Struggles of Women Who Mask Their Autism - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/women-camouflaging-autism/553901/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> This makes sense. I became a much happier person when I exited high school and realized that I actually could get positive outcomes from being weird. The "Mask" is more like a script imo, and it's good to be able to drop it when needed.

The examples of girls with autism trying to fit in with other girls was sad. I remember in middle school how my nerdy coed friend group got bullied for sitting together at lunch. The guys got called gay and the girls were shunned by other girls. There was a lot of explicit peer group pressure to only associate by gender. Fortunately most people grew out of this by high school.

Personally, I think I tended towards associating with males more often because I enjoyed competitive games (yugioh, magic, etc) and they were more likely to play. I always preferred hobbies with explicit rules to the comparative anarchy of navigating social circles. It's a shame that so many other girls get pressured by family and peers to avoid predominantly male social hobbies. I think they actually help improve self-confidence and create meaningful friendships far more easily for autistic folks than typical sleepovers or gossiping or whatever.

<comment><USER3> > Fortunately most people grew out of this by high school.

But did they?

<comment><USER2> Well, they started sitting at tables with people of the opposite sex at least. By that measurement at least, I presumed so.

<comment><USER3> That's true. Originally I had the " men and women can't be good friends unless there's an ulterior motive" line you see in adulthood.

<comment><USER4> Well, is there friendship without an ulterior motive at all?

<comment><USER5> Of course. That's one of the main points of real friends.

<comment><USER4> What you call 'real' friends maybe are friends to which you assign a high value due to cooperative behaviour that's sustainable long term.

As soon as this behaviour expectation is broken, you'd probably not consider them 'real' friends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is hard to do but, are any other women on the spectrum looking for a friend? I'm 34, a SAHM and I live in Mountain View.

<comment><USER7> I think this is the first time I've ever gotten angry about a downvote.

tinyegg, I think it was an exemplary and inspirational action, and I hope your seed of courage bears fruit. Although it might be practical to add contact info to your profile :)

<comment><USER6> Thanks, will do.

<comment><USER8> And be careful when communicating with and/or meeting the strangers who contact you. They might not be who they purport to be.

<comment><USER6> Thank you, I'll make sure to meet them in a public place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a child I rocked back and forth for hours finally stopping at nineteen with a huge amount of effort. I always did it behind closed doors. I was sexual abused and abandoned in my early teens. I came to California to help an AI researcher but ended up as a bio engineer and now a SAHM. The library was my refuge as a kid, no academic parents, no inspiring teachers. Fitting in was and is a huge challenge.

<comment><USER9> That's a pretty _" out there share"_. Appreciate it. If you're ever in a position looking for a DFW (DALLAS/ Forth Worth) position, let me know).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I guess stories of people with autism who are merely socially scared and shy are easier to approach. Meanwhile there are parents who live every day in fear of how the hell can their son or daughter endure when they die.

My daughter was diagnosed severe/non-verbale at age 3. If this woman is able to live a life such as this and able to use the bathroom, have a job, etc I'm hopeful of at least that for my daughter. It gives me hope. But I've met parents of children who are much much worse.

Something must be done to change this narrative that Autism isn't curable. The stigma certainly doesn't help either.

<comment><USER10> I wonder if it's because we're afraid of what 'cured' means. I know to some people who are mild on the spectrum their autism could be a source of strength and wonder. I would be remiss to say that if my daughter can tend to herself and lead an enriched life that to me is 'cured' she could still be autistic but she could talk and if someone touched her inappropriately or if she was in pain she'd be able to tell me... that to me be is at least in a step in the right direction.

Visit a group home and it's one of the hardest areas to see. Young autistic adults incessantly masterbating, covered in bruises, unable to use a bathroom etc. Yet they are still intelligent and are self-aware. That to me is the hardest pill to swallow.

Right now treatments are being tested with umbilical cord tissue originated stem cells that are extremely promising. My daughter participated at one study at Duke and went from 0 words to a little over 100. Her ATEC score dropped from 120+ to around 70. However I fear this valuable research will die if we start normalizing autism or other mental illness as something we just 'deal with'

I've read Neurotribes and I can understand the argument but there's rehabilitation and I think the metaphor around a prosthesis is very accurate.

<comment><USER2> Strength and wonder? That's a very odd description. More like, it's the only way we know how to interpret ourselves, our world, our relationships. It's not the easiest, but for those of us that have been able to find meaning and value through this interpretation... why would we give that up just to make other people feel more comfortable around us? We're not hurting anyone. That's why many adults who function decently don't want to be cured.

Of course we support medical research and treatment to improve functioning, especially for severe cases. That's not what a cure is though. A cure is becoming a fundamentally a different person. Or if some folks get their wish, it's pre-natal detection of autism so parents can prevent autistics from being born at all. We don't want to normalize autism to prevent treatment, we want to normalize it enough so that we don't get written off as valueless people not worthy of being born.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am male, but I can totally relate. I was diagnosed with (relatively mild) autism spectrum disorder last year at the age of 37. I kind of suspected for a long time, but somehow several psychiatrists and psychologists managed to miss it.

I wish I had gotten that diagnosis earlier, because it makes it a lot easier to explain to people how I am different.

I am not sure if I would call it covering it up, but a lot of my social skills are the result of a very conscious cognitive learning process. By now it is fairly automatic, but on a not-so-good day I tend to avoid eye contact and communication in general. Writing, strangely is much, much easier. On the upside, I managed to - partly - turn this to my advantage by making a point of being explicitly polite to people.

<comment><USER12> I'm very similar to you, got diagnosed early 30's, now 38. Still haven't gotten the hang of the eye-contact thing, I know I basically avoid eye- contact, it's not a conscious thing. I have to force myself to make eye contact and always feels weird to do. As far as I understand the lack of eye contact is an issue for allistic people so I try to remember, but I usually fail.

<comment><USER11> It might seem somewhat ironic for a borderline-autist, but I find it kind of comforting that I am not the only one with this condition.

To me, eye contact gets harder if I have to focus. Greeting people or answering simple tech-support questions is not a big deal, but when I have to explain - or listen to! - something moderately complex, eye contact becomes difficult.

I suspect the phenomenon is related to the Clippy-disaster with MS Office; recognizing faces takes a lot of brain power, and the human brain allocates a significant chunk to that specific task (at least that is what a neurologist once told me). Somebody wrote a Master's thesis or Ph.D. thesis in psychology about why Clippy was hated so much, and it was basically because face-like things at the margin of our field of vision take up a lot of "bandwidth" in the brain and thus distract from other things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Both my kids are aspie. My son was diagnosed when he was seven because of some speech delay when he was younger and social awkwardness.

My daughter was diagnosed at sixteen after two years of missed school and barely leaving the house due to incredibly high anxiety. Oh, and the first time she was assessed eighteen months prior she was only "borderline" aspie even though in retrospect she has been effected much more profoundly. (She also had a similar speech delay when she was younger too, btw.)

We need to get a lot better at recognising the condition in girls, as we have with boys.

