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Ah, ok. I missed that section. Now things start to make sense. What I don't completely understand, for two reasons, is why foreign map publishers would allow t
by k_sze 5y ago
Ah, ok. I missed that section. Now things start to make sense.
What I don't completely understand, for two reasons, is why foreign map publishers would allow this pseudorandom offset to exist on their mapping apps:
1. The obfuscation algorithm has basically been cracked.
2. I don't think the Chinese gov can do much about foreign companies, except maybe by proxy, by pressuring the national trade liaisons or some such.
- modeless 5y agoMost multinational corporations have significant operations in China. Tech companies are essentially forced to unless they want to be locked out of the hardware side of the business. Google famously left China, but still has offices there. It's impossible to ignore China if you want to develop the OS that runs on so many phones manufactured there (though I believe Google's own phones are built elsewhere). Apple obviously is completely reliant on China almost to a crazy degree. Microsoft caved to China on censorship to keep Bing from being blocked, they never left the way Google did. Facebook doesn't cooperate with China at all in their software products which are all banned, but they're increasingly getting into hardware and can't manufacture their hardware products without China.