
Tim Cook’s Company-Wide Email on Hkmap.live Doesn’t Add Up - srameshc
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/cook-hkmap-live-email
======
artfulhippo
Apple caved under pressure from China. The explanation Cook gave is not just
an embarrassment, it calls into question the veracity of all of his other
statements.

Why should users believe that (closed source) iMessage encryption is free from
backdoors when we know that Cook will dance around sensitive truths?

And why should the US government be satisfied with a fully encrypted iMessage
given that Apple will cave to demands given enough pressure?

~~~
Aloha
The US isn't a closed market and can't effectively eject Apple from the
market. While I disagree with the choice Apple made, it's a very rational one.
Permanent removal from China would probably be worse for freedom in China over
20 years, and massively worse for Apple in the short term.

No company should be expected to back or foment a revolution somewhere, from
my perspective they're looking out for their own beet interest and the best
interest of their customers.

~~~
bcrosby95
> Permanent removal from China would probably be worse for freedom in China
> over 20 years,

I'm curious about how you came to this conclusion.

~~~
derefr
For one thing, pretty much every Android device made for the Chinese market
has had its OS adulterated in some way, at OEM build time, at the behest of
the Chinese government. Whereas, Chinese resellers can't really adulterate an
iPhone's OS; there's just the one OS image (per model), signed and sealed by
Apple, and if China wants to put a rootkit on it, they'd have to convince
Apple to put it into that same base-image where any random security researcher
(outside of China's reach to quash publication) might find it.

(And yes, either way the phone's _baseband_ will be adulterated by Chinese
ISPs at the government's behest, but modern smartphones isolate themselves
from their baseband pretty well, so this only matters if you're using your
phone as a phone [calling/texting], instead of as a tablet with a data modem.)

~~~
SiVal
No point in debating the details of which tech is more secure or what is
encrypted or adulterated or whatever. Apple has made it clear that they will
make sure the Chinese gov't gets what it wants. Even in a supposedly
"autonomous" Hong Kong, China complains and Apple submits--flags, apps,
speech, whatever. No need to even go to court, and certainly no point.

So Apple has made it clear that if China wants something, the tech details
won't matter. "Oh, I'm sorry, we don't have that information to give you."
"Well, start keeping it from now on, but don't tell them, because telling them
would offend us, and you don't want that...."

~~~
millstone
It's not "whatever." Apple has removed emoji and an app; they don't provide
the government with backdoors or biometric data. There really is a line.

~~~
bluesix
Apple's iCloud servers for Chinese users are located in China, run by a
Chinese tech service provider and provides them with the keys - as stipulated
by the Chinese government. Of course the government has access to the data.

------
panda88888
I am not surprised by this. I always thought Tim Cook talks a good talk, but
fails to walk the walk when the stakes at hand is real. He’s fine with
standing up to the CIA/FBI because he knows it’s good PR for business and the
US government cannot do anything without a lengthy court fight that is mostly
fair. Same with other US domestic issues such as DACA, sane sex marriage, etc.

But when it comes to the PRC government, he caves immediately because the
threat is real. He knows he CAN and probably WILL lose access the Chinese
market and manufacturing capacity, and there’s no court system to appeal—-the
system is rigged and controlled by the CCP. Therefore, principles bow down
before revenue.

Personally I don’t care what Tim Cook and Apple does to get and keep access to
Chinese market, but I am disgusted by hypocrite with the high rhetoric about
privacy, human rights, etc., but compromising immediately when $$$ is at
stake.

~~~
xenospn
Honestly - Apple could have doubled their prices and gained 90% of the US
market if he stood up to China and told the CCP to stuff it. They would have
had amazing PR for decades.

~~~
ladberg
This is completely untrue.

Most Americans don't care about Apple's relationship with China, and they're
probably only losing a fraction of a percent of customers. If Apple doubled
their prices, they would lose the majority of their customers.

------
baddox
Can I play devil's advocate for just a moment? Gruber asks for evidence. His
only complaints seems to be the lack of evidence and a question of whether the
app violates local (Hong Kong) law. Cook's memo directly addresses both of
those issues:

> However, over the past several days we received credible information, from
> the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from
> users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target
> individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property
> where no police are present. This use put the app in violation of Hong Kong
> law.

So then, is the complaint simply that Cook is not providing _direct_ evidence
of these claims? Is that a reasonable expectation? What evidence could Cook
provide that would directly tie violence (we know that Hong Kong protesters
have committed violence) to this particular app? It seems like everyone agrees
that this app was useful for organizing Hong Kong protests, and that _some_
Hong Kong protesters have committed violence and broken local laws.