§

If you are wanting to know more about autism in all its flavours, google for just about anything by Tony Attwood. In more recent years he has been concentrating more on autism in women, so adding "women" to your search terms will surface specific material in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've found [https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com](https://interpersonal.stackexchange.com) to be an amazing resource for improving interpersonal skills. Folks in the spectrum may also appreciate reading the content there. And asking for help when a situation just seems unfathomable.

</comment><comment><USER15> Anybody know any stories or resources about autistic motherhood? It strikes me that being a mother with autism could be a challenge, for example when it comes to 'bonding' with the baby. Yet I haven't seen it discussed anywhere.

<comment><USER16> The internet does appear to have some resources. I can't vouch for their quality, having just used a search engine, but they're at least a starting point:

\- [https://autismwomensnetwork.org/motherhood-autistic- parentin...](https://autismwomensnetwork.org/motherhood-autistic-parenting/)

\- [https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2012/11/17/the_a...](https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2012/11/17/the_autism_project_mothers_with_asd_ask_why_scientists_are_missing_girls.html)

\- [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/15/women-a...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/apr/15/women- autistic-mothers-undiagnosed-children)

\- [http://network.autism.org.uk/knowledge/insight- opinion/autis...](http://network.autism.org.uk/knowledge/insight- opinion/autistic-women-pregnancy-and-motherhood)

\- [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/05/autism- pa...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/05/autism- parenting/526989/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> One big issue common with autism is blindness to body language, which apparently comprises 90% of the (in-person) communication we do.

Does anyone know if there are courses one can take to learn how to recognize and produce correct body language?

<comment><USER18> I don't know about any courses, but watching a lot of tv shows especially situational comedies such as Frasier, Seinfeld etc. helped me immensely on reading people.

The facial expressions usually give away the situation. The downside is that you need to constantly read the other parties expressions, and that can get noticed if you're not subtle enough.

It required some energy, but over time you get proficient at it.

Another thing that will help is to find safe topics. Talking about music, girls, sports are the easiest to learn.

My advice would be not to shy away from social interactions. Practice makes perfect.

Some people may inherently be born with an intuition to handle social interactions, but that doesn't mean that you cannot learn it by observing and mimicking.

I guess this is what the article calls as masking. But masking doesn't have to be that painful. i believe people can grow and chance. If you put an honest effort you'll eventually fit into the society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is interesting. The descriptions in the article also seem to describe what may be identified as social anxiety disorder. I wonder how those two diagnoses differ?

<comment><USER20> With ASD, social ineptitude doesn't go away when anxiety is sorted out. Autistic people usually have it the other way round: it's their ineptitude that inevitably causes anxiety due to repeated failures.

<comment><USER21> Well said. I think this particular mixup makes for a lot of extra confusion on the part of people trying to understand ASD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> See also "On emotional authenticity and masking as an autistic person" ([http://cassolotl.tumblr.com/post/160117558965](http://cassolotl.tumblr.com/post/160117558965)), which was posted here as well ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14226784](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14226784)).

</comment><comment><USER23> Children at school can be very mean, I am much happier as an adult

<comment><USER24> Adults can be plain evil just for the sake of it sometimes. They're not so different!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm not a woman but I do this too. It really just came from others' negative reactions to certain behaviors I would do, which taught me that it's not acceptable to behave in those ways around "normal" people. (Like some of the women in the article I knew I wasn't normal but didn't know why.)

Ironically, I have gotten so good at this that I sometimes get annoyed when a person I am talking to acts "weird".

I feel "lucky" in that I'm not too far off from normal, whatever that is, on the spectrum. But I still find it exhausting and depressing, like they do. I have also had the feeling that certain friendships and relationships are fake because I act differently to who I am when around those people. I don't feel that anyone at work really knows me. I don't think it is worth trying to be yourself at work, even disregarding the spectrum stuff.

The bit about the difficulties with diagnosing autism in women is also interesting. There are many similar situations in regard to mental health, for example women are diagnosed as borderline much more often.

<comment><USER26> Why are women more likely to be diagnosed borderline?

<comment><USER27> I found a googleable meta study about it that concluded that BPD traits were associated with women, but also that women who don't express gender normal behavior are perceived as BPD by men. Although men scored higher in individual BPD behaviors, they were not perceived as BPD by themselves or others unless they behaved outside of gender normal behavior (acted more "feminine"). There's a genetic component by a twin study, but it's unknown it's causative effect to gender. There's studies that women score higher in neuroticism(anxiety, depression, etc) as a personality trait. It is also known child trauma has a causative effect, and may be related to how women are sexually assaulted as children at higher rates than men. Basically, a complex mix of social expectations, social bias, how women are treated in society, and biological aspects of women's personalities may contribute to an overall significantly higher rate of BPD diagnosis being a female diagnosis. Interestingly, a disorder on the same axis (antisocial personality disorder) has an exact opposite gender disparity (3:1 men over women) and that is also investigated in other studies.

[http://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/skodol2003.pdf](http://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/skodol2003.pdf) [2003]

<comment><USER28> How people perceive others is irrelevant to the question. Women are more often clinically diagnosed with BPD, not simply perceived by others to express it. The rest of your post is mostly unsupported speculation. Apart from the parallel you've drawn with APD, which has a lot of similarities to BPD, except with inverse gender distribution.

<comment><USER27> Nothing I wrote wasn't a conclusion of a paper or genetic study, as according to the meta paper that attempted to understand all facets of why women make the majority of the BPD diagnosis. I understand that because humans are not formally mathematically provable, some conjectures may be made from surveys, genetic relations, and studying behavior to attempt to reverse engineer the program that produced this societal result.

<comment><USER28> You've started with a presupposition that all of the clinical evidence is simply a misguided outcome based upon social constructs. How we choose to define BPD is entirely constructed, but the evidence is not, and the evidence very clearly shows that this disorder overwhelmingly affects more women than men. Just as APD and various other disorders overwhelming affect more men than women. If you're going to assert that this is due to anything other than genetics, then you're going to have to come up with something better than a weak meta-data study that barely draws any conclusions. Because to do that, you'll be going against decades of clinical data.

<comment><USER27> I'm not the authors. I haven't started with anything. Someone asked a question, I googled and returned the first paper I could find which cited several surveys and clinical studies to prove its point, gave a quick TL;DR because the abstract didn't go into detail.

Why are you going so hard on what is essentially the messenger? I don't have beef with you. I don't even have a horse in this race. I just googled a question for someone else. Maybe consider emailing the authors, since you have some serious disagreements with the paper.

<comment><USER28> I'm not going hard on you at all, only on what you've said. The evidence about BPD is that it affects women far more often than men, the clinical data overwhelmingly supports this, and so does the genetic research on the topic. Instead of considering this evidence, you've tried to find some seperate evidence for gender bias, you found the one paper that examines this, and that paper doesn't even really draw any conclusions.

Any time a question is asked about 'why are men and women different in regards to x', you'll have people lining up (like yourself and other commenters in this thread) to say it's gender bias. When the answer is often just because men and women have differences, which is exactly what the evidence points to in this case.

