Employees at some Chinese ministries must stop using iPhones before the end of September.

  • @[email protected]
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    62 years ago

    Yes put all their government employees on most likely outdated Android which probably don’t have up to date security patches. Brilliant.

    • Buelldozer
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      32 years ago

      Not for long. Now that HarmonyOS 4 is out they’re pushing HarmonyOS NEXT which has all of the Android libraries removed.

        • Buelldozer
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          22 years ago

          I wouldn’t bet against it but from the CCPs perspective that’s still better than iOS & Android where it’s a near certainty that the NSA has back doors baked into the OS.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    This seems like a logical step, both as a political counter move to the US limiting Huawei and TikTok, and as an actual security measure. If the Chinese state can get intel from Huawei devices, surely the US can get intel from iphones. I’m surprised they didn’t include Microsoft.

    Edit: a word.

  • IWantToFuckSpez
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    2 years ago

    iPhones pose a risk to the National Security Agencies’ ability to spy on the citizens

  • downpunxx
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    682 years ago

    Of course it is, for the Chinese. Listen, if it isn’t a homegrown tech product, it’s a threat to your national security, and even most of the homegrown ones are, regardless of what nation you’re from or in. This is fact.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      Agreed. Investing in local R&D and having at least enough production capacity to locally manufacture enough decent-quality devices for government use is essential for national security.

      But it is also very expensive. The US and China can probably afford it, and I suppose the EU as a bloc can. But for anyone else the cost would be prohibitive. India is a top-five economy, and yet we have only been able to develop 130nm (!) chips locally. (Taiwan makes 5nm chips and China is now reaching 7nm.)

      Perhaps a solution would be for many of the ‘other’ countries to band together. The blueprints could be open-sourced so all partners can trust each other. Whether something like this will work in today’s political climate is of course another question.

  • @[email protected]
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    62 years ago

    Apple’s recent reductions on their privacy stance are having consequences.

    Huh. Who woulda thunk.

    • HeartyBeast
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      192 years ago

      They haven’t reduced their privacy stance, as far as I’m aware. In fact, the only public previous reduction was a concession to China over iCloud storage

      • Ghostalmedia
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        32 years ago

        And if you really want full privacy, storing data in Apple’s cloud storage was never ideal. Apple, like many other cloud storage companies, hands cloud storage data over to authorities if they’re given a warrant.

        On-device storage is a different story though. Apple has a no backdoor policy for the iPhone and iOS, which is why they’re constantly getting into fights with law enforcement and government agencies. On device backdoors would offer a massive security vulnerability that would be exploited by bad actors.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          Apple does have some advantages, in that you can enable encryption of your data so that Apple doesn’t have anything to turn over.

          But yeah, I still wouldn’t recommend them because they could disable that tomorrow.

          • Ghostalmedia
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            12 years ago

            Even if they disabled E2E, the data would still be encrypted, and they wouldn’t have the key to force it to decrypt. Also, removing that feature would royally piss off their customers that they sold “security” to for a decade+.

            Personally, I use their cloud storage. IMHO, the risk is low and the convenience is worth it for me, as someone in the US.

            • @[email protected]
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              22 years ago

              Even if they disabled E2E, the data would still be encrypted, and they wouldn’t have the key to force it to decrypt.

              Since it’s all closed-source, we don’t really know that. Apple also controls the OS of your device so they could easily push an update that sends your key to their server.

              Apple has many privacy issues, but this ain’t one of them, in my opinion.

  • Ertebolle
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    452 years ago

    I mean it’s not like you’d catch a US government official carrying around a Huawei phone either - fair is fair.

  • roguetrick
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    2 years ago

    Any US technology has NSA backdoors. I’m surprised it took them this long to realize, since they do the same thing.

    • Buelldozer
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      82 years ago

      I’m sure they’ve known for years, there just wasn’t a lot they could do it about and relations with the US were good enough that it wasn’t a serious problem…until now.

    • @[email protected]
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      112 years ago

      Thing is, Huawei had a shitload of connections with the CCP. We’re speaking about funding, the owner was ex CCP, etc. It’s very much not like Xiaomi which is more a Chinese private company (with funding from companies like Qualcomm).

      • Dr. Moose
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        2 years ago

        So is basically every American tech company. I think its safe to assume that government has access of some sort to any entities that are physically present there be it US, China, India or France. US has some scary gag laws that make whistleblowing almost impossible. Just look at Snowden and PRISM.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          Yes, if it’s companies based in US they’re pretty much forced to do what FBI, etc mandates. And if they tell the media or something there’s gag orders in the law. For example Pavel Durov, from Telegram, said he was approached by the FBI during a visit to the US asking Telegram to implement back doors.

      • @[email protected]
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        102 years ago

        One more reason I’m proud to be an American, where our tech companies have no ties or connections to the government.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        Can’t wait to see where Linux phones are in a few years but I have my doubts. Mostly around the app ecosystem (yes I know, just use the web browser for a lot of them), but hopefully the concept stays alive!