Please don't take this as some statement of political support for any
particular government, company, or group. I'm attempting to address the
specifics of this memo and Gruber's complaints. I am not attempting to make
any argument of the form "the Hong Kong protests are [good, bad] and therefore
any tool that helps the protesters is [good, bad]." The overall merits of the
Hong Kong protests are not, from what I can tell, relevant to Apple's decision
to ban this app or Gruber's complaints about Apple's decision and memo.

~~~
stupidcar
No, the complaint is not that Cook is not providing direct evidence, and it is
a complete misrepresentation to suggest so. It makes your protestations of
disinterest rather suspect, as those of supposed "devil's advocates" so often
seem to be.

The complaint is that Cook's claims are extraordinary and seemingly impossible
on their face because of the fundamental nature of the app in question. Its
purpose is to show the aggregated position of large concentrations of police,
so as to let users avoid confrontations with them. How can such an app be used
to "target individual officers for violence", since it provides no information
about individual officers?

When so extraordinary a claim is made, hearsay evidence isn't the issue. What
is necessary is an explanation of how the seemingly impossible is possible.
Cook does not provide this or even address the apparent problem. A neutral
person, reading Cook's memo without the proper background, might be mislead
into believing the app in question _does_ provide tracking of individual
police officers. I don't accept this is an accident on Cook's part. I think he
is deliberately attempting to mislead his own employees regarding the nature
of the app, and as a consequence his decision to ban it.

Cook's cited but unenumerated "credible" information received from a
government body and users only compounds the situation. Cook could provide
plenty of additional material to support his claim. He could provide more
detailed information on exactly what information was received, in what volume,
and in what form. He could explain the efforts the company undertook to
perform independent corroboration of the evidence. He could provide a detailed
account of why, in this case, he believes an autocratic government currently
conducting a brutal repression of its own citizens can be trusted to
communicate honestly about it, given neither it, nor any similar autocratic
government, has ever spoken honestly about similar situations in the past.

Fundamentally, the problem isn't whatever evidence does or does not exist. It
is that Cook's memo is a weak, politician's attempt to justify a misdeed by
making absurd claims for which he provides no evidence at all. He is trying to
make a problem go away, not engage with a difficult situation as a human
being.

~~~
Aperocky
I don't understand why people would flag comments as 'suspect', have we
reached McCarthyism or the hyper sensitive Chinese level yet? Why is it
impossible for people to address the opinions and reasons within a comment
specifically without resorting to 'suspecting the motives of the individual'?
In other words, why does the motives of the individual matters to you if the
opinion expressed within the comments can stand by themselves?

~~~
mistermann
Maybe because the poster characterized the problem as: "So then, _is the
complaint simply that Cook is not providing direct evidence of these claims?
Is that a reasonable expectation?_ What evidence could Cook provide that would
directly tie violence (we know that Hong Kong protesters have committed
violence) to this particular app?"

Whereas the article says: "The first allegation is that “ _the app was being
used maliciously to target individual officers for violence”. This makes no
sense at all. The app does not show the locations of individual officers at
all._ It shows general concentrations of police units, with a significant lag.
As the developer and @charlesmok, a Hong Kong legislator, have pointed out,
the app aggregates reports from Telegram, Facebook and other sources. It
beggars belief that a campaign to target individual officers would use a
world-readable crowdsourcing format like this."

It could be incompetence, but it seems much more like clear disingenuousness,
which is a pretty common thing nowadays.

------
Despegar
Gruber is taking Ceglowski and HKmap.live's comments at face value, but they
aren't disinterested actors. They both have (admirable) agendas in the pro-
democracy protests. Of course they're going to characterize the app in the
best light possible (it's so you can avoid the protests and avoid
inadvertently running into cops).

Apple most likely did get legitimate examples of the app being used for that,
and that was all the pretext they needed to remove it. The real issue is that
the CCP is also likely holding a gun to their head both in the state newspaper
but also privately. And obviously Apple isn't going to light themselves on
fire which is what people really want to see them do.

Then there's the bad faith critics that are using this as an opportunity to
say they're hypocrites because they are politically active on various issues
(like the encryption fight with the FBI), as if it isn't because they're
protected by the rule of law in Western nations and they aren't in China.

Ultimately everyone understands this. The real original sin is the fact that
the West normalized relations with China in the first place [1]. Corporations
like Apple aren't going to liberate China, and they can't even if they wanted
to. The US and other countries could decide tomorrow to sanction China and
Apple and every other business would be unable to do business with them. They
could treat China like North Korea or Iran. That's a political question for
governments, not corporations.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Communiqu%C3%A9s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Communiqu%C3%A9s)

~~~
dmix
Why not ban Waze for their police reporting feature?

~~~
ummonk
Incidentally, I think that measures by Uber to identify riders who are cops
and deny them rides should have gotten Uber the same treatment as any other
organized crime syndicate.

~~~
dmix
Incidentally to China’s authoritarianism you think companies should have their
rights to who uses their services or not relinquished? What if a mall
prevented undercover officers from using their property to investigate them,
requesting they use public channels with it’s law or regulatory enforcement?

I’ve read a few articles on it and since 2017 no charges have been laid. So
clearly Uber didn’t break any laws by enforcing their terms of service.

