Apple has complied with the Chinese government’s request to remove several popular communication apps from its app store, including WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, and Telegram, due to national security concerns. This action was taken following a directive from the Cyberspace Administration of China. These apps have been crucial for political dissidents globally, especially in China where political expression is heavily regulated. Despite previous reliance on VPNs to access these platforms, they are now unavailable for download in China through the official app store. This move by Apple comes amidst increasing tensions between the U.S. and China in the realm of consumer technology, with discussions in the U.S. Senate about the future of TikTok, a popular social media app owned by a Chinese parent company

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    31·
    2 months ago

    In this context signal getting banned gives more credibility to signal, but it should be noted signal wasn’t banned in India even though briar was.

    I’m not sure what your threat model is, I don’t see how I’m being gullible. Looking at who bans what is a signal that we should incorporate into our threat modeling

          • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            You can, just block Tor; Block all ISPs from serving install files for briar. Get it removed from the app stores.

            • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
              11·
              2 months ago

              “Just block Tor” lol. Even China could not do it fully, good luck. There was even a new type of bridge released recently so chances are slimmer.

              • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
                2·
                2 months ago

                It’s not about perfection, just keeping friction high enough that it doesn’t become a threat.

                As a thought experiment how many Tor users are in north korea?

                • EngineerGaming@feddit.nlEnglish
                  21·
                  2 months ago

                  NK has not only a software “firewall”, but control over hardware and more physical control as well. So barely an example and def not applicable to a big country.

                  And also - wonder how high Tor usage friction is in China? Where I live, just obfs4 works and they’re fairly easy to get. Doesn’t China just need a different type of bridges?

                  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
                    1·
                    2 months ago

                    VPNs are pretty common in China, and on top of the VPN you can run Tor no worries. Most of the VPNs get throttled to unusability eventually.

                    I don’t think the goal is to stop every VPN, but cause enough friction that most people don’t use it, and get enough signal intelligence so you know who does - if you should ever need to take more direct action.

                    The same for banning Signal from the app store, I don’t think signal ever worked directly in China, you would have to use the bridges they have, which was already a PITA.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      You should consider that when a nation-state chooses which applications to ban, they know that somebody will use the fact for threat modelling. They are giving out that information consciously while making that decision.