sense); just that it's one small part of a much broader issue. (EDIT: removed gratuitous complaint about clickbait headline; you guys have convinced me I was wrong. As long as I'm here, though, I really do recommend reading the Atlantic link above; it does a good job showing the context in which this is happening)
- larrik 9y ago
  Aren't most or all of those other companies Chinese? Apple still stands out there, especially given their "pro-privacy" slant.
  - outsidetheparty 9y ago
    True. (And you're right that it contradicts Apple's privacy stance outside of China, which justifies examining their stance here a little more closely; my swipe at the Apple-mention-as-clickbait may have been a bit of a knee-jerk. Apologies for that.) But I would be shocked if the other major players (Facebook, Google, etc) aren't also participating in this; it seems to be the price of entry if they want to continue doing business there.
    - fooker 9y ago
      Google and Facebook are banned in China.
      - outsidetheparty 9y ago
ksec 9y ago
That is why I long for iOS Time Capsule. The cloud is increasing a single point of area for government intervention. Especially for certain places in the world.
- simonh 9y ago
  Isn’t that what syncing/backing up your device to iTunes over WiFi is?
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Sadly Apple have stopped developing the Time Capsule, I bought one this week but it doesn't look like there will be any new models.
exBarrelSpoiler 9y ago
The cruelest part of this whole farce- Apple might not get very far in China even with government sanction. WSJ: "Why the iPhone Is Losing Out to Chinese Devices in Asia" Google link: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why%20the%20iPhone%20Is%20Losing%20Out%20to%20Chinese%20Devices%20in%20Asia https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why%20the%20iPho...
- djrogers 9y ago
  $18B in Q1 revenue and 10% growth in China is nothing to sneeze at... [1]https://qz.com/1195908/apple-q1-2018-record-breaking-earnings-the-iphone-x-and-its-massive-cash-pile-stole-the-show-but-for-surprising-reasons-aapl/ https://qz.com/1195908/apple-q1-2018-record-breaking-earning...
  - adventured 9y ago
    That's a particularly strong result given the Chinese smartphone market contracted by 4% in 2017 and has been weak for years. For China's whole smartphone market, 2015 saw 2% growth, 2016 was 11% growth, 2017 was negative 4%. It's likely their market has reached saturation. 2017 should have seen a big jump in sales due to a replacement cycle, given the near zero growth in 2015. Most of the domestic Chinese brands will die off soon, leaving three or so dominant players to go up against Samsung and Apple.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    The iPhone X was designed for the Chinese market, really.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Those articles are a dime a dozen (Apple losing in China, Why the iPhone will fail in Japan, Apple going nowhere in India, ... etc) -- I have not seen one that was not proven wrong at the subsequent Apple quarterly results.
mankash666 9y ago
China is overt with it's threats of blocking businesses if denied data. One can imagine the covert agreements between Apple and Western governments being the perfect storm - Apple positions itself as privacy focused -> customers are more willing to store sensitive information with Apple -> Apple provides access to government agencies without notifying users under covert agreements
gigatexal 9y ago
So does this entity get my data if I text, email, imessage, etc., a Chinese national? Hmm...between google monetizing my every data point to the encroachment of foreign governments on my data there really isn't a phone that is well designed, fast, useful, but also safe and secure with my data.
- jackvalentine 9y ago
  Similarly, do they get access to my data if I travel to China and connect to Apple servers from there? Does that trigger a 'replicate to China' job because I'm now a user in China?
  - gigatexal 9y ago
    I didn't think of that scenario -- equally as scary.
  - tonyztan 9y ago
    I could be wrong, but I checked this a while ago and think it's based on your account billing address.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Assume yes, particularly if you are connecting to local service endpoints.
culturestate 9y ago
China requires Chinese user data to be stored on servers physically located in China, and foreign entities are required to take on local partners for operations within China. I don't think either of those stipulations will come as a galloping shock to anyone here, and taken together they fully explain the reason for this change. The question I'm then moved to ask is this: who cares, so long as the data is e2e encrypted?
- AlphaWeaver 9y ago
  This article explains that there's a new stipulation in the Terms of Service permitting Apple (and their new partner which will operate this datacenter) to view, share, and disclose your data as they see fit. This is about compliance, yes, but we can't ignore the political implications of this change.
- tonyztan 9y ago
  The problem is that we don't know what is encrypted, how, and who holds the keys: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-in-china/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-i...
  - threeseed 9y ago
    I would be surprised/mortified if Apple didn't hold the keys. Otherwise iCloud Keychain which houses credentials for non-Apple sites would be exposed. I can't imagine the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon etc just sitting back and allowing Apple to compromise their sites in the name of Chinese expansion. It would surely amount to the biggest security compromise in history if this was the case.
