Apple's New 'Private Relay' Feature Will Not Be Available in China (reuters.com) 69
Apple on Monday said a new "private relay" feature designed to obscure a user's web browsing behavior from internet service providers and advertisers will not be available in China for regulatory reasons. From a report: The feature was one of a number of privacy protections Apple announced at its annual software developer conference on Monday, the latest in a years-long effort by the company to cut down on the tracking of its users by advertisers and other third parties. Apple's decision to withhold the feature in China is the latest in a string of compromises the company has made on privacy in a country that accounts for nearly 15% of its revenue.
In 2018, Apple moved the digital keys used to lock Chinese users' iCloud data, allowing authorities to work through domestic courts to gain access to the information. China's ruling Communist Party maintains a vast surveillance system to keep a close eye on how citizens use the country's heavily controlled internet. Under President Xi Jinping, the space for dissent in China has narrowed, while censorship has expanded. Apple's "private relay" feature first sends web traffic to a server maintained by Apple, where it is stripped of a piece of information called an IP address. From there, Apple sends the traffic to a second server maintained by a third-party operator who assigns the user a temporary IP address and sends the traffic onward to its destination website.
In 2018, Apple moved the digital keys used to lock Chinese users' iCloud data, allowing authorities to work through domestic courts to gain access to the information. China's ruling Communist Party maintains a vast surveillance system to keep a close eye on how citizens use the country's heavily controlled internet. Under President Xi Jinping, the space for dissent in China has narrowed, while censorship has expanded. Apple's "private relay" feature first sends web traffic to a server maintained by Apple, where it is stripped of a piece of information called an IP address. From there, Apple sends the traffic to a second server maintained by a third-party operator who assigns the user a temporary IP address and sends the traffic onward to its destination website.
"Compromise" (Score:2)
Apple seems to "compromise" with China a lot.
How soon will they start to "compromise" with US .gov demands?
Re:"Compromise" (Score:5, Informative)
Well just the most obvious distinction would be that in China, there is little or no recourse for anyone to challenge gov't decisions.
That being said, Apple already does comply with US gov't decisions within the limits that US law permits and the technology allows. For example, if the gov't gets a warrant and Apple has no reasonable legal reason to challenge it, they will quite readily give up all the data they have available for a user. You know, just like every company.
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True, I mean who really cares how a country commits it's own business, right? /s
US companies shouldn't be doing business with countries whose standards are below our own. Fortunately, US isn't really a country but rather a business association. It's all about money here. Always has been.
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They can easily give the middle finger to the US government and people will applaud. The US government has its issues, but business still owns government when push comes to shove, and Apple tends to get its way.
If Apple tries that with China, and they will be swept out of the country, their manufacturing shut down, IP swiped, their execs in the mainland disappeared, and anyone with an Apple device have their social credit score lowered unless it gets replaced ASAP with a Chinese brand. So, Apple, as well
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Apple seems to "compromise" with China a lot.
That's the price you have to pay to do business in a foreign country. If you don't follow their laws, you get kicked out.
How soon will they start to "compromise" with US .gov demands?
They already do, although they have a lot more leeway to challenge and overturn those demands.
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Apple users in China likely do not have the expectation that Apple will go to bat against the government to protect their privacy.
Apple users in the US probably do. That is why Apple has more than once claimed they are completely unable to unlock a device even with a court order, just to have a third party paid to do it. Are we to believe "hackers" are more capable of accessing Apple hardware then they themselves are? Or is it rather that they would prefer their US customers believe in their iron-clad sec
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They never claimed that. The issue revolved around whether or not Apple could be compelled by the government to create a version of iOS that could be installed on a device and which bypassed certain security features. They said no, and the FBI decided not to press that particular issue.
Apple also refused on the grounds that, once said software existed, everyone's devices would be at risk. If the NSA can't keep its hacking tools secure, what makes you think anyone else can?
There's money to be made! (Score:1)
A company with values would (Score:3, Insightful)
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The only values they have is the Almighty Dollar. Everything else is just an adjunct to obtain more. Just like all the rest of corporate America. Expecting anything else such as patriotism etc from a financial animal embodied as a legal fiction will lead to disappointment.
Napoleon said it best:
"Money has no fatherland, financiers are without patriotism and without decency, their sole object is gain.â
At the end of the day, Apple is only in it for the money.
Re:A company with values would (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that dealing with China is a classic case of the prisoners' dilemma, but on a massive scale. If *everyone* stopped trading with China, then *everyone* would be better off in the long term. There'd be some short-term pain while manufacturing and supply chains got reshuffled. But we'd ALL be better off not surrendering, in any way shape or form, to the CCP. But there is a tremendous short-term gain to kowtowing to China. And, unless every company (Not just in the US, mind you. The EU, ME, and the rest of Asia have to be on board too.) unites to cut China out, the ones which do kowtow will use that short-term advantage to dominate, and possibly destroy, their more principled competitors.
