[HN Gopher] TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with stat... ___________________________________________________________________ TikTok wants to keep tracking iPhone users with state-backed workaround Author : a-human Score : 324 points Date : 2021-03-16 14:24 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com) (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com) | hackererror404 wrote: | The writing on the wall has been clear for years... China won't | play nice. It's far past time Apple and every other serious tech | player gets the heck out of China. | freebuju wrote: | For Apple that would be akin to committing suicide | yorwba wrote: | I wonder how that fits with the Ministry of Industry and | Information Technology's recent notice to 136 companies to stop | their excessive collection of user data by March 17 or cease | operation: | https://www.miit.gov.cn/xwdt/gxdt/sjdt/art/2021/art_7e5c3fa7... | | Maybe the kind of collection CAID enables is considered | acceptable? Or it's just a case of different departments planning | past each other. | hackererror404 wrote: | The writing on the wall has been clear for years. Apple and every | other tech company that cares at all about privacy (should be any | tech company) needs to get the heck out of China... We | desperately need supply chain diversity. | egypturnash wrote: | So basically TikTok is saying "please take us off the app store" | except the hard way. Apple still hasn't budged on Epic trying to | get rid of their cut on all Fortnite Fun-Buxxx sales through iOS, | what makes TikTok think announcing they are going to blatantly | violate the spirit, and possibly the letter, of Apple's no- | tracking rules isn't gonna result in their app getting pulled? | | I guess maybe they're hoping for a decision in the Apple-Epic | trial that leaves Apple hurting? Looks like the trial's coming in | May. And maybe Facebook's suing them over being forced to reveal | how much tracking they do, too. | vlovich123 wrote: | Well, having serious support in China (including from the CCCP) | is one way. Epic wouldn't matter here since China is an | extremely important market for Apple. | hackererror404 wrote: | not just an important market, an integral part of their | supply chain. Without China, Apple wouldn't be able to make a | single product as it stands today. China has all the power in | that relationship. | gridder wrote: | Well said, this should be told more often. | franklampard wrote: | ccccp | nativeimigrant wrote: | ccccccccp | newbie578 wrote: | Would love to see Tim Apple address this issue, since he so loves | privacy and the rules when Facebook and Epic are concerned.. | Majestic121 wrote: | "Three people with knowledge of briefings between Apple and | developers also said the Cupertino, California-based company | would be wary of taking strong action, despite a clear violation | of its stated rules, if CAID has the support of China's tech | giants as well as its government agencies." | | That's chilling. | | I tend to have a good opinion of Apple regarding privacy | protection, even though I'm not an Apple user, but if even them | bow down like this, I'm not sure which company would have the | backbone to stand up to the CCP. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | This hasn't played out yet. I'm curious who put this into | multiple news streams this week. Apple doesn't want to | unilaterally block TikTok for using a state-backed solution. | But if Washington requires it to -\\_(tsu)_/-. | ActorNightly wrote: | >I tend to have a good opinion of Apple regarding privacy | protection | | The Apple privacy push is for Apple protecting your data from | 3d parties. Apple still collects plenty of information by | itself. | | From a consumer standpoint, there should be no difference if | you care about privacy. | | If you really want control over your data, you need a rooted | Android phone running a custom rom with no Google apps, and use | something like Firefox Focus for web interfaces to all the apps | that you use. | kop316 wrote: | > I tend to have a good opinion of Apple regarding privacy | protection. | | From my understanding: | | https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/icloud/en/gcbd... | | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351 | | If you are in mainland china, a state owned telco owns the keys | and the data stored in iCloud, so you really don't have any | privacy with Apple if you are in China. It more or less ruins | my opinion of Apple's stance of privacy. | akmarinov wrote: | There's about 85.3 billion reasons a year for them to not stand | up to the CCP and in the end Apple's interest in privacy is | mostly a tool to differentiate its offerings from the | competition so they can sell people stuff. | imglorp wrote: | It's a $2.2 trillion dollar company with $200 billion in | cash. They can easily afford to do the right thing. If they | offered a private device and said to all governments "take it | or leave it" then those governments would answer only to | their people if they banned the device. | | Of course, name one public corporation that would leave a | little cash on the table, ever, to do the right thing. | themacguffinman wrote: | Google completely pulled out of China and practically all | their products are banned & blocked in China as a result. | Although considering most people don't even mention it and | are happy to excuse companies like Apple, it's more of an | example of how utterly meaningless it is for a company to | do something like this. I'm sure Google, Apple, and their | competitors will never repeat this mistake again. | kingaillas wrote: | I think China has some extra leverage to deploy here: China | can respond "We leave it. Oh, one more thing: our domestic | market is off limits to you. Pray we don't alter the deal | further by kicking your manufacturing out too." | mrweasel wrote: | Kicking out Apple manufactoring won't happen, because | it's actually dangerous to Chinese manufactoring. Apple | is currently one of the only companies who could deal | with being banned in China. It won't be cheap or easy, | but Apple could move manufactoring. They already have a | deal with an Indian company who makes older iPhones for | the indian market. | | Apple is also one of the few companies who can either | absorb the additional cost or even pass it on to | customers. | | But IF Apple was to move manufactoring it would set a | dangerous precedence for other companies and potentially | start a supply chain completely outside China. | michaelt wrote: | _> Kicking out Apple manufactoring won't happen [...] it | would set a dangerous precedence_ | | Ah, but if you don't care about setting a public example, | you can punish them in more subtle ways. | | The traditional trick in corrupt countries is to have a | bunch rules that aren't enforced and everyone breaks all | the time - then if the leaders decide they don't like you | they just start enforcing the rules on you. | | A corrupt regime would simply announce they were shocked | - shocked! - to find parts of Apple's Chinese supply | chain had low environmental standards. | tumetab1 wrote: | You're assuming the shareholders would support such | decision. | | Keep in mind there's a legal mandate for public traded | companies to increase share holders value. It's grey-ish | legal requirement but I don't think the executive | management wants to risk the legal consequences of doing | the right thing. | | Edit: it's shareholders and not stakeholders that matter. | mensetmanusman wrote: | You can make an argument that it increases shareholder | value long term because if China increases human rights, | it increases the shareholder value of the world in | monetary terms because people will be better off. | lotsofpulp wrote: | > Keep in mind there's a legal mandate for public traded | companies to increase share holders value. It's grey-ish | legal requirement but I don't think the executive | management wants to risk the legal consequences of doing | the right thing. | | What are the legal consequences? I keep reading about | these mysterious laws that require management to maximize | shareholder value or profits or whatnot, but I've never | heard of a court punishing management for not doing so | (never mind the fact that it's impossible to define and | prove per legal standards). | mrweasel wrote: | If Apple was kicked out of China, leaving them with no | Chinese manufacturing... ? In that case the shareholders | have no option, it's either that or sell no new devices. | | If you mean that the shareholders would rather please the | Chinese government, rather than risk getting kicked out | of China, then yes, I think Apple would go a long way to | not piss off China. | Cederfjard wrote: | Exactly. Whether a major corporation technically could do | "the right thing" at the expense of their own bottom line | is a moot point, and it'd take a fundamental shift in our | society for that to change. Rather, getting them to act in | a way that's beneficial to as many people as possible is a | matter of economic incentives and regulation. | tediousdemise wrote: | China is their bottom line when it comes to fab. If China kicks | Apple out, we can expect 50k dollar iPhones soon thereafter. | It's sad that China has outcompeted the western world, but it | makes sense when you consider the fact that they engage in | human rights abuses to do so. | reaperducer wrote: | _If China kicks Apple out, we can expect 50k dollar iPhones | soon thereafter_ | | Do you really believe that people in India spend $50,000 on | the iPhones that are made in India, or are you just being | hyperbolic? | tediousdemise wrote: | It's just my pessimism about greedy American companies, who | pass all costs onto the consumer without remorse. | lotsofpulp wrote: | That's called business. Entity A provides a product or | service to entity B. The price entity B pays Entity A is | greater than the price entity A pays to create the | product or service. | | The alternative is Entity A being a charity. | notyourwork wrote: | I'm not sure its outcompeted in the traditional sense if | production doesn't follow environmental standards and | pollutes the world. We love to buy cheap stuff because once | it ships over the pacific the pollution isn't our problem. At | some point we will pay for cheap electronics from the asian | world. | CerealFounder wrote: | Say it with me. You cant be a mature service economy AND an | ultra cheap manufacturing economy. It's not said, its far | more lucrative to to be the former than