<comment><USER27> I literally just returned the first thing I could find that was a study with citations and stuff. Nothing in my post said _I_ was attributing anything. You're reading into my actions assuming intent that simply isn't there.

<comment><USER28> >Basically, a complex mix of social expectations, social bias, how women are treated in society, and biological aspects of women's personalities may contribute to an overall significantly higher rate of BPD diagnosis being a female diagnosis.

By your own admission, with 5 seconds of googling, and 0 knowledge on the topic, you submitted a comment attributing this to gender bias. If you don't want your comments to be scrutinized by others, then perhaps don't post them on public forums...

Discussion is the point of the comment section, and the limit of the discussion you're willing to participate in is "I posted a random study from Google along with some of my own commentary, that I'm not prepared to defend in any manner whatsoever".

<comment><USER27> That comment wasn't even _my own commentary_. It's from the study's abstract. Nothing about my post was my own commentary beyond "hey I took this off google". I'm not against scrutiny insofar as I'm against having assumptions of intent thrown on me for little more than googling something and returning the first published paper I could find.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Asteroid to destroy earth! Women most affected!"

Articles like this annoy the hell out of me, because it implies that men with Autism have it better somehow.

I would argue that society is WAY more forgiving of "strange" women than it is towards men of a similar strange level.

This coming from a guy married to a high functioning ASD woman.

<comment><USER16> I don't read any implication of better or worse in the article, only that it's different. Would you point out passages that give you that impression?

<comment><USER29> Pretty much the chunks of the articles that show that women can at least adapt and have the ability do "fake" social function.

Yes it's very draining in some cases, but at least they can hold down a job, and function as a "normal" adult for the most part. On top of that people and employers are more than willing to make all the required accommodations when asked.

I work in engineering / IT as well as being a geek so I run into ASD guys pretty much daily and they get no accommodations and are usually brute forced into complying with the required norms, or they get fired.

Even the most simple accommodations like a bit of work hour flexibly and working from home are not even entertained in most cases.

They stick them in open plan offices, 8am to 6pm and brute force social interaction on them which is the opposite of what they need.

I do know a few other female ASD people, and they themselves acknowledge that they get way better treatment and help then their ASD male friends.

<comment><USER30> In a lot of engineering circles, you can get away with hours of having your headphones on, wearing the exact same cut and color of shirt 365 days a year, fidgeting constantly, and not making eye contact. It's not paradise, but there are much less friendly environments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm at a loss as to why this article claims being on the autism scale / weird is only hard for women...?

<comment><USER32> Didn't read the article, but autism in men and women are two different diseases.

<comment><USER33> The same condition, but affecting people's lives differently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've always liked "Aspergirls." (This is the term a friend of mine uses for herself.) As a group, they seem noticeably more attractive to me. I've noted that a lot of them do not like me, and make it more apparent than most women, though often this is done in a rational and polite fashion which I find more intellectually honest and respectful, and so like better. I was also in a relationship with one. That was quite difficult.

<comment><USER35> > As a group, they seem noticeably more attractive to me

Is that because you like smart girls? Or is it they'd understand you better as a geek?

<comment><USER34> Yes and yes. Also, they seem to smell better. I think in part because they tend to have a no-nonsense approach to hygiene, and aren't as afflicted by societal distortions around body odor.</comment></comment></comment>


1,000-year-old onion and garlic eye remedy kills MRSA - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-32117815 <comment><USER3> I'm telling you, 10-20 years from now we're going to get garlic and onion resistant MRSA.

<comment><USER4> Why? People have known about the antibacterial and antiviral properties of allium for hundreds of years, so it's not like anything is going to magically change.

<comment><USER5> Penicillin mold has existed for millions of years, but it was widespread therapeutic use in humans that caused extensive resistance. Humans are the ecological version of "magic".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anecdotal. But when I was young I suffered from intense ear-aches. Eventually my Mom capitulated to my Grandmothers suggestion and put garlic cloves in olive oil and poured into my ear. Within a few hours of treatment those ear- aches would disappear completely.

Years later I researched and found out about allicin and its presence in freshly crushed garlic.

In fact there are now theories that many of the cooking practices of "marinating in crushed garlic" was just as much to do about anti-bacterial effects as culinary.

<comment><USER7> > put garlic cloves in olive oil and poured into my ear.

While not applicable to your specific use, I'll point out for general knowledge that garlic + olive oil can lead to the growth of Clostridium botulinum, aka the Botulism causing bacteria. This more commonly occurs when making garlic infused olive oil, since the botulinum needs time to grow. Hence why it probably didn't matter for your grandmother's usage; not enough time for the concoction to become dangerous. But this is one of those strange facts that it's good know, in case someone decides to make homemade infused olive oil for their meals.

<comment><USER8> Interesting - wasn't aware of that. I wonder how hardy those spores are -- that is, if they're as much of a problem with dried garlic, as with fresh?

One easy options seems to be to opt for garlic vinegar instead, as the vinegar is acidic, and doesn't allow the bacteria to thrive?

[http://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-garlic-infused...](http://food- hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-garlic-infused-olive-oil-vinegar- home-0153966/)

edit, see also: [http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/uc_davis/uc_davis_garlic.p...](http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/uc_davis/uc_davis_garlic.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "They found the remedy killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria"

I don't think that's strong enough to be useful. This might be interesting if they can figure out the mechanism and use it to create a stronger antibiotic, but for the stage this is actually at, they're really overselling it.

<comment><USER10> > but for the stage this is actually at, they're really overselling it.

What exactly is it you think they're "selling?" I thought the article was focusing more on the historical significance of this, in particular how good medical knowledge was 1,000 years ago.

You seem to be under the impression that they're suggesting this as a possible cure for MRSA. But the article never stated that. They might be able to look at the mechanism and develop something which could help us fight MRSA, but I highly doubt they would use this exact 1K year old recipe 1:1 in a modern hospital (and, again, the article never stated otherwise).

Seems like your criticism is largely based on things they never said nor claimed. Essentially you're critical of a strawman.

<comment><USER11> > how good medical knowledge was 1,000 years ago.

Survivor bias.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well then, hopefully some pharma company will create their own patented blend called ONGARTA (TM) that they'll shepard through FDA trials so doctors can prescribe it.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by- prescriptio...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by- prescription/)

<comment><USER13> That article's not very convincing..

Fish oil you get at Walgreens isn't regulated by the FDA and can be dramatically different than what the label claims ([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25604397](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25604397)). Moreover, the $30/bottle fish oil is very low concentration, often 20% - 30% PUFAs, and typically very highly oxidized.

Lovaza is 90% ethyl ester PUFAs and has been thoroughly tested to demonstrate safety and efficacy ([http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/021...](http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2009/021654s023lbl.pdf)).

Will the $30/bottle Walgreen's Omega-3s be pretty close in effect to Lovaza? Probably.. If you take 3x as many to match dosage and if you don't mind the fishy smell and biproducts due to the AV/PV levels being off the charts.. but there's still no guarantee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm unclear as to why or how this is entirely useful. This article is probably missing some of the key findings that would make it interesting. In reality, killing a MRSA bacteria culture is trivial and could be done by a child. The real usefulness of this discovery would be if this liquid could be safely ingested and produce antibiotic activity while in the body. Pouring something like bleach, gasoline, hydrochloric acid, liquid nitrogen on MRSA cultures will also kill them. But, but these things won't help treat a MRSA infection in the body.