I'm not aware of any publicly traded corporation that's been willing to to stand up and definiatively say "No. No now. No forever." to China. Even Google's been backpedaling from their former stance. So it's hardly kosher to single out Apple. What's needed here is are International agreements at government and regulatory levels to neutralize China's power via crushing trade sanctions until they reform to respect international norms regarding territorial expansion (GTFO of Tibet and the Spratlys; and knock off the crap with the Senkakus and Taiwan.), IP theft, human rights, and equal and unrestrained access to consumer markets. No one company... no one nation... can do it by itself.
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Nobody would be better off not trading with China. China wouldn't just go away, it would act to defend itself, and that would get very very nasty very very quickly.
China faced with economic ruin and a huge, angry population... The government would have no choice but to take extreme measures.
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China would be a paper tiger with nukes.
Re:A company with values would (Score:4, Interesting)
China won't be nuking anyone for the same reason no one else is nuking anyone. Self assured destruction isn't a win for anyone.
It's all about the threat not actually doing it.
Re:A company with values would (Score:4, Insightful)
Extreme measures like what?
Kinetic warfare? - China has far less force projection ability than the G7 has to counter with, even if they do have a lot of personnel. They can't exactly use nukes - thanks to MAD.
The real answer is G7 leaders are lying about their commitment to liberal values and a free world. They are more concerned with their personal wealth and power.
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They have nukes.
Long before it gets there though they will be making sure plenty of countries pick them instead of us. It's already happening.
In fact a lot of countries will be happy to see the US replaced for things like financial transaction processing, because the US uses that stuff to enforce its laws globally and China doesn't.
And let's not forget that they control a lot of the world's supply of some things, like rare earths. Oh sure, we can ramp up, but it will take a long time and China won't just do
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They have nukes.
- Right I said that; does not matter - Mutually Assured Destruction means they won't use them and neither will G7 powers.
Long before it gets there though they will be making sure plenty of countries pick them instead of us. It's already happening.
Right it will be bipolar world similar to what existed during the cold war with the soviets.
In fact a lot of countries will be happy to see the US replaced for things like financial transaction processing, because the US uses that stuff to enforce its laws globally and China doesn't.
Come on are you serious? China does exactly the same stuff, don't follow their rules they cut off access to their market. They have an entire separate currency for outside trade! The levers look a little different because of the producer vs consumer relationship but China absolutely imposes i
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It's not the 1.4B Chinese people that are the problem. It's the Chinese government that needs to go.
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The west would likely prefer a more democratic style of government for China. It's what we tend to push.
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No one company... no one nation... can do it by itself.
Company no - nation (like the US) or perhaps close federation (like the EU) probably could. However it would be painful. The real question everyone ought to be demanding our respective politicians answer is this:
For all the lip service paid to democratic values, the CCP is clearly antithetical too, why isnt the G7's primary diplomatic project to isolate and reduce China's influence?
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Easy: Money talks. Politicians are crooks and congenitally incapable of looking at things in the long-term. And no one wants to be the first to take the risk unless they can be absolutely assured that everyone else will go along.
I don't have any idea howto make it happen. But I would disagree that it could be just the US or EU by itself though. If the CCP is not fully isolated, contained, and neutralized; it could stand a decent chance of forming a new Warsaw-Pact-esque power block and ignite a new Col
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Enforced by locale or by device? (Score:1)
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one way to find out... while visiting, publish a bunch of links with tiananmen square information.
Big surprise from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Tim doesn't want those Uighurs to "think different"....
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Hey Tim, "Why don't you mind your own business? [youtube.com]"
Some features may not be available in China.
Re: Big surprise from Apple (Score:2)
Because around 800, many of whom returned to terrorist activities on release, is comparable to 1.5 million.
Shitty version of Tor (Score:3)
See subject. Tor has things like obfsproxy for them.
No choice (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no choice if they want to do business in China (and "wanting to do business in China" is not optional, unfortunately). China is a non-democratic, non-free country. Any company doing business there is subject to their non-democratic rules (not "laws"). So, why are these articles regularly single out Apple? I wonder.
Re:No choice (Score:4, Informative)
Two previous articles are about Google and Twitter complying with laws from other countries.
Apple, like any other company, has to comply with local laws. They may not approve of them, but the only other choice is not to do any business with those countries. In the case of China, where they have a lot of their sales and where most of their product are manufactured on top of that, they don't really have a choice.
For companies the size of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and others, it basically boils down to "do we stick to our ethics and close up shop, or do we comply with local laws and continue existing and doing even more profits".
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Apple, like any other company, has to comply with local laws.
Yup, and it's fine as long as it only affects China. Maybe this time it will.
The bigger issue is that many of these compliance things tend to spill over and affect the rest of the world---intentionally or otherwise. And the rest of us shouldn't be affected by the whims of Chinese censors.
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Apple could just pull out of China. Twitter could pull out of Russia.
Google isn't in China. Google pulled its News service from countries that passed laws it didn't like. It's absolutely a choice to keep doing business there.