the latter. This is | just an odd consequence that their investments are so | concentrated in a single place. and that place is peak | antithetical to fair economic fights. | aroman wrote: | > Say it with me. You cant be a mature service economy AND | an ultra cheap manufacturing economy. | | What immutable law prevents this from being true? | powerapple wrote: | I don't think Apple should care about CAA. It is a private | organization, although it may have ways to lobby the | government, it is far from CCP's business. Of course, it has | all the big companies' support, it might be a problem for | Apple. | | Also I don't think Apple's policy would be a big problem for | CAID. After all, you just need to ask your user's permission | when loading your game, I am sure people will just click yes. | If they don't, they are not your target user anyway. | | I hope Apple hold a strong stance on this. Previous Tencent | refused to pay Apple 30% of payment made to authors on WeChat, | they resolved it by Apple backing down by not asking for the | cut for those payments. It was a big story for a while. Apple's | decision would be based on market. | nerdjon wrote: | I am concerned about the claims that Apple will turn a blind eye | to this, I hope it does not get wide usage. | | On a side note... it is stories like this that really make me | hate being in the tech industry (yes I know that is a very large | net to cast) sometimes. | dylan604 wrote: | I sympathize with that sentiment. One of the few things I can | tell myself is my role isn't involved in this side of things. | The only thing that has helped from getting totally | disillusioned is having hobbies that are not tech related. | soheil wrote: | This is a story because it's fashionable to hate on China. This | has been going on in the US for years already. Using terms like | CAID without an explanation to what it is makes the reader scared | that China has somehow been able to infiltrate iOS to track | users, this is bad journalism. CAID is a simple advertising id | used across apps, there is no hacking of iOS or an incredible | technical prowess on the the side of China that we should all be | afraid of, etc. | | The term "state-backed" in the title should be removed, HN is not | a political battleground. | loveistheanswer wrote: | >there is no hacking of iOS or an incredible technical prowess | on the the side of China that we should all be afraid of, etc. | | Claiming China (or the US, UK, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.) does | not have incredible technical prowess and hacking abilities is | silly. Though if you're simply claiming this specific example | is not evidence of that prowess, I'd agree. I also agree that | US companies are doing very similar types of cyber stalking, | but that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it when we find | other countries such as China doing it | publicola1990 wrote: | Indeed is Instagram or Snapchat doing possibly something | similar? | jug wrote: | Good. So it sounds like it's no big deal if Apple blocks TikTok | until the circumvention of App Store policy is resolved then. | tediousdemise wrote: | As much as I like Apple products, it looks like the privacy buck | stops at China. | | The western world needs to desperately work on making their | supply chains independent of the CCP, lest they'd like their | supply chains to be poisoned at some point in the future. | | I'm a big fan of Purism and everything that they are doing. I | hope their software and hardware matures with the same level of | polish we've come to know and expect from Apple products, and | will be an early investor if they ever decide to IPO. | smoldesu wrote: | This is what made me stop using Apple products altogether. | Their privacy and security bit is all smoke and mirrors, and | I'd much rather just directly understand what my privacy model | looks like instead of trying to surmise what's going on through | the other side of the frosted glass. Their compliance with | China's Uighur roundup is despicable, and I don't trust them in | the slightest to defend tech in the long-term. They're out to | make money, which is why they're the most profitable business | in the world. | lotsofpulp wrote: | > They're out to make money, which is why they're the most | profitable business in the world. | | Everyone I know is out to make money. Apple is the most | profitable because they're selling something with high demand | that people are willing and able to pay for. | gfiorav wrote: | You'll see how the west is going to "rebrand" globalization | from the "world savior" to "a dependency issue". We're going | back. | | Everyone thought that as new countries got richer, they would | follow in the steps of western values (democracy, free markets, | etc.). Yet, all we really achieved is to fund the CCP. And now | they're not letting investors get their money out and they're | putting military bases where they swore they would never. | Great. | | Of course, the world is more "equal" in general, but not in the | concrete edge cases. For already developed countries, it's a | nightmare that destroyed the industry and the middle class. For | developing countries, it's a nightmare where a powerful few | (CCP) have more resources than ever to suppress their people | and relinquish power. | | The only way forward is back. Let's keep the diversity and the | share of information and progress. Let's reverse the economic | dependency hell we've cornered ourselves into. | | P.D: I have nothing but sympathy for the Chinese people. I | admire their resolve and creativity. I hate the CCP and how | people all over the world have come to relativize even our core | values as a society (democracy, freedom of speech, etc). We're | really close to a middle-ages screw up if we don't remember | what we stand for. | api wrote: | > Everyone thought that as new countries got richer, they | would follow in the steps of western values (democracy, free | markets, etc.). | | This is the key idea that has failed: the idea that | prosperity equals or leads to social liberalism and human | rights, or that the two are interdependent. | | This idea appears to be wrong, having been disproven by | China. | | Totalitarianism and prosperity can co-exist just fine. | Totalitarianism and capitalism can even co-exist to a degree, | with the totalitarian tendency to kneecap the extremely | wealthy being outweighed by the totalitarian ability to | forcibly suppress workers' rights movements and pushes for | higher wages. Totalitarians can also backstop the economy, | stepping in in the event of a crash and forcing number to go | up by edict. That benefits the investor class at the expense | of the working class by effectively writing down wages and | inflating assets. | | This means utilitarian arguments for freedom and human rights | fail. That's a big deal and undermines at least a half | century of libertarian and neoliberal talking points. It | means human rights must be argued for on purely spiritual, | moral/ethical, or hedonic grounds, not utilitarian grounds. | | I think the collapse of this key idea is as much a driver of | the global push-back against globalism as working class | economic concerns and cultural xenophobia, if not more. Human | beings are philosophical beings and coherent narratives and | ideas matter to us. When China showed that you could have | totalitarianism and prosperity, the bottom fell out of the | argument for the whole project. | gfiorav wrote: | Yes, pretty much agree. I'll say that in the end people | want their freedom. | | I didn't believe this until the lockdown. Being told what | to do is something that makes you instantly appreciate | freedom. | | There will always be revolt, given enough time. CCP have | outdone themselves in that department though. They've | learnt from USSR and Cuba. | | In USSR/Cuba people know. They talk to outsiders and | realize the don't live like they're better. China has | learnt and told their citizens that they're bullied | everywhere so the CCP was made to protect them. Genius | really. | api wrote: | The CCP is also building a surveillance state that may | allow them to preemptively shut down any dissent before | it gains any traction and do so in real time. Unlike most | Western states there isn't even a pretense of legal or | constitutional restraint. They can surveil with total | impunity and more importantly _use that data with total | impunity_. Western governments are at least constrained | on the second part if not the first. | | That is fucking scary. We have invented a set of | technologies that could be used to create an un- | overthrowable dictatorship and permanently enslave the | human race... to get people to click ads. | tjs8rj wrote: | Do people want their freedom? For many people even today | there's a strong desire for comfort, familiarity, duty, | etc over freedom. We aren't allowed to urinate in public, | even if we are careful to avoid making a mess, a health | hazard, or to flash anyone - because we've deemed that | freedom not worth the costs to comfort in walking your | streets without people peeing in public. You can't own | military grade artillery anymore, you can't curse on the | radio, you can't work as a child, you can't purchase | cigarettes under 18, you can't even legally drive or even | prove your capable of driving safely before 16 (much less | vote). There's plenty of freedoms we forgo for some | degree of security and comfort, and we wanted a different | balance of freedom, security, and comfort just a few | years ago, or decades ago, and we'll likely want a | different balance in 10 more years. Plenty of people in | 2020 were totally fine with fines and enforced curfews in | light of protests, riots, and pandemic. Freedom doesn't | seem like a true north for humans | tartoran wrote: | It's a bit late for that. Not sure if it is too late though. | Without changing a few essential philosophies such as | consumerism the whole world is dependent on China's | manufacture strength. Without scooping heavily into the | resouces of the top 1% who benefited most from globalization | this whole thing is also impossible to achieve. Without | taxing the corporations a higher rate the middleclass won't | be able to recover. I don't see anything being done about | this. | gfiorav wrote: | Oh, it's super late! In the short term, China will | definitely be the largest economy (it's just about | demographics + GDP). | | The only thing that could challenge that is: | | 1) World war (please no) | | 2) China is chopped up (but that's