
Hong Kong protest safety app banned from iOS store - ycombonator
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/02/apple_hong_kong/
======
emptybits
> FTA: "Hong Kong citizens have highlighted a quirk of local laws that provide
> a strong counter-argument: under the law, the Hong Kong police are obliged
> to wave a blue flag at the spot in which they which to declare that an
> illegal gathering is taking place."

So HK police are required to wave a blue flag so that the general public is
aware the police have declared a particular gathering at a particular location
illegal. Thus, HK law literally wants the location of the gathering made
known, publicly drawing attention to it and the location. I assume this is to
inform those gathering about their status and to let others nearby know also,
as a warning, perhaps. And also nearby officers. Okay.

So consider an app that shared only this publicly visible information on a
map. i.e. "police have raised the blue flag on this gathering, right here",
without commentary or calls to action.

Less functional and informative than the existing app, but it may still serve
a useful purpose for HK residents and demonstrators and perhaps even police
(according to HK law) and then Apple may plausibly allow the app because it
doesn't get into choosing sides or facilitating illegal calls to action.

~~~
jMyles
Choosing sides and facilitating illegal calls to action is exactly what a
reasonable company does in this situation. The matter of how best to serve
humanity is not the slightest bit unclear here.

~~~
fwsgonzo
That's the highest horse I've seen so far on this site.

~~~
jMyles
I don't understand why it's such a high expectation that, in a situation where
one party is unambiguously oppressing the other, to refrain from censoring the
victimized party.

Why is that so strange?

~~~
UIZealot
OK I got to ask. Who is oppressing whom? What have they done exactly?

~~~
undersuit
Have you read the article?

How about the tweet from the developer:
[https://twitter.com/hkmaplive/status/1179108329240424448](https://twitter.com/hkmaplive/status/1179108329240424448)

------
lacampbell
Stuff like this is one of the main reasons I focused my efforts on web apps,
not native ones.

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

Looks like the devs were smart enough to make it a web app, so it can still be
used.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
To be fair, if your app submission is a glorified Web App (leveraging no
native iOS features) Apple will reject for that reason alone [0].

"4.2 Minimum Functionality - Your app should include features, content, and UI
that elevate it beyond a repackaged website."

[0]: [https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/#min...](https://developer.apple.com/app-
store/review/guidelines/#minimum-functionality)

~~~
kovek
Why is this comment being downvoted? It does contribute to the discussion.

~~~
amaccuish
Because it's completely irrelevant.

The point is that having a webapp allows them to continue to serve users if
their actual app is removed from app stores. It has no bearing on how their
native app functions, whether it is in native code or a web wrapper etc.

~~~
superkuh
This only applies because Apple runs a walled garden that is anti-user. People
running actual computers with non-user-hostile operating systems can install
whatever software they like. This is entirely apple's fault.

Websites are not applications. The browser is not an OS.

------
TimTheTinker
When there is a great evil power in the world, it is impossible _not_ to take
a political stance, given the moral duties involved. Inaction, or failing to
take a stand, constitutes tacit approval. In this case, Apple granting what I
assume was a request from the Chinese government to remove the app is more
than tacit.

The human rights abuses by the Chinese government are _insanely_ bad:
religious and ethnic persecution, forced abortions, murder of political
dissidents, no habeas corpus for many, abuse of prisoners (torture, forced
labor camps, harvesting and selling prisoners’ organs), to name a few.

Unfortunately, too many in the West, including Apple, have become heavily
economically dependent on China. I think that dependence strongly clouds moral
judgment when it comes to decisions like this. Furthermore, it requires far
more moral courage to call out evil in the present than it does to identify
evil in the past.

To Apple and everyone else: don’t become complicit! Take a stand. History will
vindicate you.

~~~
mikelyons
It seems to a mostly-lay-person that we have super-military and super-
propaganda these days, what can individuals do? Even in groups of 100,000
they're no match for modern methods of control it seems. Am I looking at this
incorrectly?

------
siruncledrew
It's all marketing. Apple is a company not a country.

If Apple ups the ante on China, then China comes down and bans the App Store
or tariffs Apple devices a ton as retribution - resulting in Apple getting
itself into a similar situation Huawei is in with the US. If (this is all
hypothetical, btw) that were to happen with Apple, then I would wager Xiaomi
or Huawei would only see more investment to become the "Apple of China" and
further develop a replica in-house app store.

