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Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China
The New York Times ^ | 17 May 2021 | Jack Nicas, Raymond Zhong and Daisuke Wakabayashi

Posted on 05/17/2021 4:35:48 PM PDT by Theoria

Apple built the world’s most valuable business on top of China. Now it has to answer to the Chinese government.

On the outskirts of this city in a poor, mountainous province in southwestern China, men in hard hats recently put the finishing touches on a white building a quarter-mile long with few windows and a tall surrounding wall. There was little sign of its purpose, apart from the flags of Apple and China flying out front, side by side.

Inside, Apple was preparing to store the personal data of its Chinese customers on computer servers run by a state-owned Chinese firm.

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has said the data is safe. But at the data center in Guiyang, which Apple hoped would be completed by next month, and another in the Inner Mongolia region, Apple has largely ceded control to the Chinese government.

Chinese state employees physically manage the computers. Apple abandoned the encryption technology it used elsewhere after China would not allow it. And the digital keys that unlock information on those computers are stored in the data centers they’re meant to secure.

Internal Apple documents reviewed by The New York Times, interviews with 17 current and former Apple employees and four security experts, and new filings made in a court case in the United States last week provide rare insight into the compromises Mr. Cook has made to do business in China. They offer an extensive inside look — many aspects of which have never been reported before — at how Apple has given in to escalating demands from the Chinese authorities.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: apple; censorship; china; policestate; surveillance; timcook

1 posted on 05/17/2021 4:35:48 PM PDT by Theoria
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To: Theoria

The word to use is “whores”.


2 posted on 05/17/2021 4:42:13 PM PDT by glorgau
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To: Theoria
On a somewhat related topic: a few years ago,while in Hong Kong,I decided to google “Tienanmen Square” using the hotel's wifi. On their wifi I couldn't get “goggle.com” but,instead,got “google.cn”...the “cn” being the country code for China. All I saw on “google.cn” was peaceful photos of a huge square with Mao looking down lovingly. Not a single word,or photo,about the hundreds (thousands?) of kids gunned down by “The People's Liberation Army”.

Major censorship courtesy of Google.

3 posted on 05/17/2021 4:45:54 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Trump: "They're After You. I'm Just In The Way")
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To: Theoria
Internal Apple documents reviewed by The New York Times, interviews with 17 current and former Apple employees and four security experts

NYT citing anonymous sources. There's probably not very much in this article that is true.

The New York Times knows more than one way to lie

The New York Times Has Been Ridiculous for a Long Time

4 posted on 05/17/2021 4:59:16 PM PDT by T Ruth (Mohammedanism shall be destroyed.)
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To: Theoria

Chinese state employees physically manage the computers. Apple abandoned the encryption technology it used elsewhere after China would not allow it. And the digital keys that unlock information on those computers are stored in the data centers they’re meant to secure.

A perfect example of modern fascism.


5 posted on 05/17/2021 5:22:41 PM PDT by Flick Lives (“Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives.”)
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To: Theoria
Now it has to answer to the Chinese government.

Time to pay up, Apple!

Didn't think your day of reckoning would come, did you?

When you play with poisonous snakes, you're bound to get bitten sooner or later.

6 posted on 05/17/2021 5:26:56 PM PDT by Jess Kitting
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To: Theoria

No American company should be allowed to participate in this, and no company that does this should be allowed to do business in America.


7 posted on 05/17/2021 6:21:57 PM PDT by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Their self-aggrandizement is all that matters. )
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To: Theoria

I’m guessing the “Hard Bargain” is that Apple has to give the CCP data rather than selling it to them.


8 posted on 05/17/2021 7:29:46 PM PDT by Do_Tar (I wish I was kidding.)
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