Nothing in this story indicates Apple is selling out Chinese customers, former Facebook employee should re-examine where he worked and tone it down. China insisting Chinese data resides in China is not unusual and I think is going to happen globally eventually, at least China didn’t try the US approach and try to say their warrants are valid no matter where the data resides, even if it is stored in another sovereign nation.
Oh and by the way your iCloud data in the US, or any country is not secure from government warrants, Apple has the key and complies with judicial authorizations all the time, they have the key. How else can they help you if you forgot your password?
From the Chinese perspective maybe they didn’t want US officials mucking through their citizen’s data.
It's important to remember that we don't get to impose our own standards and principles on others. If the Chinese People aren't happy with their government, history shows us that they can and will rise up en masse should things get out of hand there. Most don't really care about having unfettered access to the world. My Chinese friends could care less about "missing Facebook". They have their own equivalents anyway, and feel little restriction on their daily lives. We westerners would find it unbearable, but for them, it's a good kind of normal. Familiar, comfortable, and they enjoy a civil, predictable society...
Apple wants to do business in the most populous country in the world. That country happens to be very different from us culturally. I don't think Apple would agree to "snoop ware" being installed from the factory, but they're not going to push back on blocking VPNs and so on. Those are simply not OK in China... What would YOU do? Walk away from a hundred billion in business, or just accept their national policies?
That is the most condescending, generalising statement about a nation, including a good dose of "some of my best friends are..." that I've ever read. You could argue that Apple just wants the money or that Apple figures it's better to provide some communication tools rather than none but to go on about how Chinese people don't care or need privacy while we westerner do is not only illogical but it's also untrue. Repressive regimes can last decades and the longer they do, the less the population can do anything about them. Even that beacon of democratic light, the US, has only one more party than China. The government can do what they like. Most people are asleep when it comes to mass surveillance, Chinese and western alike.
...so why does it always feel with every 'upgrade' that more Apple data defaults lead to iCloud...?
Should we have the right to be forgotten ? Can that ever actually happen by choice ? Or harmfully if not by choice ie. lost or stolen identity ? In my view Apple has been boiling the frog since the introduction of mac.com and the app store that maintains now not only which apps are downloaded yet even which iOS or mac are using such after iTunes 12.6...
Why does Find My iPhone need to be on vs being turned on when needed, as well as the data wipe feature...?
In an informal count roughly 75% of trade show sales leads surveyed used a 'free' email service - can we be surprised when AI allows any IP or advice provided via such to suddenly be competing with former content or service providers...?
Because 90% of people stick with the defaults, and features like Find my Phone SHOULD be turned on for most people, as it provides a massive and useful benefit compared to the almost non-existent down-sides, stemming from extreme paranoia. Whether you like it or not, cloud features ARE extremely useful for people, and they're turned on because expectations have gone up and this is what people demand these days. You see it as something malicious, but the truth is that these features lead to a better and more useful user experience, the North Star that Apple has always strived for.
Tim Cook deeply believes in customer privacy and Apple supports it everywhere possible, Everyone knows "when in Rome(China?), do as the Romans do". This does not deter Apple's belief in customer privacy which reflects in every products Apple make and sells.
What a pretty statement. Means absolutely nothing. Especially to those behind the bamboo curtain who desperately need and want to have unfettered access. The Chinese feel the same as you about not having random officials rummaging through their messages, email, and photos.
Apple, while very successful in making money hasn't a shred of morality. Simply marketing to whatever group. In the West, they are all about human rights and privacy as defined by them. In the mid east, not so much. In China, they don't mention these things and fold as soon as they are asked.
If it makes you feel better about yourself and your choice to give Apple large dollars, cool. But there is no way that "We follow the law" is an excuse for anything. Ask the accused at the Nuremberg trials.
Nice false equivalency there in your last sentence.
Here’s a better comparison for you. Would you suggest a company making climbing rope pull out of the Chinese market because... the Chinese government, having unfairly convicted a dissident might use rope from that company to hang the dissident? That would be suggesting the rope manufacturer is somehow complicit in the bad acts of the Chinese government. Same thing here with Apple. Each company is creating and selling a tool; how it might actually be used is separate from its intended use. Apple is in no way aiding the Chinese government in spying on its citizens; those actions are the sole providence of the government. Chinese citizens, unlike victims of the holocust, are free to not be subject to the method of spying you feel Apple is complicit in enabling; they can simply chose not to buy an iPhone.