    - sneak 9y ago
      Google and Facebook are already blocked there.
      - threeseed 9y ago
Analemma_ 9y ago
This is a good article, but the author goofs here: > “Apple says the handover is due to new regulations that cloud servers must be operated by local corporation. But this is unconvincing. China’s Cybersecurity Law, which was implemented on June 1 2017, does demand that user information and data collected in mainland China be stored within the border. But it does not require that the data center be operated by a local corporation.” It’s common knowledge that the more authoritarian the country, the bigger the disconnect between the law and the truth-on-the-ground. I think it’s very likely that a party organ spoke to Apple and made it plain that “hand it over, or you’re out”. Which still has plenty of troubling implications, but criticism focused on Apple going beyond the letter of the law is disingenuous: the letter of the law is nothing in China.
Pica_soO 9y ago
Well at least china has a internet industry- unlike Europe, more then lip service to liberalism, doesn't seem to pay too well.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Bizarre assertion that Europe doesn't have an internet industry. There's this mobile phone company you may have heard of called "Nokia".
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    Yeah, it was so hard to diggest, the valley (M$) ate it and it came back to tell the tale. Seriously, i know - free trade horray- and all that. But our politicians see WeeChat rise and shine- while all we got for opening our markets are outstanding taxes. (Not).
  - zombieprocesses 9y ago
    Not the best example of european "tech industry". Nokia failed horribly and pretty much went bankrupt and got bought up by MSFT. Also, I wouldn't call nokia as part of the "internet industry". Compared to the US and China, europe has performed rather poorly. Europe has hundreds of millions of more people than the US and yet lags far behind the US. Where is europe's facebook, google, microsoft, amazon, netflix, etc? At least china has their baidu, alibaba, tencent, etc. The most prominent tech company in europe is SAP and they are more of a software/database/etc company than an internet company. Europe has to get its act together and get in the game.
    - threeseed 9y ago
      1) Nokia is more than just their phone division. Might want to do a bit of research. That said their phone division is killing it right now. 2) Spotify, Soundcloud, Skype, Shazam, Deliveroo, King, Rovio etc. And there are hundreds of second tier internet sites looking at this list from 2013: http://tech.eu/features/186/ignorance-is-remiss/ http://tech.eu/features/186/ignorance-is-remiss/
crystaln 9y ago
There's a double standard because the US and China have different standards. Apple has defended the rights of its users when it can. If Apple received a U.S. Supreme Court order to hand over user data, Apple would follow that order, even if Apple disagreed or felt it was unethical. Same for China. Apple's alternative is to leave China, a la Google. One can argue that leaving is the ethical choice. One can not argue effectively against a "double standard". As for me, I'm happy that Apple will at least transparently defend user rights to the greatest of their ability in China, which would not be the case with Xiaomi or another local company that would fall over backwards to please the government.
- kodablah 9y ago
  The double standard is what they publicly state they believe in. You're talking about whether they have to comply or not with a US-based hypothetical. But they clearly published on their website what they believed in with regards to the US requests. Can you link the same for the Chinese policy? > I'm happy that Apple will at least transparently defend user rights to the greatest of their ability in China Why do you believe it is transparent? Can you link to something showing they "transparently defend user rights to the greatest of their ability in China"? Otherwise in the absence of being able to provide this transparent proof, will you admit it is not transparent?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Civil authority trumps beliefs and opinion.
    - kodablah 9y ago
      Of course it does. I am unsure what that has to do with making your opinion clear, especially if you've shown yourself to be willing to make that opinion clear in other circumstances.
sneak 9y ago
It’s because the apple-vs-fbi standoff is a calculated move by a collaboration between the US federal government and US companies to restore public faith in US products and services following Snowden’s revelations (including photos) that alerted non-US organizations that any hardware or services they receive from the US may well be backdoored or co-opted for US military or economic advantage. It’s a false dichotomy. The government is helping Apple PR, following their fuck up that spilled the beans that they’re all spying together. Big companies operate at the mercy of the government, in the US and China both. “state owned” is irrelevant when all the phones are tapped, as they are in the United States now.
JudasGoat 9y ago
I wonder if the Chinese government was harvesting organs from homosexuals instead of spiritual practitioners, would Tim Cook be as quick to chase the money?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...
- raguuu 9y ago
  Good point. Tie the whole china issue to LGBT rights and you might get some response. Of course, gay marriage is more noble thing than 1000 things more important.
- threeseed 9y ago
