I wonder what they saw on their screen. Maybe it was nothing and the tech just enjoyed being unhelpful and was maybe rewarded for it. Maybe it was flagged by NSA heuristics and there was an "untrustworthy" message.

Nope, the guy said that "yes, the appleid is banned, you know why, you breached our T&Cs, no you can't restore it". He rejected to specify what rule exactly was breached.

"HIPAA legally bars me from specifying which rule was broken."

That seems like a strange analogy, since as far as I know HIPAA is designed to prevent sharing private data with outsiders and should not prevent you from accessing your own data.

I've heard plenty about how HIPAA gets in the way of legitimate sharing with outsiders (e.g. making a common format for medical profile transfer impractical), but I don't recall having heard about it preventing the principal individual from getting answers from their own provider.

OP is making a joke. HIPAA only applies to healthcare providers (so far as I understand from our lawyers).

Edit: Why in the hell is my iPhone erroneously autocorrecting HIPAA to HIPPA?

> Edit: Why in the hell is my iPhone erroneously autocorrecting HIPAA to HIPPA?

Crowd-sourced autocorrect dictionary on display. :\

HIPAA is one of the more absurd excuses people use to refuse to give information.

Realistically corporations are more likely to use less blatantly stupid excuses ("our insurance policy forbids...").

NSA heuristics? :D Do they put the Max in the M1 Max

Next the M1 SuperMax for the more serious offenders!

And macOS 13 Guantanamo :)

by that token, don’t trust any business. i don’t but i feel there’s a balance of ideal security/cost and ideal convenience. apple is not bad for that balance. compared to a lot of companies.

not a fanboy though i may sound like one. don’t get me wrong. i have my fair share of gripes with apple, but the way apple id makes my life better is not a bad trade off.

What country? Are we taking Iran or Canada?

> Are we taking Iran or Canada?

What is this? Some kind of Axis of Sanity?

I think the question is relevant, certain countries are under sanctions and could make a lot of things complex for those operating services.

From Poland to Ireland.

Funny story, I once knew a guy who had a very common Irish name (both first and last). He was from California though (born and raised). When it came time to renew his passport, the government mistook him for someone involved in the IRA. He actually had to ship thirty pounds of documentation including as mundane of items as report cards, school id’s, all job paystubs, etc. — basically document his entire life as a US citizen before he finally received approval.

Gerry Adams?

Ah, you wrote about someone involved with the IRA, so probably some other name.

Ireland... that's quite similar to "Iranland". That must be the problem.

No no. A land of ire. Seems apt here.

Not funny when you lose your music and software worth several hundred euros.

It's part of the walled garden's feature set. Let's hope more of this happens and people start asking for their digital rights(i.e drm free media,hardware etc)

> Not funny when you lose your music and software worth several hundred euros.

Indeed. I never spent much money on Apple media or applications, but in the last few years I've spent nothing.

>when you lose your

It was never yours. Buy music from Bandcamp and save it on your hard drive. That is yours.

You can download a DRM-free copy of any audio track you bought in the iTunes Store. It's been like that for around 10 years.

>Buy music from Bandcamp and save it on your hard drive. That is yours

but itunes music is DRM-free as well?

You would only lose access to music not saved in an accessible location (and purchased after DRM was removed unless you took the steps to get drm free tracks[1]) and also software bought on the App Store.

[1]funny story: I have one (or more) tracks in my music library that a friend shared with me almost 20 years ago when we were in college and he added me as one of the 5 computers that could play the tracks. Every time I’ve moved my library to a new computer it asks me to log into that account to approve that track, but it won’t give me a list of the tracks so I can delete it/them. It isn’t enough of an annoyance that I’ve tried too hard to find them.

Are you sure? Legally speaking you might be required to delete it then.

https://xkcd.com/488/

That will teach people not to "buy" stuff you don't really own. Piracy o streaming are better solution. DRM is ethically and technologically bankrupt.

With Apple you have since many years now (10 years or so?) been able to download an unencrypted DRM-free copy of every audio track you ever bought in the iTunes Store. It's clearly to no consolation for OP, but it's worth pointing this fact out nevertheless.

To balance out your balance, with Apple, they recently chose to put government spyware on your devices (until public outcry caused them to delay/reconsider).

What's wrong with Iran? Last I checked it's a beautiful country with nice and educated people.

Apple is forbidden from doing business in Iran.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iran

But its devices can still be used anywhere in the world, even if the company doesn't do business in certain places.

And with a theocratic government, that wants to wipe out another country and whose former president denied the holocaust ever happened.

All the iranians I met in person, were lovely people, though .

As an American, I think it unwise to label an entire country and people on the basis of how theocratic their government is, their military ambitions, or the personal views of former presidents. Please.

America has a lot of religious nuts who influence politics, but it is not a theocracy. We do not have a “supreme leader” who is both head of the Government (if not formally, but practically) and head of the official state religion. Our Constitution provides for religious freedom but otherwise says nothing about religion.

I meeeaan, "wants to wipe out another country" and "former president denied the Holocaust ever happened" can apply to a surprising number of places.

We were talking about governments, not individuals or radical groups. And in that group, the iranian leadership stands out a bit. I am not aware of any other country who makes such open statements.

It sounds like your friend might be the notorious serial traffic offender known as Prawo Jazdy! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prawo_Jazdy_(alleged_crimina...

um, I live in Seattle and I can tell you that even from here there’s constant new news of organized crime, cartels, and terrorist organizations operating out of Canada.

Organized crime, sure. But what terrorist organizations are you referring to? I live in Vancouver and have not heard of anything notable in this regard.

Yeah I agree that’s definitely less frequent. You can check here for listed terrorist entities with active presence in Canada: https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lst...

Wait, the claim you made was "constant" news of terrorist organizations operating out of Canada. The list you cited was the Canadian governments' list of global entities that are designated as terrorist organizations and NOT those with an "active presence". (Tip: The US list is almost, if not entirely, identical).

Can you cite any "news" you've heard in Seattle about terrorist organizations operating out of Canada?