this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
633 points (98.6% liked)
Apple
17530 readers
34 users here now
Welcome
to the largest Apple community on Lemmy. This is the place where we talk about everything Apple, from iOS to the exciting upcoming Apple Vision Pro. Feel free to join the discussion!
Rules:
- No NSFW Content
- No Hate Speech or Personal Attacks
- No Ads / Spamming
Self promotion is only allowed in the pinned monthly thread
Communities of Interest:
Apple Hardware
Apple TV
Apple Watch
iPad
iPhone
Mac
Vintage Apple
Apple Software
iOS
iPadOS
macOS
tvOS
watchOS
Shortcuts
Xcode
Community banner courtesy of u/Antsomnia.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I was assuming Apple was posturing until they'd actually have to do something.
They could well have postured in China as well, before backtracking. I have no Idea if that happened, but it seems reasonable from a PR vs Legal vs business development standpoint.
These are totally separate things. Apple users in China can still use iMessage and FaceTime and those are still end-to-end encrypted. If you choose to store your iMessages in iCloud, those can be accessed by the government, but that's the same as they can in every other country. The UK's proposal is to directly break the security of iMessage itself, something worse than what China has done.
No they didn't. iMessage can only be decrypted by keys stored in the secure enclave on your device.
There are some things that the Chinese government can access. The contents of messages isn't one of them.
And as for Facetime... those calls aren't recorded at all. Not sure how a legal order is supposed to allow access to data that doesn't even exist.
I agree that's not how it works in most places but I don't assume to know the inner working of a Chinese iphone or the version of iOS it's running. If there is a financial incentive apple will bend for China while also saying it didn't.
The way Facetime works is extensively documented and thoroughly audited by third parties - many of whom publish their findings.
If China had a back door into Facetime, I suspect I'd know about it as someone who follows these things pretty closely.
Right but none of it is open source so being extensively documented doesn't mean much and what I said still stands. You are assuming that what apple has told you is the truth with zero 3rd party audits of the underlying code.