  Apple still sold in the US whilst the Trump administration withdrew from Paris climate accord. They also still sell in the Phillipines whilst Duarte is on his cleansing spree. So apart from defending Apple's employees (DACA, LGBT etc) they don't really get let politics get in the way of business.
- adventured 9y ago
  China actively tortures thousands of homosexuals in an effort to cure them: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/14/china-end-conversion-therapy-medical-settings https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/14/china-end-conversion-the... https://www.economist.com/news/china/21731405-quack-treatments-are-available-even-public-hospitals-many-people-china-believe-gays-can-be https://www.economist.com/news/china/21731405-quack-treatmen...
contingencies 9y ago
My take. This is a big win for Guizhou, one of China's poorest provinces. It is also a big win for Southwest China in general, which is developing rapidly as Chengdu and Kunming gain direct flights to Europe and Australia, and integrate road, rail and pipeline links to Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and beyond. Politically, as a nation China certainly has the right to self-governance and storing user data inside the country is not an unreasonable request. The Hong Kong Free Press is probably well meaning - we'd all like more freedom and less government rules - but also may be more holistically perceived as a group with an axe to grind as Hong Kong is being forced to adapt to Chinese rule, journalism is under pressure the world over and Hong Kong's GDP was recently surpassed by Shenzhen, which three decades ago was a fishing village. Things are changing. This is just a phase.
- hnzix 9y ago
  All of this cloud data will eventually be funneled into your social credit score ("Sesame Credit"). This is already happening. Chinese individuals are being ostracized from personal and professional relations because of their score. China invented whuffie, but in the most dystopian and fascist way possible. -- Edit with citations as requested. (I'm not asserting that this social pressure is universal or even common yet.) [0] https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/ https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/ She explained how to boost my score. “They will check what kind of friends you have,” she said. “If your friends are all high-score people, it’s good for you. If you have some bad-credit people as friends, it’s not nice.” [1] https://theconversation.com/chinas-social-credit-system-puts-its-people-under-pressure-to-be-model-citizens-89963 https://theconversation.com/chinas-social-credit-system-puts... “Since last December, the National Development and Reform Commission and Central Bank of China began to approve pilot plans to integrate big data with the Social Credit System. As one of China’s first pilot provinces, Guizhou province was selected to showcase a government-led experiment of a big data-empowered Social Credit System.” Australia, for example now lowers your credit score if you pay bills late. But it doesn't (yet?) penalize you for who you associate with.
  - logicchains 9y ago
    >Chinese individuals are being ostracized from personal and professional relations because of their score. Citation needed. I live in China, and not a single person I know takes the Zhima Credit score even remotely seriously. It's treated like a joke, or at worst like one's astrological sign. Many older people I've met don't even know about it. Chinese people aren't stupid, they're not going to let some easily gamed virtual points influence their decisions.
natch 9y ago
What about US users who message with somebody in China? We just get caught up too? Yeah I realize we are all already screwed as far as privacy goes but giving personal messages to the Chinese government is another matter. Could happen unknowingly when you send an iMessage to, say, a gmail address, which unlike a phone number offers no clue where the user is.
- prewett 9y ago
  Well, at least with a GMail address you are safe, because there are no GMail servers in Mainland China, because Google doesn't operate in Mainland China. But your point stands for other, more cooperative, mail services.
  - natch 9y ago
    You’re thinking of gmail the service. We were talking about iCloud though. Gmail addresses can be used as Apple IDs, which means the iMessage messages travel inside Apple’s iCloud services.
codedokode 9y ago
The article gives a good reason to use open source technologies rather than proprietary "clouds" that do whatever they want with your data. Of course, Chinese government can try to ban Jabber/OTR but they won't be able to read the encrypted messages.
scarface74 9y ago
I really don't know how much of affect on privacy that this will have in practice. If iMessage is end to end encrypted and is FaceTime, will the Chinese government be able to see anything that they can't already see? What's actually stored on iCloud by iOS that's sensitive besides those two things that people couldn't store in other places? App backups? I'm assuming that the Chinese government already has access to everything that goes over any cellular network in China.
skierscott 9y ago
> “If you understand and agree, Apple and GCBD have the right to access your data stored on its servers. This includes permission sharing, exchange, and disclosure of all user data (including content) according to the application of the law.” > In other words, once the agreement is signed, GCBD — a company solely owned by the state — would get a key that can access all iCloud user data in China, legally. What user data will this decrypt? Are iMessage and FaceTime still safe?

