Apple complied.
https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/mobile-tabs/app...
I just feel so lost and powerless these days, I don't know how much longer I can go on when every piece of technology I own is working against me - tools designed to serve a ruling class instead of the consumer. I don't like it one bit.
That's not at all what the lefty geeks learned by reading Chomsky or what the righty geeks learned by reading Heinlein.
All along these people thought algorithms and protocols (e.g. bitcoin and TCP/IP) would somehow be a powerful force that would cause governments to fall on their knees and let people evade government control. After all, it's distributed! You can't stop it!
Well, that was all very foolish, because they mistook government uninterest in something for the equivalent of government being powerless to control it, and when governments did start taking an interest in something, it turns out that protocols and algorithms are no defense against the realities of political power. It is to the field of politics, and not the field of technology, that one must turn in order to increase collective freedoms. Individual freedom can be increased by obtaining money or making lots of friends, but collective freedom cannot be increased this way, it can only be increased by organizing and influencing government.
Remember the people who, after the invention of the phone, insisted that it was a nice trick but probably only useful for a few businessmen with dictation needs?
Yeah, they all had to change their tone at some point, under the shame of having been wrong for so long.
But that's the underlying problem here. Apple isn't a standardized protocol or a distributed system. It's a monolithic chokepoint.
You can't do this with a PC. Dell and HP don't retain the ability to push software to hardware they don't own after they've already sold it and against the will of the person who does own it.
People pointed out that this would happen. Now it's happening. Qué sorpresa.
Hell, Dell has shipped more than one bug that allowed attackers administrator-level access or worse, I wouldn't put it past them to come up with some kind of asinine feature that not only lets them push new software/drivers/whatever to the machine, but lets attackers do so as well.
If they did that, people would wipe their device and not reinstall the Dell software. Many people do this already as soon as they buy the device.
The internet and its design and associated protocols were designed to work around external forces - a nuclear attack or natural disaster. It was never designed to be government-proof. People who thought that would be the case were being idealistic and naive.
If you want real change in the world, as you said, you have to affect the political world, which is an option available to any citizen or corporation who can spend millions on lobbyists.
Not sure everyone has gotten the memo yet.
Convenience and fashion tend to trump security and principles for most people. (Oftentimes, I'm one of those people as well, though I try not to be. It's exhausting to be an activist 100% of the time. But let's keep at it!)
For additional fun, strike a deal with the #2 non government owned carrier in whichever country you do this to. Offer the iPhone at a special rate for a few months. They would kill the government telco while selling record numbers of phones with free publicity. And at the same time scare any other government into not trying this kind of stunt with Apple ever again.
Then there's China; 17% of Apple's global revenue, $43.7bn. I don't think shareholders would much appreciate that.
> the public in India would either put pressure on their government or buy iPhones via import websites
The iPhone had 2.97% market share in India in April 2021, down from a high of 3.54% in June 2020. I don't think the people who wanted to buy iPhones but couldn't would be able toput any significant amount of political pressure on politicians.
Rich people would just import them from somewhere else like they always have before, and everyone else would switch to some available Android phone that had the modifications that the government wanted.
This made me think of the Butlerian Jihad in Dune:
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
I'd say the typical remedy that societies have adopted for these sorts of things is legislation, though regulatory capture[1] is an issue that blocks the way.
This makes me very sad.
Correct me if I'm wrong but this feature needs an app install from the app store.
IMHO this is great, I wish more countries would enable this feature. Something like 95% of my phone calls are spam, to the point where I just don't answer the phone anymore unless they're in my contacts list. Users being able to actually report them as spam might actually result in this BS finally stopping.
It's a feature that's could be done by anyone using sms anyway.
I guess apple had to add an easy way
When the hell did it become Apple’s job to do this? Apple is not a branch of law enforcement. The government needs warrants for stuff like this. We are merging corporate and government interests here. Repeat after me, Apple is not supposed to be a branch of law enforcement.