why they crack down on | Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc) | | So I think we might see another rebranding about what it | means to be the n1 economy. Or they might come up with a | new metric hehe. | | The fact of the matter is that China's rule won't last long | because: | | 1) It's governed by a bunch of hand picked corrupt and | ignorant bunch called the CCP (although they've done | propaganda and brainwashing far better than the USSR, I'll | give them that) | | 2) There's a demographic bomb incoming for China (not | enough children). | tartoran wrote: | How about the top down governing approach that works in | some situations and is a disaster in others? Currently | favorable but times change. | | Second, we should not hope that an opponent does worse | than us to make us look better but we should simply | better ourselves in the first place. Currently I'm seeing | only decline and disunity in the western civilization, | very short term thinking and lack of vision, but I'm | aware that's just a phase that is possible to flip | anytime. | jonathannat wrote: | For those who wants to stop supporting China, don't lose hope. | Supply chains are migrating, due to tariffs, sanctions, and | hatred towards CCP. Don't let naysayers who may have a vested | interest in China talk you down. Just keep checking where the | product you are buying is coming from. | | - check https://chinalawblog.com and you will see that | companies are indeed moving out of China at a quick pace. In | fact, the site advocates that you do not think of China as the | default manufacturing... | | - most citizens in other countries hates China now. | https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/10/06/unfavorable- | vi.... this dictates shifting consumer behavior (more and more | people will choose items made not in China). US citizens has a | 20% favorable view of China. | https://thehill.com/homenews/news/543354-view-of-china-as-gr... | | - No one wants to go to China right now. If you want to go, you | are subjected to an anal swab covid test, mandatory spyware on | your phone, plus visa incentive that requires you to use their | state covid vaccine (50% efficacy!). Not to mention foreigner | kidnappings and disbar from leaving the country. No company in | their right mind would send their staff to China to increase | footprint there | | - from footwear | https://footwearnews.com/2021/business/trade/us-footwear- | imp..., to furniture | https://www.furnituretoday.com/opinion/sourcing-strategies/b... | to electronics https://www.wsj.com/articles/samsungs-shift- | away-from-china-..., there's a steady pace of companies (big | and small) moving out of china | [deleted] | topspin wrote: | > The western world needs to desperately work on making their | supply chains independent of the CCP | | The western world can't. The world is only so big and the | remaining sites of refuge for cheap, exploitable labor and | Potemkin regulatory regimes are few. Almost any alternative | place you might cite is either already beholden to China (the | viable parts of Africa) or too unstable (due to endemic | corruption, external threats, etc.) to risk. | | Insourcing is obviously out of the question; the wealthy | Western establishment is violently intolerant of industrial | expansion. | jonathannat wrote: | > The western world can't. | | I'm not sure if you've been paying attention, but supply | chains have been moving to | Vietnam/Malaysia/Indonesia/India/Mexico for the last few | years, and the trend is only increasing. | | There's literally a growing military alliance (US, India, | Australia, Japan) against China right now. Also not to | mention other countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, US) | actively incentivizing their companies to onshore or move out | of China. And because South China Sea is crucial to the | growth of SE Asian economies, now France/UK/Germany along | with Japan/US have warships sailing there to stop China's | expansion. | | So yes, the western world can. | fossuser wrote: | Agreed - I suspect Apple (and others) are doing this as | fast as they can to de-risk. | | They can't blow up their existing relationships in the mean | time, but they _can_ blow them up once they have another | option in place. At the very least, they 'll have more | leverage in negotiation. | nomel wrote: | It appears that Apple is part of that trend: | | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-vietnam-apple- | exc... | jonathannat wrote: | Incomplete list of companies moving out of China. | | Adidas & Lacoste: https://www.glossy.co/fashion/lacoste- | and-adidas-pledge-to-c... | | Nike: https://www.gq.com/story/nike-adidas-shifting- | production-asi... | | Hasbro: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/hasbro-to-cut- | china-producti... | | Samsung: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-samsung-elec- | china/samsun... | | GoPro: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/10/gopro-is-moving- | camera-produ... | | LG Electronics: http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/artic | leView.html?idxno=5... | | Sharp: https://9to5mac.com/2019/08/02/out-of-china/ | | Hyundai: https://tfipost.com/2020/04/big-hyundai-steel- | and-several-ot... | | Nintendo: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2019 | /07/09/ninten... | lotsofpulp wrote: | > Insourcing is obviously out of the question; the wealthy | Western establishment is violently intolerant of industrial | expansion. | | As far as I can tell, it's simply more expensive to insource, | taking into account wages, labor regulations, and | environmental regulations. If and when other countries catch | up to the production costs in the US, then there won't be a | reason to ship things halfway around the world. | pydry wrote: | It's frequently not cheaper and occasionally more | expensive. One reason it is popular is that it gives the | managers who oversee it a lot more power and control: | | https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/05/more-on-the-myth- | of-... | lotsofpulp wrote: | Managers can't force people to buy products based on how | they like power and control. They either deliver an | acceptable price to value ratio, or people buy something | else. | | I couldn't figure out what point the article you linked | to was trying to make, but the fact that pretty much | everything you buy is not stamped with "Made in USA" | means that the cost to make it in the US was higher than | elsewhere, and presumably people would choose to not buy | it. | | It wasn't because there was a manager's convention and | they all agreed to send the work abroad so they could | have more power and control. It's because if they didn't, | their competitor would have, and Walmart would have | chosen to put that cheaper product on their shelves | rather than yours. | pydry wrote: | Products low on the value chain that are unskilled-labor | intensive are almost universally cheaper abroad. It | wouldn't make economic sense to make t shirts in the US | unless consumers paid a premium. | | Products high up on the value chain - the kind you don't | dress up in your best slacks to go and buy at Walmart are | a different story, however. | | I can count several software projects that were | outsourced off the top of my head that were ostensibly | done for cost savings purposes and were utter disasters. | These disasters are routinely covered up and bullshitted, | too. | | This has at the same time not dampened the appetite for | outsourcing software much. Coordination (i.e. management) | costs are higher. Consulting companies can bill millions | for these projects. | | This is the point the article was making - pretty | cogently. | | It's less of a smoke-filled room conspiracy and more of a | mundane "conspiracy" to shape the supply/demand curve. | mdpopescu wrote: | Or, if the parent is correct, the rest of the world will | never catch up - because the US will keep adding | regulations to keep itself more expensive. | CountSessine wrote: | Yes - because manufacturing in the West is ultimately self- | defeating. Success breeds complacency and labor unrest. This | isn't just a China-thing (I have no idea what your Potemkin | regulation is or why you would mix those metaphors). | | When Westerners see an absurdly profitable company, they | think, "why aren't they paying their employees more??!" and | start a union to parasitize earnings. | | When Asians (including the Japanese and Koreans) see an | absurdly profitably company, they think, "why are they able | to charge such high prices???!" and they kneecap the | company's ability to exploit their market. | | It's an important difference for manufacturing physical | things and it's why the West loses out to Asia in | manufacturing outside cutting-edge tech. It's defective | wetware in our heads and how we think about wealth and | creating value, so don't expect manufacturing supply chains | to return to Western countries any time soon. | tw04 wrote: | >When Westerners see an absurdly profitable company, they | think, "why aren't they paying their employees more??!" and | start a union to parasitize earnings. | | Saying that employees expecting a livable wage is | "parasitizing earnings" is a pretty outrageous claim. | | >It's an important difference for manufacturing physical | things and it's why the West loses out to Asia in | manufacturing outside cutting-edge tech. | | The West lost out to Asia because their standard of living | was so much lower that it was basically slave labor for a | decade. You apparently have missed out on the repeated | protests at factories across China with their workers | demanding better working conditions and wages. | | Expecting to be able to be able to do something more than | just not starve to death isn't a western ideal, it's a | human ideal. When the company you work for is printing | money and you're living in poverty, something eventually | gives. As has happened at literally every point in human | history to date. Sometimes through violence, sometimes | through government intervention. But the "unwashed masses" | won't stay ignorant forever. | CountSessine wrote: | _Saying that employees expecting a livable wage is | "parasitizing earnings" is a pretty outrageous claim._ | | More defective programming in the wetware. Why is pay the | only part of the equation? When Japan realized that their | housing market was undermining living standards in the | late 90's, they cracked down on NIMBYism and took housing | and land zoning authority away from cities. The housing | market almost immediately corrected itself and housing | prices in suburban Tokyo have been in free-fall ever | since. You can get a 2000sqft family home for the | equivalent of about 200k just 30 minutes outside downtown | Tokyo today. We don't do that because... why? | | _The West lost out to Asia because..._ | | Again, more defective wetware. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan | - these are democratic states with a high standard of | living that have been able to control costs in ways that | the West hasn't. More people are homeless in the US per | capita than any of those countries and it has everything | to do with defective programming and talk of "liveable | wages". Of course everyone needs to be able to afford to | live. But your own mistaken assumptions are emblematic of | the political and social dysfunction of the West. Until | we address that, no - those supply chains won't be | returning. | sudosysgen wrote: | We're not dropping prices in NA in good part because our | governments are dysfunctional and don't want to | intervene, and because large landowners see such | interventions as contrary to their benefit. | | And besides, relaxing zoning is far from enough - you | need to build vast and performant public transit systems, | and in the case of Tokyo you need to make housing a | depreciating asset. | | South Korea was not a democratic state during most of its | crucial growth period either - it was only after a | revolution in the 80s, and even then democracy is a very | gracious word for a country that was literally ruled by a | cult for half a decade. | | Taiwan also was in quasi-dictatorial KMT rule for most of | its rise, and Japan to this day on the national level is | basically ruled by the LDP in perpetuity. | | But crucially, Japan, SK and Taiwan aren't where the kind | of production China does happens. They are just as | economically beholden to China as we are, sometimes | moreso. | CountSessine wrote: | _We 're not dropping prices in NA in good part because | our governments are dysfunctional and don't want to | intervene, and because large landowners see such | interventions as contrary to their benefit. And besides, | relaxing zoning is far from enough - you need to build | vast and performant public transit systems, and in the | case of Tokyo you need to make housing a depreciating | asset._ | | Yes - and as I said, this is the defective programming in | minds of Westerners. The government does what we tell | them to do and most people want this. It's everywhere - | it's the entitlement to a suburban home and the | subordination of all other interests, even the concept of | personal property, in service to this. The fact that the | media doesn't discuss these things in spite of the fact | that smart people like Warren and others write about it | is evidence of the bad programming. | | _South Korea was not a democratic state during most of | its crucial growth period either - it was only after a | revolution in the 80s, and even then democracy is a very | gracious word for a country that was literally ruled by a | cult for half a decade. | | Taiwan also was in quasi-dictatorial KMT rule for most of | its rise, and Japan to this day on the national level is | basically ruled by the LDP in perpetuity._ | | Is it your contention that these countries aren't | democratic and prosperous today? Is that your claim? Is | your claim that their citizens live in near slavery, as | the previous poster's was? | | _But crucially, Japan, SK and Taiwan aren 't where the | kind of production China does happens. They are just as | economically beholden to China as we are, sometimes | moreso._ | | The company that I worked at previously had to assess | manufacturing alternatives to China in the wake of | Trump's tariffs. Most of the parts on the BOM could | reasonably be sourced by other Asian countries like those | three at a small premium. US manufacturers either weren't | available or were completely priced out. If the West | could even just get their manufacturing costs in parity | with those three - TW, SK, and JP - that in itself would | be huge progress. | sudosysgen wrote: | Japan, SK, and Taiwan, were not democratic when they were | manufacturing behemoths, yes. | | For reference, the US has roughly twice the manufacturing | output of Japan. | | The idea that manufacturing boomed there because the | workers were almost slaves is fairly accurate. | [deleted] | jquery wrote: | You're making a lot of bold claims. It would be nice if | you justified at least one of them before chaining them | together to reach a pre-ordained conclusion. | MiguelX413 wrote: | Nice name | tw04 wrote: | >More defective programming in the wetware. Why is pay | the only part of the equation? When Japan realized that | their housing market was undermining living standards in | the late 90's, they cracked down on NIMBYism and took | housing and land zoning authority away from cities. The | housing market almost immediately corrected itself and | housing prices in suburban Tokyo have been in free-fall | ever since. You can get a 2000sqft family home for the | equivalent of about 200k just 30 minutes outside downtown | Tokyo today. We don't do that because... why? | | The world does exist outside of Silicon Valley. I can get | exactly what you're describing in over half of this | country, pick your state including the entirety of the | midwest. | | >Again, more defective wetware. Japan, South Korea, | Taiwan - these are democratic states with a high standard | of living that have been able to control costs in ways | that the West hasn't. More people are homeless in the US | per capita than any of those countries and it has | everything to do with defective programming and talk of | "liveable wages". Of course everyone needs to be able to | afford to live. But your own mistaken assumptions are | emblematic of the political and social dysfunction of the | West. Until we address that, no - those supply chains | won't be returning. | | The median income in South Korea is $3,000 less than the | US. And they have universal healthcare. | | Someone's wetware is defective, it isn't mine. You might | want to do some research before showing up with that kind | of condescending attitude. | | https://worldpopulationreview.com/country- | rankings/median-in... | elmomle wrote: | >The world does exist outside of Silicon Valley. I can | get exactly what you're describing in over half of this | country, pick your state including the entirety of the | midwest. | | This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in | Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just | live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity. | | A city is a giant organism that needs people to play a | variety of roles in order to thrive. All those people | deserve (and arguably, for the health of the city, need) | to be able to earn enough to live with some dignity. If | only the wealthy can afford decent housing near a city, | that city is no longer a functional community--it's a | NIMBY bubble that creates a feedback loop of | socioeconomic disparity. | tw04 wrote: | >This is equivalent to saying sky-high housing prices in | Tokyo didn't need fixing, since folks could always just | live in Hokkaido--a pragmatic absurdity. | | It isn't even remotely the equivalent of saying that. The | land mass of Japan is a fraction of the US, and the jobs | are highly concentrated in their large cities. The US, as | a whole, is nothing like that. | | Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make | in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by | trying to equate calling employees parasites to San | Francisco zoning laws. There was absolutely no point | going down that path other than to distract from his | original (disgusting) statement and implying that somehow | people wanting more than minimum wage should really be | blaming the Mayor of San Francisco for high housing | prices. Which again... is completely irrelevant to the | vast majority of the population of the US. | CountSessine wrote: | _It isn 't even remotely the equivalent of saying that. | The land mass of Japan is a fraction of the US, and the | jobs are highly concentrated in their large cities. The | US, as a whole, is nothing like that._ | | Most US industrial production is concentrated in about 5 | regions. The US isn't _that_ different. | | _Regardless, it was a pointless argument for him to make | in the first place, he was just moving goal posts by | trying to equate calling employees parasites to San | Francisco zoning laws_ | | Nonsense. Housing costs are the great misery-multiplier | in the West and it isn't specific to SF. Look at Berlin | or London or Paris or Toronto. Everywhere the dysfunction | is the same and everywhere the working poor live with | crushing housing insecurity, in spite of living in | thriving job markets. With reasonable urban housing | prices and rent most of the people in the "working poor" | would advance to middle-class status and a lot of the | inequality issues we have would be tractable. Instead, we | just keep ignoring pricing theory and we just keep | dumping more wealth into supply-constrained markets and | we just keep wondering why these problems don't get any | better. | | _There was absolutely no point going down that path | other than to distract from his original (disgusting) | statement and implying that somehow people wanting more | than minimum wage_ | | Ptooey! Pardon me, but I had to spit out all of the words | you're stuffing in my mouth. I said nothing about minimum | wage. You did. This is the same neurotic defective | programming I'm talking about. The projection of intent | in your response is what's disgusting. | | _Which again... is completely irrelevant to the vast | majority of the population of the US._ | | Go look up what a lower-middle class family needs to pay | for rent in suburbs in Atlanta or Austin or other cities | with good job opportunities. | elteto wrote: | > ... start a union to parasitize earnings. | | Yes, those pesky employees should just STFU and be thankful | for the scraps. | CountSessine wrote: | Again - the fact that you can't see both sides of the | equation is why we don't make things anymore. | majormajor wrote: | Terms like "parasitize earnings" don't sound like seeing | both sides of the equation. Why's your anger and blame | focused _there_ for not seeing both sides? | | The people who outsourced things weren't simply trying to | reduce gains made by unions, they were looking at price | differences that