I’d much rather have this sort of thing be written clearly into law so whether
or not they can force you to let them secretly use your service or not without
identification can be constrained, limited in scope so it’s not a fishing
expedition, and subsequently challenged in court.

------
mstaoru
WRT to "is iCloud backdoored" in China, I made a recent submission that didn't
make it to the first page, but it's still relevant:

[https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/10/chinas-new-
cybersecurit...](https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/10/chinas-new-
cybersecurity-system-there-is-no-place-to-hide.html)

> The inspection team has complete access to the network system. Inspection
> can cover both the technical aspects of the network system and the
> data/information maintained on the servers. See Article 10. The inspectors
> can fully access the system and they are permitted to copy any data they
> find. See Article 15. The only restriction on the inspectors copying the
> data in your company’s system is that the inspectors must provide you with a
> receipt. Though Article 10 “restricts” access to matters involving national
> security, the definition of national security in China is so broad that
> there is no real limitation on what can be accessed, copied and removed.

------
saagarjha
This is honestly the most disappointing part of this entire saga. That Apple’s
leadership realized that this is an issue, that the company’s employees do
too, and that they think it’s appropriate to send out an email to placate the
company but contains no real information and falls apart immediately if you
look at it for longer than a couple seconds.

------
ordinaryradical
This is a huge stain on the company, the brand, and Cook’s leadership.

It’s not just censorship—it’s active cooperation with an authoritarian power
under the fig leaf of TOS violations. Truly astonishing.

~~~
troysand
No disrespect to Steve Jobs but my guess is that he would do the same thing.

~~~
ryanlol
I doubt it. There are infinite ways to word this email, a different CEO may
not have written anything.

Cook presumably had some goal while sending this internal email, I doubt he
achieved it. Telling your employees lies as weak as this certainly isn’t going
to improve morale.

------
privateSFacct
Just say you've been asked by the authorities in the territory to remove the
app, and you've complied. Full stop.

There are lots of apps missing from the China app store.

This whole thing about removing the app to protect users strains credibility.

------
capableweb
It's already known that iCloud in China is operated by a state-owned telecom
(GCBD) see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217920)
so they could use the data to track the protestors.

And iPhone usages is comparatively small according to
[https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
share/mobile/china](https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/china)
(Android 79% and iPhone 20%)

Then [https://hkmap.live/](https://hkmap.live/) is available as a website.

So why the outcry about this? In the end, for-profit companies will do what
gives them profit. You should not rely on them for anything that won't give
them profits.

~~~
bgee
> iCloud in China is operated by a state-owned telecom ... so they could use
> the data to track the protestors.

Please stop spreading lies unless you have evidence to back up your claim.

From [0]: "Apple has never made user data, whether stored on the iPhone or in
iCloud, more technologically accessible to any country's government."

Disclaimer: mainlander here.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21209190](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21209190)

~~~
paulryanrogers
Is that true of the company they've contracted to manage iCloud in China?

~~~
bgee
Sorry the parent post was referring to the latter part: "so they could use the
data to track the protestors"; it is a known fact that iCloud in China is
managed by a Chinese company starting in 2018/01 [0].

[0] (link in Chinese):
[https://www.zhihu.com/question/265371940/log](https://www.zhihu.com/question/265371940/log)

------
cageface
The silver lining here is that a lot of people are thinking hard for the first
time about what it means to give up the right to install whatever software you
want on your own hardware.

A devil's bargain always seems like a good deal until the bill comes due.

~~~
scarface74
Right because the average iPhone user cares about what happens in China.

------
Wowfunhappy
> In this case, we thoroughly reviewed [the facts], and we believe this
> decision best protects our users.

When I read Tim Cook's letter, this line at the end jumped out to me as super
off. Even _if_ everything else was completely true, how would this decision
protect Apple users? Unless all the police have iPhones?

~~~
throwaway-571
Positive Tinfoil hat on: The police would have used / were starting to use
presence of the app as evidence that users were participant in the protest and
arrested them. Or the police would have been able compromise the users, the
app or the data (but then why not keep it as a honeypot?)

------
vineyardmike
This reads like propaganda.

I wonder if they have to do this to keep their supply-chain open. Now would be
a good time to take that $200bn and invest in some new factories.

~~~
wmeredith
Cook has said repeatedly that they can't buy the labor they have available n
China ta any price anywhere in the world. It's not a problem they can throw
money at unfortunately.

~~~
ajscanlan
Why couldn't they cut into their profit margins if he cared that much?

~~~
dwaite
Probably because they couldn't get the labor and supply chains they need at
any price.

------
mindfulhack
I hope I'm not promoting conspiracy theory so much as probability theory.

I don't think we can trust Apple not to have NSA backdoors anymore. We all
know about Microsoft's reputation, but Apple may be the slimiest of them all.
Everything is closed source and encrypted on the network level, so instead, we
have to judge from Apple's corporate and PR behaviour.

Apple care about their branding and profits above all, and not one iota about
their customers, truth, or transparency.

Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had surveillance backdoors in secret,
making a complete mockery of the whole 'privacy play' they maintain as a
branding differentiator against Google.

------
reaperducer
For those who want to read the e-mail:

[https://pastebin.com/dFyftCuZ](https://pastebin.com/dFyftCuZ)

As for me, I sold my Apple stock yesterday. Tim won't miss my $10k. But I
won't miss him when I am able to move to a better platform.

~~~
asdf333
yeah...not sure i can ditch my macbook pro yet but next phone is not going to
be iphone anymore...

~~~
drevil-v2
Yes because Android has your privacy needs covered! Don't let the door hit you
on your way out

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I didn't see any mention of Android in GP's comment. Can't miss any
opportunity we can to have a dig though, can we?

------
protomyth
Apple's supply chain is China-based. If Apple doesn't pull app, then China's
leadership probably shuts down that supply chain. China's leadership doesn't
give a damn about Apple or Foxcomm or even the NBA. It's probably a real blow
to Tim Cook since he is famous for setting up such an amazing supply chain. He
put Apple in such a dangerous position. He caved and made up an excuse.

~~~
ogre_codes
China isn't going to shutdown Apple's supply chain, that's revenue to Chinese
companies. The threat is that they would make it more difficult for Chinese
buyers of the iPhone or put regulatory hurdles in front of Apple to make it
difficult to __sell __iPhones in China. China is one of Apple 's largest
markets.

~~~
protomyth
I honestly don't think Xi cares. He is playing the long game and would rather
China buy a Chinese company's product. I bet Apple is replaceable in his eyes.

------
wonnage
China isn't like the US, where Apple can use their trillions and lawyer up.
China will just shut you down and take your shit. Guess where hkmap.live and
the Chinese App Store employees responsible for approving it end up when that
happens. Similarly if the "moral" thing for these companies to do is to divest
from China, then HK will only be served by Chinese companies, and good luck
trying to provide a police tracking app there too.

This is totally different from the Rockets situation, where it really is just
a matter of principle over money. If Morey and the NBA stick to their guns,
the NBA can just leave China, and other than some hazy concepts of goodwill
and cultural exchange, nothing is lost except money.

I'd rather have Apple and others in China than without. A Chinese company
capitulates immediately to the government, a multinational at least can put up
some semblance of resistance, with international relations as a bargaining
chip.

~~~
Thorrez
>Similarly if the "moral" thing for these companies to do is to divest from
China, then HK will only be served by Chinese companies

Would it be possible to divest from all of China except Hong Kong?

~~~
wonnage
No, because unlike Taiwan, Hong Kong is internationally recognized (as well as
by its own government) as a part of China. The Qing government declared a war
on drugs in the 1800s, and started seizing and destroying British opium
shipments. The British retaliated by occupying HK and forced the Qing to cede
it, resulting in a 99 year lease. So while the other concessions were returned
to China after the modern era began, Hong Kong remained British until 1997.

Come 1997, the Brits tried to tie various conditions on the return, mostly
around them maintaining control over the government despite the territory now
being owned by China. These were made under the guise of protecting freedom,
but arguments can be made that they were just trying to hold on to some power.
Given relative weakness of China at the time, they eventually agreed to this
One Country, Two Systems compromise you might've heard of.

All this is to say, it's complicated; China has actually adhered to most
aspects of it to date - there's no Great Firewall, HKers have their own
passports, various freedoms of speech and assembly you'd be familiar with in
the West. But it has no sovereignty of its own, and is very vulnerable to
China encroaching on its citizens.

------
anonimouse1234a
Thor’s way account for obvious reasons.

I am an Apple employee (Cupertino) and I did not receive this email.

It also reads different than other Tim emails, which never mention specific
things such as credible reports and the language seems off.

I also did not here any colleagues mention such an email, and usually it pops
up for everyone at the same time and it becomes a topic.

This email pastebin is a fake

~~~
idlewords
I was told by multiple Apple employees that it is genuine. Check your spam
folder.

~~~
idlewords
Gruber confirms it's real. [https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/cook-
hkmap-live...](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/cook-hkmap-live-
email)

------
_iyig
I understand Apple’s reliance on Chinese manufacturers, but at the same time,
aren’t they sitting on roughly a quarter- _trillion_ dollars in cash [0]? If
Apple can’t use such wealth to pivot production away from China, or at least
feel confident in this option as a contingency plan, then who can?

[0] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/apple-now-has-tk-cash-on-
han...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/29/apple-now-has-tk-cash-on-hand.html)

------
equalunique
Three take-aways for me:

1) Android users win this round.

2) Would be great to have some kind of whiz-bang P2P decentralized federated
mesh-networked version of Hkmap.live.

3) My opinion on Apple has not improved.

~~~
scarface74
Well seeing the app does _nothing_ that the website can’t do, developing for
the web instead of an app when it’s appropriate seems to win.

------
throwaway99zsh
I am an Apple employee. I didn’t get this email. Something doesn’t compute
here.