It also says a lot about us, that we are beholden to a product. We have to ditch these products.
Apple provided a pathway, however unintentionally, to greater power. And those in power used their existing authority to gather even more for themselves, as they always do.
Like drops flow into streams into rivers into oceans, power aggregates at the top until regime change spills it back to the ground.
Why doesn't the US govt follow India's govt? I've read that Americans can receive up to 4 unsolicited calls a day.
EU, China, Iran, US: everyone gets to spy on their own children and forbid whatever they want.
On the flip side, though, at least Apple will have given us a canary. And that's why I don't think Apple will be asked to add these hashes: if the governments don't want their citizens to know what's being scanned server side, pushing the equivalent data to clients would tip their hand. They might just write Apple off as a loss and rely on Google, Facebook, etc.
It would be trivial to have the same payload on each device, and extract different answers using the matching server side db which varies by country.
Perhaps not trivial, but just short.
I honestly don't think Apple wants to deal with any of that crap and that they would rather silently can the system and do exactly what everybody else does than place themselves in the line of fire when their own unique trademark system is being abused.
Suffice to say, unless you provide proof, I am reasonably confident there’s no way to verify the hash db doesn’t contain extra hashes other than the CSAM hashes provided by the US government. But I’ve been wrong many times before.
If what you mean by blinded is that you don't know what the source image is for the hash, that's true. Otherwise Apple would just be putting a database of child porn on everyone's phones. You gotta find some kind of balance here.
What do you mean you can't verify it doesn't contain extra hashes? Meaning that Apple will say here are the hashes in your phone, but secretly will have extra hashes they're not telling you about? Not only is this the kind of thing that security researchers will quickly find, you're assuming a very sinister set of features from Apple that they'll only tell you half the story. If that were the case, then why offer the hashes at all? It's an extremely cynical take.
The reality is all of the complaints about this system went from this specific implementation, and then as details get revealed, it's now all about the future hypothetical situations. I'm personally concerned about future regulations, but those regulations could/would exist independently of this specific system. Further, Dropbox, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, etc all have user data unencrypted on their servers and are also just as vulnerable to said legislation. If the argument is this is searching your device, well the current implementation is its only searching what would be uploaded to a server instead. If you suggest that could change to anything on your device due to legislation, wouldn't that happen anyway? And then what is Google going to do... not follow the same laws? Both companies would have to implement new architectures and systems for complying.
I'm generally concerned about the future of privacy, but I think people (including myself initially) have gone too far in losing their minds.
At no point is anyone besides Apple able to view any NeuralHash hashes from the CSAM database. You can verify the database is the same on all iPhones, but you are not able to look at any of the hashes.
Is the issue that you want to take a given photo that you believe the CCP or whomever is scanning for, compute a NeuralHash, and then see if that's in the db? Or are you wanting to see if your db is different from other phone's db's? Because I think the later is the one that most people are concerned about.
You'd have to switch to a dumb phone. Assuming you can find one that works on contemporary networks.
didn't they already say the DB would be nation dependent?
> • Database update transparency: it must not be possible to surreptitiously change the encrypted CSAM database that’s used by the process.
> • Database and software universality: it must not be possible to target specific accounts with a different encrypted CSAM database, or with different software performing the blinded matching.
I mean, you can argue that Apple's safeguards are insufficient etc., but at least acknowledge that Apple has thought about this, outlined some solutions, and considers it a manageable threat.
ETA:
> Since no remote updates of the database are possible, and since Apple distributes the same signed operating system image to all users worldwide, it is not possible – inadvertently or through coercion – for Apple to provide targeted users with a different CSAM database. This meets our database update transparency and database universality requirements.
> Apple will publish a Knowledge Base article containing a root hash of the encrypted CSAM hash database included with each version of every Apple operating system that supports the feature. Additionally, users will be able to inspect the root hash of the encrypted database present on their device, and compare it to the expected root hash in the Knowledge Base article. That the calculation of the root hash shown to the user in Settings is accurate is subject to code inspection by security researchers like all other iOS device-side security claims.