Apple is most definitely assisting the Chinese government. Try getting a straight answer from Apple legal (I’ve tried) on how iCloud encryption works in the US. They will not go on record that it is a zero knowledge system. Neither is Dropbox for that matter. At least Dropbox owns up to the fact that some of their employees can view your data. Apple will just send you a confusing non-answer when asked the question. So I don’t believe for a minute that Apple is protecting Chinese iCloud accounts from the Chinese government.
There is no false equivalency. Apple uses “we follow the law” as an excuse to ignore their own supposed values. When it comes to your rope manufacturer, if the CEO is out there lambasting the Chinese government for hanging dissidents yet makes deals with the government so that his/her rope can continue to be sold, then yes, that CEO is complicit, or a hypocrite at the very least. If he simply doesn’t care and doesn’t talk about it, there’s no issue. See how that works?
Cook is making deals with the Chinese government? Better check your facts.
All very interesting, but actually the situation hasn't actually changed that much since when the data was held in the US. I think the problem is because folk don't really understand the reasoning behind the move, and because we don't actually understand the workings of the Chinese legal system, then they make assumptions that may not be entirely correct; I think this ex-Facebook mouthpiece might be one of those people (the others will be along in a minute).
So the first thing that folk have missed is that Cook and Apple have been asked since the start of the year if the Chinese can dip in and read data, and Cook/Apple has said, since the start of the year, the same thing. The last time they were asked was a few weeks back:
Cook says China’s values have not affected theirs — specifically, that Apple is not handing over data. “The thing in China that some people have confused, is certain countries, and China is one of them, has a requirement that data from local citizens has to be kept in China,” Cook said. “We worked with a Chinese company to provide iCloud, but the keys ... are ours.” Without encryption keys, encrypted data is unreadable.
You can search for any official comment from Cook, and he will say pretty much the same thing: the keys stay with Apple.
So why did the Chinese insist? Well, for one thing, no country really wants their citizens' data stored on foreign servers, because some of those citizens might be holding sensitive information. Secondly, with the data held in the US, it took longer for the Chinese to get access to their citizen's data when a request was made. Now it is is China, they only need to get a court order to force Apple to hand over the information they''re demanding. Shocking? Yes, but guess what? The same rules apply in the US: if Apple receives a legally enforceable request, they will hand over the information. That's the law. The only thing that has really changed is how fast the Chinese can get hold of the data from a legal request.
The third reason is that China has a lot of people, and the government has to find inventive ways of keeping them from starving. Deals such as this make sure that they can cream a lot of extra wealth from foreign companies who need access to their population's pockets.
So whether you believe Apple when they say they still hold the keys to Chinese iCloud user data, or whether you believe that Apple is in cahoots with the Chinese governments to catch dissidents on their behalf, will really come down to your own personal motivations.
"Apple needs to come clean on how iCloud works in China and stop setting damaging precedents for how willing American companies will be to service the internal security desires of the Chinese Communist Party," Stamos said.
Correct. Apple is like the rest of the West, that sacrifices morals on the altar of the big buck.
If Iran or Iraq would roll with tanks over protesting students, next day we’d have sanctions and cruise missiles flying. When China does it, it’s business as usual, with a few minor public statements of condemnation to save face.
When profits are more important than values, you are losing the fight against totalitarianism.
bobolicious said:...so why does it always feel with every 'upgrade' that more Apple data defaults lead to iCloud...?
First you have the corruption of the internet by ISPs: they used the scarcity of IPv4 address space to make private internet infrastructure difficult or expensive to achieve. It would be easy for always on devices like an AppleTV to host a family’s own e-mail, web, WebDAV, federated Jabber, SIP and DNS server; but not with the complications of NAT. Consequently IPv6 rollout is sabotaged and slowed down to the best of their abilities, and where there is IPv6, despite plenty of address space, it’s again not firmly allocated customer address space, but temporary addresses doled out from the ISPs space by means of DHCP. This way ISPs can ensue businesses must pay hefty prices for real internet access, while typical consumer access is crippled (yeah, tech savvy people can bypass it with DynDNS, VPN, etc. but that’s a small minority, so mission accomplished.)
