“Chinese state media on Friday branded Apple Inc’s iPhone a threat to national security because of the smartphone’s ability to track and time-stamp user locations,” Paul Carsten reports for Reuters.
“A report by broadcaster CCTV criticised the iPhone’s ‘Frequent Locations’ function for allowing users to be tracked and information about them revealed,” Carsten reports. “‘This is extremely sensitive data,”‘ said a researcher interviewed by the broadcaster. If the data were accessed, it could reveal an entire country’s economic situation and ‘even state secrets,’ the researcher said.”
Carsten reports, “Other U.S. hardware firms such as Cisco Systems Inc and IBM Corp have experienced a backlash in China from what analysts and companies have termed the ‘Snowden Effect’, after U.S. spying revelations released last year by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.”
Read more in the full article here.
This from the land of oppression and hackers……
Only if state appatchrakis (sic) use an iPhone’s for work without creating an app for that!
To be fair, USA is the birthplace of hackers and the amount of various oppressions that exist and spread over the world from the country are significant, so there is no point for such talks.
Pay them and they’ll be quiet.
Did anyone teach this “researcher” how to turn off location services???
Wait………..that would be logical. And why would anyone want that?
Or specifically: Frequent locations…
It’s the state media outlet. They are merely trying to dissuade people from buying apple and instead buying one of the multitude of Chinese brand phones, not that they need to, but most likely it is to dissuade Apple as the choice for a second phone when the person realises the cheap Chinese phone they bought first time is a cheap Chinese phone. Fuck China.
Or that any other smart phone also has location tagging.
Once again, our government gets in the way of the USA’s best and greatest spearhead into the world, Apple! Power hungry bastards up top, Dems & Repubs alike.
I wonder where they get these researchers… The Frequent Locations main feature is that it stores that information in your own phone – and remains there – it’s not stored in some cloud somewhere as competing services do.
But maybe that’s what the China.gov would prefer since they could then intercept that information on the way to the cloud…
Their main bitch is that Apple products are harder to for their government hack than Android. The Chinese people also know that, hence the popularity of Apple products.
Yes, I really want to know about the high tech personal data security features that Xiaomi phones have.
I suspect that if anyone were to dig, the Chinese media would praise the ability of the Chinese government to track users locations and hack their email and messages in the name of maintaining their “harmonious society”
Hogwash! I have been breaching iPhone’s OS for years! You guys are all nuts if you think that Apple is safe! 90% of the world runs on anything but iOS and OSX hence a very irrelevant target. Tracking Americans is as easy as pie as you dummies all lock your doors yet post all sorts of personal data via Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc…
The Germans are also none to pleased with America and your self-righteous up the ears debt burdened democracy. China and india are the new world powers and they will keep the likes of Apple at bay…. they do not need tech from American companies!
Yea right Jim. Is to laugh! LOL!
Was your name formerly Zunetang?
Breaching users trust… Undermining national security… If anyone would know
Good luck with that. The horse has left the barn.:) You can’t stop the juggernaut now.
The US gov’t, business and our citizens chose to do business in a country with one of the worst behaving governments in history. We’ll have to put up with this crap forever because we chose cheap products over freedom. A complete economic embargo 25 years ago would have driven that government out by now. Instead we allowed them to thrive. The store shelves in nearly all countries now are completely covered with Made In China goods and have eliminated most of the manufacturing jobs in all countries. We will continue to “assume the position” and China will continue to stick it to everyone else because we choose cheap products over economic freedom and human rights. Too late. Too late.
Translation: support our fledgling tech sector and only buy shitty party approved knockoffs.
And Fragmadroids are not a danger to there security? What kind of drugs are they on? With less than 4% of Android phones having somewhat of an up to date OS, they are the worst violators of security. Not to mention the 99% malware that is fermenting in the hole echo system. If they are worried about security then they need to ban all Android phones completely!
There state media knows nothing about security or products from Apple obviously. And there chinese junk is secure? Malware laden android. Think again state media.
Maybe it is REALLY TIME for the rest of the world to pull back on what it buys from China, Russia and the Middle East. And that means that Apple has to find new places to manufacture its products. I am REALLY uncomfortable with their human rights and pollution records. I think it is time for Americans and Europeans to take a stand against oppressive regimes again. That means no made in China, no oil, no natural gas imported from Russia. We the people must make them suffer. Apple, start looking for new places to manufacture until the Chinese government begins to let freedom ring unabated.
This is the second Chinese attack on Apple this week. I guess iPhone sales are doing pretty good – can’t wait to see the numbers!
Remember the US government coming out on Huawei server security? It took a while but this is their tat for our tit.
While it is quite likely iPhone iS a security risk (as all phones are), what I suspect is the real issue is that the iPhone represents an existential threat to local Chinese carriers and handset manufacturers.