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There is no choice if they want to do business in China (and "wanting to do business in China" is not optional, unfortunately). China is a non-democratic, non-free country. Any company doing business there is subject to their non-democratic rules (not "laws").
That's fine. We know Apple is happy to deal with mass murders and fascists.
Just ban Apple, and anyone else working for the Chinese state mafia.
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“I try to get somebody to think about what happens in a world where you know that you’re being surveilled all the time. What changes do you then make in your own behavior? What do you do less of? What do you not do anymore? What are you not as curious about anymore if you know that each time you’re on the web, looking at different things, exploring different things, you’re going to wind up constricting yourself more and more and more and more? That kind of world is not a world that a
Re:No choice (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no choice if they want to do business in China (and "wanting to do business in China" is not optional, unfortunately). China is a non-democratic, non-free country. Any company doing business there is subject to their non-democratic rules (not "laws"). So, why are these articles regularly single out Apple? I wonder.
Yeah, "wanting to do business in China" is kind of optional. I recently worked for a US based Fortune 500 company for some years. I'm not going to name them because to be honest I'm not really happy with some of the stuff they are doing in terms of treating American workers. They are supposedly an international company but US and Canada really drive most of the business. They are small everywhere else. When I was there they owned, and probably still do own, a very small Chinese company they bought out years ago to get a foothold in China. They won't publicly admit it, but they basically gave up completely on making it in China. I think there were 2 reasons for this. The first is that the bribes, kickbacks, etc. needed to do business there are a direct violation of company ethics policies and there is no way to get around this reality. The other reason is that if they had ever gotten business going in China, it would have involved some loss of control over source code that they are unwilling to give up, so they'd rather be a major player in their market segment in the USA and Canada and just give up on China. An ethics violation would harm them big time and if they gave up source code to sell stuff in China and then some Chinese company basically duplicates their main product for North America, they are screwed.
Re:No choice (Score:5, Insightful)
Doing business in China is entirely optional. Google doesn't. Apple could simply stop providing services in China, only keeping the manufacturing. Sucks for all the Chinese iPhone owners but that's Apple's fault for even starting to provide services there.
Apple isn't going to do that though, because China is where much of its growth comes from now. Also it's been ramping up the amount of manufacturing it does in China too.
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Re: No choice (Score:2)
There is no choice if they want to do business in China (and "wanting to do business in China" is not optional, unfortunately). China is a non-democratic, non-free country. Any company doing business there is subject to their non-democratic rules (not "laws"). So, why are these articles regularly single out Apple? I wonder.
Exactly!
For example, whereâ(TM)s the /. breathless article about Apple moving Siriâ(TM)s speech recognition On-Device? No great Kudos for that significant, and unique Privacy advancement. Instead, all we have is another brickbat hurled at Apple for doing exactly what every other company that does business in China, Belarus, Saudi Arabia, et al, has to do.
Why?
It is up to the people of those countries to effect change; it is not up to Google, Microsoft, Facebook or Apple to be the SJW here.
People si
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"why are these articles regularly single out Apple? I wonder."
Depends who they're partnered up with, probably. I suppose if you're researching an article dealing with this stuff, google is not going to pony up negative stories about themselves in the process... A washington post article, for example, wouldn't trash amazon's practices, I suspect. (Bezos owns wash.po.)
Apple is a LARGE target now, being the most valuable company in the world... The used to be the underdog. A lot of reporters used to favor the
I'm not sure why this is surprising.... (Score:1)
Companies want to make money. The cost of doing business in China is following the rules set forth by the government, and they are happy to shut off companies (even major ones) that don't play ball.
If you were Apple's board/execs, would you:
A) Take the moral high ground and stop doing business in China, losing 15% revenue. China doesn't care, this just gives more market share to domestically made phones.
B) Not enable this feature in China.
Seems an obvious answer to me, no matter what company it is.
This is what "piracy" is for (Score:1)
Somebody has to bootleg this stuff and smuggle it in.
What do they say? (Score:2)
Friendly reminder (Score:2)
WTF (Score:2)
"where it is stripped of a piece of information called an IP address"
This is Slashdot. I think we all know what an IP address is.
Visit China (Score:2)
What happens if you take your US acquired Apple device with you when you visit China to get some Chinese food? You can get arrested? They'll send you to an Uyghur camp? What? Or, will Apple "convert" your device automatically/secretly for you "own protection" .. they might forget to convert it back, or provide the Chinese access to stuff you did previously outside China?
Re: Visit China (Score:2)
Apple device with you when you visit China to get some Chinese food? You can get arrested? They'll send you to an Uyghur camp? What? Or, will Apple "convert" your device automatically/secretly for you "own protection" .. they might forget to convert it back, or provide the Chinese access to stuff you did previously outside China?
Nice try, Comrade!
Now GTFO.
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Don't go to China. At least not with your usual toys - and preferably not at all.
A large international bank I know has a policy of giving the people who HAVE to go there a new, clean laptop that is cleaned when it comes back. I doubt they are being paranoid.
A piece of information called an IP address (Score:1)
Thank you slashdot for advancing my technical knowlege!