~~~
im3w1l
Apple put themselves in a position where they had the power to clamp down.
Obviously they will then be forced to use this power. By western governments,
by outrage mobs, by China.

By their own choices and strategy of centralizing power they decided to become
a fascist enabler.

~~~
mattnewton
I honestly think you are vastly overestimating the power a foreign company is
capable of having in China. Any provocation would probably quickly end up in
iPhones simply not getting any service in the country anymore and being banned
from sale with no legal recourse.

~~~
polynomial
I think GP is saying the opposite, namely that they set themselves up to be an
enabler of state control, with their centralised gatekeeping model.

------
deogeo
The inevitable result of letting the manufacturer control what may run on the
device.

~~~
rsj_hn
Agreed. However, Android has removed Gab and other free speech apps from it's
appstore, too. Although you can circumvent android easier than iOS. This is a
tough call -- security versus freedom, and I don't know what the right trade
off is. I'd still counsel my parents to use Apple.

~~~
derrick_jensen
100% freedom, all the time

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." \- Benjamin Franklin

I'm not sure about iOS, but Android still allows installing unsigned APKs
(F-Droid and similar platforms work because of this), and what has already
been installed stays on the phone until the user removes it.

~~~
song
See, that's a dilemma I grappling with right now. I am trying to decide
between an iphone and an android phone. And while android does allow me to
install any APKs I want which is great. It also seems to be supremely
difficult not to share all of my contacts with google, not to share more
information than I want with them and to not have my privacy completely
invaded.

So, on one hand, android gives me freedom to install any app I want and to
install a firewall like netguard, on the other hand, it destroys my privacy.

I'm really looking for a guide about how to properly secure and prevent data
leaking an android phone beyond the basics that I've seen online but without
that I'm leaning toward Apple despite finding it abhorrent that I cannot
install what I want on my own device (I can obviously side load by using my
dev certificate but that's still not something I'm happy with)

~~~
xurias
The only feasible way to avoid sharing data with Google is using a custom ROM
like LineageOS, a Google framework replacement like microG, and XPrivacyLua
(module for XPosed). Ideally you'd avoid using any Google services at all, but
at least these steps largely prevent Google from freely taking whatever data
they want if you do use the Play Store or whatever.

~~~
song
Problem with that is that unlocking the bootloader voids the warranty where I
live... I think I'll still try to go down that road if I can't find any other
solution...

------
_Understated_
Ok... this is giving me pause for thought.

I programme .NET on Windows. Have done for years. Never owned an Apple device
until I took my wife's old iPhone 6S at the start of the year.

I switched from Android to Apple for a few reasons:

1\. Constant spying and data-gathering for profit by Android 2\. Ethics 3\. I
only use a handful of apps so the platform wasn't that important

Apple's public stance is that they take privacy seriously. Like incredibly
seriously. Above all things and stuff. And as another commenter pointed out,
they told the FBI to go fish when they wanted access to a phone. That
resonated with me. That told me they are a company that (appears to) genuinely
believe in something other than just profit at all costs. That they may just
have my interests fairly high up their agenda.

This latest episode has made me rethink that. From the ground up.

I understand they need to follow the law but so do the law enforcers: Have
Apple been watching the footage from HK?

I thought that Apple, with all the power they have, could perhaps say to the
Chinese gov... "No, the app stays!"

My faith in Apple has been shattered.

As an aside... Apart from Librem, there isn't really any choice now.

I feel like a dad here... I'm disappointed in Apple.

~~~
scoutt
> 2\. Ethics

The _ethic_ ends where the money-loss (or missing profit) begins. I don't
understand why so many people are surprised when Apple (or whatever) pulls
something like this.

I don't mean to be rude (I don't know you, where you're from, what's your
age), but I though at this point in life people would be already aware that
_ethics_ doesn't fit very much into corporatism culture.

