Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Natzoo

macrumors 68000
Sep 16, 2014
1,986
631
You just don't ******* with China :D. They do what they want, how they want and when they want.

Yeah how they stole the military designs, and building an airstrip in the disputed red sea. And also "hacking the us govt"
 

parseckadet

macrumors 65816
Dec 13, 2010
1,489
1,270
Denver, CO
Dude, that's what this is all about. These officials are not looking FOR backdoors, they are going to be installing their own, guaranteed!

Only that you wouldn't hear about it ...

Who is going to inspect it AFTER the Chinese "inspect" it to make sure ... well, I won't say much. I think I am being tracked :eek:

All right on the money here. There have been plenty of examples in the past of devices being infected with viruses at the manufacturing plant. I have no doubt that after China has time to pour over the code in iOS and the chipsets that the next conversation is with Foxconn. Does anyone doubt that China has the resources to compromise the iPhone hardware and/or software in a way that Apple couldn't detect? Given that the majority of the components are manufactured, and the final assembly is performed, in China they have ample opportunity to compromise every device that goes out the door.

The only thing that actually surprises me about any of this is that they needed Apple's cooperation to begin with.
 

furi0usbee

macrumors 68000
Jul 11, 2008
1,790
1,382
The inspections will look for backdoors that provide third-party access to sensitive and private data stored on Apple devices.

LOLOLOLOLOL. No, the inspections will allow the Chinese government to look for backdoors through Apple's security (so they can later exploit).

So, the Chinese government is worried about Apple looking into their citizens' private information? Talk about the pot.... forget it.
 

foobarbaz

macrumors 6502a
Nov 29, 2007
892
2,131
Dude, that's what this is all about. These officials are not looking FOR backdoors, they are going to be installing their own, guaranteed!

How do you think this inspection would work? Apple hands over the keys to the campus to 20 Chinese developers for the weekend?

Apple will offer some Chinese developers the opportunity to review a copy of the code, probably on machines and in buildings controlled by Apple to prevent theft of code. In no way will this process help them getting code into Apple.
 

ActionableMango

macrumors G3
Sep 21, 2010
9,612
6,907
and building an airstrip in the disputed red sea

You sure about that? I cannot find any information on it. The Red Sea is also quite far away from China, being located between Egypt/Sudan and Saudi Arabia. They couldn't possibly hope to protect it there in the event of conflict.
 

TsunamiTheClown

macrumors 6502a
Apr 28, 2011
571
12
Fiery+Cross+Reef
That's not "the EU". That's some stupid politicians in the EU.

I'm sorry, i think you can add the phrase "some stupid politicians in ______" to every sentence i write that has the name of a country or group of countries when reading my posts. I am working on the assumption that this phrase is widely applicable to all political discussion ;) .

In this specific case it was "some stupid politicians in" the UK and Germany who were wanting easier ways to spy on their citizens and illegal immigrants.
 

poppy10

macrumors regular
Sep 25, 2012
231
257
UK
They want to make sure that there are no backdoors. That means examining things like hardware design and software code. It's invasive and, given China's lax regard for copyright, risky for Apple.

Microsoft has been opening its source code to the Chinese Government for years and it's never leaked to my knowledge. With both iOS and OS X now being free it's not like there would be a huge monetary hit anyway.

With the way the NSA has been backdooring US tech products I'd actually be reassured if another government examined the code and found nothing.
 

nt5672

macrumors 68040
Jun 30, 2007
3,428
7,318
Midwest USA
You seem to claim that there was a back door on iMessage at some point. Any evidence for that or just pure speculation on your side? Could you at least give any sane reason why Apple would have a backdoor in iMessage? Because I can't think of one.

Sure, code quality. Its not like Apple has been turning out rock solid code for the last few years. Apple gets the flash and glitter right because that sells, the backdoor stuff like CoreData and networking, well that is just backfill that some poor slob has to do.

Willful backdoor, probably not. Oops backdoor, we'll never know. But considering how far OS X and iOS BSD subsystems trail current development (it usually runs 2 to 6 years behind) someone should be asking why they are so far behind with keeping the plumbing up to date. For example the only reason Apple was not effected by the SSL bug was that they were using SSL that was about 5 years old. Hmmmm.

In most cases I would suspect that in the last 5 years most of the BSD code would have lots of security improvements.
 

gavroche

macrumors 65816
Oct 25, 2007
1,456
1,575
Left Coast
Come on guys. After all the NSA leaks I think it's completely fair for another country to want to ensure that they aren't being spied on this way. Just as we want to be sure Chinese technology isn't being used to spy on us. If I was Chinese I would expect my government to do these kinds of checks. Good on apple for allowing it to backup their stance that they don't allow their products to be used for spying.

I agree. In fact, i would go one step further. As an American, i welcome a foreign country checking to see if MY government is intruding on my privacy too. At this point, i don't really trust the Chinese government any less than i trust mine.
 

