In a country where censorship is a new art form, privacy is supposed to be the reason Apple has come under fire for allowing some private data to be stolen from the iPhone. Now, there is an irony that is hard to pass up.
According to the Wall Street Journal article today police in China have "detained" 22 people associated with Apple or its third party services. There was an apparent theft of data from iPhones for which, under the Cybersecurity laws of China, is a two-fold crime. First the thieves are responsible for their idiocy; second, Apple is responsible for its design that allows unauthorized insiders to get data from the phones. I have always advocated for this kind of liability clause in vendor software but never thought it would catch on. In China, it has, but for all the wrong reasons.
After what we see here, you can bet that Apple still hasn't completely turned over its source code for the iPhone. The new slant to get them to do so is that Apple is not keeping the data of Chinese citizens safe from prying eyes. Oh, please. This has to be the most hypocritical excuse for having them give more access to their proprietary code. Apple knows where that will lead, since Chinese smart phones are getting traction in the world markets. Now they soon will be using IOS, or some Chinese variation- if they arren't already. They have done that with Windows 10, with Microsoft's help.
We really need to see this for what it is: the Chinese use laws of their own invention to facilitate stealing source code, undermining the workings of competitive products to their own, and winning in the world markets of goods and services through unfair competition. They manage to convince business leaders and government officials in the U.S that they do it for the good of the citizens of China. It is Economic Warfare and they are winning.
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