In simple words, they will (at very least) plainly lie to you in order to make
you buy their products. Every one of them.

Or have you ever heard a company saying "Yes, our product is inferior to the
competition", "Yes, we will sell your data", "Yes, if avoiding it gives us
much problem, we will side with higher powers against you" or "Yes, we're
burning forests to give you cheaper burgers"?

They'll picture them as nice and responsible, but at the end of the day what
matter most is _dollars_. They'll never lose.

~~~
_Understated_
I'm from the UK in my 40s and I understand the concept of ethics and that
mega-corporations are driven by money. At all costs.

That being said...

I suppose I let my guard down a bit and got slightly starry-eyed about Apple
but I genuinely believed they saw profit in NOT being assholes like Google.
That being different and taking a stand was going to make them vast sums of
money.

Plus, Google does not align with my vision at all and there was an Apple phone
going free so I made the leap.

Clearly it's all marketing and they are no different to any other mega-corp
and if there is profit to be made in feeding people through a woodchipper then
they'll do it... like the rest of them.

*takes rose-tinted glasses off

~~~
scoutt
Well, I guess this is a chance you (all of us, actually) can profit from and
learn that _ethics_ is a convenience feature, just like the headphone jack.

------
enriquto
Apple is at fault here, not for moderating their store, but for disallowing
people to install software of their own choice on their own devices. This is
completely unacceptable as a user and I do not understand how apple users put
up with this.

~~~
Retric
I really don’t understand this complaint. Gaming consoles have long used the
same model to great effect. Limit what software can run and you vastly improve
most people’s experience. Freedom is not just about letting people do
anything, it’s also a question of what contracts they can enter.

If you have some burning desire to hack the hardware, get a dev account and
you can lode arbitrary code. Or just buy a different phone.

~~~
dangerface
Games consoles are for one thing only entertainment. A phone is much more
personal, it more accurately fulfils the role personal computers claimed to as
a digital extension of the user. As a personal communications device any
limitations or controls placed on it are limitations and controls on the
persons speech / access to knowledge.

Who ever owns the phone owns the person and their speech, this is why the
complaint over who actually owns the phone and what that means is so
important.

> Or just buy a different phone.

The complaint goes beyond Apple and iPhone, Android does a better job of
pretending you own the phone but all that really means is Google owns you
instead of Apple. The problem is political not technological, all the common
person can do is bitch and moan about it.

~~~
__MatrixMan__
I agree with your whole comment except for the last sentence. The people will
be owned by their phones until they align their desires with their
capabilities such that they have control over that technology. That's not a
political problem, it's a technical one.

Mobile phones are like 3D printers: the technology isn't new, but within the
last decade the price of 3D printer components dropped, and the availability
of open source software to drive them rose, and an equilibrium was found where
they entered the domain of non-professional tinker types, at which point we
saw an explosion of creativity in that space. The only difference is that that
equilibrium hasn't happened for mobile phones yet.

But people are working on it:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/wiphone-a-
ph...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/wiphone-a-phone-for-
hackers-and-makers)

It's gonna take a while, but once the DIY approach is a viable alternative,
even for just the tech savviest 1% of the population, Apple and Google will
have something else to be compared against, and that will effect their choices
in a nice way. Or at least I hope so.

------
lawrenceyan
Really hard to believe that Apple is the "privacy oriented company we can
trust", that the company constantly touts in their advertising as a reason to
buy their products mind you, when at the same time, you have news like this
constantly coming out.

If you really wanted me to believe that you were serious about this Apple, you
would do what Google has done and completely remove yourself from China until
issues of blatant censorship and oppression like these improve. Of course,
this will never happen, because too much money comes from the revenue stream
that Chinese citizens represent.

~~~
reaperducer
I'm not sure about "constantly." The last big disappointment I can remember
was the China/iCloud thing.

The problem is that Tim Cook is a bean counter, not a technologist. He talks a
good game in scripted keynotes, but he's really in it for the money, like most
other CEOs.

