this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2023
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Employees at some Chinese ministries must stop using iPhones before the end of September.

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[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Probably too difficult logistically to forbid Microsoft

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well that and MS is like a national champion in China. MS is one of the few companies to follow Chinese law and thus, Bing is the only foreign search engine allowed. MS is what China is hoping every other foreign company will emulate. So yeah, no way China is going to go after MS.

*Edit. Heck, MS is expanding in China even amidst the tech war because they love China so much.

https://nypost.com/2022/09/29/microsoft-faces-us-scrutiny-as-it-nears-10000-employees-in-china/

If anything USA should be banning MS for national security issues.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Year of the Linux desktop coming as soon as that ban happens

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (4 children)

USA: let's ban Huawei
China:

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year 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!

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Exactly, if they were allowing US phones before then they were nuts.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course they pose a national security risk. Imagine your government officials walking around with devices fully capable of recording bodily activities, location, sound, video, and transmit it to a foreign power, with or without the wearer's knowledge. 🤯

Then add the ability of third party powers to use Israel's NSO spying capabilities for these devices.

The moment I could replace these devices with my own home-grown ones, I would. If anything, it's surprising it took them this long. Maybe they thought they had enough control over Apple.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Imagine your government officials walking around with devices fully capable of recording bodily activities, location, sound, video, and transmit it to a foreign power, with or without the wearer’s knowledge.

They don't have to imagine it. They are actively DOING it with TikTok! Then there's the not so small matter of all the spying that Huwaei was doing using their 5G network equipment.

Here's another one: Have you read the articles about Mozilla reporting what a privacy nightmare today's cars are? China has banned Teslas from being parked in our around their Government Offices and Military bases. Today's cars, especially EVs, are absolutely loaded with high end spy tech. Video recording in optical and non-optical wavelengths, audio recording, gps positioning, radar and ultrasound systems, remote control of those systems, remote data access to those systems...

Since China banned Tesla's cars from being parked in sensitive locations what do you think they are doing with their auto brands such as BYD?

Everyone is spying on each other like mad.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Haven't read Mozilla's report but I'm in the field and am fully aware. What I can tell you is that at least some of the Motown manufacturers are very privacy oriented at least for now.

Huawei is an unmitigated disaster. Security analyses of their equipment from some years ago showed hundreds of security holes on a single piece of infrastructure networking equipment. Countless vulnerable copies of OpenSSL, you name it. Even if they didn't have any backdoors, the equipment was such a Swiss cheese that you could enter it from many of the gaping holes. The only reason we use it is cost, making the moneys for the shareholders.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Buy stock in Huawei, got it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Huawei is not a publicly traded company. It's a private company wholly owned by its employees.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Huawei may be "owned" by its employees but that isn't the same thing as being controlled by them. Huwaei's structure is extremely unusual and highly opaque.

https://sayari.com/resources/huaweis-ownership-opaque-unusual/

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That’s cool as fuck actually

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They’ll still have no problem manufacturing them, though.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Isn’t apple shifting to production in Inda?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

In some capacity. But currently India alone cannot fulfill their requirement.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Older or lower cost product lines have been yes. This will likely expedite more movement there.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Why would they have a problem with that?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

If the US can do it, so can China. But, of course, both suck (iPhone and Huawei).

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean... I don't doubt that any cell phone is.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nice move, China. Right then, let's start drafting the tit-for-tat regulations right away.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

China isn't exactly happy with the US government right now due to the sanctions imposed over advanced chip technology, and this move could be viewed as part of a an ongoing reaction to that. So far, Micron has been the main target for retaliation. The US government already imposes its own restrictions on Chinese hardware and services. Notable, Huawei equipment is banned and TikTok can't be installed on government devices.

Already did. This is the tit-for-tat regulation. America did cause, and China did effect.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year 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] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Made in China”

Looks like Apple will soon go shopping for a new sweatshop

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (6 children)

They’ve already been in India for a while, they’ll just expand there while looking for another one as a backup.

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