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Apple CEO Tim Cook Meets with Top Chinese Official After iCloud Login Harvesting Claims

Plutonius said:
What can Tim say to them. "Don't do it again or I'll get mad" :D.
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Tim can do many things, like threaten to pull manufacturing from China. He couldn't do it immediately, but Apple would start talks to pull out of China eventually. Apple employs way too many people for China to not take notice. Of course, it China's call.
 
bbeagle said:
Tim can do many things, like threaten to pull manufacturing from China. He couldn't do it immediately, but Apple would start talks to pull out of China eventually. Apple employs way too many people for China to not take notice. Of course, it China's call.
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And how would he know if China complied ?
 
Google left Mainland China after they refused to supprt the filters that China insisted. I do not see Apple winning with China. They already had to move iCloud servers into the country. The reality is that Apple will have to live with lower privacy in China if it wants to continue selling hardware in that country.
 
gnasher729 said:
There is no backdoor key.

That's the whole point. Even if the police takes your locked iPhone, brings it to Apple's headquarters together with a search warrant, Apple is not capable of unlocking the phone and reading any data on it.
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If that were the case then the iPhone would never be allowed to sell in China officially.

What people say here about the NSA is correct, although the difference is that Chinese law definition of what is a threat is quite different. You go to jail in China if you support a free Tibet for example.

NSA is more concerned about terrorism and getting corporate secrets from foreign companies.
 
It is interesting that Cook made this trip personally - an indication of how seriously Apple considers this.

And also that he was able to meet on very short notice with a "senior" government official. Unclear just how senior butt he Chinese are much better than we Westerners at understanding matters of "face".

Apple has some interesting options, one of which is to mark as "untrusted" the signing certificate used to certify the fake iCloud. That is, apparently, under Chinese government control and un-trusting it (not quite "revoke") would impact lots of other sites in China. And be very visible, leading to many questions.
 
Plutonius said:
And how would he know if China complied ?
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Simple. Threaten to leave if China continues, put a strategy in place to leave, but stay in China for the current time.

Keep reminding the Chinese government every few weeks that if they are doing these phishing attacks, Apple will leave.

Any evidence at some point in the future that China is still doing this, which of course will happen at some point, leave immediately.

It's not too hard.

I have no doubt Apple would do this. Google would also do this. Would any other company? I doubt it.
 
gnasher729 said:
They are phishing attacks. You know that they complied by the absence of more phishing attacks.

Type https://www.apple.com into Safari. If it responds with an error that the certificate that the site returned is not quite correct, then you know there's a phishing attack.
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Man in the middle attack. Not phishing. There is a big difference. Yes, I know I'm being pedantic. I've just seen too many people saying it's phishing.
 
bbeagle said:
Keep reminding the Chinese government every few weeks that ... Apple will leave.
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China is the leading country for human rights abuses, yet Western governments and companies scramble to China to sign economic deals.

Again, China will do what China will do - take it, or leave it.

We need a little less naiveté on the MR forum.
 
Cuban Missles said:
Google left Mainland China after they refused to supprt the filters that China insisted. I do not see Apple winning with China. They already had to move iCloud servers into the country. The reality is that Apple will have to live with lower privacy in China if it wants to continue selling hardware in that country.
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Or Apple can exit, the same as Google has. China can try ignoring the rest of the world, like North Korea does, but it's more of a problem for those countries that choose not to cooperate than it is for those that do.
 
sigh...please don't make it sound like Chinese = Commies.
Commies are just the political party in pwr. (not like they are giving anyone a choice)

I am Ethically Chinese and proud of it, but Chinese != Commies. Plus...I really feel they are more like imperialists than commies....

:(
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
Or Apple can exit, the same as Google has. China can try ignoring the rest of the world, like North Korea does, but it's more of a problem for those countries that choose not to cooperate than it is for those that do.
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I somehow don't see Apple exiting a market who just preordered 20 millions iphones, ie twice as much as the rest of the world.
 
flameproof said:
If that were the case then the iPhone would never be allowed to sell in China officially.
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So that's your claim. Is your claim just based on assumptions and prejudice, or do you have any actual evidence? There is some counter-evidence: If the Chinese government had any backdoors available to them, why would they start phishing attacks? A phishing attack tries to get in by exploiting user stupidity when there is no other way to get in.

flameproof said:
What people say here about the NSA is correct, although the difference is that Chinese law definition of what is a threat is quite different. You go to jail in China if you support a free Tibet for example.
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There is a lot of nonsense said here about the NSA.
 
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bbeagle said:
Simple. Threaten to leave if China continues, put a strategy in place to leave, but stay in China for the current time.

Keep reminding the Chinese government every few weeks that if they are doing these phishing attacks, Apple will leave.

Any evidence at some point in the future that China is still doing this, which of course will happen at some point, leave immediately.

It's not too hard.
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AFAIK there has only been an accusation the MitM attacks are government sponsored. As of yet, I haven't seen definitive evidence.

It's simple in an internet forum to suggest Apple pull out because there are no consequences in our pretend world. In the real world? Not so simple. Above all else, Apple is a for profit company and they are drooling over the potential of the Chinese market. You don't get to become the 2nd most profitable company on the planet by leaving an emerging market (for Apple) with massive potential. The Chinese are obviously going to say it's not them; truthful or not. What's Tim going say, "I think you're lying" or better yet, "Prove you didn't do it."

The thought of Apple moving their infrastructure is a little comical. Some in this thread seem to think it's a simple process. The logistics would be staggering, not to mention the expertise of the workforce.

Tim will ask if they did it. They will say no.
 
69Mustang said:
Man in the middle attack. Not phishing. There is a big difference. Yes, I know I'm being pedantic. I've just seen too many people saying it's phishing.
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Sigh. So you are pedantic.

I answered to the question "How do you know the attack stopped". If there is a phishing attack trying to get people to contact www.apple.com, and the people going there get a certificate error, then you can verify that the phishing attack has stopped by going to the site and checking whether there is still a certificate error.
 
Dagless said:
Just watch the stream, Apple are good at letting us listen to Chinese people during them.
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Apple is just being really helpful, saving the Chinese using a translator. Only Apple could innovate to this level ;)
 
JosephAW said:
I'm surprised that the Chinese govmnt even allows ios8 with all its security and encryption on the device unless apple has given them the back door key. The ppl there don't have any right to privacy under communism.
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They wouldn't need to do a man in the middle attack if they had a back door.
 
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