That said, Apple is the least of all available evils. When something better
comes along, I'll leave. If that thing already exists, please let me know so I
can begin the process.

~~~
SXX
> That said, Apple is the least of all available evils. When something better
> comes along, I'll leave. If that thing already exists, please let me know so
> I can begin the process.

This is chicken and egg problem. Companies that develop privacy-oriented
devices have to sell very experimental devices for premium price because they
neither have production batches large enough to bring price down nor they have
enough money to invest into UX. So they can never appeal to mass market.

There is already a company selling desktop hardware that is closest to being
backdoor-free [1], there is a phone with isolated baseband [2] and even some
experiments with ARM-based laptops [3]. And actually many more examples can be
found around internet, but they not going to magically release Apple-grade
product.

[1] Talos: [https://raptorcs.com/](https://raptorcs.com/)

[2] Librem 5: [https://news.ycombinator.com/](https://news.ycombinator.com/)

[3] Pine64: [https://pine64.org/](https://pine64.org/)

~~~
justinclift
[https://Puri.sm](https://Puri.sm) seems relevant as well.

~~~
SXX
Thank you. I think it's obvious second list should've been it, but I was half
sleeping so...

------
dTal
This isn't about Apple.

This is the true face of the techno-feudalism future we've built. Throw your
lot in with one of the tech giants, and you'll have fashionable and functional
technology - but at the cost of freedom. When push comes to shove - when it
matters the most - your rights can and _will_ be revoked.

Don't be a serf. Reject techno-feudalism. Use free software.

~~~
kaolti
I mean, hard to disagree even if I wanted to.

Seems to me that free software community is lacking UI/UX Designers and so
looks and feels considerably less "cool" than commercial counterparts. What do
you think?

~~~
dTal
I think free software has caught up on the prettiness score. KDE Plasma 5
looks pretty slick. Graphic designers might niggle at aspects of it, but the
layperson won't care.

However, human factors is undervalued. There's a cultural issue in free
software wherein good UI is rejected as being for sissies and not worth the
effort. Hacking is a social activity, and hackers naturally like to make stuff
for other hackers. Hackers tend to be the kind of person who has a lot of
patience for tedious bullshit, or they would have thrown up their hands in
despair long before becoming a hacker. And so you often hear people defend
poor UI with talk of "investing in tools" and "if <UI annoyance> is enough to
stop you, you don't have the patience for <activity> anyway". Which is
possibly true! But it's a gatekeeping self-fulfilling prophecy.

The trouble is, by the time you're expert enough to write software, you've
long since forgotten what good UI even looks like:

"I liken starting one's computing career with Unix, say as a undergraduate, to
being born in East Africa. It is intolerably hot, your body is covered with
lice and flies, you are malnourished and you suffer from numerous curable
diseases. But, as far as young East Africans can tell, this is simply the
natural condition and they live within it. By the time they find out
differently, it is too late. They already think that the writing of shell
scripts is a natural act." — Ken Pier, Xerox PARC

~~~
kaolti
Haha nice, enjoyed reading that. I'm a UI/UX Designer myself and was just
thinking it comes down to designers contributing to these projects.

Especially new people starting out and needing a portfolio, seems like a win -
win for everyone involved.

~~~
Ajedi32
Part of the problem is likely that it's often difficult for non-programmers to
contribute to open source projects directly.

If I as a software engineer have a new feature I'd like to add to an open
source project, I can usually just write that feature myself and submit a PR
that the project maintainer can review and merge with minimal effort. But what
if a UI/UX designer wants to contribute an improved UI for a particular
feature? They could probably create a mockup and submit it to the repository
as an issue, but then who's going to actually go and implement those changes?

~~~
kitsunesoba
FOSS projects absolutely have big accessibility problems. Many projects are
still centered around mailing lists, IRC channels, and diff patches and some
don’t even use what’s comes to be the “standard” version tracker (git). This
is massively unwelcoming to even newer software engineers, let alone UI/UX
people.

