Apple Conforms. No Wonder Certain US Government Officials Are Agitated with the Cupertino Elite
April 3, 2019
Apple’s attitude toward certain government officials has legs. San Bernadino, foot dragging, and China supplication — Not the best way to win friends and influence people in DC. The information in “Apple Censoring the News” may not be 100 percent accurate. But the description of how Apple has engineered a way to dress in a government regulation uniform is interesting.
The write up states:
To accomplish this censorship Apple is using a form of location fingerprinting that is not available to normal applications on iOS. It works like this: despite the fact that your phone uses a SIM from a US carrier it must connect to a Chinese cellular network. Apple is using private APIs to identify that you are in mainland China based on the name of the underlying cellular network and blocking access to the News app. This information is not available via public APIs in iOS1 specifically to improve privacy for users.
Why the razzle dazzle? To make certain that a mobile with a non-Chinese SIM cannot access blocked online services. Apple is taking a page from Burger King’s approach. Certain customers can indeed have it their way. An express window for some customers, and another line for “other” people where some news is only $10 per month.
Stephen E Arnold, April 3, 2019
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