<comment><USER15> The article seems to suggest it is mostly of historical interest. The researchers seem impressed by its effectiveness for a medicine of that time.

It's of further interest because it seems to have come out of a tradition of medicine that was based on something similar to the scientific method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Oh for goodness sake. This isn't a medical trial of a new anti-MRSA drug. This is an interesting piece of living history research into Anglo-Saxon medical practices.

Bald's Leechbook is fascinating for many reasons. One in particular they refer to in the article - the local Anglo-Saxon remedies are in general lacking in theory and so more or less evidence based. Later medieval medicine was possibly in many ways worse - Roman and Greek ideas of the four humours were imported and applied as received truth. Later medicine was much more likely to take the approach of "Who are ya going to believe? Aristotle or your lyin' eyes?"

Anglo-Saxon medicine had no overarching theory to apply. So their salves and potions and magic incantations tended to be adhoc, complicated, and, occasionally, actually worked.

</comment><comment><USER17> _" They were 'astonished' to find it almost completely wiped out staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA."_

Not all _S. aureus_ is MRSA; wondering if this is just poor phrasing or if I'm misunderstanding something.

<comment><USER18> My guess is that the article is written by idiots who have no business attempting to popularize science they don't understand even the barest outlines of.

<comment><USER19> Use of the word 'idiot' usually heralds an intemperate blanket comment.

What popularization? The article merely and briefly reports what the researchers said.'Experts from the university's microbiology team recreated the remedy and then tested it on large cultures of MRSA'.

Where's the lack of understanding on the part of the BBC team? The effect of the mixture may be found to be of no significant account (90% is not much) but that's another story that's down to the researchers.

<comment><USER18> The stigmata of the lack of understanding were the item you mention (thinking that 90% is a large reduction in an exponentially-growing population) and the item mentioned upthread (conflating S. aureus in general with MRSA, an error which has apparently been silently fixed in the article now). But those are the things they _said_. We don't know what things the reporters _didn't_ say because they didn't understand that they were important when the researchers said them. Perhaps, for example, the researchers addressed the question mentioned elsewhere in the thread of whether you can actually put this salve in your eyes without burning your corneas, or sterilize it and inject it into your body; or whether it has some activity transdermally and could thus perhaps be used to treat cellulitis. And I wouldn't be surprised if someone decides to mix up this stuff from the article and blinds themselves with garlic.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I'm intemperate about ignorant journalists blathering about medical science.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just want to make a note for you guys on allicin and garlic. Allicin doesn't exist in garlic, but is created when alliin and a heat-sensitive enzyme called alliinase come in contact with each other.

They do not mix until you slice, chew, cut or press the garlic and rupture the barriers between them. They key is to wait 10 minutes after this process has occurred until you cook it, or you will remove most of the benefit of allicin. For example, putting freshly chopped garlic in the microwave for 30 seconds will take away 90% of the potential allicin content due to the heat destroying alliinase.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is it hard to kill MRSA in culture? Bleach will do it, for example, and I bet 100% alcohol would too. It's only resistant to known antibiotics, after all-- not immortal.

I think the news here is historical (hey this crazy recipe works), not medical (hey this stuff might be better than anything we already know how to do).

</comment><comment><USER22> As a kid I made "ant poison" by mixing various household chemicals and water in a gallon jug. Then I'd pour it on ants. Sure enough, they died. Mostly by drowning, but still. It worked.

I wouldn't be comfortable buying a pesticide based on that research, however.

<comment><USER23> Reminds me of saying that best way to kill HIV is with AK-47, now how do you kill while leaving carrier alive - that's another question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Earlier today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9287514](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9287514)

</comment><comment><USER25> It does not tell us if it has some side-effects, like making you blind. Chlorine probably also kills MSRA in a petri dish.

<comment><USER26> Anecdotal evidence of course, but I am happy to confirm I have ingested all four ingredients on numerous occasions and am still alive (as of the time of this posting).

<comment><USER27> I know a cousin of a friend of mine who also ingested these ingredients. Still anecdotal, though ;-)

<comment><USER28> Injested or put in his eye?

<comment><USER29> oh, it's all perfectly in jest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The article has no information about how this is supposed to be used.

Can you inject this into the bloodstream to clear an MRSA infection?

If not, then it's only useful as a topical antiseptic, which isn't newsworthy, since bleach, Lysol and various alcohols also kill MRSA.

</comment><comment><USER31> Very curious how important it is to get the wine from that particular vineyard

</comment><comment><USER32> That's like using natural lemon juice to kill the bacteria that cause pink eye.. great remedy: squeeze lemon juice in your eye (yes it will sting and burn for a hot minute until you... ) run your eye under luke-warm to semi-hot water, and within 2-3 days, no more pink eye. Antibiotics can take up to 10 days to rid pink eye.

<comment><USER33> Are there any clinical studies that support that claim? A quick Google search only turns up a bunch of specious "home remedy" sites, and an equally suspicious doctor denouncing the practice.

<comment><USER34> The problem is that I don't think there is currently a possibility that a clinical study for this could be funded. Government has all but withdrawn from late stage studies and no company has anything to gain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I thought...wth? these are first ingredients in every curry we make ... every day. EDIT: I meant onion & garlic

<comment><USER36> Also turmeric which many uses in folk medicine for stomach and liver ailments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> We are insignificantly smarter today than we were 1000 years ago. Take a baby from 1000 years ago and bring him to the year 2015, and he will probably be able to fit into modern society perfectly fine.

<comment><USER38> The discoveries we make today aren't because we're smarter, but rather that we have significantly more knowledge to work from.

<comment><USER37> That's not what I was saying. All I was saying is that people 1000 years ago were innately as smart logically as you are today. I'm not talking about a posteriori knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > _A 1,000-year-old treatment for eye infections could hold the key to killing > antibiotic-resistant superbugs, experts have said._

The problem is that when this is used frequently, the superbugs will evolve to survive to this treatment. If this result is confirmed, it will be good to have another alternative, but the new alternative will not last forever. (Perhaps 1000 years ago, there was a garlic-and-onion-resistant-superbug, and with the years they lost the mutation to survive this treatment.)

> _They found the remedy killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria and believe it is > the effect of the recipe rather than one single ingredient._

Perhaps it a combination of a few drugs present in the ingredients, that can be produced artificially

<comment><USER40> A couple of points:

1\. "Superbug" is just a modern construct of something that's been happening (albeit at a slower pace) since bacteria - and human pathogens in general - have existed. Garlic (and relatives) have faced this for just as long.

2\. Similar to the adaption of bacterium in #1, the biological victims have adapted. That is, after all, while garlic has large amounts of allicin - <USER2> wide-spectrum antibiotic - in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> ... At least until doctors start prescribing onion and garlic for everything, then we'll have to find something else that works.