> This approach enables third-party technical audits: an auditor can confirm that for any given root hash of the encrypted CSAM database in the Knowledge Base article or on a device, the database was generated only from an intersection of hashes from participating child safety organizations, with no additions, removals, or changes. Facilitating the audit does not require the child safety organization to provide any sensitive information like raw hashes or the source images used to generate the hashes – they must provide only a non-sensitive attestation of the full database that they sent to Apple.
[1] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Security_Threat_Model...
Apple will cave. They've demonstrated the technology works. The CCP is paying attention. Look for this feature to be mandated across all phones soon. Pandora's box has been opened.
[0]: https://xkcd.com/538/ (this link comes up with terrifying frequency on HN)
If we lived in a world where the people who make these kind of decisions for companies were actually accountable in this way, life might be better in a lot of different ways. But sadly we do not.
I thought countries often have under the table agreements with one another to explicitly spy on each others citizens, since its illegal for the country to spy on its own citizens. It's illegal for the other country too, but it's a lot easier to turn a blind eye to it.
These "everyone is doing it" statements are nonsense. Not everything is doing it.
The USA is probably doing it for them.
NSA tapped German Chancellery for decades, WikiLeaks claims
NSA spying row: Denmark accused of helping US spy on European officials
US caught spying on EU ‘allies’ AGAIN…not like the Europeans will do anything about it
Great (depressing) Twitter account: Is EU Concerned? @ISEUConcerned Very, deeply, strongly, seriously, gravely, extremely, unprecedentedly
This may have shifted over time as China, Russia, NK, Iran increase their attacks, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that the EU is also hacking the US without repercussions.
As much as Apple wants access to the Chinese market, it would (presumably) draw a line at some point where it would (presumably) have to choose between that market and the US market, if only because the latter is both its legal domicile and the source of most of its talent.
Version A: CCP wants to exploit the hash database, there are lots of ways to do that, bullying Apple is one, any other way gives Apple a "we are looking into it" excuse. "We must comply with local laws, but we will not change our software bla bla."
Version B: CCP wants to exploit iOS, only way to do it is to bully Apple, this forces Apple's hand and very possibly Apple moves production (not just sales) out of China because they no longer trust they will be offered "plausible deniability."
I'm sure there are lots of reasons for that absurd cash reserve, but my best guess is it's to cover the eventuality of B. above; Apple talking about that publicly would be tricky.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/apple-q3-cash-hoard-heres-ho...
As a matter of fact, I am not sure that would be possible: It might well be that no other country has the capacity (machines and labour) to churn out that many iPhones. Would be interesting to hear if anyone has insight on that. (Tim Cook presumably knows...)
I admit it's total speculation, but I think the massive cash reserves are for that: to weather a disruption in production facilities and move production to a more US-friendly location.
If they add some new hashes I presume that would be harder to spot and isn’t going to be advertised
A few bytes changed in a binary blob that would enable a backdoor would be almost impossible to detect.
Nobody really knows what the blobs do. They likely have paved the way for Stingrays and other devices.
If Apple really wanted to they could secure the iPhone. Just offer a 2x higher bug bounty than any government and things like stingray would not work.
Although I think recent iphone designs don’t give the modem DMA so it’s still better than Android but I wouldn’t consider it secure.
This policy really needs to be compared to the status quo (unencrypted on cloud image scanning). When you compare in transit client side hash checks that allow for on cloud encryption and only occur when using the cloud it's hard to see an argument against it that makes sense given the current setup.
The abuse risk is no higher than the status quo and enabling encryption is a net win.
[1] I'm stealing the expression from this excellent article: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060508-22/?p=31...
And maybe even identify avenues for sharing that they haven't already identified and monitored/controlled (e.g. some encrypted chat app they haven't blocked yet).
