And this is why as a European I think that we should take a long and hard look at our dependency of US technology. Its becoming more and more clear that US is not a stable actor.

I think it would be prudent for us to force alternatives to apple and google app stores (and other software) that are housed and owned in Europe. I have no confidence that US intelligence is not accessing our data and setting up profiles on Europeans that could be used for nefarious purposes.

I think a dependence upon US technology should be evaluated separately from US services/companies/staff.

There’s nothing wrong with US tech. There is a lot wrong with US persons, subject to capricious US military/law/spying, having real-time control over your device or the services it needs to run.

You can say the same about Chinese tech. Nothing wrong with the device, everything wrong with allowing a government far away real-time remote access/power.

It’s time to peel away software from services once again.

If we break off the control of software distribution, and disable automatic remote updates (which is manufacturer backform/RCE), hardware in the general case can become reasonably safe again.

This is the likely result of what Trump is doing. Every major country/bloc will now look to create their own commercial internet/social network, etc. And the US will have no basis to complain because it paved the way (the Chinese did it first, but China doesn’t have the clout to lead other countries. The US does)

Setting aside how much of a step back this is from the global utopian internet I suspect the vast majority of posters on HN believed in even a few years ago, the economic impact is gonna be the greatest on the US, which is the biggest beneficiary of a global internet.

If every bloc builds its own siloed internet, its their companies that will benefit at the expense of American companies which currently dominate the entire planet.

On the bright side banning Chinese apps doesn't have an impact on the intentional users. By that I mean is that there seems to be a lot more app stores than just Play Store, and it's even common for Chinese apps to offer an apk download off their website. People who are unknowingly using Chinese developed apps are probably going to be the most affected because they're not familiar with side-loading applications and are just going to switch to their nation's version of the application which is probably the intention. It is kinda fair because as soon as a major country starts to practice protectionism then the rest have to or else they'll get unfairly exploited.

That isn't my impression of how the web works. The second your bits leave your LAN, they begin traveling over infrastructure that is owned and operated by another private entity. They could rescind your access at any time, especially if the government orders it so.

Eh, TikTok could set up some proxies on non-China non-US controlled shared infrastructure, and with modern https the US network carriers wouldn't be able to tell if the traffic was to them or someone else. The degree in invasiveness needed to enforce this policy via ISPs (prohibiting effective encryption) would probably end up violating the first amendment.

Two points:

1. TLS is not the impenetrable black box it is made out to be. Every year there are about three papers published at the top tier computer security conferences about identifying applications within TLS. Check out the NDSS proceedings.

2. The EO prohibits conspiracies to evade the ban. This means anyone caught knowingly helping to evade the prohibitions would be subject to legal penalties.

1. Yes - but a law requiring US carries to perform cutting edge research to detect who you're talking to is... unlikely. It's also much more likely to violate the constitution than a law prohibiting trade.

2. Sure, but the entities involved in evading the ban wouldn't be US entities.

What if the app publishers stop taking payments and ads from the US, in that case there may not be no longer cash transactions, so will the restrictions apply?.

It's not about money, it's about the contract itself. US companies are legally (criminally) prohibited from legally (contract/civil) engaging with a whole designated list of people/entities (the SDN list), as well as an entire list of countries (DPRK, Cuba, et c).

I imagine such bans will carry similar force.

> Apple and Google have control over which apps are permitted on your device

Has Google ever unilaterally removed sideloaded apps from Android?

> everyone should be up in arms about it

I feel the same way! I can’t understand why there aren’t bipartisan calls for Trump to knock it off. Is it that most people aren’t fully comprehending what’s going on, or are those of us upset about this being dramatic?

And how would we prevent the Chinese from simply subverting our democracy?

Teach people to think for themselves and ignore the media and social media?