* iMessage still uses end-to-end encryption for messages in China.

* iPhones sold in China still utilize Secure Enclave for privacy/encryption.

* Aggregate data still uses differential privacy in China.

The government made a request of them which did not compromise their user's security, and they obliged.

Compare that to when the US government requested backdoor access pass Secure Enclave and they absolutely denied that request.

I agree that it's unfortunate for Chinese users that their government is placing additional limits on the available software in that ecosystem (as well as other ecosystems, I'm sure). But so long as the government is not asking Apple to compromise its users privacy I don't see any strong relation to corroborate the idea: "privacy matters, unless it's in your fastest-growing market".

The Verge's recent technology survey showed that at least its audience believes that Google and Amazon are better protectors of personal privacy than Apple, so their strong stance on encryption and privacy is not yet completely effective in differentiating them from competitors. Hopefully articles like this will enhance the perceived value of privacy, because we need both private and public entities to agree on privacy for it to be effective.

That is true, but in the US a big problem is that part of the government is breaking the law with its surveillance. In that situation technology can help quite a bit. The constitution states that the government needs a warrant to search ones private papers. Encryption works great against illegal government snooping. When the intelligence agencies and Congress starts talking about requiring back doors, like the Clipper Chip or the Apple request, society can hear about it and push to keep the back doors out. Worked with the Clipper Chip at least.

For now. I argue that there will be a technology corporation more powerful than the reach of any nation-state within 50 years.

I’m not wishing for any particular outcome, but considering past convergences and future potential, I’m simply saying it’s likely that some kind of smart contracts operating on distributed computing platforms will eventually become standard processes for law enforcement once computation is more ubiquitous.

Do you think Apple would refuse to swap out the public keys if ordered to by the government? Have you ever wondered why iMessage doesn't allow out-of-band key verification?

I still think there is a market driver (China TAM) that motivates the behavior as much as anything here. I guess we'll see if the slope is slippery or not.

It's one of those things we choose not to talk about because it's very uncomfortable to see where our loyalties actually lie.

We have stay continuously aware that this is probably a temporary situation and laying all your eggs in one basket is a bad idea. When governments of larger economies start forcing their hands with bans, etc., they will follow the money.

In hindsight, I think the popularity of macOS among UNIX fans has been detrimental to the development of open source software and open ecosystems that can provide more long-term privacy, by sucking a lot of manpower/energy out of the Linux/BSD ecosystem. (I am also guilty as charged.)

Thanks to the rise of macOS windows has become a second class citizen for many development tools.

The non-gui layer of macOS and Linux can for the most part easily be shared. It means open source developers of non-gui tools have a much bigger usergroup and potential contributors.

How about when Apple removed apps from developers based in Iran because of US sanctions?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/technology/apple-iran.htm...

Which is what Google pretty much did:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_China#Ending_of_self-ce...

So in the end, Chinese people wouldn't just lose 3rd party VPNs (the first party ones are AFAIK still present in iOS), they would lose all the security features.

Is that still worth the moral stance?

That's exactly what Google did:

https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-chin...

As far as I’m aware, from a privacy perspective, Google never had moral problems doing business in China. They’re just using it as a convenient excuse that makes them look good.

In other words, government censorship and attempts by the government to undermine user privacy were ultimately what led to the move out of China. The straw does appear to have been the hack, but the ultimate goal of the hack appeared to be to steal user data.

>Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

Your tone of voice seems to indicate you don't think that's actually an option.

Cook would immediately be fired by the board. They’d put someone new in, and that someone new would comply with China’s demand.

And no one would be better off. As Cook says at least Apple does the best they can and holds the line on other things like encrypting iMessage.

Somehow, that didn't happen when Google effectively withdrew from China.

If Apple were to pull out, even if the board didn’t fire Cook for that... would they be able to make phones? Is ANYWHERE on Earth capable of that other than China? I suppose you could buy all the parts from China and have them shipped somewhere else to be assembled but what would that do to the cost of the devices?

Would anyone buy an iPhone that starts at $1500 or $2000?

Probably, yeah. It doesn't seem like people mind paying $1000. It would just make it even more of a status symbol.

Are iPhones a Veblen good?

That would indeed take courage and principles on Cook's part. If the board had courage & principles they wouldn't fire him. And if they did — they'd demonstrate what sort of men they are.

> And no one would be better off.

Tim Cook would have his self-respect.

> Tim Cook would have his self-respect.

I agree. And I hope he’d hold the line.

But I think the people of China would be worse off. Stockholders would be worse off. Apple would be worse off, which means as an American buying heir products it might make them slightly worse for me.

let’s not forget, in China the government controls the entire internet. If Apple didn’t want to take down the listing, they could easily pull down the entire AppStore (if not all Apple services) with one phone call, just as they did with facebook.

I am not bombarded with ads when I use iMessage on my Mac like I am when I use Skype on my Windows PC.

Apple has built in support for third party ad blockers. Google would never develop a system to allow ad blockers in Chrome for Android.