
Skype Vanishes from App Stores in China, Including Apple’s - votepaunchy
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/business/skype-app-china.html
======
rd108
When companies centralized and controlled app downloads, they did it primarily
to make more money. Now their greed ends in the loss of real human rights.
When America was founded, the fourth pillar of government was the free press,
i.e. the gatekeepers of information. Today, capitalism and naked avarice have
broken the back of this key democratic institution, and the effects on society
in the U.S. and abroad will be continue to ripple for years to come.

It's like Obama was fond of reminding tech CEO's when they'd start
pontificating on leadership... “Government will never run the way Silicon
Valley runs because, by definition, democracy is messy. This is a big, diverse
country with a lot of interests and a lot of disparate points of view. And
part of government’s job, by the way, is dealing with problems that nobody
else wants to deal with.

“Sometimes I talk to CEOs, they come in and they start telling me about
leadership, and here’s how we do things. And I say, well, if all I was doing
was making a widget or producing an app, and I didn’t have to worry about
whether poor people could afford the widget, or I didn’t have to worry about
whether the app had some unintended consequences … then I think those
suggestions are terrific."

~~~
conanbatt
> Today, capitalism and naked avarice have broken the back of this key
> democratic institution, and the effects on society in the U.S. and abroad
> will be continue to ripple for years to come.

How do you interpret that China, a pseudo-capitalist country, bans skype and
its because of the greed and avarice of private capital.

This is textbook china. It was before and there is no reason it won't be this
way for decades to come.

~~~
Mindwipe
Because if iOS didn't prohibit installation of apps from anywhere but it's app
store then this would be much less problematic.

But Apple does, because it decided at the start of the platform that being
able to take a 30% cut and defend it's own weak services applications from
competition was worth more than the inevitable human rights problems a closed
app platform presents.

~~~
stanmancan
Clearly the ability to take a cut of all app sales was a huge part of that
decision, but was far from the only one. Security and easy of use are also
very important. My grandma can install apps on her tablet no problem. But
telling her to go to {domain}.com => downloads => download the 64bit windows
executable and then find the file and run it, is a totally different story.
Not to mention how many people will just google the name of the app, click the
first link, and look for any link that says download and click next, next,
next until they've succesfully added a bunch of spyware and 7 more IE tool
bars.

~~~
ynniv
The core problem with trusted computing is that users are never allowed to
install their own root certificate. My grandmother should be able to install a
root that someone she trusts controls, which will include but not be limited
to the OS vendor.

~~~
salvar
"What is a root certificate?" \- All grandmothers everywhere

~~~
ynniv
"Hey grandma, run this and click Ok. Nevermind, just let me see it for a
minute." Don't be a ridiculous strawman, everyone has friends or family they
trust that are better aligned to their cause than multinational hardware
vendors.

~~~
pilif
How do you make sure that grandma only does this if you tell her but not if
the app she wants to watch that movie in or that email with your brother's
address in the from field tell her to?

------
xoa
This sort of thing represents one of the true dangers of single-source App
Stores on general purpose computers with no side-loading fallback, and is why
we should be proactively working to make it illegal. It's not that Apple is
malicious per se, or even that they're particularly slow at reviews or
whatever (though that has been the case at times too), but the mere fact that
they represent a single, easy to pressure choke point. Apple themselves have
reacted to this appropriately when it comes to the hardware by removing more
and more of their own ability to affect it once it's been sold and giving that
power to the owners instead. That's not just a positive for owners' privacy
and security (and in turn a selling point), it also reduces Apple's exposure
and liability. If they don't hold a given set of data or power in the first
place, then nobody can go after them for it.

Unfortunately on the software side they have not sought any of the better
tradeoffs available between security and vetting vs owner power and
decentralization, and in turn find themselves in the crosshairs for every
single app. Not even just from governments though they're most coercive, but
from any public cultural/religious interest group at all. Since Apple has to
approve everything, Apple is also seen (correctly) as directly responsible for
everything on the App Store. The result has been exactly as you'd expect:
they're more conservative on average about what sort of content they'll allow,
not merely about objective issues like security.

Perhaps negative PR from actions like this might be sufficient eventually to
get Apple to change course on their own. They wouldn't actually need to do
very much, even selling a one-time permanent single device signing cert might
be sufficient [1], and could form the basis of alternate App Stores even. But
if Apple (and others) won't move it should be legislated. Improving wearable
displays will ultimately mean the merger of "mobile" and "PC", that is the
next disruptive evolution in computers. We should not allow that to become the
end of bazaars for software too.

\----

1: Right now they have a free one, but it only lets apps run for 7 days, and
the developer one is yearly and subscription based.

~~~
ickwabe
My take away from this is quite different. Or at least tangential.

I expect Apple and any other company to have to comply with local laws in
various countries. It's unavoidable. What else could they do? Refuse and loose
access to that population?

But right now, as regards device encryption and back doors, there is a sort of
mutually assured destruction. A MAD that the US law enforcement (e.g. FBI et
al) are constantly trying to undermine. Right now Apple claims the iPhone is
designed such that they cannot unencrypt it. The FBI wants to force them to
create a method.