~~~
rubbingalcohol
Did you forget to accept the new iCloud ToS?

------
dmix
Doesn’t Waze show where the police are?

~~~
megaremote
And drivers kill a lot more people than protestors.

------
traderjane
It's entirely plausible that the Hong Kong police have assembled a documented
narrative of incidents of crime and abuse. The call for evidence into what
might be a handful of cases isn't interesting.

What is unconvincing is that an app's potential to be used with crime is
sufficient for people to understand Mr. Cook's bright-line, process, or
thinking around the matter.

This app was likely being used in ways which critically supported the
mitigation of risk to life, a fact which Mr. Cook described only as "benign";
the failure to discuss the balance against the app's relation to public
health, and the failure to frame the nature of Hong Kong police and law, makes
any attempted weighing suggested by Mr. Cook to be of low credibility as a
lens into his process.

Presumably Google Maps, Search, and other apps also facilitates crime at a
magnitude well beyond the app in question, but how does the weighing work?

------
anonimouse1234a
Throwaway account for obvious reasons, but this email I did not receive this
email and I am an Apple employee in Cupertino.

Some of the language used doesn’t sound correct, it sounds very specific
mentioning reports - normally these emails are general.

Again I never received this email, so if it was sent it was not company wide

------
charred_toast
Apple has their hands tied because of all the factories churning out their
products that would come to a standstill if the Chinese government decided it
wanted to. It's sad and unfortunate, but what other business decision would a
CEO make if 80-90% of their future revenue stream disappeared overnight? Can
someone else help me play devil's advocate? In any case, if we're so
innovative as a country why can't we make more stuff here, that's the only
solution, not globalism. This scenario is an unintended consequence of
globalism. Apple isn't intentionally being bad, they probably don't have a
choice, right? They put too many eggs in one basket. You can say too bad, but
when the banks were bailed out, I was saying they deserved to go under as
well.

------
nabdab
> Moreover, what are these incidents where protesters have targeted individual
> police for a premeditated attack? Can Mr. Cook point to a single example?
> Can anyone?

The message stated that they had credible sources. That really should be
enough in that type of communication. He was not trying to make a court case
providing evidence he was describing the company decision to employees.

Now if there actually haven’t been any such cases then it adds question to the
sources not to Apples decision or communication.

And really you can’t expect a company like Apple to start employing foreign
government spies to infiltrate government institutions in order to provide
credibility checking of information provided. If the police are saying they
have reports of misuse of the app and violent attacks Apple has to act on
that.

~~~
defterGoose
The venue really doesn't matter considering that the source is effectively
unimpeachable. Sure, it might be proper for Apple to err on the side of
caution when violence is involved, but in this case, there is definitely
violence on both sides, and one side (the state) definitely has the upper
hand.

Plus, the idea that the app could be used for specific targeting of individual
police has pretty clearly been debunked.

In the end its really just a question of whether you think Apple should be on
the side of egalitarianism or unrestricted profit.

------
greggman2
Like lots of people have pointed out the email makes no sense. Any app can be
used to do the things the Hkmap.Live app was banned for. So, in order to force
Apple's hand it seems like people should start trying to use Apple's own apps
to coordinate HK related protests and information to the point that China asks
Apple to ban it's own apps. That seems like the only thing that would get
Apple to have to deal with this apparent contradiction.

I'm not familar enough to know what that would be. Can you make custom maps on
Apple maps like you can on Google Maps? Maybe someone could gather info and
make custom maps once an hour that shows locations. Or they could post a feed
of HKmap.Live screenshots to some giant iMessages list. Etc...

Some ideas of what might happen if they can get China to make the request to
ban Apple's own apps.

1) Apple bans their on apps in response to requests from China the apps are
being used for bad things

2) Apple ignores China and risks China banning Apple from China

3) Apple hastly separates the app store from the phone so they can claim they
don't control the apps (probably can't happen fast enough to be an actual
response)

4) other?

Of course if China never asks for Apple to ban it's own apps then nothing
would come of this but the idea is basically to force a stronger response so
that one way or another something happens.

------
dang
Previous threads:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217401](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21217401)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21159872](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21159872)

------
umvi
If I were Tim Cook, I'd have said: "Sure, we'll comply with your demands" and
then I would have immediately mobilized a covert engineering task force to
push out an urgent bug fix that rigs every Apple device in the entirety of
China to turn into a Winnie the Pooh brick on Xi's birthday

~~~
unfunco
And that's why you'll never be CEO of Apple.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Or anything, for that matter.

------
smcl
"For a company that usually measures umpteen times before cutting anything,
it’s both sad and startling."

Apple measured their risk of people getting upset over a BS excuse to ban an
app and compared it to the risk of pissing of the Chinese government, and made
the appropriate cut. It seems to me that Apple have been incredibly careful
and precise here. What's happened though is that the author of the post made
the all-too-common mistake of thinking that Apple is a friendly, caring
company who are "different" when it comes to things like this - they're not,
they're just a regular company.

It's sad, but entirely unsurprising.

