“Apple has refused demands by China to hand over source code, the company’s attorney said,” Zack Whittaker reports for ZDNet. “Bruce Sewell, the company’s general counsel, rebuffed claims at a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the company had cooperated with Beijing.”
“Capt. Charles Cohen, a commander in the Indiana State Police, repeated the claim but later attributed the statement to ‘news stories’ when pushed by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA, 18th),” Whittaker reports. “It’s not the first time Apple has fought against allegations it helped China, where Western and domestic companies often have to comply with overreaching surveillance demands. Last month, Sewell said on a media call that the Justice Dept.’s claims that it helped China gain access to iCloud data on its citizens, which by law has to be stored inside the country, were ‘ridiculous.'”
“Apple also branded some of the specific allegations as ‘ridiculous,’ referring to where the Justice Dept. said in its filing that Apple ‘made special accommodations in China,'” Whittaker reports. “He added that though the company had ‘absolutely not’ been asked or compelled to build a backdoor in any country, except the US.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, not even China would think of asking what the U.S. asked for- a backdoor. That’s rather instructive.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
And the Chinese have no spies working at Apple — sure. Hell they stole the plans and design software for the W88 nuclear warhead from Los Alamos Lab, getting Apple’s source should be child’s play.
I’m not quite sure; government facilities (and their security) were built by the lowest bidder, and it is quite common to see private sector develop significantly more reliable, secure and better solutions for whatever the problem is, than anything built for the government.
It would not surprise me if China had people on the inside at Apple and every other major technology company in the U.S. They deny it but commercial IP theft by the Chinese Government is rampant. They are putting vast resources into stealing U.S. commercial technology.
The downside for the Chinese is that they’re not investing the same resources in R&D and human capital. They will always be playing catch up. U.S. technology companies will continue to race ahead with new technology innovations while the technology the Chinese stole only a few years before becomes obsolete.
That’s exactly what the Soviet Union did in the post WWII years. It’s cheaper to steal than to create bombs. Same’s true for other tech. The problem is that they’re “skating where the puck is, not where it will be”.
Sure they did. That’s why they were not first in space. Oh wait a minute….
Never mind forget that….we still have better rockets. Oh wait a minute….
Dum Gai you aint. “Dumb guy” you is!
“…we still have better rockets…”
Actually, we do. Better yet, they’re being built by private sector companies jumpstarting an industry.
No one in their right mind would do that in Russia.
Apple should sue the DOJ for false allegations and damage to its reputation from these rumors perpetuated by the government. The government needs to be held to a higher standard and unfounded allegations should never be made. Turns out the idiot testifying “read it somewhere on the internet, so it must be true”.
Cohen was giving that info from the fbi when they were preparing him to give testimony. They wanted a local yokel to try and get that past the committee so they wouldn’t look as stupid. Thank you Rep Eshoo for having the citizens back!!
All the lies… Can’t trust criminals, can’t trust politicians, can’t trust lawyers.
We are doomed. – We have to tell the truth, even if it hurts a little bit. There are no white lies when it comes to the public.
Restore the faith – shut your mouth.
MDN, if you believe this bullshit denial by Apple…I got mountain swampland for sale….
One important note to remember is Cook’s statement about abiding by the privacy laws of a ‘country that has determined what their privacy laws are for its citizens’ at the last keynote.
Source code goes beyond privacy laws and I’m sure Apple would balk at that.
But giving up privacy rights for Chinese users – and the price of doing business it’s his lovely commie friends – Cook wouldn’t even hesitate based on his own statements.
You dummy liberals get you burkhas and Nehru jackets ready while you learn your new Chinese language….
They generally don’t wear burkas (no “h”) in China; that’s a Muslim thing. And Nehru jackets haven’t been worn in China since they were worn in America.
But what do you expect from someone who throws around phrases like “you dummy liberals”…
In another story, now the FBI is making ridiculous claim about the the hacked terrorist’s phone. The FBI says, since there was no phone call record on terrorist’s iPhone contacting the other two suspects, they know that he did not contact them, which they say is significant to them. Wow! Since there was no data on the phone, it is significant information for the FBI? Isn’t it radiculous? What if there was some information on the phone, then FBI would be all Apple. You just can’t win regardles of whether there was data or no data on the phone.
Actually, it’s very important for the FBI to know that there was no call records to other suspected accomplices. In this case the absence of information is very significant because it means these terrorists likely acted alone, and there are no other accomplices out there to hunt down.
I don’t like the idea of the FBI asking Apple to weaken its own security, but let’s not ignore the reality of the evidence. We don’t need it to make the case for privacy.
Face saving technique.
Why would the iPhone need to “hacked” to determine there were no calls made it? Isn’t that info fairly/readily available from the phone companies records?
And, of course, there’s absolutely no chance they used burner phones to discuss a terrorist attack, as opposed to their office-supplied iPhone???