------
tibbon
Think Different*

*but not so differently that it challenges an authoritarian government who is scared by ideas

------
rdlecler1
Companies are going to have to decide how important the Chinese market is or
risk eroding the trust and good will for all of their other customers. You
can’t stand on the boat of democracy and the boat of a dictatorship t the same
time.

~~~
bww
You may recall that Google dramatically pulled out of the mainland Chinese
market about 10 years ago on the basis of exactly these principles (at least
ostensibly).

That didn’t exactly last. And China is a much more important market now than
it was then. I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for a bunch of gazillion dollar
companies to decide to favor principles over revenue anytime soon.

~~~
Laforet
Google merely closed their office in China and (passively) stopped offering
their search and mail services. The money making part of Google (AdSense,
Android) has been making a killing in China over the past decade. Despite the
posturing on both sides, the relationship between Google and the Chinese
regime is much cosier than people often assume.

~~~
mda
I don't think Chinese Regime and Google are any close to each other, your
other remarks are also inaccurate.

~~~
Laforet
Which part of my post was inaccurate?

Google still has access to the google.cn domain as well as several valid ICP
licenses; a number of services (fonts, firebase and chrome/SDK downloads to
name a few) are accessible from China hosted on a Google affiliated server in
Beijing. AdWords have been thriving in China for a number of years and even
the localised version of Google maps (ditu.google.cn) is still being
maintained despite a nonexistent user base.

None of this would have been possible if the government is actually hostile to
Google in the way you believe.

------
thinkingemote
Just to give some clarification:

The app is banned from being on the Apple App Store but it never actually made
it to the App Store and so was not actually removed from users. Users couldn't
have used it before.

Their application has been rejected (a few times it appears?). The latest
rejection carried that notice

[https://twitter.com/hkmaplive/status/1179618848644812800](https://twitter.com/hkmaplive/status/1179618848644812800)

~~~
xvector
Wow, can't believe this essential piece of information is so far down. How
does one get in contact with the HN moderators to get bad titles fixed?

------
nova22033
>“Your app contains content - or facilitates, enables, and encourages an
activity - that is not legal ... specifically, the app allowed users to evade
law enforcement,"

Wait...doesn't Waze do this too?

~~~
Kneecaps07
Technically, so can iMessage, so they should ban that too.

------
userbinator
This shouldn't come as a surprise, since Apple is well known for being
authoritarian with its platforms. It just so happens that most of the time its
values align with those of the users, which is why it's so popular.

------
chrisco255
This should underscore the importance of a free and open web.

~~~
Scarbutt
That's coming to an end too, the web will be google's "app/play store"
someday.

~~~
busymom0
Google AMP project is a pretty big step by Google towards trying to control
the entire web.

------
remarkEon
Does anyone know how much of Apple’s hardware is actually manufactured in
China? I realize this is a complicated question, as some is assuredly
assembled outside of China. But as a total percentage of the supply chain at a
component level ... how much is Chinese?

I’m going to wait for judgement on Apple’s actions here until I have more
information.

~~~
junipertea
What difference would it make? Apple and other companies follow the laws of
countries they operate in, regardless of whether they produce there or not.

~~~
remarkEon
It makes a tremendous difference. If Apple can leverage some other aspect of
their supply chain so that they can ignore any or some “requests” from the
Chinese government ... that is a significant data point. If they can’t, well,
that is also a significant data point about who has leverage over Apple.

------
smsm42
That's what you get when you use walled garden system. One huge single point
of failure. Which always can be efficiently attacked by a resourceful
adversary. I get the use case where you need apps "just work" and don't step
one step out of the walled garden. HK use case is obviously not that - they
should not be using any Apple mobile technology, it's all one huge single
point of failure.

------
marmada
I think people/Apple defenders are creating a false dichotomy between
"regulated app store" and allowing people to install their own software.

Apple could still have a regulated app store to protect the masses (who will
never venture outside of the app store), but still allow users to install
their own software if they really need it.

At least no one can deny that the inability to prevent users from loading
their own software causes a lack of freedom. If someone wants to accept
authoritarianism in the name of making it harder for clueless people to
install malware then that's a trade-off they can make, but they shouldn't
pretend to be pro-freedom/pro-user/pro-privacy.