</comment><comment><USER42> Reminded me of [http://goo.gl/SOecWG](http://goo.gl/SOecWG)

</comment><comment><USER43> Anyone know where I can buy 1,000-year-old onions?

</comment><comment><USER44> This is tripe.

Obligatory XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/1217/](https://xkcd.com/1217/)

<comment><USER45> It's funny you call it tripe since it calls for cow stomach in the recipe.

<comment><USER46> I was assuming it was good wordplay. The downvotes say otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> "They found the remedy killed up to 90% of MRSA bacteria and believe it is the effect of the recipe rather than one single ingredient."

Believe? Don't you want to like, um, test that? You know, science.

This whole thing stinks of research grant bait.

<comment><USER48> One line up?

"In each case, they tested the individual ingredients against the bacteria, as well as the remedy and a control solution."</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where do i go to find an investor? - <AUTHOR>

I've got a unique clothing line designed, have mock ups and samples made, built an ecommerce solution on my local computer, acquired all relevant usernames on social sites, have a business plan, have pro forma financials, formed an s-corp...
Problem is, i need about $20k to make the first batch of clothes (i don't have $20k). cafepress and the like won't work, all pieces require custom tailoring.
1. how do i find an investor?
2. or how do i do this without an investor?
thanks. <comment><USER2> Check out Kickstarter. If you can provide a good pitch on it and ask for your starting round you may indeed be able to get it.

Post again here once it is online and I'll pledge :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hmmmmm my local seamstress is one place i haven't asked for a quote. Go figure. Kickstarter looks interesting too. I'll let you know how it goes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Find a local seamstress, market to local retailers, promote that the clothes are made in city of your choice. Also sell on etsy.</comment>


Facebook iPhone app takes OSS code without attribution - <AUTHOR> http://developers.enormego.com/view/what-happened-common-courtesy-facebook <comment><USER2> I'm David Recordon and head up our open source programs at Facebook. I'd like to point out Jeff Verkoeyen's comment about where this specific piece of code came from. [http://developers.enormego.com/view/what-happened-common- cou...](http://developers.enormego.com/view/what-happened-common-courtesy- facebook#comment-70135140)

Back in February a developer outside of Facebook sent a GitHub pull request which included this pull to refresh functionality. At the time we believed that the developer wrote the code themselves and thus didn't realize that it actually came from Shaun's open source library EGOTableViewPullRefresh. I'm sorry that we messed this one up. Three20 has over a dozen different contributors (<http://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/AUTHORS>) and we try really hard to give credit where it is due.

As for fixing this, the code clearly came from EGOTableViewPullRefresh and we're updating the four file's within Three20 to directly reflect that and link back to Shaun's project. This patch will be pushed to GitHub shortly.

While it isn't the most well known address, please always feel free to email firstname.lastname@example.com or me directly at firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><USER3> Minor nit: the code didn't come from Tweetie 2. The idea and first implementation did.

<comment><USER2> You're right, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Before anybody blows this out of proportion...

I've used Three20 a ton, and actually build my Hacker News iPhone app using it.[1] I've used the drag-to-refresh header a bunch. This code was added to the Three20 framework months ago via somebody on GitHub. One pull request, and it was in the main repo.

The project is currently maintained by Jeff Verkoeyen, a full-time student. Three20 makes use of a ton of other open-source projects (JSON parser, etc.). Whoever submitted this code just didn't add any attribution. When Facebook updated their app, it was probably only 2-3 lines to add. And since it's been in the codebase for months now, and a bunch of other apps use it, they probably figured it was no problem.

Although flaming blog posts feel good to write, a much more constructive action would be to call up Facebook and talk to them. Or email Jeff. Or post to the Three20 Google Group (almost 1k people). Or submit an issue on GitHub. Or anything really.

Not to mention the fact that they stole it from Loren Bricher (Tweetie) in the first place...

[1] <http://michaelgrinich.com/hackernews>

<comment><USER5> Initial commit: [http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/0edd0ca58bf3b352e7...](http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/0edd0ca58bf3b352e7ab4b001c3470a8c1b70ae5)

jverkoey looks to have implemented this himself.

Actually, looking back through the network graph (<http://github.com/facebook/three20/network>) and commit log (<http://github.com/facebook/three20/commits/master>) there really aren't _ANY_ credits regarding merged-in patches or other contributions.

<comment><USER5> I take that back: There are _rare_ commits such as [http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/807dbda1c8cb85f09b...](http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/807dbda1c8cb85f09b98767de67ca7d7454b4fbf) which explicitly credit an author for the patch.

<del>I hate to say it, but the current system (i.e. all commits through jverkoey) has the major drawback of putting code accountability in nobody's hands but Joey's.</del>

\---

Rescinded: <http://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/CHANGES#L93>

<comment><USER6> It's nothing more than Jeff Verkoeyen being the gatekeeper for the project's repo, the same way a tightly controlled SVN repo might be. He's supposed to review every line of code that goes into it, and the commit it himself.

But everyone knows thats a daunting task, and theres no reason to review a simple thing like this to question where it originally came from. Right?

Git is awesome, because it helps prevent these situations, but it's only a tool. Different people will use it differently, and based on the comments of the blog post, once he found out that it was copyrighted code, he rectified the problem. [http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/204673eea141acf4ee...](http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/204673eea141acf4ee5f05402db6051dafcc8b17)

I'm not trying to pass blame, but I do believe that jverkoey never had the intention of stealing this code. None the less, Facebook.app ended up on the sour end of a situation they could have solved months ago, but they had no idea there was a problem until now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The three20 dev admitted it was a mistake and took immediate corrective action.

[http://developers.enormego.com/view/what-happened-common- cou...](http://developers.enormego.com/view/what-happened-common-courtesy- facebook#comment-70135140)

The majority of developers don't understand the nuances of copyright law; and, so OSS code is often mis-integrated and mis-attributed. I hazard most times an honest developer is informed of their missteps, they handle it similar to how we're seeing here.

Simple. No drama. Honest.

Let's not blow this out of proportion.

<comment><USER8> "The majority of developers don't understand the nuances of copyright law; and, so OSS code is often mis-integrated and mis-attributed. I hazard most times an honest developer is informed of their missteps, they handle it similar to how we're seeing here."

What you just said, if it's true, is a problem.

The basics of copyright aren't hard (if you didn't write what you're including, you have to have permission to include it). Even dealing with the basic software licensing options (NewBSD/free-for-all/CC; OldBSD/free-with- attribution/CC-BY; GNU GPL/free-share-alike/CC-SA; etc.) aren't that hard (the CC folks have done a good job of coming up with easily understandable terms that capture the spirit).

It's not until you get into the real esoterica (largely in music and movies, IMO) that you have to really understand things at a weird level (I _still_ don't quite understand where things went wrong for _Sita Sings the Blues_ ).

While this may be an easily fixed error, what should we be doing to make sure people "get" basic copyright law as part of the software development profession? More than that, what do we have to do to get people to think in terms of simple fairness: I should give credit to others for their work.

