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Comment by eyeareque | Hacker News Reader

I used to think this way too until I went to china. The current batch of US apps are also copies of earlier apps. Remember chatting on bbses? IRC, ICQ, etc?

China doesn’t need western internet companies, they have a quarter of the world’s population. Can you blame them for wanting to promote home grown apps to build wealth within their country? Also, they like control, why would you let an foreigner end to end encryption app into your country? I don’t agree with their control but it’s not my country.

I’m surprised iMessage worked for me while I was there. I wonder what consessions Apple had to give for that?

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I’m surprised iMessage worked for me while I was there. I wonder what consessions Apple had to give for that?

From the article:

'Other services provided by American technology companies are available in mainland China. The country tolerates Microsoft’s Skype service for phone calls, which does not provide end-to-end encryption and as a result is easier for governments to monitor. Beijing also allows Apple’s FaceTime service, which has end-to-end encryption but does not have a WhatsApp-like feature allowing users to exchange secret codes — letting WhatsApp users combat what are known as “man in the middle” attacks.'

Sorry, but is there any evidence that iMessage or FaceTime has been MITMed? In China or elsewhere?

(I wonder whether it's tolerated because of Apple's small market share...)

There is no eivdence that I know of. If Apple suddenly signed every message with a third key (a Chinese gov key) how would people know? Maybe a jail broken phone could detect this.. but only if the third key was added. They could do it to specific people and no one would know until it happened. I have no proof of this, only guessing what could happen.

The elite still probably likes to use iDevices themselves. Once they get some other luxury brands going its time for the concessions.

Could be yeah. But it really makes me wonder. I can’t see china allowing a messaging platform in their country that doesn’t have a way to monitor everything.

Maybe the fact that iPhones are all made in china allow them, for the time being.

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