150 points by tonyztan 9y ago

Apple has been so perfectly gentle with the Chinese government that their phones were allowed to show up in this year's CNY broadcasts.

hackme1234 9y ago

I wonder would China ban Apple if they refused to do this? Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government?

IntronExon 9y ago
For money and to keep some other player from that money. I don’t think this is a particularly difficult thing to understand, you just need nuclear-grade powers of rationalization and greed.
- cschep 9y ago
  But how would not selling iPhones in China, on principle, help anyone? The perfect world where Apple tells China what to do doesn't exist. Ok. We know that. Now what? Bail? Why? Stick around and play by the rules and play the game and maybe someday make 1% positive difference? Seems like the lesser of two evils to me.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    I recognize that rape, robbery, assault and murder are sadly inevitable parts of human life, but I refuse to participate in, aid, or abett it. The inevitability of wrong-doing is not license to be a doer. So it’s not the lesser of two evils, it’s just participation in evil for profit.
    - ribosometronome 9y ago
      Do you pay taxes to a country that has a violent military presence in the Middle East (or any other conflict area)? Or to a local police department that has any history of unnecessary force to police non-violent crimes? Most of us do. We don't have much of a choice. We could choose to earn so little that we don't have to pay much or anything in taxes or move elsewhere but, well, we want to live better that or live in a specific area.
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        This isn’t even good whataboutism, it’s downright lazy. Apple is a giant corporation that avoids taxes, not a citizen with few or no choices. This is a business maximizing profit, by choice, in another market.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    Just because someone is going to get screwed either way, doesn't mean it's OK to be the one screwing them. Apple claims that they care about the privacy of their users, but this demonstrates that they don't care at all.
    - prewett 9y ago
      No it doesn't. It demonstrates that Apple respects the laws of the country it operates in. Apple has no moral responsibility to force its privacy views on other countries, and it has no power to do so anyway. Furthermore, Apple has a responsibility to respect the choices of other people. If China had a democratically elected government that choose to intercept all communication crossing its borders, I think Apple would have a moral obligation to either respect that or not do business there. The present government is in power partly because the previous government was so bad that the peasants preferred the Communists, so you could even argue that the present government is there by the will of the people, in some limited sense. We can't just force other people to have our standard.
      - IntronExon 9y ago
        We can’t force anything, but profiting from it is another story which contains a moral dimension regardless of your ideological stance. There is no legal responsibility, but morals are sticky. For what it’s worth though, I appreciate your demonstration of the rationalization I mentioned in my first comment.
      - CaptSpify 9y ago
        Yes, it does. Apple has the option to not do business there. They can simply walk away. And by walking away, they are allowing other people to hold onto their own beliefs, while not encouraging them. > Furthermore, Apple has a responsibility to respect the choices of other people. If China had a democratically elected government that choose to intercept all communication crossing its borders, I think Apple would have a moral obligation to either respect that or not do business there. The present government is in power partly because the previous government was so bad that the peasants preferred the Communists, so you could even argue that the present government is there by the will of the people, in some limited sense. We can't just force other people to have our standard. I don't really disagree with this, but I'm not sure what it has to do with what I posted. Not doing business with a group of people because you disagree with how they want that business done is completely unrelated to "forcing other people to have our standard".
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
> I wonder would China ban Apple if they refused to do this? Yes. > Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government? China is Apple's second or first largest market, depending on the quarter.
- mmrezaie 9y ago
  > Yes. I am not sure how you can know that. I am actually sure Apple would have lost some market but not much and there could have been stuff they could do to let it happen rather than now just giving up everything to any authoritarian government. Maybe Apple could have gained some respect and then market share if they would have stood firm. With this new management, Apple has become just focused on business (income) not what they were known to be passionate about.
  - mattnewton 9y ago
    We know that because China has banned western tech companies in the past when they don’t play ball. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-facebook-banned-china.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-f... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China Also twitter and Snapchat.
    - dwringer 9y ago
      As I understand it, Google actually had been cooperating with China's censorship requests, but didn't like it, and Google made the decision themselves[1] to relocate offices [ED: web search was moved but Google maintains offices in mainland China] to Hong Kong rather than continue self-censorship. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/23/google-china-censorship-hong-kong https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/23/google-ch...
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Google didn't "relocate" to Hong Kong, their offices in Wudaokou kept running, they just shutdown their Mainland-based webserver.
castis 9y ago
> Why is Apple submitting to all the demands of the Chinese government? Money, and continued market dominance.
oh-kumudo 9y ago
They will ban iCloud in China, for sure.