~~~
Traubenfuchs
Will a lot of westerners boycott us if bend over for China? Probably not.

Do we care enough about Hong Kong customers? Not really - they are <8 million
people!

Do we care about China? Yes, a lot. Both about the government and the 1.4
billion potential customers there!

~~~
smcl
Yep that's the sad arithmetic behind capitalism - Apple are no different from
any other corporation in this respect. But the problem is that people often
see them as friendly and caring, when they maybe should step back and realise
that such corporations are _not_ their friends, don't care about them and
would sell them out in an instant if it benefit them.

------
dwoozle
Jeez... when Apple loses Gruber you know they’ve fucked up. But what can they
do? Generations of greedy American CEOs handed over the reins to China and
turned them into a superpower. And now we’re all fucked.

------
m3kw9
What was he supposed to say? We were asked to take it down and did just that?

~~~
bsder
At least that would be honest.

------
crankylinuxuser
Simply put then....

As an American citizen, you should run a Chinese iPhone so YOUR messages go to
a hostile foreign government.

As a Chinese citizen, you should run an American iPhone so YOUR messages go to
a hostile foreign government.

:)

------
tibbydudeza
"You are holding the phone wrong" ... typical Apple BS which people don't call
them out on because they well Apple.

~~~
the_other
Lots of people call Apple out on all sorts of issues, several times a week.
Figuratively "no one" believed "You're holding it wrong".

------
pfortuny
I said it on another thread: that is most likely a copy paste from a mail sent
by the CCP. I am sure the iPhones have been used many more times AS PHONES to
convey the location of officers and demonstrators. But that is harmless?

------
crusty511
> that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for
> violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are
> present

The email has to be fake. Lots of apps can be used in malicious ways.

------
bluthru
This seems like a perfect opportunity for Apple to allow apps to be installed
outside of the App Store (like macOS).

I was absolutely shocked that Apple rejected the Gab app. Their rules are
arbitrary and constricting.

~~~
Terretta
The single page app at [https://hkmap.live/](https://hkmap.live/) opens on iOS
with a note telling you how to add it to your Home Screen. That gives you a
custom app icon, which opens as a live full screen map app w/o browser chrome.

This open mechanism to “sideload” what a regular user can’t tell the
difference from an App Store app was the original iPhone app distribution
strategy for both live and offline HTML5 apps, provided to developers before
the App Store existed.

It remains relatively trivial to distribute apps this way.

Start here:

[https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap...](https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/ConfiguringWebApplications/ConfiguringWebApplications.html)

------
Trias11
Apple is under pressure from China to remove App. Billions of dollars at stake
for Apple. That's why Apple does that.

If you'd be offered $1B to agree to remove the app, would you do that?

You know the answer.

~~~
Invictus0
$1B for me is a life changing amount of money. $1B for Apple is less than .4%
of their revenue.

I imagine you're a software engineer earning 100k per year. Would you take
away a tool a group of people are using to try and fight for their freedom for
$400?

~~~
Trias11
So, it is much easier to judge others (Apple and whoever) and avoid
acknowledging that for sufficient amount of money most of the righteous
commenters here would be willing to sheepishly sacrifice their beliefs.

------
kkarakk
This is what happens when you're the sole arbiter of your platform. Give us
the ability to control our own hardware and maybe this kinda PR scandal
wouldn't happen.

------
savethefuture
Why haven't they banned other police tracking apps like waze?

------
_pmf_
The mindset of people expecting Apple to do certain symbolic acts, but finding
it perfectly fine to continue pushing billions into China is somewhat
baffling.

------
killjoywashere
This is like the anti-encryption folks in government arguing no one can have
secure communications because kiddie-porn. Baby, bathwater. rinse.

------
Aissen
No question of how the walled garden brought that. But the walls are too
profitable to tear down now. It was never about user protection.

------
ALittleLight
Are there people working on an open source web app version of this app? I'd
love to see if I could involved at some level.

~~~
capableweb
It's a website already, try [https://hkmap.live](https://hkmap.live)

Which is why I don't understand the outcry coming from what Apple is doing
here.

~~~
CamperBob2
Does the website work from behind the Great Firewall?

~~~
capableweb
Let's hope so, because probably it was/is being used as the backend for the
mobile applications too! Otherwise there is probably mirrors, both the front-
and back-end

------
revscat
Fuck your fiduciary duty. I cannot think of two words that have done more
damage to humanity than those two.

------
trwhite
What's to stop someone building similar functionality for the web? Seems like
a no-brainer to me.

------
asdf333
hacker news admins should investigate the downvote patterns on articles
critical of china ...there seems to be a very strong downward pressure on
articles critical of china — so much that i suspect there may be a down vote
ring..