Such infrastructure makes peer to peer syncing and access to data on a computer at home rather difficult, error prone. Now take a company like Apple which wants to provide services for the masses and sees looming in a distance the end of Moore’s Law.
What better way to solve a bunch of problems than by transitioning from a sales to a service business? You see it with Apple’s iPhone upgrade program and monthly payment AppleCare+, iCloud, AppleMusic, etc. Thus Apple can create easy to use solutions while holding people’s data hostage to keep them in a life-long service contract, keeping money flowing long after the hardware upgrade frenzy of the last few decades grinds to a halt as technology slowly matures.
Soon, in addition to Federal, State, and local taxes, you pay what in effect is an ISP tax, Apple tax, Adobe tax, Microsoft tax, etc. Your paycheck is spent before you get paid.
Soon, you won’t be buying furniture, you’re going to rent it. Maybe your couch has a counter, and it’s “pay by seat”, rather than a flat monthly fee, so you may save money, if you rarely entertain...
Tim Cook deeply believes in customer privacy and Apple supports it everywhere possible, Everyone knows "when in Rome(China?), do as the Romans do". This does not deter Apple's belief in customer privacy which reflects in every products Apple make and sells.
What a pretty statement. Means absolutely nothing. Especially to those behind the bamboo curtain who desperately need and want to have unfettered access. The Chinese feel the same as you about not having random officials rummaging through their messages, email, and photos.
Apple, while very successful in making money hasn't a shred of morality. Simply marketing to whatever group. In the West, they are all about human rights and privacy as defined by them. In the mid east, not so much. In China, they don't mention these things and fold as soon as they are asked.
If it makes you feel better about yourself and your choice to give Apple large dollars, cool. But there is no way that "We follow the law" is an excuse for anything. Ask the accused at the Nuremberg trials.
Someone in China who wants those things would have to leave China. Short of a new political revolution there, individually protected rights and freedoms will remain a meaningless pipe dream.
All very interesting, but actually the situation hasn't actually changed that much since when the data was held in the US. I think the problem is because folk don't really understand the reasoning behind the move, and because we don't actually understand the workings of the Chinese legal system, then they make assumptions that may not be entirely correct; I think this ex-Facebook mouthpiece might be one of those people (the others will be along in a minute).
So the first thing that folk have missed is that Cook and Apple have been asked since the start of the year if the Chinese can dip in and read data, and Cook/Apple has said, since the start of the year, the same thing. The last time they were asked was a few weeks back:
Cook says China’s values have not affected theirs — specifically, that Apple is not handing over data. “The thing in China that some people have confused, is certain countries, and China is one of them, has a requirement that data from local citizens has to be kept in China,” Cook said. “We worked with a Chinese company to provide iCloud, but the keys ... are ours.” Without encryption keys, encrypted data is unreadable.
You can search for any official comment from Cook, and he will say pretty much the same thing: the keys stay with Apple.
So why did the Chinese insist? Well, for one thing, no country really wants their citizens' data stored on foreign servers, because some of those citizens might be holding sensitive information. Secondly, with the data held in the US, it took longer for the Chinese to get access to their citizen's data when a request was made. Now it is is China, they only need to get a court order to force Apple to hand over the information they''re demanding. Shocking? Yes, but guess what? The same rules apply in the US: if Apple receives a legally enforceable request, they will hand over the information. That's the law. The only thing that has really changed is how fast the Chinese can get hold of the data from a legal request.
The third reason is that China has a lot of people, and the government has to find inventive ways of keeping them from starving. Deals such as this make sure that they can cream a lot of extra wealth from foreign companies who need access to their population's pockets.
So whether you believe Apple when they say they still hold the keys to Chinese iCloud user data, or whether you believe that Apple is in cahoots with the Chinese governments to catch dissidents on their behalf, will really come down to your own personal motivations.
Mr Cook stumbled around a bit in figuring out how to word the response (watch the interview) but neither he nor Apple say they are the only ones with decryption keys to Chinese iCloud accounts. In fact it would be pretty clear they are no longer in control of iCloud in China if you simply read the TOS. It's iCloud by GCBD now. Apple is a junior partner required to assist with technical support as need be but it is NOT their service to control any longer. GCBD has declared it has the same access to user data as Apple, meaning the keys are shared.