outsidetheparty 9y ago

So is literally every tech company working in China. > The Chinese state relies upon private enterprise to implement social credit and extend its tentacular reach. Top-tier concerns like Alibaba’s Alipay, Tencent, Baidu, the mobility-on-demand service Didi Chuxing, and the massively popular dating site Baihe either contribute significant elements of the system’s architecture or incorporate its rulings into their services. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/chinas-dangerous-dream-of-urban-control/553097/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/china... I'm not at all arguing Apple is right to do this (in a moral sense. Certainly it's right in a purely financial sense); just that it's one small part of a much broader issue. (EDIT: removed gratuitous complaint about clickbait headline; you guys have convinced me I was wrong. As long as I'm here, though, I really do recommend reading the Atlantic link above; it does a good job showing the context in which this is happening)

larrik 9y ago
Aren't most or all of those other companies Chinese? Apple still stands out there, especially given their "pro-privacy" slant.
- outsidetheparty 9y ago
  True. (And you're right that it contradicts Apple's privacy stance outside of China, which justifies examining their stance here a little more closely; my swipe at the Apple-mention-as-clickbait may have been a bit of a knee-jerk. Apologies for that.) But I would be shocked if the other major players (Facebook, Google, etc) aren't also participating in this; it seems to be the price of entry if they want to continue doing business there.
  - fooker 9y ago
    Google and Facebook are banned in China.
    - outsidetheparty 9y ago

ksec 9y ago

That is why I long for iOS Time Capsule. The cloud is increasing a single point of area for government intervention. Especially for certain places in the world.

simonh 9y ago
Isn’t that what syncing/backing up your device to iTunes over WiFi is?
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
Sadly Apple have stopped developing the Time Capsule, I bought one this week but it doesn't look like there will be any new models.

exBarrelSpoiler 9y ago

The cruelest part of this whole farce- Apple might not get very far in China even with government sanction. WSJ: "Why the iPhone Is Losing Out to Chinese Devices in Asia" Google link: https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why%20the%20iPhone%20Is%20Losing%20Out%20to%20Chinese%20Devices%20in%20Asia https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why%20the%20iPho...