could not exist in the US due to cost | and standard of living. They certainly weren't looking at | both sides of this in terms of long term effect either! | CountSessine wrote: | _Terms like "parasitize earnings" don't sound like seeing | both sides of the equation_ | | I don't want employees to get those earnings. I don't | want investors or shareholders to get them either. I want | consumers to get lower prices. | | _they were looking at price differences that could not | exist in the US due to cost and standard of living_ | | Again, what does that mean, "standard of living"? That we | indulge industrial labor monopolies and pay more for | manufactured goods than we need or want to like the 60's? | How do you feel about paying $5000 for that computer? Or | that we reward landlords and enrich landowners for | participating in the creation of dysfunctional | regulations? | | I agree - Western industrialists have been able to play | both sides of the equation - outsourcing production to | places where industrial cost-control is effective and | selling in to markets where there's a large upper-middle | class of well-compensated credentialed professionals like | us and entitled land-owners. | | But I don't think that the solution is to give more power | to industrial labor unions. My own pet solution is German | worker councils - if only because they empower workers | and make managers and industrialists accountable to | employee needs, but at the same time can't coordinate | labor demands across an industry. Managers can't ignore | employee welfare but also employees can't gang up on | consumers. But no one else wants this - industrialists | hate the idea of inviting unions in to C-level planning | and unions at their core want labor monopolies. | majormajor wrote: | > Again, what does that mean, "standard of living"? That | we indulge industrial labor monopolies and pay more for | manufactured goods than we need or want to like the 60's? | How do you feel about paying $5000 for that computer? Or | that we reward landlords and enrich landowners for | participating in the creation of dysfunctional | regulations? | | It means something very plain: nobody in the US would | have accepted those wages to prevent profit-based | outsourcing. So it wasn't a question of union parasites | forcing people overseas, it just was something that would | not have worked, structurally. | | Consumers getting lower prices forever and ever is a | single-dimension focus, like you otherwise seem to be | decrying, since you're not answering any of the other | questions there about how to prevent profiteering or | powerful wealthy people from playing both sides. You're | looking at just one side but proclaiming it as a secret | insight that is the only way to move forward. I don't | think worker councils would've done anything to let US | production and labor prices compete with offshore labor | prices in the past 50 years... if you can make t-shirts | cheaper by stripping those labor costs to the bone, but | the cost of everything else those workers need is | untouched, how will it fix it? | freeflight wrote: | _> Yes - because manufacturing in the West is ultimately | self-defeating._ | | It's much more to do with the steadily increasing | complexity of products due to humanity having become very | much a global species with heavy interdependence. | | Look around the room you are sitting in: There will be | items in it manufactured all over the world, from | components also coming from all over the world. | | That's not only how we manage to make these things so | affordable, that's how we got them at this scale and | complexity in the very first place. | | The idea that a single country could emulate that, in | complete isolation, is bluntly said childish. Isolationism | like that doesn't lead to progress or innovation, it leads | to North Korea style impoverished hermit kingdoms. | | It's mind-boggling how few people seem to understand this | reality in the year 2021, we are so interconnected that we | can instantly communicate with somebody on the other side | of the planet by just pulling a small device out of our | pocket, it's considered the most normal thing in the world. | | Instead we get shortsighted and small-minded nationalist | blowback in the form of Brexit and "America first!" | politics. | | Even with the EU showing that economic cooperation and | integration is one of the best and most constructive ways | to ensure peace, stability and prosperity, particularly vs | the alternative of alienation and vilification of whole | nation states and their people as "enemies" that need to be | fought in every way possible. | crmd wrote: | >> Yes - because manufacturing in the West is ultimately | self-defeating. | | > The idea that a single country could emulate that, in | complete isolation, is bluntly said childish. | | Who is this "single country" straw man you are referring | to? The western world is comprised of 50+ nations with | over $40 trillion in GDP. | freeflight wrote: | And these 50+ nations have their very own industries that | grew out of a demand for them to the scale of the demand | for them with interdependence reaching all the way into | Chinese tech manufacturing. | | If you retool all of that to suddenly do something else, | than you will be missing something else. | | Because it's not like these 50+ nations with over $40 | trillion in GDP are just sitting there and wondering what | to do with all of that productivity, they are already | plenty busy doing those things that got them all that | GDP, the things they are good at. | | That's why it's not really a "straw man", as the original | argument implies globalized supply chains that emerged | out of a given supply&demand could be artificially | transplanted and rebuild in "the West", however that's | even defined, to somehow reverse the reality of | globalization. | topspin wrote: | > That's why it's not really a "straw man", | | Except that it is a straw man. This "childish" nation | that seeks to thrive with no foreign trade ("in complete | isolation") is a fiction inside your head that you're | sharing as a target for your argument. It doesn't exist | except as a straw man. | topspin wrote: | > I have no idea what your Potemkin regulation is | | Nations such as China erect fig leaf regulatory regimes | that are both ineffective and corrupt and are designed to | attract Western capital that are avoiding the regulatory | burdens (environmental regulation, labor regulation, etc.) | in Western nations. These are Potemkin structures in that | they offer plausibly deniable cover to the Western | establishment for the purposes of trade agreements and | other international instruments. | coliveira wrote: | You're right, except that it is not unionized workers | parasitizing profits (unions are decreasing in numbers | everywhere), it is shareholders parasitizing companies to | extract whatever value they can. This is the big | difference. In Asia, shareholders don't have the power to | parasitize profits, and they allow ample competition | between manufacturers. See, for example, the absurd | situation of Apple. Americans think it is nice to have a | single company nearly monopolizing device production, as if | it were their right. In Asia people would have already | started hundreds of companies to fight their monopolistic | advantage (as they currently have in China). | jeofken wrote: | The pine phone is afaik built around a pretty off-the-shelves | system-on-a-chip and made in China, exported with a Hong Kong | company. Sadly a SOC far from what you'd get in a smartphone by | Samsung or Apple, as they can swing with much larger wallets. | If anyone knows the specific SOC version I'd appreciate the | product ID | Shadonototro wrote: | china, usa, i see no differences | | different words, but same techniques | hertzrat wrote: | The article doesn't really talk about supply chain constraints. | It talks more about the threat of losing market access | coliveira wrote: | Americans need to realize that, outside the US, nobody really | cares anymore about the trope "China is tracking mobile apps". | The reason is that everyone knows that US agencies are already | doing this (remember Snowden?). So non-US customers feel that | is just fine for competition if other countries can provide | them with technology, even with the downside of the sporadic | spying thing. It basically is better to have competition than | being in the hands of a single superpower which, as Donald | Trump has shown, can easily become out of control. | | By the way, nothing was better for China than the big show | provided by Trump and his minions in the US during the last | four years. It showed that nobody can trust 100% on the US to | uphold democratic values. | schiang wrote: | China doesn't just provide supply chain anymore. They are also | a huge market now because of its growing middle class. China | has money to spend and US companies need to tap into that | market. | phone8675309 wrote: | They're also now the market that all movies must target in | order to be successful. | reaperducer wrote: | _They 're also now the market that all movies must target | in order to be successful._ | | It depends on your definition of "successful." | | You can have a successful movie and not distribute it in | China. It won't make the absolute maximum number of dollars | possible on planet Earth, but it can still be a successful | movie. | phone8675309 wrote: | > You can have a successful movie and not distribute it | in China. It won't make the absolute maximum number of | dollars possible on planet Earth, but it can still be a | successful movie. | | The business success or failure of a movie is entirely | determined by how much money it makes. To maximize that | success (or even to be considered a success), you must | publish in China. | reaperducer wrote: | _The business success or failure of a movie is entirely | determined by how much money it makes_ | | Even without your movement of goalposts, a movie can | still be successful without being in China. | | The most successful movies in history were released, and | massively profitable, before China's market opened to the | rest of the world. | | _To maximize that success (or even to be considered a | success), you must publish in China._ | | This is simply false. There are plenty of successful | businesses, movies, video games, and other enterprises | that never touch China. I hate to break it to you, but | China is a non-factor for the vast majority of businesses | on the planet. | reaperducer wrote: | _China has money to spend and US companies need to tap into | that market._ | | "Choose to" tap into that market. No company "needs" to be in | China. | | Just like there are thousands of companies in Europe that do | not do business in the United States, and thousands of | companies in Brazil that do not do business in Russia. | lotsofpulp wrote: | It is conceivable in a winner take all business, or a top 2 | take all business, you either tap into the world's largest | market or you don't survive. | | For example, Apple being able to lock up all the supply of | higher end chips and smaller companies not being able to | compete. | Clubber wrote: | >It is conceivable in a winner take all business, or a | top 2 take all business, you either tap into the world's | largest market or you don't survive. | | The US is the world's largest market, by a lot. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_ma | rke... | lotsofpulp wrote: | Yes, I meant the world's top markets. Especially one | that's up and coming. | [deleted] | coliveira wrote: | And how big are these European or Brazilian companies? | That's all fine if the US wants to become a 3rd tier | economy. But if the country wants to expand, it has to | trade with China. | dalbasal wrote: | You're getting kind of semantic. Theoretically, No company | "needs" to be in business at all. | | If Chinese consumer market growth continues as it has been, | it may the biggest market for Apple. Hard to be the largest | luxury goods company in the world without the largest | luxury goods market... | | OP is right. This gives China influence. Supply chain | influence is a minor thing, relative to " _I 'm your | biggest customer_" influence. | jimkleiber wrote: | Why I don't like the "needs to" framing, especially as it | comes to business decisions, is that I think it takes the | agency out of the process. Too many of my friends and | family seem to assume that just because there are | customers willing to pay or cheaper labor, a company must | automatically do a certain thing unless the government | makes a law to prevent them from doing it. | | I guess that's why I like the "chooses to" framing | because it highlights that leaders of companies can | choose to not pursue markets or go with higher priced | suppliers if they can make the argument as to how it | might help them in the long term. | | Edit: typo | dalbasal wrote: | IDK if the philosophy of it matters all that much. Apple | is, likely, going to grow in China. We don't have to | solve the "agency question" to know this. | | That said, I think there is a decent amount of | determinism at play here. It's like the "why are all | politicians such politicians?" problem. The companies | with an interest in entering the Chinese market will, | mostly, do it. It's predictable. Predictable isn't | determinism, but it's en route. | | For a more poetic take, I'll paraphrase leonard cohen on | "do you believe in free will?": | | _I think free will exists, but I think it 's over-rated. | Mostly, we act because we are compelled to._ | kukx wrote: | Well, let's merge both narrations: they need to, if they | choose to pursue the leadership in the global market ;) | bjelkeman-again wrote: | at the detriment of human rights and the environment. | | A lot of investors and pension funds are starting to add | more criteria to their investments than just a profit. | fauigerzigerk wrote: | How do you avoid a situation where companies making | ethical choices are bought or outspent by companies (or | in fact by shareholders) that got rich by exploiting | every profitable opportunity that is legally available to | them, including unethical ones? | | From the point of view of any particular company the | choice you're talking about may well exist, especially | where the company is founder-led. But that doesn't mean | the outcome you're hoping for can be achieved on a purely | voluntary basis. | | It may work in exceptional cases though, Apple being one | of them. | WillPostForFood wrote: | It is a pretty powerful combo: controlling supply and | demand. | faeyanpiraat wrote: | I would consider businesses providing for our basic human | needs (eg food) to be needed to be in business. | birdsbirdsbirds wrote: | They can choose for a year or two, but they will lose on | scale. Apple can pull off their own processor because they | are big enough. If companies don't sell in China, only | Chinese companies are big enough to have fancy new | components and production processes. | adrr wrote: | China consumer market is bigger than than the US. It will | be for public companies to justify they they won't sell in | China to their stockholders outside of IP theft and PR | issues. | ng12 wrote: | Is there a good reason why we shouldn't sanction China like | we do Russia, NK, and Iran? There's plenty of money to be | made in those countries too. | SiempreViernes wrote: | There are US sanctions on China. | | There is however a huge problem with sanctions: you need to | have a _realistic_ plan for what you want to accomplish | with your sanctions, or else it does little more than | adding some friction to trade. | | That means that if you want to actually change the | behaviour of a nation using sanctions, you need to have | modest goals, an acceptance of compromise, and a readiness | to let the other side come out looking like a respectable | partner. These are basically things the US cannot muster in | the relationship with Iran and North Korea, and the | American violation of the JCPOA has significantly eroded US | ability to persuade other countries to impose their own | sanction. | | For China and Russia, the US alone cannot impose any | important amount of sanctions and have them be upheld by | third parties, the USA trying to block all imports from | China would just mean the rest of the world needs to switch | to using Yuan or Euros because that volume of trade simply | cannot be replaced. | mullingitover wrote: | > There's plenty of money to be made in those countries | too. | | Russia GDP: ~1.7 trillion | | Iran GDP: ~0.45 trillion | | North Korea GDP: ~0.028 trillion | | Meanwhile, China GDP: ~14.34 trillion | macintux wrote: | One reason, good or not depending on your views, is that | China's GDP is 10x Russia's, 20x Iran's, and 1000x North | Korea's (and I have to suspect that's generous towards NK). | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nom | i... | jonathannat wrote: | US has started to, with sanctions on xinjiang related | companies, with sanctions on chinese officials over hong | kong. | | It's just a matter of time before more sanctions arrive. | Because dictatorships are short-sighted and incapable of | change. So let's say China tries to prod Taiwan with some | military approach and fails. Or escalation of border war | with India or Vietnam or Japan. Or increasing purchases or | Iranian goods. | | When there's a mini-war started by China in Asia, you will | see a full worldwide sanction on China. | gfiorav wrote: | Yes. Never forget how the US seemingly thought that its | companies, unchecked, would defend the national interests. We | should all learn from this. | JustSomeNobody wrote: | Apple has a $2T market cap. Do they truly "need" China? I | know, I know, they have a responsibility to their | shareholders, blah blah. But Two Trillion Dollars. | aembleton wrote: | They'll be worth a lot less than $2T if they exit from | China. | [deleted] | schiang wrote: | How do you think they got to $2T market cap in the first | place? | williesleg wrote: | China is my hero! Go China! Why have Just Apple tracking us? | drngxn wrote: | Can someone explain technically how CAID works? Or point me to | some articles/documentation? | russli1993 wrote: | 1. People outside doesn't understand how Chinese government | works. This CAID is a project by advertising association, yes it | is state backed. But these associations in China are commercial | only and looks out to commercial interests. | | In western public opinion, "state-backed" has negative | connotations and government is a necessary evil. But in Chinese | political philosophy that is not the case. Government has a | positive role. Government can unite groups, form common interest, | work across conflicting interests to create a win-win situation | for everyone. In China, in a lot of situations people actual seek | leadership from the government to create standards or common | approaches. A lot of the industrial policies documents people | outside have a problem with are actually demanded by private | parties, and government is just answering their demands. | | In this case it looks like the industry is driven by commercial | interests to develop this technical solution. If the Chinese | government wants to impose this kind of tracking to track | people's activities online, it will need to use its executive | power. And that involves the following steps: 1. Chinese central | government announces direction to create this kind of tracking | system. 2. Departments in state counsel start draft <<Guan Li | Tiao Li >> and releases it public solicitation 3. <<Guan Li Tiao | Li >> goes into effect 4. national people's congress drafting and | passing laws. All of these will involve public disclosure. But | there is no sign of any of this from the government. | | People can debate whether the tracking involved here is okay or | not. But there is no sign here saying the government is designing | this and mandating it in order to track people. | | Also Apple could try to close the "loophole" used here. Maybe the | Chinese advertising industry will get pissed and demand the | government to do something. But I doubt any legal actions will be | taken. First, legally Apple doesn't break any Chinese laws. | Second, Chinese government needs to be law abiding and rule based | to attract foreign investments, which is crucial to the economy. | | 2. This article is accusing Tiktok of implementing this. But this | is a project under discussion within China, likely only to be | used within China, and Bytedance's apps in China, like douyin. | Tiktok and Douyin are separate apps, run by separate management. | TikTok by TikTok US, while Bytedance China runs all Chinese | related business. The parent Bytedance is incorporated in Cayman | islands. Hence Chinese laws do not apply to the parent and TikTok | US. TikTok US is ought to follow US laws, customs, expectations | and values. Of course its fine to pressure TikTok and Bytedance | to not implement this in China as well. But this article's tone | is implying Chinese government controls these