<comment><USER9> The basics are less simple than you indicate. What does it mean to have permission? Who has the right to give that permission? What happens if you include something because someone told you it was OK, and that person was mistaken? When is borrowing fair use?

To take an important example, are you allowed to copy the user interface to someone else's program? What about copying someone's data structures if that is necessary to interact with their file format? See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland> and [http://www.fenwick.com/docstore/Publications/IP/IP_Articles/...](http://www.fenwick.com/docstore/Publications/IP/IP_Articles/Baystate_Holding.pdf) for the answers.

It isn't just in music and movies that the weird stuff starts cropping up. (And that is before you get into the license debates. Or such subtle questions like whether it is better to treat the GPL as a copyright license, or to take steps to get a contract instead.)

No, there is nothing simple about this invented notion we call copyright.

<comment><USER8> I disagree. The basic rules for copyright are fairly simple. (If you include something because someone told you it was OK, but didn't do at least some minimal work to verify that it was in fact OK, then you have erred.)

Start from 'no' (that is, you don't have permission to copy something you didn't write). Even if you do have permission to copy something[1], you probably don't have permission to claim that you wrote it. Even if you do have permission to claim that you wrote it (because it's in the public domain), you would be a first-class jackass to do so.

The cases you point out _are_ subtle, and were attempts to expand what copyright covers. (This is similar to the discussion some months ago about the copyright-ability of one's tweets, with the general consensus being that they cannot individually be copyrighted, but one's "tweet-oeuvre" would be. Single words and short phrases are too short to be individually unique.) Yet, neither of these cases change the basics (assume you don't have permission, don't try to claim what you didn't write as yours).

Fair use is a more subtle item because it's based on case law instead of regulation or explicit law.

I never said that copyright law wasn't hard, or that copyright issues couldn't get complicated quickly. But getting the start of things right? It's not hard at all.

<comment><USER9> Not so fast. If you include something that someone told you you could, that is a defense against copyright infringement _if_ you are willing to take measures to stop infringing once you are informed of this. (This is the spirit, though not the letter, behind the DMCA safe harbor provisions.)

Secondly there are ways in which someone can write something, truly believe they own it, but actually don't own it. So the question of who has permission is not so simple.

Thirdly the cases I pointed to were arguments about what copyright _already_ covered. There were good arguments both ways under existing legislation and previous case law. The right answer to those questions is based on existing case law, and is hardly simple. (I was caught by surprise when I learned that it was OK in the USA to take someone else's copyrighted binary, and reverse engineer what is pretty much their header file out of it, and include that header file in your own copyrighted work without any kind of attribution!)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The three20 code has shuffled around a lot in the last 8 months or so, but if you look at the change log here <http://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/CHANGES#L93> you can see that the maintainer, Jeff (who was a college student at the time and has worked his butt off on three20) is thanking a 3rd party for contributing that code.

There's attribution for other code in three20, so I think it's safe to say that Jeff didn't know.

It's also possible that there was simply a miscommunication somewhere along the chain. I wouldn't assume this is anyone being evil or devious until we hear the full story, and I expect the lack of attribution will be fixed quickly.

</comment><comment><USER11> Never mind Reddit, HN is turning into Slashdot!

<comment><USER12> Is turning into Slashdot worse than turning into Reddit?

(I don't use Reddit or Slashdot so I have no frame of reference.)

<comment><USER13> It's like asking which terminal cancer is worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The files do essentially the same thing. So consider: is it possible that two development teams, implementing the same feature, will use the same style of implementation?

The code diff he presents seems to be UI code. How many ways are there to set a label's font? (though having the same exact pixel values is perhaps a bit odd)

The code is structured differently, named differently, and (to my untrained eyes) even appears to differ in some implementation details (such as setUpdateDate, which uses NSDateFormatterShortStyle, versus setCurrentDate, which uses its own custom format). Perhaps the author is simply feinting at shadows.

<comment><USER15> It's not about setting the label's properties in the exact same way & order (okay, that's also fishy), it's that they named all their UI elements the exact same names: _lastUpdatedLabel, _statusLabel, _arrowImage and _activityView.

I'm not sure why you said it's named differently, all the UI elements are named the same according to the screenshot they posted.

<comment><USER14> He states that the code in the screenshot is "normalized" for a better diff. I believe this involved adding underscores to all of the variable names.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The title is somewhat misleading since the author of the post (and also the coder of the OSS feature used) is not against Facebook using it on its iPhone app. He talks about how they use his code on their three20 library without attribution.

<comment><USER17> I don't see anything misleading. The problem is the lack of attribution. The title clearly indicates that.

<comment><USER16> The problem is not the lack of attribution on the iPhone app but on the three20 library which is something different even if the iPhone app uses it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone have a video of this UI element in action for those of us without iOS devices?

<comment><USER19> Here is an example of the behavior implemented in Titanium: <http://vimeo.com/12169097>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I know the author is showing that he is disappointed, but we all know he is proud, more than anything else.

</comment><comment><USER21> That is rude and also a license violation.</comment>


NodeJS's NPM registry seems down - <AUTHOR> http://stats.pingdom.com/d50hxzpzk7x4/650599

<comment><USER2> It's coming through very patchy for me.</comment>


Deep Learning Glossary - <AUTHOR> http://www.wildml.com/deep-learning-glossary/ <comment><USER2> Very cool. I wish stuff like this was more common & easier to find for other emerging domains.

On the topic of completeness & accuracy: have you considered open-sourcing the content?

<comment><USER3> Denny's glossary is fantastic.

Ours is a bit older, and it's open-source: [http://deeplearning4j.org/glossary.html](http://deeplearning4j.org/glossary.html)

[https://github.com/deeplearning4j/deeplearning4j/blob/gh- pag...](https://github.com/deeplearning4j/deeplearning4j/blob/gh- pages/glossary.md)

Work in progress...

Also, here's a great glossary on reinforcement learning:

[http://www-anw.cs.umass.edu/rlr/terms.html](http://www- anw.cs.umass.edu/rlr/terms.html)</comment></comment>


Google exec: New Seattle building 'is going to be basically Google Cloud' - <AUTHOR> https://www.geekwire.com/2017/google-exec-new-seattle-building-going-basically-google-cloud/ <comment><USER2> So that'll put AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud all with large presence in Seattle. Interesting time to be working in the field and the area.

<comment><USER3> Just about to graduate from University of Washington, so happy I grew up in Seattle.

<comment><USER4> Sorry to bother if you can't answer this but do you see many out of state transfer students in the CSE department? I will have an AS and a high GPA when I apply for next fall but, when I visited in January, everyone I talked to made it seem like my chances would be super slim because I was from out of state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Almost contentless fluff piece, basically advertising that Google is hiring in Seattle.

<comment><USER6> Well, GeekWire is a Seattle publication, so new details on the further expansion of the tech-focused SLU area are interesting to those of us who live and work around here.

For me, it's basically one more reason not to take Mercer anywhere, since this will add another thousand or so cars to the usual mess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The centralization of all major cloud engineering workforce in one city is ridiculous. With all the talk about distributed systems and fault-tolerance, etc., they are making Seattle pretty much a single point of failure for their cloud operations.