djrogers 9y ago
$18B in Q1 revenue and 10% growth in China is nothing to sneeze at... [1]https://qz.com/1195908/apple-q1-2018-record-breaking-earnings-the-iphone-x-and-its-massive-cash-pile-stole-the-show-but-for-surprising-reasons-aapl/ https://qz.com/1195908/apple-q1-2018-record-breaking-earning...
- adventured 9y ago
  That's a particularly strong result given the Chinese smartphone market contracted by 4% in 2017 and has been weak for years. For China's whole smartphone market, 2015 saw 2% growth, 2016 was 11% growth, 2017 was negative 4%. It's likely their market has reached saturation. 2017 should have seen a big jump in sales due to a replacement cycle, given the near zero growth in 2015. Most of the domestic Chinese brands will die off soon, leaving three or so dominant players to go up against Samsung and Apple.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  The iPhone X was designed for the Chinese market, really.
coldtea 9y ago
Those articles are a dime a dozen (Apple losing in China, Why the iPhone will fail in Japan, Apple going nowhere in India, ... etc) -- I have not seen one that was not proven wrong at the subsequent Apple quarterly results.

mankash666 9y ago

China is overt with it's threats of blocking businesses if denied data. One can imagine the covert agreements between Apple and Western governments being the perfect storm - Apple positions itself as privacy focused -> customers are more willing to store sensitive information with Apple -> Apple provides access to government agencies without notifying users under covert agreements

gigatexal 9y ago

So does this entity get my data if I text, email, imessage, etc., a Chinese national? Hmm...between google monetizing my every data point to the encroachment of foreign governments on my data there really isn't a phone that is well designed, fast, useful, but also safe and secure with my data.

jackvalentine 9y ago
Similarly, do they get access to my data if I travel to China and connect to Apple servers from there? Does that trigger a 'replicate to China' job because I'm now a user in China?
- gigatexal 9y ago
  I didn't think of that scenario -- equally as scary.
- tonyztan 9y ago
  I could be wrong, but I checked this a while ago and think it's based on your account billing address.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Assume yes, particularly if you are connecting to local service endpoints.

culturestate 9y ago

China requires Chinese user data to be stored on servers physically located in China, and foreign entities are required to take on local partners for operations within China. I don't think either of those stipulations will come as a galloping shock to anyone here, and taken together they fully explain the reason for this change. The question I'm then moved to ask is this: who cares, so long as the data is e2e encrypted?

AlphaWeaver 9y ago
This article explains that there's a new stipulation in the Terms of Service permitting Apple (and their new partner which will operate this datacenter) to view, share, and disclose your data as they see fit. This is about compliance, yes, but we can't ignore the political implications of this change.
tonyztan 9y ago
The problem is that we don't know what is encrypted, how, and who holds the keys: https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-in-china/ https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-i...
- threeseed 9y ago
  I would be surprised/mortified if Apple didn't hold the keys. Otherwise iCloud Keychain which houses credentials for non-Apple sites would be exposed. I can't imagine the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon etc just sitting back and allowing Apple to compromise their sites in the name of Chinese expansion. It would surely amount to the biggest security compromise in history if this was the case.
  - sneak 9y ago
    Google and Facebook are already blocked there.
    - threeseed 9y ago

Analemma_ 9y ago

This is a good article, but the author goofs here: > “Apple says the handover is due to new regulations that cloud servers must be operated by local corporation. But this is unconvincing. China’s Cybersecurity Law, which was implemented on June 1 2017, does demand that user information and data collected in mainland China be stored within the border. But it does not require that the data center be operated by a local corporation.” It’s common knowledge that the more authoritarian the country, the bigger the disconnect between the law and the truth-on-the-ground. I think it’s very likely that a party organ spoke to Apple and made it plain that “hand it over, or you’re out”. Which still has plenty of troubling implications, but criticism focused on Apple going beyond the letter of the law is disingenuous: the letter of the law is nothing in China.

