[deleted]
This just in - companies that want to continue doing business in country must follow country’s laws. More at 10.
[deleted]
Submitted 10 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
capital@lemmy.world 10 months ago
antidote101@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Meanwhile China is outraged that the US are thinking of banning TikTok.
Cyberjin@lemmy.world 10 months ago
While also having TikTok banned in China 😂
macrocephalic@lemmy.world 10 months ago
If only the phone operating system allowed you to load applications from somewhere other than the official app store. Someone should make a phone that does that.
simplejack@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Yes, but play that tape forward as someone living in China. Lets pretend you wanted to use Signal
- you can’t download Signal’s APK directly from their site. It’s behind the great firewall
- you can’t VPN to their site or services via popular local VPN services. Chinese VPNs are regulated and monitored by the state.
- western VPN services get thrown behind the great firewall and or obscured from search because the government censors Baidu.
Etc etc.
There a ways to pull it off, but China does not make it easy. Android is over 80% of phone sales in China. Censoring comms on Android is the state’s priority.
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Yes, use an Android phone (which you can sideoad apks on), preferably with a custom ROM and Tor, if you have to be in China for whatever reason.
Drinvictus@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
Doesn’t matter where you are. Side loading is a must have for any device, especially phones because a lot of their functions require installing applications. This is like saying privacy is only important if you have something to hide. People are under the assumption that just by enabling side loading they’ll open up their phones to viruses or something. If you don’t need to just stick to your regular app store but having the option is important. If everything you do on your phone is connected to a single company then you aren’t private, it’s only an illusion of privacy.
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Oh, certainly I would advocate using Android anywhere, but especially China.
simplejack@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Just be careful if the trusted download sources also get blocked.
I know sideloading is a big concern for the folks over at Signal. They’ve been worried about compromised APKs floating around.
JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Yeah, Signal is a funny one. Claim to be aboit privacy and then don’t out their app on F-Droid.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
App stores were a mistake. We used to get software from its developer or from a source we chose. Now that we expect there to be a central app store, it can be used for censorship.
Eldritch@lemmy.world 10 months ago
No they aren’t. Locked down restrictive app stores are the problem. App stores can provide visibility to apps that might not get it otherwise. Or help developers reach an audience through a central deployment platform. They can promote better security as well. Making updates easy and prompt. They’re more or less at the heart of every Linux/BSD platform for a reason.
Let’s be honest. How frequently do you check for updates to every program you installed manually? Even if the program itself notifies you. Are you going to navigate to the website immediately. Find the download link and promptly install for every, single, one. App stores and repositories are literally one of the greatest software inventions of the last 30+ years.
Being locked to a specific store or repository is the problem. Which is why everyone but apple tends to provide solutions. Whether it’s side loading, flatpack, app images etc.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 10 months ago
This is why I also mentioned “a source we chose”. On GNU/Linux package managers and F-Droid I can add additional package sources which can be managed by the developer.
Point is, it shouldn’t be a thing that Apple or Google or anyone has this kind of power.
NoIWontPickAName@kbin.earth 10 months ago
You can still do that, it’s called side loading
akilou@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
You can’t even sideload on ios can you? So if Apple removes it from the app store you’re shit outta luck?
Fuck apple. But it stuff like this that makes me have no sympathy for people who buy iphones.
NoisyFlake@lemm.ee 10 months ago
You can sideload in a way, but it’s a bit annoying. Unless you pay for an Apple Developer account (IIRC about 100$ a year), you’ll have to re-sideload the app every 7 days.
akilou@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
What a stupid thing. What is this preventing? Like if Apple is trying to prevent you from side loading a malicious app, it’s cool if it’s only malicious for a week?
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 10 months ago
So if Apple removes it from the app store you're shit outta luck?
Not if you've installed it before, in which case you can download it from a not-very-well-known purchase history.