Can you give some examples of this on the iPhone?
Also, it seems like on the spying front [1] (at least publicly, with Apple), they've preferred more "backdoor" ways to get access over more overt ones, so this scanning feature might encourage asks that they wouldn't have otherwise made.
[1] this contrasts with the censorship front, where they've been very overt
Don't like it? Don't sell phones. Apple will cave.
Note that you don't even have to arrest everyone. The fear is enough to prevent thoughtcrime.
In both cases people are stretching to come up with hypothetical scenarios about how these systems could be abused by a government ("they could force Apple to insert non-CSAM hashes into their database" or "they could force Google to insert a backdoor into your app") while completely ignoring the elephant in the room: if a government wanted to do these things, they already have the power to do so.
If your concern is that a government might force Apple or Google to do X or pull product sales in their country, whether Apple performs on-device CSAM scanning vs scanning it on their servers, or whether Google signs your app vs you signing it doesn't materially change anything about that concern.
The outrage around this particular situation is even more confusing to me because you can opt out entirely by disabling iCloud Photos, and if you were already using iCloud Photos then the scanning was already happening on Apple's servers anyway, so the only actual change is that the scan now occurs before instead of after the upload.
Uh...this already happened. [0][1]
[0] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/17/apple-security-compromi...
"ostensibly" is the key word there. If the datacenter is physically located in China, then there's a CCP official on the board of the company that controls it.
Because Apple has already built that functionality, and it exists? What alternative dragnet currently exists to identify iOS users who possess certain images? This would be code reuse.
The way it would work is the government in question would submit legitimate CSAM but modified to produce a collision with a government target image. Looking at the raw image (or a derivative) a reviewer at Apple or ICMEC would see a CSAM image. The algorithm would see the anti-government image. So Apple scans Chinese (or whoever) citizens libraries, finds "CSAM" and reports them to ICMEC which then reports them to the government in question.
Every repressive government and some notionally liberal governments will eventually do this. It likely is already happening with existing PhotoDNA systems. The difference is that's being used by explicit sharing services where Apple's new system will search for any photo in a user's library regardless of it being "shared" explicitly.
If Apple finds that a particular hash is notorious for false positives, they can reject it / ask for a better one. And they’re not scanning your library; it’s a filter on upload to iCloud. The FUD surrounding this is getting ridiculous.
We’re talking about a company that makes phones and computers, and sells music and tv shows via the internet. Does that matter at all?
How about this. All car manufacturers must now wirelessly transmit when the driver of the car is speeding immediately. How about that?
Let’s just go all out and embed law enforcement into all private companies.
This is fascism, the merging of corporations and the government.
I believe Apple's intention is to accept hashes from all governments, not just one US organization. One of their ineffectual concessions to the criticism was to require two governments provide the same hash before they'd start using it.
VOGON GUARD: I’ll mention what you said to my aunt.
[Airlock door closes and locks]
FORD: Potentially bright lad, I thought.
ARTHUR: We’re trapped now, aren’t we?
FORD: Er… Yes, we’re trapped.
ARTHUR: Well didn’t you think of anything?
FORD: Oh Yes.
ARTHUR: Yes?
FORD: But, unfortunately, it rather involved being on the other side of the airtight hatchway they’ve just sealed behind us.
If Apple could stand up to them before this system, why can't they stand up to them with this system?
Now? Well now it's real simple. It will even conveniently not expose the actual images it's checking for. Apple now has significantly less ability to rationally reject the request based on the effort and difficulty of the matter.
Even Apple's own reasons to reject the request have decreased. It would have legitimately cost them more to fulfill this request before, even if China did want to play hardball. Now, they have greater incentive to go along with it.
In my mind there are two possible ways to view this.
We could trust Apple last month and we can trust them today.
We couldn't trust Apple last month and we can't trust them today.
I don't understand the mindset that we could trust Apple last month and we can't trust them today.