------
WillPontificate
Business strategy question. It seems like there will always be a conflict
between the US view of censorship (bad!) and the reality of trying to operate
in China's huge market (comply or be booted, basically)....

Is that good cause to create a separate brand or subsidiary so the reputation
damage of having to comply with this stuff (you know they got nudged) doesn't
hit home on the US brand?

Just seems like you're going to have a rough time if you're attempting to
service both markets under the same brand...

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
I wish American companies would focus on finding ways to bypass China's
censorship rather than complying with it.

When Google first acquiesced to China they made a mistake and set a bad
precedent. They should have rather focused their China business on building
search engine and tools that would work around China's firewall. I don't think
there is an obligated to adhere to laws when those laws conflict with human
rights.

~~~
WillPontificate
Morally, I agree with you.

From a practical perspective, however, that would cede what little voice the
American companies have in the process to the Chinese government who would
replace them with local lapdogs controlled by political allies.

The result would be software where censorship wasn't a bug, it is a feature...

~~~
rndgermandude
This already happened.

------
tempodox
Next startup: Build an ML model and let it feed on Chinese anti-insurrection
laws and Apple app review guidelines. Then, let the ML model generate apps
that comply. Should be an instant smash hit.

------
choiway
Wondering if Steve Jobs would have pulled the plug.

~~~
Jagat
He totally would have. In the early days of iPhone, he had a strong contempt
for the idea of an app store since it would allow anyone to publish any app
and he didn't want anyone other than Apple doing that.

Making it a walled garden was his idea.

~~~
choiway
Fair point. It's just sad that reality doesn't live up to the marketing.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I)

~~~
gamcdono
You must be sad.. a lot

------
ekianjo
Think Different, Think like China I guess?

At least their 1984 commercial was cool, too bad they don't grasp what it
meant anymore.

------
lilyball
This article, and all the response here on HN, is really quite baffling to me.
Apple complies with local laws. If the local government says the app violates
their laws, Apple doesn't have a whole lot of choice here; either pull the
app, or be in violation of the law. AFAIK all the app stores do the same
thing.

~~~
mattigames
Maybe soon a local law in China will say everyone needs to report where all
homosexuals live because they need to be executed, and then Apple will send
that exact info to the police (e.g. anyone with grindr installed) and then you
will say "Oh what? they are just folling the law". Yeah we know they are just
following the law, still doesn't mean we shouldn't give them bad press and
opinions about it.

~~~
lilyball
Slippery slope is not a valid fallacy.

~~~
mattigames
Is not a slippery slope (because I'm not saying it will happen, I'm just
amplifying the core of your opinion), is just an example with a different law;
that btw exists in other countries such as Nigeria, just be honest and say you
agree more with this one law than the one in the example.

~~~
lilyball
You're trying to compare Apple taking down an app that violates local laws
(which, again, everybody does) with... I don't even know how to characterize
your new law proposal except it's ridiculous.

Apple not publishing illegal content is a _far_ cry from what you're proposing
and it does not make sense to compare the two at all.

~~~
mattigames
The core of your argument was "They are just following the law", it clearly
wasn't "They are following a sensible law"; if you believe the law to be
within the ethical bounds of laws that should be followed for the sake of
keeping business there just say so but just saying "they are just following
the law" is dishonest at best.

~~~
lilyball
They are following the exact same law _literally everyone follows and always
has followed_ , which is to take down apps that violate the local laws. I
don't understand why you're taking a particular issue with this. "Apple, in
its capacity as an app store owner, shall not publish apps that violate local
laws" is not even a remotely problematic stance. If you have an issue with
this particular app being taken down, you should be directing your ire at the
law that makes it illegal, not at Apple for complying with the law, because
taking the app down does no more harm to anybody than the alternative, which
is for Apple to take the whole store down and stop doing business in the
country.

~~~
mattigames
> because taking the app down does no more harm to anybody than the
> alternative, which is for Apple to take the whole store down and stop doing
> business in the country.

Only the future will tell if that's true

------
aaomidi
This type of stuff is why Warren wants to break up tech.