Regardless of the technique used that then will make every similar device
world wide subject to the whims of local law as regards allow that country
access.

What would stop any country from then demanding blanket access to devices? But
at the moment this doesn't seem happen because there's an unspoken detente
among adversarial countries to not demand such back-doors.

This situation reminds me of that. Since it is possible for Apple and others
to block things on their app stores, countries demand it.

It's a cautionary tale of why it's important for companies to design certain
things from the bottom up to prevent bad behavior.

~~~
duozerk
> What else could they do? Refuse and loose access to that population?

... yes ? that would require putting human rights above profits, though.

~~~
jMyles
...or even just an assessment that the long-term profits are greater in a
world where human rights are absolute.

~~~
bilbo0s
But then they would have to be able to prove that in a court of law.

What people don't understand here is that the principle of fiduciary duty
binds the hands of a lot of these companies. If you don't hold the controlling
voting interest in the company... you really have very limited room to
maneuver legally speaking.

Now if Apple could count on its shareholders not to sue them...

THEN they could operate in the fashion that you postulate.

~~~
pwinnski
Ugh, this is most definitely not true at all. Apple has repeatedly refused to
bend to shareholder's demands, and has suggested that shareholders unhappy
with Apple's focus on environmental conservation (at the expense of greater
short-term profits) should buy a different stock.

------
shadowtree
Impacts _all_ vendors that provide telephony solutions, not just Skype.
Nothing to do with Apple as some here in the comments are suggesting.

China requires _any_ software vendor that provides telephony to sell its
software through a Chinese telco-licensed company.

Pure VoiP is fine. The moment you offer dial-in / call me as Skype, WebEx,
G2M, Zoom do, you're toast.

This is China walling off their market a bit more, making it far easier for
their own telcos to compete.

------
agentgt
Honest question: Just curious on how China explain this to its citizens?

Or do they not even explain it and just do it. Is it similar to USA where we
say its to catch the "bad guys".

I guess they could argue they are "protecting" their citizens by perhaps
lowering the security attack surface.

~~~
ma2rten
In part this can be explained by different cultural values. Chinese value
social harmony over individual freedom.

~~~
opportune
If it's implied not to question the government "for the sake of social
harmony" I'm just going to interpret that as "for the sake of not getting your
ass thrown in prison".

Clearly Chinese culture doesn't always amount to rolling over for the sake of
social harmony, just see: Boxer Rebellion, Tiananmen Square, Communist
Revolution, Xinhai Revolution, etc.

We have no way of knowing how supportive the Chinese truly are of their
government if that support is given under the threat of imprisonment or loss
of economic opportunities (up to and including those of family members. Under
an oppressive dictatorship that persecutes freedom of speech by force, "social
harmony" is really just trying to survive. In that sense, I'm sure North
Korean citizens value social harmony too

------
mtgx
There was a theory that they were working on end-to-end encryption for Skype.
If true, this may be related to that. I sure hope it's true, otherwise they
will not be able to say that they "can't" provide people's communications with
a court order, as they're now doing in Belgium.

[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/93006358956574720...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/930063589565747200)

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/27/belgian_court_fines...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/27/belgian_court_fines_skype_intercept_criminals_calls/)

Also, the court classified them as a "telco," likely because Skype offers
integration with regular phone lines. It's also why, in the U.S., the
government can use CALEA to intercept Skype calls.

So if they want to keep using that excuse, they may want to offer a "secure"
data-only version of Skype, too (that's the default Skype), and provide a
deprecated version that's integrated with regular phone calls.

This would also make it easier for them and everyone else to move on from the
convoluted WebRTC 1.0 standard to the ORTC-based WebRTC 1.1. It would've been
ideal to make this change with the overhaul of Skype's design to be more
easily accepted by people, but oh well, better late than never.

------
unsigner
Fantastic, let's hope it vanishes from everywhere!

~~~
oblio
And we replace it with... ?

~~~
slivanes
How about the Skype before it was bought by MS? You know, the one that was
actually good, lean, and without ads.

~~~
unsigner
Also it could transfer files peer to peer.

------
afrophysics1
I'd like to see a P2P app store on the same kind of system as cryptocurrency.
Like torrents meets P2P consensus for file verification, with weights for
trusted sources.

~~~
niksmac
I have actually thought of this a while ago and decided not to proceed because
of

\- file storage \- verify app developers \- prevent cracked apps.

If you can justify all these questions, id like to work on the same idea
further.

~~~
slimshady94
File storage - Sia

Verification - Civic/KYC solutions?

Prevent cracked apps - some game theory/staking mechanism that makes you lose
if you don't play the official version

------
canjobear
When I was in China in 2010 you couldn't download Skype. If you tried you'd be
redirected to something called "Tom's Skype".