But isn't that exactly why this is such a big deal? It sets a precedent that it's ok that devices are scanning your local device for digital contraband. Sure, right now it's only for photos that are going to be uploaded to iCloud anyway. But how long before it scans everything, and there's no way to opt out?
I don't see this as so much a question of apple's trustworthiness, I see it as a major milestone in the losing battle for digital privacy. I don't think it will be long before these systems go from "protecting children from abuse" total government surveillance, and it's particularly egregious that it's being done by apple, given their previous "commitment to privacy".
Do we think this is detectable? If yes, then why worry about it if we will know when this switch is made? If not, why did we trust Apple that this wasn't happening already?
That is the primary thing I don't understand, this fear rests on an assumption that Apple is a combination of both honest and corrupted. If they are honest, we have no reason to distrust what they are saying about how this system functions or will function in the future. If they were corrupted, why tell us about this at all?
>If not, why did we trust Apple that this wasn't happening already?
I do not trust Apple. I don't really trust any major tech company, because they put profit first, and everything else comes second. I believe that a company as large as apple is already colluding with government(s) to surveil people, because if a money-making organization is offered a government contract that involves handing over already collected data, and it was kept secret by everyone involved, why would they refuse? I know that's very cynical, but I can't see it any other way.
But that's beside the point, which is that what apple is doing is paving the way for normalization of mass government surveillance on devices that we're supposed to own.
>If they were corrupted, why tell us about this at all?
So that we can all get used to it, and not make a big fuss when google announces android will do the same thing. It's much easier to do things without needing to keep them a secret. This is in no way only about apple, they're just breaking the ice so to speak.
Then you should have never been using a closed system like Apple in which they had control over every aspect of it. That is my fundamental point. I'm not saying you should trust Apple. I am saying this shouldn't have changed your opinion on Apple.
>So that we can all get used to it, and not make a big fuss when google announces android will do the same thing. It's much easier to do things without needing to keep them a secret. This is in no way only about apple, they're just breaking the ice so to speak.
I just need more evidence before I believe a global conspiracy that requires the coordination between both adversarial governments and direct business competitors.
In this instance the specific question is "Do I trust Apple to be honest about when they scan our files?". I don't know why this news would change the answer to that question.
Did we do this already? If not, why did we assume this didn't exist previously?
>Is the inevitable Samsung version of this system going to be as privacy-preserving?
I don't see how this is Apple's fault. Be angry at Samsung for their system. I don't blame Snap if I have a problem with Instagram Stories.
>How are we sure the hash list isn't tainted?
How did we know the hash list wasn't tainted when doing this comparison on Apple's servers?
>All of these problems are solved by one principle: Don't put the backdoor code in the OS to begin with.
Apple controls the hardware, software, and cloud services. The backdoor didn't need to exist in the OS for there to be a backdoor.
It's amazing that Apple is still thinking about moving this idea forward, but they must think they are untouchable and can do what they want.
And it adds insult to injury that two very different images can generate the same NeuralHash value.
That's the point. Yesterday someone posted a fantastic TSA metaphor where they are doing the same scans and patdowns but with agents permanently stationed in the privacy of your home where they pinkie promise it will only be before a trip to the airport and only checking the bags you will be flying with.
You know food poisoning is dangerous and you'll be safer with a food taster to make sure nothing you eat is spoiled. I'll just help myself to your domicile and eat your food to make sure it's all safe. I already made a copy of your keys to let myself in. It's for your own good.
If Apple can be cowed by China into adding fake CSAM hashes by threat of banning iPhone sales, they could be cowed to surveil Chinese citizens in the search for subversive material. It's no skin off China's back if it's harder for Apple -- they'll either make the demand or they won't. This changes basically nothing.
It's kinda true, but ignores how humans really work. Apple will be pushed around to a degree, but there will be limits. The harder the ask now the less China can ask later. And the more Apple can protest about the difficulty and impossibility and other consequences they will face, the more likely China is to back off.