~~~
tyfon
Dang explained yesterday [1] that there is a "common news item" penalty to
stories to avoid very hot topics from dominating the front page, but that they
have removed this restrictions from some articles.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21211124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21211124)

~~~
dang
I don't have time to dig up specific links at the moment, but if you look
through
[https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=dang](https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=dang),
you'll see that I've written about this extensively in the last few days.

China-related stories are anything but suppressed here—it has been the most-
discussed single theme of the last week, and one of the most of the last
several months. See these #1 stories from the last few days:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-07](https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-07)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-08](https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-08)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-10](https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-10)

~~~
asdf333
got it. thanks for the response.

Just worried that HN could be a target for concerted manipulation just like
facebook/reddit/twitter

------
dwoozle
And I’m sure that China could just block or otherwise disable this app or just
go kill the protesters if they wanted. But that’s not what they wanted. They
wanted Tim Cook to drink a cup of Xi’s diarrhea in public and Cook happily did
it.

------
exabrial
Tim Cook is the Steve Ballmer of Apple. Part XVIIXDXC

------
jjellyy
Ban "Waze" it shows us where police are !

------
birdyrooster
Nvm

~~~
shuckles
.

------
rasengan0
Designed by Apple in California; Made in China.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rules China.

Apple is moving to more Services.

Changing the pie chart takes time.

They have numbers to make this assessment for their shareholder stakeholders.

How many iDevices does the company sell?

The calculation is simple. CCP rules ... Apple

If HK blood is shed, Cook's pet Product(RED) may take on a different
connotation.

------
xtat
tim cook: blood on your hands

------
OrgNet
Apple lied about being in bed with the NSA, too... I don't know why anyone
consider Apple much better then Google when it comes to privacy...

~~~
alexhektor
can you give a source?

~~~
OrgNet
first search result that I found:
[https://www.cheatsheet.com/technology/apple/is-apple-
lying-a...](https://www.cheatsheet.com/technology/apple/is-apple-lying-about-
its-involvement-in-government-surveillance.html/) (didn't read it though, but
they lied about being part of PRISM)

~~~
chillacy
Do you mean, being a victim of prism? When tech companies found out about the
NSA wiretapping unencrypted connections between their datacenters they pretty
much flipped out and got serious about security against nation-state attacks.

~~~
OrgNet
I don't. PRISM doesn't work how you described it, as far as I know... It is
basically a backdoor to Apple for the NSA (so whatever Apple can see, the NSA
can also see).

~~~
lern_too_spel
PRISM doesn't work the way you've described it. It ingests data from the FBI's
Data Intercept Technology Unit, which handles court ordered wiretaps on
individual accounts from Internet communications services. You can see this in
the slide Snowden leaked.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/images/prism-slide-7.jpg)

[https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/how-to-talk-about-prism-
and-...](https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/how-to-talk-about-prism-and-not-get-
entirely-blown-off-if-youre-an-activist-e2a79d2cd2ad)

------
ab_testing
It works for me as a share-holder. Apple's iPhone 11 is again popular in China
and there are even reports of Apple increasing the 11's production to meet the
high demand. Apple should not be doing anything to mess with the Chinese
consumers and the Chinese government as China is a very difficult growth
market to crack into. I believe that Tim Cook has done a great job of
appeasing China and at the same time has worked a very fine line with Trump to
keep i Phones out of the Trump's tariffs .

~~~
justforyou
As a shareholder, you are morally bankrupt.

------
onlyrealcuzzo
I hope the FCC can somehow massively fine Apple for this. It's completely
disgusting and pathetic.

I can hope, even though it won't happen.

~~~
Aloha
How would they?

------
Mindwipe
Tim Cook is a crook and a moral coward. Single signature signing authorities
for software will always be inevitably used for evil, and here it directly has
been.

Apple does have a choice here. An easy one. It could remove the requirement
that all iOS apps have to be signed to run on Apple devices. Simple. And at
that point the Chinese government have no further way to blackmail them.

But Apple has decided it's future ability to behave in an anti-competitive
fashion is more important than democracy for the people of Hong Kong.

~~~
SiliconAlley
Honestly, as a person who prizes Apple’s products and happily depends on them
for work, personal life, etc. I think Tim Cook needs to either open up
sideloading or be promptly fired and replaced by somebody who will. None of
this sits well with me. It is a situation we do not need to be in. I agree
that he is a moral coward, and in far too important and dangerous a position
to be so.

