Re:Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ
by b_e_n_t_o_n on Thursday October 02, 2025 @10:29PM
(#45458228)
The government is a centralization of power, it doesn't matter if our devices are "decentralized" if the government can simply make it illegal to use unlocked devices. Or encryption. Or VPNs. Etc.
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Re:Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ
by saurik on Friday October 03, 2025 @12:52AM
(#45459106)
But that isn't how this has worked, even in places like China where the regime would seem to have that level of power: while they absolutely require Apple--who went out of their way to create a bottleneck on software and information that is just too juicy not to assert external control over--to remove various apps from their store, it is not actually illegal to own or use unlocked devices.
Re:Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ
by CamperBob2 on Friday October 03, 2025 @01:26PM
(#45465389)
it is not actually illegal to own or use unlocked devices
See also: "Let a hundred flowers bloom!"
Re:Apple takes down ICE tracking apps after pressure from DOJ
by jjav on Friday October 03, 2025 @03:46AM
(#45460205)
> The government is a centralization of power, it doesn't matter if our devices are "decentralized" if the government can simply make it illegal to use unlocked devices.
That is a very binary view of the world, but the world is nothing but shades of gray.
At the very extreme of the most totalitarian government, you're right. Such a government can ban one thing or ban everything.
But in nearly every country, it's vastly easier to go choke a single neck (Apple) and tell them to shut something down, than to chase after tens of millions of individual people with individual devices, if all of them can run whatever they want from wherever they want.
That is the power of decentralization.