~~~
goldenkey
That's humorous. On a serious note though, Skype should be renamed to
"Skype--" in the US. After MS bought it, it became a buggy piece of crap.
Every new version had more useless features and was more prone to
crashing/freezing up than the last. Screenshare and the other golden features
became riddled with issues. Skype was once great. During the period in which
it was down for "maintanence" many believe that spying measures were added. In
any case, there are much better options these days considering how bloated and
buggy the actual client-side software has become.

~~~
babuskov
AFAIR, they changed communication model from Peer-to-peer to client-server and
then it all started. Why did they need all conversations to pass through their
servers...? Something is hinted in the last paragraph of this article though:

[https://www.lifewire.com/skype-changes-
from-p2p-3426522](https://www.lifewire.com/skype-changes-from-p2p-3426522)

~~~
tinus_hn
The direct peer to peer connections are a patented ‘innovation’. Apple had to
change FaceTime too.

~~~
babuskov
This is interesting. Do you know who holds the patent?

~~~
tinus_hn
This is the VirnetX patent case which is still partly ongoing. It's kind of
difficult to find but it involves patents 6,502,135, 7,418,504, 7,921,211 and
7,490,151.

[https://techcrunch.com/2012/11/07/u-s-court-orders-apple-
to-...](https://techcrunch.com/2012/11/07/u-s-court-orders-apple-to-
pay-368-million-damages-for-facetime-patent-infringement/)

------
commenter1
Western countries should put up same kind of laws just for Chinese companies.

~~~
mattnewton
No need yet, they usually can’t compete with incumbents. And as a US consumer
I am fine with keeping local companies in competition with foreign ones
because it usually means I just get more options.

~~~
colejohnson66
Do cheap $5 USB power supplies count as competition?

------
aapjesverkoper
Seems like The New York Times has invented a new annoying method of mouse
hijacking. When click selecting the text while reading I am `swiping` to the
next article on desktop. And double click increases font size?

~~~
smeyer
I'd never encountered this before, but it looks like it's been around for a
while:
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=554644](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=554644)
.

~~~
Tempest1981
From that page:

This is a site "feature": the page cycles through font-sizes 17px->20px->26px
on each double-click or tap.

------
usaar333
Interestingly, Skype is still functioning fine.

In case it goes, does anyone know a good alternative to connect from the US to
China that didn't require VPN usage in China? I've found wechat's call quality
awful.

------
ksk
Is there any article explaining the Chinese point of view? I'd like to know
what they're hoping to accomplish by banning apps.

~~~
alexbeloi
Two public reasons that are commonly given

* controlling data about Chinese citizens from going outside of Chinese control (e.g. onto international/US servers where it can be subpeona'd by the foreign government host)

* protecting local industries from foreign competition

~~~
ksk
Thanks ! Do you have any link where I can read this?

------
squarefoot
I wonder what is their attitude to other communication software and protocols,
especially FOSS ones. Skype by its closed nature could contain all sorts of
CIA/NSA spying routines, but what about Ekiga for example? Open Source
software would hardly justify any national security concerns except those
implied by letting common people freely communicate.

~~~
tonyztan
> "except those implied by letting common people freely communicate."

This is the key. They don't want people freely communicating without
interception capabilities.

------
codezero
Do VPNs work to get around regional app restrictions like they do for GFW and
streaming?

~~~
tcas
Nope. You can login with a different region's iTunes account (e.g. with a US
address) however and download it without a VPN.

You need a billing address/CC/PayPal in that region though, so you can't just
simply register a new account and access it without basic validation.

~~~
Canada
That has started failing with iPhone. Now you need that and you need need a
VPN. I haven't looked into why yet.

Outside of China you can just choose US as your region and it's fine.

------
goldenkey
Well, Skype has vigorous anti-debugging measures to keep most of its
unwarranted behavior under wraps. And when MS bought Skype, it was taken down
for a significant time, thought to be when the NSA [etPhoneHome] method calls
were added. It's all just conjecture though... But I'd stick with other
voip/telcos. I really can't blame China for not wanting their people subject
to what is pretty obvious US spying.

~~~
PuffinBlue
Wasn't it taken down to be rearchitected (spelling?) to a "superhub" peer to
peer setup? Kind of a half way house between fully 'cloud' (centralised) like
it is now and fully peer to peer like it was before MS bought it?

I guess that doesn't preclude it becoming part of PRISM and I might be
misremembering the details too.

~~~
goldenkey
Something like that. But reverse engineers (who I trust) after busting through
all the anti-debugger protection, and looking at the protocol, seemed to be of
the opinion that the app was way too reliant on Skype's servers and way too
obfuscated for just IP protection alone. Better open source than sorry. Skype
is not to be trusted. At least most EXEs you can debug but Skype has literally
wiretrapped and packed the crap out of their exe for unworthy reasons.
Stallman would consider it untrustworthy computing, let alone the networking
part.

------
qwerty456127
What are the app stores other than Apple?

~~~
pathsjs
Uh... Google play?

~~~
qwerty456127
I didn't know they can block an app from Google Play for a particular country.
Used to think it's an Apple-specific antifeature.

~~~
idrios
Google Play itself is blocked in China. Have to download a Chinese app store
or download apks directly