Tech198

Cancelled
Mar 21, 2011
15,915
2,151
Makes sense...

Apple's biggest market, lets give China complete access to an otherwise secure OS.

Doesn't Apple release the Korean's accessed Sony via China..... They allowed them to get get access... At least based on reports.

Knock on wood Tim cook..... Anyone home??

Goodbye security..
 

KiwiAdventure

Suspended
Dec 7, 2010
607
304
New Zealand
Their is no way Apple should be giving into China communists. None of us need them and if China does go imagine all the great jobs that will come back to the western world.
 

macs4nw

macrumors 601
Ulterior motives?

In being adamant about performing these security assessments of Apple's products, the cynic in me strongly suspects the Chinese government's insistence to do these checks as a condition of access to their market would give them a perfect opportunity to gain access to source code, and with their track record of enforcing, or even just respecting, IP claims, this can't be good for Apple.

But it is something Apple probably has to live with, if they want access to that huge market.
 

Stephen123

macrumors regular
Sep 3, 2007
184
11
It seems like multiple competing entities doing security inspections is the way to go. China can be one of those entities as long as there are others. Google Zero is doing this, but may not have the same level of access. EFF and IEEE don’t have the correct resources and skill sets. Google, China and US doing competing security inspections could be a pretty good scenario. Also, this is in addition to the security company ecosystem and Apple themselves, not instead of those checks.
 

powers74

macrumors 68000
Aug 18, 2008
1,861
16
At the bend in the river
English is not my first language so please ignore me if I am mistaken but wouldn't it be better to write it as follows?:

"China is an increasingly important market…"

Yes, either that or "Increasingly, China is an important market for Apple". Yours is probably slightly better than mine, but both are more elegant ways of saying it, I think.
 

Michaelgtrusa

macrumors 604
Oct 13, 2008
7,900
1,821
In being adamant about performing these security assessments of Apple's products, the cynic in me strongly suspects the Chinese government's insistence to do these checks as a condition of access to their market would give them a perfect opportunity to gain access to source code, and with their track record of enforcing, or even just respecting, IP claims, this can't be good for Apple.

But it is something Apple probably has to live with, if they want access to that huge market.

All right on the money here. There have been plenty of examples in the past of devices being infected with viruses at the manufacturing plant. I have no doubt that after China has time to pour over the code in iOS and the chipsets that the next conversation is with Foxconn. Does anyone doubt that China has the resources to compromise the iPhone hardware and/or software in a way that Apple couldn't detect? Given that the majority of the components are manufactured, and the final assembly is performed, in China they have ample opportunity to compromise every device that goes out the door.

The only thing that actually surprises me about any of this is that they needed Apple's cooperation to begin with.

Their is no way Apple should be giving into China communists. None of us need them and if China does go imagine all the great jobs that will come back to the western world.

We don't need china to go to bring our jobs back where they were invented.
 

MacGizmo

macrumors 68040
Apr 27, 2003
3,105
2,421
Arizona
Correction to headline

Apple WILL Allow Product Security Inspections by Chinese Government Officials.

Apple has exactly zero choice in this. Apple MUST sell in China, and China's government knows this. So they'll work out some deal behind closed doors to call it a "security inspection" - but the reality is that China is going to do what China wants to do because it's the largest population of money left for tech companies to go after.
 

Winni

macrumors 68040
Oct 15, 2008
3,207
1,196
Germany.
This is not a "reasonable" thing at all but Apple capitulating so that they are allowed to sell products in China most likely. You really think the Chinese government's only interest in this this "inspection" is to protect privacy?

For all we know since the Snowden leaks, only the US government was stupid enough to risk a global distrust in American IT products. All other countries did not want to put that burden on their industry.

What's happened is that more countries have passed laws and policies to ban American software from being used in governmental institutions and that even less non-American companies and corporations are willing to use software and services that is based in the American "cloud".

Which is not really surprising, once you've learned that the NSA actually intercepted Cisco firewall and router products and implemented backdoors into them before they reached their final destination. Or when you know that all the traffic between Google's own data centers was recorded and analyzed by the NSA.

You're worried about China? You don't need to be. The US government already is more fascist and more of a big brother than those Maoists in China could ever be. And that, as sad as it is, is by now a proven fact and not a conspiracy or anti-American hate theory anymore. But if it provides some peace of mind, the UK isn't any better and most European countries were quite happy that they could always ask the NSA for information that would have been illegal to obtain by themselves.

Nevertheless. Russia, China and even North Korea are not the worst of our problems when it comes to the violation of our civil rights - no matter which country you actually live in.
 

dazed

macrumors 6502a
Jun 23, 2007
911
211
Since the damn things are made there, I would have thought the Chinese government would have already dissected every chip and stolen it's details.

It's not like they really need to ask permission, they have the world bent over and have run out of lube......
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.