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China Decides iPhones Pose a National Security Risk
(www.pcmag.com)
This seems like a logical step, both as a political counter move to the US limiting Huawei and TikTok, and as an actual security measure. If the Chinese state can get intel from Huawei devices, surely the US can get intel from iphones. I'm surprised they didn't include Microsoft.
Edit: a word.
Probably too difficult logistically to forbid Microsoft
Well that and MS is like a national champion in China. MS is one of the few companies to follow Chinese law and thus, Bing is the only foreign search engine allowed. MS is what China is hoping every other foreign company will emulate. So yeah, no way China is going to go after MS.
*Edit. Heck, MS is expanding in China even amidst the tech war because they love China so much.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/microsoft-faces-us-scrutiny-as-it-nears-10000-employees-in-china/
If anything USA should be banning MS for national security issues.
Year of the Linux desktop coming as soon as that ban happens
USA: let's ban Huawei
China:
Say no more fam https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
Can't wait to see where Linux phones are in a few years but I have my doubts. Mostly around the app ecosystem (yes I know, just use the web browser for a lot of them), but hopefully the concept stays alive!
You just activated my trap card!
same with Tick Tock
I mean it's not like you'd catch a US government official carrying around a Huawei phone either - fair is fair.
Exactly, if they were allowing US phones before then they were nuts.
Of course they pose a national security risk. Imagine your government officials walking around with devices fully capable of recording bodily activities, location, sound, video, and transmit it to a foreign power, with or without the wearer's knowledge. 🤯
Then add the ability of third party powers to use Israel's NSO spying capabilities for these devices.
The moment I could replace these devices with my own home-grown ones, I would. If anything, it's surprising it took them this long. Maybe they thought they had enough control over Apple.
Imagine your government officials walking around with devices fully capable of recording bodily activities, location, sound, video, and transmit it to a foreign power, with or without the wearer’s knowledge.
They don't have to imagine it. They are actively DOING it with TikTok! Then there's the not so small matter of all the spying that Huwaei was doing using their 5G network equipment.
Here's another one: Have you read the articles about Mozilla reporting what a privacy nightmare today's cars are? China has banned Teslas from being parked in our around their Government Offices and Military bases. Today's cars, especially EVs, are absolutely loaded with high end spy tech. Video recording in optical and non-optical wavelengths, audio recording, gps positioning, radar and ultrasound systems, remote control of those systems, remote data access to those systems...
Since China banned Tesla's cars from being parked in sensitive locations what do you think they are doing with their auto brands such as BYD?
Everyone is spying on each other like mad.
Haven't read Mozilla's report but I'm in the field and am fully aware. What I can tell you is that at least some of the Motown manufacturers are very privacy oriented at least for now.
Huawei is an unmitigated disaster. Security analyses of their equipment from some years ago showed hundreds of security holes on a single piece of infrastructure networking equipment. Countless vulnerable copies of OpenSSL, you name it. Even if they didn't have any backdoors, the equipment was such a Swiss cheese that you could enter it from many of the gaping holes. The only reason we use it is cost, making the moneys for the shareholders.
Buy stock in Huawei, got it.
If the US can do it, so can China. But, of course, both suck (iPhone and Huawei).
They’ll still have no problem manufacturing them, though.
Isn’t apple shifting to production in Inda?
Older or lower cost product lines have been yes. This will likely expedite more movement there.
Why would they have a problem with that?
iPhones pose a risk to the National Security Agencies’ ability to spy on the citizens
Any US technology has NSA backdoors. I'm surprised it took them this long to realize, since they do the same thing.
I'm sure they've known for years, there just wasn't a lot they could do it about and relations with the US were good enough that it wasn't a serious problem...until now.
Nice move, China. Right then, let's start drafting the tit-for-tat regulations right away.
“Made in China”
Looks like Apple will soon go shopping for a new sweatshop
They’ve already been in India for a while, they’ll just expand there while looking for another one as a backup.
They could always use Taiwan. All the benefits of a chinese sweatshop except it's not China.
You should check salaries in Taiwan.
between 23-32k TWD yearly for factory workers (from the couple of sites I saw) which is less than 1k USD
I have no clue what the purchasing power of that is though.
I'm not sure where you got these numbers from but I think you're off by over a magnitude. Taiwan's GDP per capita is over US$30K nominal, and over US$70K PPP. In GDP per capita PPP they're sitting around 13th in the world as of 2023. The minimum wage is over US$800 per month. Trading Economics shows manufacturing average salary of over US$1600 per month. You might have looked at monthly numbers thinking they're yearly. Although even that's low given that the lower bound is lower than minimum wage.
well shit glassdoor does default to monthly instead of yearly. this is their fault and i will get revenge.
Yep. They’ve been using their cash and Cook’s supply chain skills to crush competition and secure sweatshops wherever cheap labor can be found. It’s been going on for years. I think they have seen the tensions building in China and Taiwan and have been making mostly subtle changes for years. Covid was an excuse to ramp that up.
No shit, having domestically sourced technology is a prerequisite to having any semblance of security.
Yes put all their government employees on most likely outdated Android which probably don't have up to date security patches. Brilliant.
Not for long. Now that HarmonyOS 4 is out they're pushing HarmonyOS NEXT which has all of the Android libraries removed.
I would bet dollars to donuts that foreign governments have already exploited HarmonyOS 4.
I wouldn't bet against it but from the CCPs perspective that's still better than iOS & Android where it's a near certainty that the NSA has back doors baked into the OS.
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Apple's recent reductions on their privacy stance are having consequences.
Huh. Who woulda thunk.
They haven’t reduced their privacy stance, as far as I’m aware. In fact, the only public previous reduction was a concession to China over iCloud storage
And if you really want full privacy, storing data in Apple’s cloud storage was never ideal. Apple, like many other cloud storage companies, hands cloud storage data over to authorities if they’re given a warrant.
On-device storage is a different story though. Apple has a no backdoor policy for the iPhone and iOS, which is why they’re constantly getting into fights with law enforcement and government agencies. On device backdoors would offer a massive security vulnerability that would be exploited by bad actors.
China bashing aside how likely is the us engaging in tech espionage of foreign countries? Are there any merit in the statement below? (Serious replies only)
“Measures are believed to be aimed at eliminating perceived national security risks from telecoms devices made by a US company”
China bashing aside how likely is the us engaging in tech espionage of foreign countries?
That's the new way countries are spying on each other. China and the states are both doing it a lot.
It’s been documented already. I guess the next question is if there’s any reason to think it’s stopped.
Update: I guess not. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/us/politics/us-spying-allies.html
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this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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