<comment><USER8> Please note that Google HQ is in Mountain View, CA, so expanding in Seattle is analogous to adding spare nodes in your distributed system, not single point of failure.

<comment><USER7> Google exec quoted in the article said that Seattle 'is going to be basically Google Cloud'. It means that most of the engineering behind Google Cloud (not Google itself) will be there, implying the concentration I mentioned.

<comment><USER8> I believe the logical implication of that sentence is backwards: it means most of the building will be used for Google Cloud as opposed to other Google products; it gives no information about how Google Cloud is distributed across Google offices, i.e. that building might be 100% GCloud but a minority of overall GCloud engineering.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Extract text from images using Tesseract - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/victorqribeiro/ocr <comment><AUTHOR> I'm seriously thinking about using Tesseract with my memes app.

[https://victorribeiro.com/memes/](https://victorribeiro.com/memes/)

The thing is, if the image is really big it takes a lot of time to process it. Also, if there's no text, it usually reads a lot of garbage. But, when it works, it works great.</comment>


Hong Kong protest safety app banned from iOS store - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/02/apple_hong_kong/ <comment><USER3> > FTA: "Hong Kong citizens have highlighted a quirk of local laws that provide > a strong counter-argument: under the law, the Hong Kong police are obliged > to wave a blue flag at the spot in which they which to declare that an > illegal gathering is taking place."

So HK police are required to wave a blue flag so that the general public is aware the police have declared a particular gathering at a particular location illegal. Thus, HK law literally wants the location of the gathering made known, publicly drawing attention to it and the location. I assume this is to inform those gathering about their status and to let others nearby know also, as a warning, perhaps. And also nearby officers. Okay.

So consider an app that shared only this publicly visible information on a map. i.e. "police have raised the blue flag on this gathering, right here", without commentary or calls to action.

Less functional and informative than the existing app, but it may still serve a useful purpose for HK residents and demonstrators and perhaps even police (according to HK law) and then Apple may plausibly allow the app because it doesn't get into choosing sides or facilitating illegal calls to action.

<comment><USER4> Choosing sides and facilitating illegal calls to action is exactly what a reasonable company does in this situation. The matter of how best to serve humanity is not the slightest bit unclear here.

<comment><USER5> That's the highest horse I've seen so far on this site.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand why it's such a high expectation that, in a situation where one party is unambiguously oppressing the other, to refrain from censoring the victimized party.

Why is that so strange?

<comment><USER6> OK I got to ask. Who is oppressing whom? What have they done exactly?

<comment><USER7> Have you read the article?

How about the tweet from the developer: [https://twitter.com/hkmaplive/status/1179108329240424448](https://twitter.com/hkmaplive/status/1179108329240424448)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stuff like this is one of the main reasons I focused my efforts on web apps, not native ones.

[https://hkmap.live/#](https://hkmap.live/#)

Looks like the devs were smart enough to make it a web app, so it can still be used.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, if your app submission is a glorified Web App (leveraging no native iOS features) Apple will reject for that reason alone [0].

"4.2 Minimum Functionality - Your app should include features, content, and UI that elevate it beyond a repackaged website."

[0]: [https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/#min...](https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/#minimum-functionality)

<comment><USER10> Why is this comment being downvoted? It does contribute to the discussion.

<comment><USER11> Because it's completely irrelevant.

The point is that having a webapp allows them to continue to serve users if their actual app is removed from app stores. It has no bearing on how their native app functions, whether it is in native code or a web wrapper etc.

<comment><USER12> This only applies because Apple runs a walled garden that is anti-user. People running actual computers with non-user-hostile operating systems can install whatever software they like. This is entirely apple's fault.

Websites are not applications. The browser is not an OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When there is a great evil power in the world, it is impossible _not_ to take a political stance, given the moral duties involved. Inaction, or failing to take a stand, constitutes tacit approval. In this case, Apple granting what I assume was a request from the Chinese government to remove the app is more than tacit.

The human rights abuses by the Chinese government are _insanely_ bad: religious and ethnic persecution, forced abortions, murder of political dissidents, no habeas corpus for many, abuse of prisoners (torture, forced labor camps, harvesting and selling prisoners' organs), to name a few.

Unfortunately, too many in the West, including Apple, have become heavily economically dependent on China. I think that dependence strongly clouds moral judgment when it comes to decisions like this. Furthermore, it requires far more moral courage to call out evil in the present than it does to identify evil in the past.

To Apple and everyone else: don't become complicit! Take a stand. History will vindicate you.

<comment><USER14> It seems to a mostly-lay-person that we have super-military and super- propaganda these days, what can individuals do? Even in groups of 100,000 they're no match for modern methods of control it seems. Am I looking at this incorrectly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's all marketing. Apple is a company not a country.

If Apple ups the ante on China, then China comes down and bans the App Store or tariffs Apple devices a ton as retribution - resulting in Apple getting itself into a similar situation Huawei is in with the US. If (this is all hypothetical, btw) that were to happen with Apple, then I would wager Xiaomi or Huawei would only see more investment to become the "Apple of China" and further develop a replica in-house app store.

<comment><USER16> Apple put themselves in a position where they had the power to clamp down. Obviously they will then be forced to use this power. By western governments, by outrage mobs, by China.

By their own choices and strategy of centralizing power they decided to become a fascist enabler.

<comment><USER17> I honestly think you are vastly overestimating the power a foreign company is capable of having in China. Any provocation would probably quickly end up in iPhones simply not getting any service in the country anymore and being banned from sale with no legal recourse.

<comment><USER18> I think GP is saying the opposite, namely that they set themselves up to be an enabler of state control, with their centralised gatekeeping model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The inevitable result of letting the manufacturer control what may run on the device.

<comment><USER20> Agreed. However, Android has removed Gab and other free speech apps from it's appstore, too. Although you can circumvent android easier than iOS. This is a tough call -- security versus freedom, and I don't know what the right trade off is. I'd still counsel my parents to use Apple.

<comment><USER21> 100% freedom, all the time

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." \- Benjamin Franklin

I'm not sure about iOS, but Android still allows installing unsigned APKs (F-Droid and similar platforms work because of this), and what has already been installed stays on the phone until the user removes it.

<comment><USER22> See, that's a dilemma I grappling with right now. I am trying to decide between an iphone and an android phone. And while android does allow me to install any APKs I want which is great. It also seems to be supremely difficult not to share all of my contacts with google, not to share more information than I want with them and to not have my privacy completely invaded.

So, on one hand, android gives me freedom to install any app I want and to install a firewall like netguard, on the other hand, it destroys my privacy.

I'm really looking for a guide about how to properly secure and prevent data leaking an android phone beyond the basics that I've seen online but without that I'm leaning toward Apple despite finding it abhorrent that I cannot install what I want on my own device (I can obviously side load by using my dev certificate but that's still not something I'm happy with)

<comment><USER23> The only feasible way to avoid sharing data with Google is using a custom ROM like LineageOS, a Google framework replacement like microG, and XPrivacyLua (module for XPosed). Ideally you'd avoid using any Google services at all, but at least these steps largely prevent Google from freely taking whatever data they want if you do use the Play Store or whatever.