It should NOT be up to apple to decide stuff like this.

~~~
faster
Who should decide?

~~~
antoinevg
No one should get to decide is the point.

You may be a bit young to remember this but it was once possible to install
any software on hardware you owned without permission from the manufacturer.

~~~
stanmancan
And that’s how the common person ends up with devices riddled with viruses,
malware, and spyware. I don’t disagree with you, but the walled garden
approach is certainly a safer option for the vast majority of end users.

~~~
qlk1123
No. Linux Desktop suffer much fewer virus attacks and they are certainly NOT
walled garden.

~~~
Ygg2
That's function of its obscurity, not its design.

~~~
jethro_tell
not entirely, more a function of it's multi user mode as default and repos.
Those two things would have gone a long ways for early windows as well.

It's also worth noting that there are a lot of linux servers in the wild that
are hacked serving shitty wordpress malware and spam email servers. Sure the
desktop is fine, it's a very small piece of the pie, but the overall linux
install ends up running bad software and poor configurations just like any OS.

------
moggie2
Remind me of the original Napster - which is only providing the channel for
users to share music but not providing the music by itself.

------
ISL
Think Different.

[https://youtu.be/RSyy2-Z2m-U](https://youtu.be/RSyy2-Z2m-U)

------
mads
Yeah, that was the last straw. No more Apple products for me.

I hope they will enjoy all their rich Chinese customers.

------
secfirstmd
For what it's worth, so far Umbrella app hasn't had any problems in HK.

~~~
tptacek
Because nobody cares about Umbrella app.

[https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1169323269297717248](https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1169323269297717248)

~~~
secfirstmd
Thanks. Have you used it? You seem to have lots of comments about it based on
here-say but I'm curious have you used it yourself?

~~~
tptacek
Is any part of what Zeynep said here inaccurate?

~~~
secfirstmd
Yes, there is in various parts.

I'm curious, have you actually used Umbrella?

~~~
tptacek
Could you be more specific? Zeynep Tufekci has actually been out in Hong Kong
talking with and reporting on the protesters and their tactics, which your
organization --- in her telling --- got comically wrong. Where is she
mistaken?

~~~
secfirstmd
There are many points which I have spoken about in multiple places. On the
things she legitimately pointed out that I got wrong I put my hands up (like
the flag things), admitted were incorrect and quickly changed.

A number of other things she said were partly/entirely incorrect, did not
apply to us or could not be refuted in a public forum without admitting to
previous experiences or potentially endangering people we work with in HK or
elsewhere.

If you want more detail my email is in my bio and I am always happy to speak
with people who are doing their best to help people at risk. Hence I am not
being cynical, I actually am curious about whether you have used Umbrella? You
talk as if you have so I am curious to know what we could do better...

------
Zhenya
Any word if this app is available on the playstore/fdroid in Android form?

~~~
lern_too_spel
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=live.hkmap.app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=live.hkmap.app)

It's not on F-Droid, but it has a perfectly usable webapp.
[https://hkmap.live/](https://hkmap.live/)

------
judah
This is yet another reason proprietary app stores should be supplemented, if
not replaced altogether, by the open web and progressive web apps.

Having a central authority that dictates what software you can and can't use
is bad for user freedom.

------
uberduper
It's worth noting that anyone can side-load apps on their iPhone or appletv
using a free apple developer account and Xcode. It's annoying to have to re-do
it every 7 days, but it is an option.

------
ausjke
i am glad i have never used any products from apple,and will keep using unix
and android for the future

------
yccheok
Careful Apple. Those faceless rioters will come to break your Apple store
glass. Maybe time to upgrade them to bullet proof glass?

------
decoyworker
Apple should allow app sideloading.

------
exabrial
Nice form Apple.

------
deepGem
Imagine this happening under Jobs, probably never. I truly miss Steve's
leadership at Apple. The one guy who would've showed his middle finger to the
communist regime.

~~~
rkop
Are you kidding?

------
sjg007
Use Waze.

------
sjg007
Bad apple.

