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This seems to match this post, where apple is asking to remove telegram groups used to de-anonymize law enforcement members. Apple could do something really si
by boudin 6y ago
This seems to match this post, where apple is asking to remove telegram groups used to de-anonymize law enforcement members.
Apple could do something really simple if they wanted to not interfeer with how people organize their fight: allow to install apps outside of the app store.
This would force law enforcement to deal with Telegram directly rather than being able to take advantage of apple's own authoritarian way to run its platform.
Now it's a question of what's apple highest priority, people freedom or profit.
- shoulderfake 6y agoWe all know the answer to that
- antris 6y agoIt doesn't change the legal threats of the Belarus government, though. It can still compel Apple to ban self-installs.
- Barrin92 6y agoHow are they going to compel Apple, send a Soviet era fishing boat to the shores of California and scream loudly or turn their own internet off?
- tgragnato 6y agoProfit. They are already requiring entitlements to develop things that use the network extension framework (no sideload for VPNs and proxies bypassing the Chinese firewall). This is just them being forced (again) to make visible the negative sides of such a centralized platform.
- zepto 6y agoIt would also allow governments to force people to install tracking apps, as they do in parts of China. It’s not simple.
- dane-pgp 6y agoApple could still retain the capability to delete malicious apps from phones (even apps that weren't installed via the App Store). Presumably Belarus would then make a demand that Apple delete Telegram from people's phones as it is "malicious", but I'd hope that forcing a company to delete things from someone's phone is legally harder than forcing them to hide things on their own servers.
- sjwright 6y agoAnd that capability would be trivial for Belarus to side-step.
- dane-pgp 6y agoPresumably you're imagining some sort of cat-and-mouse game where Belarus release a new version of the app, and then Apple add that app to the blacklist (which iPhones would update daily from Apple's servers, and broadcast via AirDrop). Rather than blacklisting the app's name or hash, Apple would probably have to blacklist the Developer ID, which it would be hard for Belarus to generate quicker than Apple could blacklist.
- cageface 6y agoUnnecessary because they can already force you to pass all monetary transactions through an app like WeChat and can track you all they want there. And let's not pretend that Apple has shown any willingness to stand up to the Chinese government.
- Mindwipe 6y agoAs this is the inevitable consequence of a platform where a central party controls all software on it, Apple picked profit day 1.