Both sides want to have their cake and eat it too, and will compromise to make it basically work. But if China makes demands so excessive they get Apple to cut ties, China loses. Apple has the money, demand, customer loyalty, and clout to make things real uncomfortable. Apple would have to pay a hefty price, but if any company can do it... it's them.
So I don't think it's fair to say that no matter what China will just demand whatever whims strike it each day and everybody will play ball or gtfo. That just isn't how shit works.
The direct job losses are one obvious problem for the CCP but a company like Apple saying "We're moving production to Taiwan/Vietnam/US because of security risks in China" would be catastrophic for the (tech) manufacturing industry as a whole in China. No sane Western based CEO will want to be seen taking that security gamble.
Do I think Apple would do that and forgo the massive Chinese smartphone market? That's another story.
> If the CCP says "put these hashes in your database or we will halt all iPhone sales in China", what do you think Apple is going to do? Is anyone so naive that they believe the CCP wouldn't deliver such an ultimatum? Apple's position seems to completely ignore recent Chinese history.
Apple policy << Local laws and regulations. It's very hard to believe their policy is anything less than a deliberate PR smokescreen meant to disarm critics, because it has so many holes.
Edit: just thought of another way Apple's policy could be easily circumvented and therefore cannot be regarded as a serious proposal: get two countries to collaborate to add politically sensitive hashes to the list (e.g. China and North Korea, or China and Cambodia). That doesn't even require Apple to be coerced.
Separately, the US has even greater pressure on Apple in the case they want to unilaterally add database images, considering they have a actual chance and means to jail (and run through the legal ringer) whomever tells them ‘no’. And that’s just the overt pressure available; I think this is a more likely potential for trust violation here, even if both could come to pass.
I think that the real risk is, "put these hashes in your database or we will stop all iPhone related manufacturing in China".
?
[1]: https://tidbits.com/2021/08/13/new-csam-detection-details-em...
Or maybe China already said "put in this CSAM check or you can't make or sell phones in China".
Since Apple's position is contrary to their previous privacy policy and doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, it's quite possible extortion already happened (and not necessarily by China).
Hey Apple, we can either turn up the anti-trust heat by a lot, or we can turn it down, which is it going to be? Except it would be couched in intellectually dishonest language meant to preserve a veneer that the US Government isn't a violent, quasi-psychotic bully ready to bash your face in if you don't do what they're asking.
The interactions with intelligence about the new program would begin after they acquiesce to going along.
It's too easy. There's an extraordinary amount of wilful naivety in the US about the nature of the government and its frequent power abuses (what it's willing to do), despite the rather comically massive demonstration of said abuses spanning the entire post WW2 era. Every time it happens the wilfully naive crowd feigns surprise.
Then you could provide a proof that an image which is the same as the "censored", one except for the masked part, has the perceptual hash specified. I don't know if this is technically feasible (but I'd be happy for someone knowledgeable to opine). I also admit that there are secondary concerns, like the possibility of recognising the background image, and this being used by someone to identify the location, or tipping off a criminal.
Probably it would only be appropriate to do this in the case of someone being accused, and maybe then in a way where they couldn't relay the information, since apparently they don't want to make the hash database public.
Also, for the record, I'm spitballing here about infosec. This isn't me volunteering to draw black boxes or be called by anyone's defense.
Now that we know that collisions are not just easy -- but happen by themselves with no human input (as evidenced by the Imagenet collisions), we know this system can't work. Apple has two remaining safeguards: a second set of hashes (they say), and human reviewers.
The human reviewers are likely trained to prefer false-positives when unsure, and so while a thorough human review would clearly indicate "not CSAM" for the images the malicious collisions match, it doesn't feel like much of a safeguard to me. (Remember the leaked memo from the US's organization -- they called our objections "screeching voices". I'm sure the actual reviewers think similarly.)
