this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
1827 points (98.3% liked)
Technology
59696 readers
2022 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's this publicly known, or just assumed because China blocks everything they can't read?
I assume that Apple gives the Chinese government access somehow, but I've never read details.
Apple proactively aids in censorship and stores all customer data, including encryption keys, on servers controlled by the Chinese government. They've also excluded security features from China and crippled existing features to aid government repression.
Thanks for the links. Unfortunately, that NYT article does not make a single mention of iMessage or end-to-end encryption.
Last I checked, iMessage still works in China. I find it implausible that China would allow this without access. If there's a mechanism for that, I'd like to know what it is and how far it extends. The fact that Apple doesn't admit that there's a difference in iMessage's security in China makes me wonder whether it is compromised globally.
I don't think there's any evidence of a global compromise but I think you're right that China wouldn't allow access if it didn't ultimately control it.
I couldn't find anything specific about iMessage but the keys are backed up to iCloud -- and we know that's compromised. I can't imagine them leaving users the option to just not back up to iCloud to avoid surveillance, but I haven't seen any specifics. Best to assume that under no circumstances do you ever have privacy from the gov't in China or even when messaging someone in China.