~~~
throwaway-571
The first duty of public companies is to the shareholders. Users fuzzy
feelings figure very little in the incentive structure. Sideloading is
probably too damaging to the short term profits of the company to be on the
table. Or it might not even be a question worth considering for the board .

~~~
SiliconAlley
I agree. I hope this will be enough of a disaster in terms of optics that it
renders him unfit and forces this outcome.

------
hktruth
On balance, I think Apple did the right thing.

The police in London raided properties and arrested people before the
Extinction Rebellion protests had even started.

Removing the app as a precaution in case some crazies out there decide to use
it to ambush and murder people seems reasonable given the situation.

For those who want the app, just use the website.

[https://hkmap.live/](https://hkmap.live/)

However, since the data is crowd-sourced, it wouldn't be hard for an attacker
to inject bogus data rendering the entire website and app useless.

Which could be extremely dangerous for innocent civilians if people simply
make up stuff. Someone could write, "guy in red shirt, blue jeans and white
baseball cap having coffee in McDonalds is an undercover officer and beat a
protestor last night".

Given the mob justice and violence that we've seen, it might be better that
everyone simply ignores the site.

------
dirtyid
In the last week, HK police vehicles have been singled out, ambushed, officers
mobbed and attacked with molotov cocktails. Rioters are shot in self
protection. Mainland owned stores are targeted when police are not near. All
aided by this app that is facilitating extreme violence on the ground.

Of course this doesn't add up to western main stream media news readers who
were presented with one-sided peaceful protest narrative that is further
perpetuated by savvy HK social media users trying to push the same propaganda.
Any news to the contrary have been heavily suppressed on western social media
to the point of forming an impregnable filter bubble escalating to the
bewildering responses seen here. The cognitive dissonance is strong.

The entire controversy is couched in ridiculous language like kotowed or caved
or capitulated when the simple reality is US companies have to conform to
local laws and realities. I can see how people are confused, they were sold
the idea that US companies are there to export morality, and now expect US
companies to behave like foreign policy tools wielded for US geopolitical
interests, ironically a charge frequently levied at Huawei. If China had an
app that allowed US alt-right or antifa to target PoC/whatever antifa
equivalent owned stores and attack the police, it would be pulled in a heart
beat.

~~~
cycrutchfield
>If China had an app that allowed US alt-right or antifa to target
PoC/whatever antifa equivalent owned stores and attack the police, it would be
pulled in a heart beat.

If you’re going to end with this sort of false equivalence, it kind of colors
the rest of your argument and makes me wonder if you are being disingenuous
here. I further note that you make a lot of assertions with no facts to
substantiate them, and refer to news reports on Hong Kong as propaganda, so
perhaps I don’t need to wonder anymore.

~~~
dirtyid
It's only false equivalence to those zero familiarly of HKer/Mainlander
dynamic. Which is the majority of western readers, hence their extreme
susceptibility to biased reporting.

>If you’re going to end with this sort of false equivalence, it kind of colors
the rest of your argument and makes me wonder if you are being disingenuous
here.

The closest analogy to HK protestors are alt-right, they match all the
hallmarks: disenfranchised, social media savvy, economically anxious youth who
see their culture being displaced and their privileged being eroded by
immigrant mainlanders. Rich ones come in to buy all the property, poor ones
use up all the social services. These are common complaints to the mainland
locust narrative - when the mainland sends their people, they're not sending
their best.

[1] [https://www.scmp.com/article/991355/anger-mainland-
visitors-...](https://www.scmp.com/article/991355/anger-mainland-visitors-
escalates-locust-ad)

A row between Hongkongers and mainlanders is reaching boiling point after
internet users raised more than HK$100,000 in less than a week to finance a
full-page 'anti-locust' advertisement in a Chinese-language newspaper in the
city.

...

Mainlanders have already crossed our bottom line,' said Yung Jhon, who refused
to disclose his real name. 'Why are mainland mothers flooding in to take up
resources in public hospitals, getting our benefits and social welfare? Why do
mainlanders ... refuse to follow our rules and order? We can't accept that.

Sounds familiar?

30 years ago, common HKer could get a low-skill industry or service job and
make a comfortable living based off mainland exploitation. Then China's
manufacturing growth made HK Detroit. After handover, 1 million mainland
immigrants entered HK on one-way permits under family reunification plan in
the last 10 years. That's 15% of the city. This culture clash is the same
script causing right wing nationalism everywhere in western liberal countries.
But because it's HK, and the sufferage angle plays well to western MSM, people
close their eyes, pretend HK is some woke utopia, and that all those Pepes
memes are innocent, because English proficient HKers who use western internet
are somehow just like us in the west but also that naive.

>I further note that you make a lot of assertions with no facts to
substantiate them, and refer to news reports on Hong Kong as propaganda, so
perhaps I don’t need to wonder anymore.

Propaganda via omission. How long did it take for western news media to
finally acknowledge the frequent violence happening on the ground? The
racially motivated on mainland citizens and mainland connected businesses. The
doxxing of police families. Why don't you do some research yourself. The fact
that people here, beneficiaries of a free 5th estate somehow reliably have
their opinions shaped to reflect US foreign policy positions is...
interesting. It's Manufacturing Consent, Iraq WMDs all over again.

~~~
cycrutchfield
You have an incredibly condescending, disrespectful and aggressive tone, one
that seems to suggest that you believe that everybody you speak with here is
utterly uninformed when it comes to China. It’s not a good look, and probably
does more to damage your point than if you had just argued in good faith
instead.