I assume the people reviewing CSAM for the CCP will be in China, so they can be in on the whole scheme. (In the US, we have slightly better checks and balances. Eventually the image will be in front of a court and a jury of your peers, and it's not illegal to have photos that embarrass the CCP, so you'll personally be fine modulo the stress of a criminal investigation. But that dissident in China, probably not going to get a fair trial -- despite the image not being CSAM, it's still illegal. And Apple handed it directly to the government for you.)
I don't know, I just find this thing exceedingly worrying. When faced with a government-level adversary, this doesn't sound like a very good system. I think if we're okay with this, we might as well mandate CCTV in everyone's home, so we can catch real child abusers in the act.
Now, what has actually changed? The two compelling push-back against a country's demands for more surveillance etc. are:
a) it is not technically feasible (eg, wiretapping E2EE chats), and
b) it is making the device insecure vis-a-vis hackers and criminals (eg, putting in a backdoor)
The interesting question is: Have these defences against government demands been weakened by this new technology? Maybe they have, that would be my gut feeling. But it is not enough to assert it, one must show it.
I would think they could more easily just make your phone carrier install a malware update on your phone, rather than jumping through all of these hoops to get them access they already have.
Plenty of data is leaking out of people's phones already as can be seen from, e.g. the Parler hack.
At best, they would look biased. At worst, they would be sending a signal that they don’t care about Chinese children.
You wouldn’t even need government strong arming, mobs of netizens would happily tear Apple down.
It seems like it wouldn't take that. If you can generate a colliding pair of images, you could probably create a pair where one of the images might get attention with child porn groups and thus, shared around enough to end up in the CSAM database. And where the other was innocuous.
Unless the goal is to simply the effort/expense of scanning by making it a client process.
And there’s no way the CCP would order Apple to do that.
1. USA
2. UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
They'd do it directly because it's expedient and useful. If you're operating such a sprawling authoritarian regime, it's important to occasionally make a show of your power and control, lest anyone forget. The CCP isn't afraid of Apple, Apple is afraid of the CCP. Lately the CCP has been on a rather showy demonstration of its total control. If you're them it's useful to remind Apple from time to time that they're basically a guest in China and can be removed at any time. You don't want them to forget, you want to be confrontational with Apple at times, you want to see their acknowledged subservience; you're not looking to avoid that power confrontation, the confrontation is part of the point.
And the threat generally isn't made, it's understood. The CCP doesn't have to threaten in most cases, Apple will understand ahead of time. What gets made initially is a dictate (do this), not the threat. If something unusual happens, such as with Didi's listing on the NYSE against Beijing's wishes (whereas ByteDance did the opposite and kowtowed, pulling their plans to IPO), then, given that Didi obviously understood the confrontation risk ahead of time and tested you anyway, then you punish them. If that still isn't enough, you take them apart (or in the case of Apple, remove them from the country).
To also clarify, the avenue of extortion isn't open to every country. But the avenue I presented is as long as that country has an ally. I'm not aware of any country not having an ally, so I presume that this avenue is pretty much open to any country.
Google for "Operation Aurora"
Also see: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud-insigh... for a very similar situation to the one described up-thread.
I would be intrigued to hear about the Uyghurs thoughts on the matter, as well as those of Assange.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_censorship_of_Chinese...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Peo...
Apple has to store data of chinese citizens in china? And Apple has to adhere to chinese laws in china? How insane.
It's crazy how deluded the "CCP crowd" are. Apparently, the "CCP crowd" thinks companies are allowed to do business in another country and not abide by their laws.
Are you going to go insane since the EU requires tech companies to store EU citizens data within the EU?
https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/2021/05/06/eu-data-boun...
You would think most countries would demand their citizens data be stored locally.
If the CCP says "put these hashes in your database or we will halt all iPhone sales in China", what do you think Apple is going to do? Is anyone so naive that they believe the CCP wouldn't deliver such an ultimatum? Apple's position seems to completely ignore recent Chinese history.