Pica_soO 9y ago

Well at least china has a internet industry- unlike Europe, more then lip service to liberalism, doesn't seem to pay too well.

pjc50 9y ago
Bizarre assertion that Europe doesn't have an internet industry. There's this mobile phone company you may have heard of called "Nokia".
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  Yeah, it was so hard to diggest, the valley (M$) ate it and it came back to tell the tale. Seriously, i know - free trade horray- and all that. But our politicians see WeeChat rise and shine- while all we got for opening our markets are outstanding taxes. (Not).
- zombieprocesses 9y ago
  Not the best example of european "tech industry". Nokia failed horribly and pretty much went bankrupt and got bought up by MSFT. Also, I wouldn't call nokia as part of the "internet industry". Compared to the US and China, europe has performed rather poorly. Europe has hundreds of millions of more people than the US and yet lags far behind the US. Where is europe's facebook, google, microsoft, amazon, netflix, etc? At least china has their baidu, alibaba, tencent, etc. The most prominent tech company in europe is SAP and they are more of a software/database/etc company than an internet company. Europe has to get its act together and get in the game.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    1) Nokia is more than just their phone division. Might want to do a bit of research. That said their phone division is killing it right now. 2) Spotify, Soundcloud, Skype, Shazam, Deliveroo, King, Rovio etc. And there are hundreds of second tier internet sites looking at this list from 2013: http://tech.eu/features/186/ignorance-is-remiss/ http://tech.eu/features/186/ignorance-is-remiss/

crystaln 9y ago

There's a double standard because the US and China have different standards. Apple has defended the rights of its users when it can. If Apple received a U.S. Supreme Court order to hand over user data, Apple would follow that order, even if Apple disagreed or felt it was unethical. Same for China. Apple's alternative is to leave China, a la Google. One can argue that leaving is the ethical choice. One can not argue effectively against a "double standard". As for me, I'm happy that Apple will at least transparently defend user rights to the greatest of their ability in China, which would not be the case with Xiaomi or another local company that would fall over backwards to please the government.

kodablah 9y ago
The double standard is what they publicly state they believe in. You're talking about whether they have to comply or not with a US-based hypothetical. But they clearly published on their website what they believed in with regards to the US requests. Can you link the same for the Chinese policy? > I'm happy that Apple will at least transparently defend user rights to the greatest of their ability in China Why do you believe it is transparent? Can you link to something showing they "transparently defend user rights to the greatest of their ability in China"? Otherwise in the absence of being able to provide this transparent proof, will you admit it is not transparent?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Civil authority trumps beliefs and opinion.
  - kodablah 9y ago
    Of course it does. I am unsure what that has to do with making your opinion clear, especially if you've shown yourself to be willing to make that opinion clear in other circumstances.

sneak 9y ago

It’s because the apple-vs-fbi standoff is a calculated move by a collaboration between the US federal government and US companies to restore public faith in US products and services following Snowden’s revelations (including photos) that alerted non-US organizations that any hardware or services they receive from the US may well be backdoored or co-opted for US military or economic advantage. It’s a false dichotomy. The government is helping Apple PR, following their fuck up that spilled the beans that they’re all spying together. Big companies operate at the mercy of the government, in the US and China both. “state owned” is irrelevant when all the phones are tapped, as they are in the United States now.

JudasGoat 9y ago

I wonder if the Chinese government was harvesting organs from homosexuals instead of spiritual practitioners, would Tim Cook be as quick to chase the money?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

raguuu 9y ago
Good point. Tie the whole china issue to LGBT rights and you might get some response. Of course, gay marriage is more noble thing than 1000 things more important.
threeseed 9y ago
Apple still sold in the US whilst the Trump administration withdrew from Paris climate accord. They also still sell in the Phillipines whilst Duarte is on his cleansing spree. So apart from defending Apple's employees (DACA, LGBT etc) they don't really get let politics get in the way of business.
adventured 9y ago
China actively tortures thousands of homosexuals in an effort to cure them: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/14/china-end-conversion-therapy-medical-settings https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/14/china-end-conversion-the... https://www.economist.com/news/china/21731405-quack-treatments-are-available-even-public-hospitals-many-people-china-believe-gays-can-be https://www.economist.com/news/china/21731405-quack-treatmen...