Drusenija@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Unless the app is delisted which can also happen. Flappy Bird was one of the more well known examples of that (I remember people seeing phones on eBay with it still installed for stupid money). If that happens you can’t reinstall it.
simplejack@lemmy.world 10 months ago
You can side load on iOS. It’s not nearly as easy it is on Android, but it’s not hard. Any of us that are developing are doing it consistently.
That said. Sideloading isn’t exactly easy when China great firewall is blocking direct download sites and monitoring / censoring search engines, VPNs, ISPs, etc. Things are not like they are in the west.
44razorsedge@lemmy.world 10 months ago
[deleted]foggy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Firmly jizzing.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I will be here to remind folks when US bans TikTok that china did it long ago
Nom@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Chinese TikTok is Douyin & it’s not banned there. They wouldn’t ban something that they can use for control or else WeChat wouldn’t exist now.
Grimy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Tbh, I can’t really be critical of this when we are about to ban tiktok. Threads and WhatsApp is as much of a foreign propoganda tool for them as is tiktok for us.
umbrella@lemmy.ml 10 months ago
yeah its a bit hipocritical to be crying about banning US spyware now aint it
fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee 10 months ago
God forbid that sixth of humanity hears the truth.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Only government backdoor unencrypted communications allowed, as is normal in dictatorships.
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 10 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The New York Times similarly wrote that "a person briefed on the situation said the Chinese government had found content on WhatsApp and Threads about China’s president, Xi Jinping, that was inflammatory and violated the country’s cybersecurity laws.
WhatsApp, Threads, Telegram, and Signal were reportedly still available on Apple devices in Hong Kong and Macau, China’s special administrative regions.
The House Commerce Committee last month voted 50–0 to approve a bill that would force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the company or lose access to the US market.
US lawmakers argue that TikTok poses national security risks, saying that China can use the app to obtain sensitive personal data and manipulate US public opinion.
Stewart reportedly told members of his staff that Apple executives were concerned about potential show topics related to China and artificial intelligence.
“For years, Apple has bowed to Beijing’s demands that it block an array of apps, including newspapers, VPNs, and encrypted messaging services,” The New York Times noted yesterday.
The original article contains 519 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
harsh3466@lemmy.ml 10 months ago
Privacy. That’s iPhone.
Unless the government says otherwise. Because really we don’t give a fuck about you or your privacy.
simplejack@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Honestly, life on Android isn’t going to be much better.
The great firewall blocks Meta, Google, Signal, and Telegram’s sides. So no play store downloads, and no direct APK downloads.
Chinese users on iOS and Android basically have to pirate an IPA or APK, sideload, hope that shit wasn’t compromised by the state, and VPN out of the country.
Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Yea but at least with android you can download and install apks and find a way around stuff. Apple has their stuff locked down and they make it difficult to do that sort of stuff.
capital@lemmy.world 10 months ago
What would be the point? If they don’t remove it, do you imagine they’d still be selling iPhones in the country?
Only way I can see around this is to buy an android and load your own non-backdoored rom.
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Actually - yes I do. Kicking out Apple would be a huge blow to both the Chinese and American economies. I’m sure China wants to do that, but right now they cannot do it.
Do you think anyone has ever criticised X Jinping in iMessage? Obviously the answer is yes - and yet iMessage is allowed while every other major (foreign) social network has just been banned. iMessage was exempt because they don’t dare do anything against Apple.
simplejack@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Correct. There is no Play Store in China, and although some of these apps have APKs that are hosted on the web, I’m imagining that the great firewall is going to block that eventually, if it’s they’re not already being blocked.
So, yeah, you’re going to have to side load APKs and IPAs if you want these apps in China. And hopefully you’re not installing a binary that has been compromised by the state.
moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
The point isn’t what they did or do. It’s what they claim. They claim to care about you and your privacy but comply with governments.
If they really care about privacy, they would allow sideloading of apps to circumvent bans. But, in fact, they created a walled garden where the walls follows the governments requirements to maximize the profits at the cost of the privacy.