"You understand and agree that AppleANDGCBD will have access to all data that you store on this service, including the right to share, exchange and disclose all user data, including Content, to and between each other under applicable law." https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/icloud/en/gcbd-terms.html
Comments
Oh and by the way your iCloud data in the US, or any country is not secure from government warrants, Apple has the key and complies with judicial authorizations all the time, they have the key. How else can they help you if you forgot your password?
From the Chinese perspective maybe they didn’t want US officials mucking through their citizen’s data.
So the first thing that folk have missed is that Cook and Apple have been asked since the start of the year if the Chinese can dip in and read data, and Cook/Apple has said, since the start of the year, the same thing. The last time they were asked was a few weeks back:
https://mic.com/articles/191685/apple-ceo-tim-cook-says-theyre-not-letting-chinas-government-access-user-data#.QZSxQoGu7
You can search for any official comment from Cook, and he will say pretty much the same thing: the keys stay with Apple.
So why did the Chinese insist? Well, for one thing, no country really wants their citizens' data stored on foreign servers, because some of those citizens might be holding sensitive information. Secondly, with the data held in the US, it took longer for the Chinese to get access to their citizen's data when a request was made. Now it is is China, they only need to get a court order to force Apple to hand over the information they''re demanding. Shocking? Yes, but guess what? The same rules apply in the US: if Apple receives a legally enforceable request, they will hand over the information. That's the law. The only thing that has really changed is how fast the Chinese can get hold of the data from a legal request.
The third reason is that China has a lot of people, and the government has to find inventive ways of keeping them from starving. Deals such as this make sure that they can cream a lot of extra wealth from foreign companies who need access to their population's pockets.
So whether you believe Apple when they say they still hold the keys to Chinese iCloud user data, or whether you believe that Apple is in cahoots with the Chinese governments to catch dissidents on their behalf, will really come down to your own personal motivations.
Correct. Apple is like the rest of the West, that sacrifices morals on the altar of the big buck.
If Iran or Iraq would roll with tanks over protesting students, next day we’d have sanctions and cruise missiles flying.
When China does it, it’s business as usual, with a few minor public statements of condemnation to save face.
When profits are more important than values, you are losing the fight against totalitarianism.
First you have the corruption of the internet by ISPs: they used the scarcity of IPv4 address space to make private internet infrastructure difficult or expensive to achieve.
It would be easy for always on devices like an AppleTV to host a family’s own e-mail, web, WebDAV, federated Jabber, SIP and DNS server; but not with the complications of NAT.
Consequently IPv6 rollout is sabotaged and slowed down to the best of their abilities, and where there is IPv6, despite plenty of address space, it’s again not firmly allocated customer address space, but temporary addresses doled out from the ISPs space by means of DHCP.
This way ISPs can ensue businesses must pay hefty prices for real internet access, while typical consumer access is crippled (yeah, tech savvy people can bypass it with DynDNS, VPN, etc. but that’s a small minority, so mission accomplished.)
Such infrastructure makes peer to peer syncing and access to data on a computer at home rather difficult, error prone. Now take a company like Apple which wants to provide services for the masses and sees looming in a distance the end of Moore’s Law.
What better way to solve a bunch of problems than by transitioning from a sales to a service business? You see it with Apple’s iPhone upgrade program and monthly payment AppleCare+, iCloud, AppleMusic, etc.
Thus Apple can create easy to use solutions while holding people’s data hostage to keep them in a life-long service contract, keeping money flowing long after the hardware upgrade frenzy of the last few decades grinds to a halt as technology slowly matures.
Soon, in addition to Federal, State, and local taxes, you pay what in effect is an ISP tax, Apple tax, Adobe tax, Microsoft tax, etc.
Your paycheck is spent before you get paid.
Soon, you won’t be buying furniture, you’re going to rent it. Maybe your couch has a counter, and it’s “pay by seat”, rather than a flat monthly fee, so you may save money, if you rarely entertain...
"You understand and agree that Apple AND GCBD will have access to all data that you store on this service, including the right to share, exchange and disclose all user data, including Content, to and between each other under applicable law."
https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/icloud/en/gcbd-terms.html