Apple products subject of secretive Chinese cybersecurity audits, report says
A Chinese government committee is closely examining encryption and data storage technology products imported by foreign corporations, including Apple, in a bid to protect against national security threats, according to a report on Monday.
Citing people familiar with the matter, The New York Times said the shadowy task force is tied to the Cyberspace Administration of China, a group assigned to police internet content within the country. When asked about the operation, the administration said past inspections did not target specific countries or products, suggesting the initiative casts a wide net.
According to sources, Apple is one of multiple major technology importers that has been reviewed in the past few months, most of whom deal in encryption tech and data storage products. The audits reportedly require company employees, or even executives, to answer a series of questions in person, though it is not clear if Apple has been subjected to such scrutiny.
The report suggests U.S. government officials and consumer tech companies are concerned that the Chinese reviews might be more than a claimed national security measure. Specifically, there are worries that the country, notorious for stealing industrial secrets, is using the program to facilitate what amounts to state-sanctioned corporate espionage. There is no evidence pointing to such activities, but a lack of transparency on the part of the Cyberspace Administration is not helping matters.
China is a key market for Apple, which is looking to spur iPhone sales growth beyond established smartphone markets. While China has never been the most easily navigable of international markets, Apple recently hit a bit of a rough patch with the country's regulators. In April, for example, forced Apple to shutter its iTunes Movies and iBooks Stores. Apple also revealed Chinese agencies made two separate requests for source code access in as many years, both of which were denied.
Despite setbacks, Apple is aggressively developing its assets in the country. CEO Tim Cook is currently in Beijing on the heels of announcing a massive $1 billion investment in Chinese Uber competitor Didi Chuxing. Whether or not Cook plans to meet with government officials on his trip, as per a rumor floated last week, is unknown.
Citing people familiar with the matter, The New York Times said the shadowy task force is tied to the Cyberspace Administration of China, a group assigned to police internet content within the country. When asked about the operation, the administration said past inspections did not target specific countries or products, suggesting the initiative casts a wide net.
According to sources, Apple is one of multiple major technology importers that has been reviewed in the past few months, most of whom deal in encryption tech and data storage products. The audits reportedly require company employees, or even executives, to answer a series of questions in person, though it is not clear if Apple has been subjected to such scrutiny.
The report suggests U.S. government officials and consumer tech companies are concerned that the Chinese reviews might be more than a claimed national security measure. Specifically, there are worries that the country, notorious for stealing industrial secrets, is using the program to facilitate what amounts to state-sanctioned corporate espionage. There is no evidence pointing to such activities, but a lack of transparency on the part of the Cyberspace Administration is not helping matters.
China is a key market for Apple, which is looking to spur iPhone sales growth beyond established smartphone markets. While China has never been the most easily navigable of international markets, Apple recently hit a bit of a rough patch with the country's regulators. In April, for example, forced Apple to shutter its iTunes Movies and iBooks Stores. Apple also revealed Chinese agencies made two separate requests for source code access in as many years, both of which were denied.
Despite setbacks, Apple is aggressively developing its assets in the country. CEO Tim Cook is currently in Beijing on the heels of announcing a massive $1 billion investment in Chinese Uber competitor Didi Chuxing. Whether or not Cook plans to meet with government officials on his trip, as per a rumor floated last week, is unknown.
Comments
Right... You do you know the fucking shit he's said for 30 years, including hundreds of interviews and appearances on camera, follows him hmmm....
He's got 30 years of incompetence (putting his father's money into bonds would have been a better investment), misogyny, racism and lies behind him
According to politifact (Pulitzer winning) 95% of what he says are mostly lies or outright lies, compared to 3% for Clinton!! That guy lies like he breathes.
He's changed position on the same subject many dozens of times... Within days. So, which one of those X positions should people trust?
So, how the frack would anyone really know his turd positions; since it's either lies or walkbacks?
How do you even walkback not knowing a white supremacist when you've discussed him on record a few years back!
When he does "explain" things like his, default on US debt to negotiate with creditor, idiocy, it demonstrates his total ignorance of the basics of economy.
Oh, and were are those OBAMA birther docs this POS talked about for 3 months a few years back?
That guy is textbook case of a narcissist who can be baited by the crowd into any fracking position on earth.
He barely can put 5 words in a row with talking about himself in the third person as "great".
PS: Populist don't walk back their positions and lie that much; they get elected because they said those populist things. The result is nearly 100% eventual disaster.
Most "news" in this massively competitive zero attention span world are there more to get your attention
and cater to your bias than to inform you. (Fox News being a good representative of this trend in the TV word)
Why? Because the person who gets attention survives while the other sources die off.
This kind of evolutionary pressure has almost completely destroyed the "source of record" of old days.
Routinely creating an inflammatory title is part of modern journalism that marks
a comeback of the yellow journalism of the late 19th century and 20th century.
It's not propaganda (because it's not centralized), but it is probably not truth either.
Finding what's true or not has never been harder for the average uncritical news reader.
PS : Even mostly reliable sources like New York Times sometimes engage in this kind of things these days (though a lot less often than other sources)
We can have the back door, you can trust us but not those nasty foreigners!!!!