It is not, however, possible to wipe the disk completely and boot from external media on M1/T2 and reinstall without internet access and obtaining an activation signature from Apple:
https://sneak.berlin/20201204/on-trusting-macintosh-hardware...
https://sneak.berlin/20201204/on-trusting-macintosh-hardware...
But if they did decide to stop signing all versions for some reason, you'd be probably right. T2 is vulnerable to checkm8 so there may be a chance to get around it there, but M1 is not vulnerable.
2. Most consumers have no next to no information that wasn't given to them by the marketing departments of the companies, so that isn't an argument against basic regulation on things like consumer freedom.
I fundamentally disagree with the notion that government should have a say in design decisions for consumer products past safety and environmental concerns. I don't design things to support every consumer use case, I don't document it so those use cases can be supported, and I don't take it personally if a consumer chooses a competing product because it fits their use cases better. If enough consumers do that, I support those cases.
There is plenty of consumer freedom in consumer electronics. We don't need the government telling us what they think our customers want.
There’s nothing obvious at purchase time that this new breed of Apple laptops require an internet connection to reinstall. That’s what will cause some consumers material harm. If informing your customers up front about your product’s limitations causes your business material harm, maybe your product needs a rethink.
The online activation happens after the Recovery kernel is already booted from the installer USB.
I have no doubt that this is a walled garden dilemma where the gardener is held responsible if an app is seemingly used to cause damage. However, the claim that the gardener was influenced by an oppressive power doesn’t hold water given facts available and my personal observations[0].
It’s true that the level of trust required makes Apple hardware unsuitable for users with extremely heightened security needs. However, for the more casual user, trusting Apple is undoubtedly a more reliable bet than trusting their own infosec faculties.
I’d be happy to be proven wrong or given some other example as to why Apple should not be trusted.
[0] First, if they were, one would assume that (A) the app would not have been reinstated in App Store a couple days later, and (B) E2E-encrypted messengers such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram would have been taken off HK App Store, as groups there were used as the source of much more up-to-date information.
Second, considering the political split I have personally witnessed within Hong Kong population itself, a significant portion of citizens likely reported this app to Apple at their own volition.
On a more sentimental note, I was on location at the time and have seen first hand the destruction of property (such as breaking into and destroying ground-floor storefronts and bank branches) when the police were known to be away. It is far from clear to me that those were in fact actions of honest pro-democracy protesters. All protesters I know personally (about a dozen or so) either condemned those actions or were unable to explain what they were aiming to achieve. Meanwhile, the events seemed to obviously play into CCP’s hand, alienating more politically neutral HKers from the freedom movement, and later used by Beijing as an excuse to force the new “security” law on Hong Kong.
Bear in mind that genuinely peaceful pro-democracy protests—attended by many thousands of people—did not require police evasion apps.