contingencies 9y ago

My take. This is a big win for Guizhou, one of China's poorest provinces. It is also a big win for Southwest China in general, which is developing rapidly as Chengdu and Kunming gain direct flights to Europe and Australia, and integrate road, rail and pipeline links to Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and beyond. Politically, as a nation China certainly has the right to self-governance and storing user data inside the country is not an unreasonable request. The Hong Kong Free Press is probably well meaning - we'd all like more freedom and less government rules - but also may be more holistically perceived as a group with an axe to grind as Hong Kong is being forced to adapt to Chinese rule, journalism is under pressure the world over and Hong Kong's GDP was recently surpassed by Shenzhen, which three decades ago was a fishing village. Things are changing. This is just a phase.

hnzix 9y ago
All of this cloud data will eventually be funneled into your social credit score ("Sesame Credit"). This is already happening. Chinese individuals are being ostracized from personal and professional relations because of their score. China invented whuffie, but in the most dystopian and fascist way possible. -- Edit with citations as requested. (I'm not asserting that this social pressure is universal or even common yet.) [0] https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/ https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/ She explained how to boost my score. “They will check what kind of friends you have,” she said. “If your friends are all high-score people, it’s good for you. If you have some bad-credit people as friends, it’s not nice.” [1] https://theconversation.com/chinas-social-credit-system-puts-its-people-under-pressure-to-be-model-citizens-89963 https://theconversation.com/chinas-social-credit-system-puts... “Since last December, the National Development and Reform Commission and Central Bank of China began to approve pilot plans to integrate big data with the Social Credit System. As one of China’s first pilot provinces, Guizhou province was selected to showcase a government-led experiment of a big data-empowered Social Credit System.” Australia, for example now lowers your credit score if you pay bills late. But it doesn't (yet?) penalize you for who you associate with.
- logicchains 9y ago
  >Chinese individuals are being ostracized from personal and professional relations because of their score. Citation needed. I live in China, and not a single person I know takes the Zhima Credit score even remotely seriously. It's treated like a joke, or at worst like one's astrological sign. Many older people I've met don't even know about it. Chinese people aren't stupid, they're not going to let some easily gamed virtual points influence their decisions.

natch 9y ago

What about US users who message with somebody in China? We just get caught up too? Yeah I realize we are all already screwed as far as privacy goes but giving personal messages to the Chinese government is another matter. Could happen unknowingly when you send an iMessage to, say, a gmail address, which unlike a phone number offers no clue where the user is.

prewett 9y ago
Well, at least with a GMail address you are safe, because there are no GMail servers in Mainland China, because Google doesn't operate in Mainland China. But your point stands for other, more cooperative, mail services.
- natch 9y ago
  You’re thinking of gmail the service. We were talking about iCloud though. Gmail addresses can be used as Apple IDs, which means the iMessage messages travel inside Apple’s iCloud services.

codedokode 9y ago

The article gives a good reason to use open source technologies rather than proprietary "clouds" that do whatever they want with your data. Of course, Chinese government can try to ban Jabber/OTR but they won't be able to read the encrypted messages.

scarface74 9y ago

I really don't know how much of affect on privacy that this will have in practice. If iMessage is end to end encrypted and is FaceTime, will the Chinese government be able to see anything that they can't already see? What's actually stored on iCloud by iOS that's sensitive besides those two things that people couldn't store in other places? App backups? I'm assuming that the Chinese government already has access to everything that goes over any cellular network in China.

skierscott 9y ago

> “If you understand and agree, Apple and GCBD have the right to access your data stored on its servers. This includes permission sharing, exchange, and disclosure of all user data (including content) according to the application of the law.” > In other words, once the agreement is signed, GCBD — a company solely owned by the state — would get a key that can access all iCloud user data in China, legally. What user data will this decrypt? Are iMessage and FaceTime still safe?