Apple hobbled a crucial tool of dissent in China before widespread protests

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-hobbled-crucial-tool-dissent-185100767.html

by mensetmanusman • 4 years ago

17 8 4 years ago

finance.yahoo.com

snoot3• 4 years ago

Apple was forced to disable this feature by an authoritarian government.

The same can be said about encrypted iOS backups, and maybe we’ll see forced CSAM scanning return.

Why is anyone expecting a corporation to be an activist and not obey the laws of the countries they operate in?

mensetmanusman3• 4 years ago

The image of Apple employees turning the metaphorical noose tighter around the Chinese is interesting to entertain as it says something about the human condition.

snoot3• 4 years ago

Given that it doesn’t seem to be grounded in any kind of reality, what the image says about the human condition must refer to the minds of those who conjure it up.

raxxorraxor• 4 years ago

If they market themselves as a human rights defenders, which they do, I increase my expectations in that regard and they need a justification.

Problem isn't solved that way either, but at least a bit of honestly and maybe integrity would remain.

MontyCarloHall• 4 years ago

Suppose the wifi radio on a phone or computer is powerful enough to transmit/receive signals up to 100 feet away with a direct line of sight, and 50 feet away through walls. In a dense urban environment like Beijing or Shanghai, I bet a topologically connected mesh network across everyone's phones and computers could become quite large. It would be completely un-censorable.

The network graph wouldn't even always have to be topologically connected; devices jumping between disconnected subgraphs of the network could cache content while attached to one subgraph and dump the cache when in range of another subgraph. This would be impractical for real-time messaging or large media content, but would likely be sufficient for a Twitter-like microblog service.

The main challenge with setting such a system up would be decentralized distribution of the app that would run it. It is impossible to sideload apps on iOS, and tricky enough on other platforms via fully decentralized means (e.g. P2P wifi or Bluetooth connection) that I doubt you could reach a level of saturation for a mesh network to be practical. At best, it could probably function like a relay — the app would detect when you're close to someone else who also has the app and automatically exchange cached content between devices that you each don't yet have.

mensetmanusman3• 4 years ago

This needs to be done for the day we get hit by a bad solar flare. But it never will, as humans are incredibly poor at planning.

Apple hobbled a crucial tool of dissent in China before widespread protests

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