------
dingo_bat
Apple can only stand up to the US government when it comes to privacy and
security. They will refuse to unlock a terrorist's iphone when FBI requests
it. They can do this because of the fundamental liberty everybody is granted
in the US to everybody. The real test of character is how a company reacts to
an authoritarian regime like China. That's what reveals the true nature.

And Apple has completely shit the bed in this regard. Google has handled it so
much more beautifully.

~~~
millstone
Is Google helping the Hong Kong protests? Honest question.

~~~
guramarx11
No direct help...besides banning Huawei user, removal of fake news bots and
pro-china propaganda on its platform

------
jhanschoo
> Tim Cook Buckled Under Chinese Pressure

Mods: title is misleading. The article explicitly says that they don't know if
there was Chinese pressure to remove the app.

Edit: title is now fixed.

~~~
scarmig
The idea that the relevant PRC officials don't have at least a daily check in
with Apple to sync on issues the CCP thinks "need more attention" is
endearingly naive.

~~~
jhanschoo
> The idea that the relevant PRC officials don't have at least a daily check
> in with Apple to sync on issues the CCP thinks "need more attention" is
> endearingly naive.

Your comment would be far more useful to the discussion if you would provide
some evidence to back this or at least evidence to support the claim that the
CCP does this generally to tech companies or foreign companies.

------
honkycat
Of course Apple bitched out, what else have they ever done?

Acting like a revolutionary, counter culture company is one thing. Actually
sticking it's neck out and doing something important is something completely
different.

Part of the reason I can't stand apple. At least Microsoft acts like a lame
computer company without sloughing on layers of pretentious BS.

~~~
zuppy
so what would you have expected them to do, break the law? when they said no
to the FBI they did it while respecting the law. should they just have quit
the entire chinese market?

~~~
realusername
I should be able to install any app I want from a download link, that's what I
expect. Apple has no business to make a decision about user choices.

~~~
ryanjshaw
Apple is a publically listed business operating a service (the app store).
Their board and directors have a legal responsibility to comply with requests
like this.

~~~
realusername
Then maybe they should not operate the app store at all if it's incompatible
with user choices. Or at least, leave the user a choice to just download an
app elsewhere if they want to.

Clicking on a link and installing an app like you would do on windows seems
the right thing to do.

------
basicplus2
Free people now know that its time to leave apple

~~~
toasterlovin
And go where exactly? Self compiled Android without Google services? Welcome
to the world. It's a messy place of conflicting values.

~~~
antoinevg
Self-compiled Android without Google services is not a bad place to start.

That said, these single-vendor proprietary mobile platforms are all dumpster
fires so it may be time to start developing a free software alternative.

~~~
npo9
We need free hardware before we can build free software.

No one produces an LTE modem with open source firmware.

~~~
antoinevg
You absolutely do not need free hardware to build free software.

It was decades before the PC's we used to build FreeBSD, GNU, Linux etc. had
even a free software BIOS available.

Historically, free hardware availability has followed in the wake of free
software.

------
maximente
disappointing, but this was obviously going to happen. there was also
precedent as i believe chinese gov has hooks into iMessage, so anyone thinking
they were going to do the "right" think was not thinking rationally.

~~~
saagarjha
> there was also precedent as i believe chinese gov has hooks into iMessage

iMessage is end-to-end encrypted.

~~~
maximente
sure, but the encryption keys live in china, so it's naive to think that the
chinese government doesn't have access to them. that means they can read the
data on any chinese user's account.

~~~
xvector
Isn't this only if you have iCloud backup enabled for iMessage? I remember I
had to explicitly enable that.

Otherwise the keys are stored in the enclave on your phone. Makes it a bit
harder for the government - they have to use a zero-day to get your messages
at that point.

------
nipponese
Was the advice qualitatively "good"? People are depending on the info in there
to save their lives, and if bad advice lead to someone getting hurt, we would
all surely put Apple on the hook.

~~~
xvector
> and if bad advice lead to someone getting hurt, we would all surely put
> Apple on the hook

No, you'd put the app dev on the hook. Validating the truth of all statements
in every app is not Apple's job and never was.