entities and trying | to track people everywhere. That is simply not true. The | government 1) is not pushing to do so 2) doesn't have the means | to do it. Even if Chinese government is tries to force Bytedance | to share tiktok data, Bytedance can refuse, what can it do? It | could only arrest Bytedance management or fine the company. Is | there any of that happening? I am seeing a lot of anti-china ccp | videos on TikTok. Just because the company is founded by a | Chinese person doesn't mean it will be political and abide by the | rules in china. | 11thEarlOfMar wrote: | It's additionally concerning that the US has little exposure to | China-sourced data. This imbalance where the CCP knows far more | about the average American than the US knows about the average | Chinese person is deeply concerning. The more that is known, the | larger the training data set, the more people can be influenced | in ways that suit an openly hostile[0] government. | | [0] https://www.state.gov/wp- | content/uploads/2020/11/20-02832-El... | danShumway wrote: | So, what is CAID? How does it work? | | Is it a composite fingerprint based on how the device works, or | an alternate ID that Apple isn't restricting yet? Would be nice | to get some details about what exactly TikTok plans to do beyond | "they found a way to get around it". | | Or is that information just not available yet? I can't find | anything online detailing what the attack is. | seniorgarcia wrote: | I don't think there are any details on the implementation out | yet. | | Judging by this article https://www.sohu.com/a/415394669_344262 | (in Chinese) the company behind CAID is https://www.reyun.com/. | Pretty hard to find info on them and their product in englisch | though. The only quick result I got was this: | https://bloomgamer.com/2020/10/reyun-data-completed-its-c-ro... | DLay wrote: | CAID spec: | | https://web.archive.org/web/20210316035745/docs.trackingio.c. | .. | anon9001 wrote: | It appears to be like branch.io, firebase, or the facebook SDK | but for Chinese ad companies. | | Here's a breakdown the changes in iOS 14 that likely caused | this: | | * https://blog.branch.io/attribution-ios-14-survive-if-you- | mis... | | * https://blog.branch.io/attribution-ios-14-cannot-wait-any- | lo... | mokash wrote: | I will repost a comment I made about Apple and China in another | post like 1.5 years ago: | | "Apple are beholden to China. Sure, China is a huge market for | them but I think the bigger issue is manufacturing: if they piss | China off they won't have anything to sell, anywhere! I'm sure | Apple execs know this and I hope they're quickly planning to | reduce, if not remove this dependency." | dylan604 wrote: | And how has that planning been going in those 18 months? | iainmerrick wrote: | Presumably that is something Apple will keep a closely- | guarded secret, even more so than usual. | jhayward wrote: | https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_to_move_production_from_china. | .. | | https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-vietnam-apple- | exc... | mgreg wrote: | Apple will soon start flagship iPhone 12 production on | Indian soil for local customers, the company said on | Tuesday | | Apple supplier Wistron recently began trial production of | the iPhone 12 at a new facility near Bengaluru, with full | production set to begin soon. The iPhone 12 will be the | seventh iPhone model to be manufactured in India, but the | first high-end device to do so. | | https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/09/apple- | iphone-12-product... | poisonborz wrote: | It's not that simple. China doing such a drastic step would | make every industry flee instantly. Lots of companies already | do transfer tasks to India and Vietnam, Apple included. | outside1234 wrote: | Maybe it wasn't such a bad Trump idea to just shut this thing | down. | outside1234 wrote: | Apple needs Biden to step in and threaten to shut down Tiktok | again if they go ahead with this. Hell, maybe he should just shut | it down preemptively in the US and the EU should sue them over | GDPR to make sure China gets the point. | | It is totally asymmetric for Apple to try to take on China in | this and given their dependence on China for manufacturing (which | I hope they are reconsidering now) they really can't afford to | take them on. | Redoubts wrote: | I guess this explains their wild support response when I had | trouble logging in with Apple SSO in their app | | https://imgur.com/a/Qbz7LwQ | [deleted] | ashneo76 wrote: | Get. Out. of. china. Or be ruled by the authoritarianism of the | CCP | Daho0n wrote: | Stop. Buying. Stuff. Made. In. China. | | Or does it not apply when it inconvenience you? | reaperducer wrote: | _Stop. Buying. Stuff. Made. In. China._ | | Easy to say when you're bloviating on the internet. Hard to | do in real life. I know, because I try. | | I end up buying a good amount of vintage stuff to keep from | supporting China. But there are a lot of things that aren't | available at any price where I live that aren't made in | China. | | I went through this a couple of years ago looking for a | toaster. The only non-Chinese option available where I live | was $900. | imglorp wrote: | Maybe that toaster is a good metaphor. Lots of people are | willing to buy domestic if it's quality and costs a little | more. It's not inconceivable to make a US$100 toaster | outside of Asia. | babycake wrote: | > Stop. Buying. Stuff. Made. In. China. | | This isn't possible to follow on the individual level, even | if you wanted to. Those 'Made in America' labels on product | boxes aren't even accurate either, the parts can be built in | China but assembled here, and still have that american label | attached. | spijdar wrote: | Yeah, trying to avoid buying things with any components or | work, or even most of the components from China is | basically impossible. | | Still, it is sometimes possible to find alternatives that | put proportionally more work and production into products | outside China. I try to buy these things when I can, even | when inevitably the materials or components come from | China. Better than all the dollars going there, I figure... | no-dr-onboard wrote: | Not sure why purism is implied in the answer here. If | anything, sentiments like these are akin to "reducing your | carbon footprint" by taking more "environmentally conscious | measures". Same language, same sentiment. While no one can | reduce their carbon footprint to 0 for an extended period | of time, the act of _trying_ to can prove real results when | performed en masse. | kar5pt wrote: | I think that was his point. | curiousgal wrote: | Feeling depressed? Just. be. happy. | disgu wrote: | Have you missed the last decade where companies from all around | the globe do this exact thing all the time because gathering | your information is their business? | | Google and Facebook get caught doing it constantly. Just this | week a lawsuit against Google was given the green light for | gathering data when they were not supposed to. And isn't | Facebook currently trying to illegally merge WhatsApp and | Facebook data? Didn't the last US president complain about the | EU stepping in to protect their citizens about this? Don't | pretend this is some "evil China" problem. | dannyr wrote: | While I'm not a fan of the data gathering done by Google and | Facebook, the magnitude of tracking done by China are far, | far greater. | disgu wrote: | That's according to "I know China evil" or is this based on | anything? We know that China was playing catch-up when | Snowden leaked his stuff so they might have caught up. Can | you link the corresponding leaks? I'd love to read some of | the Chinese ones because the most recent big things I could | find were Snowden leaks. | reaperducer wrote: | Playing the Snowden card doesn't invalidate what China is | doing. | | What the U.S. was doing was bad. What China is doing is | also bad. They can both be bad. | okprod wrote: | Yea but OP's statement that we're all responding to is | "Get. Out. of. china. Or be ruled by the authoritarianism | of the CCP" | dannyr wrote: | I have read a number of news articles and the book "We | Have Been Harmonized" https://bookshop.org/books/we-have- | been-harmonized-life-in-c... | | Is this enough for me to say "I Know China evil"? | josh2600 wrote: | Do you have any metrics or other proof to verify this | statement? | reaperducer wrote: | Does pretty much every major newspaper around the world | count? | dannyr wrote: | I read this book: | | We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China's Surveillance | State - Kai Strittmatter (Author) | | https://bookshop.org/books/we-have-been-harmonized-life- | in-c... | | "China's new drive for repression is being underpinned by | unpre-cedented advances in technology: facial and voice | recognition, GPS tracking, supercomputer databases, | intercepted cell phone conver-sations, the monitoring of | app use, and millions of high-resolution security cameras | make it nearly impossible for a Chinese citizen to hide | anything from authorities. Commercial transactions, | including food deliveries and online purchases, are fed | into vast databases, along with everything from biometric | information to social media activities to methods of | birth control. Cameras (so advanced that they can locate | a single person within a stadium crowd of 60,000) scan | for faces and walking patterns to track each individual's | movement." | yumraj wrote: | China blocked Signal. | | Is there a legal reason why US cannot block TikTok and other | Chinese apps? | anon9001 wrote: | Technically, what's going on here? | | "CAID" isn't a public iOS technology, and the article doesn't say | what it means. | | Some googling returns: https://mmachina.cn/wp- | content/uploads/2021/02/MMA%E4%B8%AD%... | | Apparently it means "CAA Advertising Id", where "CAA" appears to | be the "Creative Artists Agency", some sort of Chinese | advertising group. (edit: wrong organization, it's actually | "Chinese Anonymization ID", not a group. the group behind it is | https://trackingio.com/) | | Searching "CAA Advertising Id" yields more Chinese PDFs. | | From what I can tell here, "CAID" is a partnership between | Chinese industry and Chinese government to track users across | apps for better tracking. | | The issue here does not seem to be that they've bypassed a | technical restriction, but that the developers of major apps are | using a shared identifier that Apple doesn't like. | | In the US, the analogy would be if apps had tracking SDKs in | them, that fingerprinted users across apps, in order to better | target them for advertisements, and then the US government can | pick up that data and do whatever they'd like with it. | | The strange part to me, is that this actually _is_ the situation | today in the US. | | I don't want to shill for China, but why is this a story? This | has been a US industry since at least Doubleclick was invented. | | edit: | | It's a story because they're using the iOS keychain API to | persist and share the tracking identifier. As far as I know, this | is a new technique in the wild, but has been theoretically | possible since iOS launched. It's only now being seen as | necessary because of the iOS14 privacy changes. | | It's curious that American ad companies seem to understand | Apple's intent and are opting not to risk their business by | expanding their SDKs to use keychain sharing techniques, even | though they're surely aware you can do this. Chinese ad companies | seem ok with risking their clients apps being banned on the app | store. | | Apple can mitigate this by giving users control of the data and | sharing related to keychain services. | some1else wrote: | This reminds me of how Linkedin and many others used to upload | entire phonebooks to unecrypted endpoints, making it simple for | US agencies to analyze social networks of foreigners with | impunity. | GrayShade wrote: | Did they really stop doing that? | some1else wrote: | Ha, good question. Generally, everyone switched to HTTPS. | But that doesn't protect against situations like with | Yahoo, where the agencies were tapped-in after the SSL | termination. I guess it's not a stretch to assume it's | still going on. | Jonanin wrote: | The story is that major Chinese companies and the state are | working together to develop an alternative to Apple's IDFA. | While aggressively pushing back against companies in the U.S. | tracking users, Apple seemingly doesn't mind having a double | standard for China. | freeflight wrote: | Is that really the story? When the USG requires Apple to | access something on the basis of legal intercept then Apple | will comply, as they did with the FBI and that mass shooter | guy: Apple granted the FBI access to the iCloud account, the | FBI botched it and then wanted access to the data on the | physical phone, which Apple couldn't provide due to not | knowing the encryption key. | | The only other "big stance on privacy" that Apple has is | that, unlike their main competitor Google, they are not an | advertisement business. So they have no real financial | motivation to add tracking to their devices and software vs a | Google were advertisement and user tracking are pretty big | pillars of their financial income. | | Infrastructure like that is trivial to hijack for | surveillance once in place, which privacy wise makes Google | devices and software by default the worse choice unless using | specifically cleaned and hardened custom roms. | | So while these two issues are related, legal intercept and | privacy, they are not as easily conflated as you make it | sound when you claim Apple is having "double standards" when | they really are not "double standards" but simply abiding by | local laws and regulations. | CountSessine wrote: | It's a bigger choice than that for them, or for anyone. If | the government requires pervasive tracking, it's either allow | it or stop selling phones in China, the world's biggest | market for cell phones. And given that economies of scale | matter (for things like swallowing flat rate development | costs for those nice SOCs they design), it's hard to say | goodbye to half your market. | | Samsung certainly won't take a principled stand on this and | stop allowing app tracking. And in a competitive market, | deciding to not sell cell phones in China means less | development capital for designing the next generation of | hardware. They'll start circling the drain and wind up like | Motorola or HTC. | | I'm not saying that they shouldn't be consistent - just that | choosing to not sell in China will mean losing everything | outside of China eventually. | rootusrootus wrote: | > Apple seemingly doesn't mind having a double standard for | China. | | That seems to be the case with many businesses. Nobody wants | to lose that entire market just to stand on principle. | gridder wrote: | China is also the place where most of Apple products are | produced, this matters a lot as well... | Larrikin wrote: | Google did and didn't stop existing as a company | rootusrootus wrote: | Google opted out of the Chinese market because it | violated their principles? They didn't try to make a | censored Chinese version of Google? | summerlight wrote: | A part of Google tried to do so and the majority of its | employee (enough to scare its senior executives) fiercely | rejected that attempt, so it gets overturned. | carmen_sandiego wrote: | Is that true? A _majority_ of Google employees protested | Dragonfly? Last I heard there was a petition with just | ~1% of them on it. | reaperducer wrote: | _In the US, the analogy would be if apps had tracking SDKs in | them, that fingerprinted users across apps, in order to better | target them for advertisements, and then the US government can | pick up that data and do whatever they 'd like with it._ | | I've never really thought about it before, but it would be | pretty easy for a three-letter agency to set up an online | advertising company for this purpose. | | They start their own airlines (Air America, JANET, etc.), so | starting an adtech company should be a walk in the park. | [deleted] | RandomSpanish wrote: | There are some precedents, such as: | | https://www.vice.com/en/article/epdkze/muslim-apps- | location-... | CountSessine wrote: | But they don't even need to do that - they just approach an | existing adtech company with a FISA warrant and get their | data. If they started their own adtech company, eventually | they would be out-ed and exposed. But with a FISA warrant, | it's mostly business-as-usual for everyone. | freeflight wrote: | _> But they don 't even need to do that - they just | approach an existing adtech company with a FISA warrant and | get their data._ | | Depending on who they approach, they won't even need a FISA | warrant because in the US information voluntarily given to | third parties has "no reasonable expectation of privacy" | [0] | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine | sangnoir wrote: | > I've never really thought about it before, but it would be | pretty easy for a three-letter agency to set up an online | advertising company for this purpose. | | There's no need to set one up when you can break into | many/all the existing advertising companies; remember "SSL | added and removed here :^)" written on an NSA slide, | referring to Google's clear-text internal data-center | traffic? Also, the NSA spent a fuck-ton of money on compute | to factor enough primes to trivially break 20-40%[1] of SSL | traffic of the day...in real time. | | 1. This was about 6 years ago, I can't remember exact | percentage, but it was definitely at least 20%, IIRC, the | attack was on the key-exchange step | DLay wrote: | Here is the CAID spec: | | https://web.archive.org/web/20210316035745/docs.trackingio.c... | anon9001 wrote: | That's very helpful and adds a lot of clarity. | | You can tell from the code that the "exploit" here is abusing | keychain sharing. | | iOS has a feature where you can pack a surprising amount of | generic data into keychain storage, intended for passwords or | auth credentials. | | iOS also lets app developers opt-in to shared credential | storage, so that if you have multiple apps, the user only | needs to login once. Here's a blog post on how to do it: | https://evgenii.com/blog/sharing-keychain-in-ios/ | | A little-known quirk of the iOS keychain is that it persists | across app installs. This is useful because if multiple apps | share credentials in the keychain, you don't want | uninstalling one app to log you out of other apps. | | If an American company tried this (looking at you Branch.io), | would it be banned by Apple? Maybe? That seems to be the | controversy here. | | Perhaps Apple needs to rethink its keychain sharing API and | make the user opt-in to credential sharing. | | Also a keychain management tool would be nice, so users can | see what data apps are permanently storing on their devices | (even if the app is uninstalled). | tinus_hn wrote: | Credential sharing only works between apps registered to | the same developer. So no, this does not allow an tracking | ID usable by all apps. | | And remember, any trick abused to create tracking IDs | stands the risk of being detected and blocked by Apple in | the next iOS update. It has been announced, it has | happened, it will keep happening. | anon9001 wrote: | > Credential sharing only works between apps registered | to the same developer. | | That's right, but it does allow persisting an id through | reinstalls of the same app, and sharing that id between | apps of the same developer. | | > So no, this does not allow an tracking ID usable by all | apps. | | It effectively does though. For example, imagine a mobile | game company with 10 games. With this technique, you can | track that user across app re-installs in each of those | games. | | Now imagine another game company doing the same trick. If | both companies send up their independent tracking IDs to | a central server along with any other info they can get | about the user (email, screen name, IP, whatever), then | you can strongly correlate users across multiple tracking | IDs. The user has no way to reset these IDs even if they | delete and reinstall the apps using them. | lilyball wrote: | Apple tried removing the keychain persisting in an iOS | beta a while back and there was a big outcry from | developers as it broke their ability to detect and ban | users across app reinstalls. Apple reverted that and | responded by adding a new feature where developers could | permanently track 2 boolean values for a device (per app) | but I don't know who has bothered to switch to that | mechanism. | freebuju wrote: | From what I understand, this CAID will be an effective | replacement of Apple's IDFA. It will allow partner advertising | groups to tag iPhone users directly without relying on any of | Apple's identifiers. | pityJuke wrote: | > Creative Artists Agency | | This is wrong. Creative Artists Agency is a talent agency, | based in the US, with the same abbreviation. | [deleted] ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-16 23:02 UTC)