<comment><USER22> Problem with that is that unlocking the bootloader voids the warranty where I live... I think I'll still try to go down that road if I can't find any other solution...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ok... this is giving me pause for thought.

I programme .NET on Windows. Have done for years. Never owned an Apple device until I took my wife's old iPhone 6S at the start of the year.

I switched from Android to Apple for a few reasons:

1\. Constant spying and data-gathering for profit by Android 2\. Ethics 3\. I only use a handful of apps so the platform wasn't that important

Apple's public stance is that they take privacy seriously. Like incredibly seriously. Above all things and stuff. And as another commenter pointed out, they told the FBI to go fish when they wanted access to a phone. That resonated with me. That told me they are a company that (appears to) genuinely believe in something other than just profit at all costs. That they may just have my interests fairly high up their agenda.

This latest episode has made me rethink that. From the ground up.

I understand they need to follow the law but so do the law enforcers: Have Apple been watching the footage from HK?

I thought that Apple, with all the power they have, could perhaps say to the Chinese gov... "No, the app stays!"

My faith in Apple has been shattered.

As an aside... Apart from Librem, there isn't really any choice now.

I feel like a dad here... I'm disappointed in Apple.

<comment><USER25> > 2\. Ethics

The _ethic_ ends where the money-loss (or missing profit) begins. I don't understand why so many people are surprised when Apple (or whatever) pulls something like this.

I don't mean to be rude (I don't know you, where you're from, what's your age), but I though at this point in life people would be already aware that _ethics_ doesn't fit very much into corporatism culture.

In simple words, they will (at very least) plainly lie to you in order to make you buy their products. Every one of them.

Or have you ever heard a company saying "Yes, our product is inferior to the competition", "Yes, we will sell your data", "Yes, if avoiding it gives us much problem, we will side with higher powers against you" or "Yes, we're burning forests to give you cheaper burgers"?

They'll picture them as nice and responsible, but at the end of the day what matter most is _dollars_. They'll never lose.

<comment><USER24> I'm from the UK in my 40s and I understand the concept of ethics and that mega-corporations are driven by money. At all costs.

That being said...

I suppose I let my guard down a bit and got slightly starry-eyed about Apple but I genuinely believed they saw profit in NOT being assholes like Google. That being different and taking a stand was going to make them vast sums of money.

Plus, Google does not align with my vision at all and there was an Apple phone going free so I made the leap.

Clearly it's all marketing and they are no different to any other mega-corp and if there is profit to be made in feeding people through a woodchipper then they'll do it... like the rest of them.

*takes rose-tinted glasses off

<comment><USER25> Well, I guess this is a chance you (all of us, actually) can profit from and learn that _ethics_ is a convenience feature, just like the headphone jack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apple is at fault here, not for moderating their store, but for disallowing people to install software of their own choice on their own devices. This is completely unacceptable as a user and I do not understand how apple users put up with this.

<comment><USER27> I really don't understand this complaint. Gaming consoles have long used the same model to great effect. Limit what software can run and you vastly improve most people's experience. Freedom is not just about letting people do anything, it's also a question of what contracts they can enter.

If you have some burning desire to hack the hardware, get a dev account and you can lode arbitrary code. Or just buy a different phone.

<comment><USER28> Games consoles are for one thing only entertainment. A phone is much more personal, it more accurately fulfils the role personal computers claimed to as a digital extension of the user. As a personal communications device any limitations or controls placed on it are limitations and controls on the persons speech / access to knowledge.

Who ever owns the phone owns the person and their speech, this is why the complaint over who actually owns the phone and what that means is so important.

> Or just buy a different phone.

The complaint goes beyond Apple and iPhone, Android does a better job of pretending you own the phone but all that really means is Google owns you instead of Apple. The problem is political not technological, all the common person can do is bitch and moan about it.

<comment><USER29> I agree with your whole comment except for the last sentence. The people will be owned by their phones until they align their desires with their capabilities such that they have control over that technology. That's not a political problem, it's a technical one.

Mobile phones are like 3D printers: the technology isn't new, but within the last decade the price of 3D printer components dropped, and the availability of open source software to drive them rose, and an equilibrium was found where they entered the domain of non-professional tinker types, at which point we saw an explosion of creativity in that space. The only difference is that that equilibrium hasn't happened for mobile phones yet.

But people are working on it: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/wiphone-a- ph...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103809433/wiphone-a-phone-for- hackers-and-makers)

It's gonna take a while, but once the DIY approach is a viable alternative, even for just the tech savviest 1% of the population, Apple and Google will have something else to be compared against, and that will effect their choices in a nice way. Or at least I hope so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Really hard to believe that Apple is the "privacy oriented company we can trust", that the company constantly touts in their advertising as a reason to buy their products mind you, when at the same time, you have news like this constantly coming out.

If you really wanted me to believe that you were serious about this Apple, you would do what Google has done and completely remove yourself from China until issues of blatant censorship and oppression like these improve. Of course, this will never happen, because too much money comes from the revenue stream that Chinese citizens represent.

<comment><USER31> I'm not sure about "constantly." The last big disappointment I can remember was the China/iCloud thing.

The problem is that Tim Cook is a bean counter, not a technologist. He talks a good game in scripted keynotes, but he's really in it for the money, like most other CEOs.

That said, Apple is the least of all available evils. When something better comes along, I'll leave. If that thing already exists, please let me know so I can begin the process.

<comment><USER32> > That said, Apple is the least of all available evils. When something better > comes along, I'll leave. If that thing already exists, please let me know so > I can begin the process.

This is chicken and egg problem. Companies that develop privacy-oriented devices have to sell very experimental devices for premium price because they neither have production batches large enough to bring price down nor they have enough money to invest into UX. So they can never appeal to mass market.

There is already a company selling desktop hardware that is closest to being backdoor-free [1], there is a phone with isolated baseband [2] and even some experiments with ARM-based laptops [3]. And actually many more examples can be found around internet, but they not going to magically release Apple-grade product.

[1] Talos: [https://raptorcs.com/](https://raptorcs.com/)

[2] Librem 5: [https://news.ycombinator.com/](https://news.ycombinator.com/)

[3] Pine64: [https://pine64.org/](https://pine64.org/)

<comment><USER33> [https://Puri.sm](https://Puri.sm) seems relevant as well.

<comment><USER32> Thank you. I think it's obvious second list should've been it, but I was half sleeping so...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This isn't about Apple.

This is the true face of the techno-feudalism future we've built. Throw your lot in with one of the tech giants, and you'll have fashionable and functional technology - but at the cost of freedom. When push comes to shove - when it matters the most - your rights can and _will_ be revoked.

Don't be a serf. Reject techno-feudalism. Use free software.

<comment><USER35> I mean, hard to disagree even if I wanted to.

Seems to me that free software community is lacking UI/UX Designers and so looks and feels considerably less "cool" than commercial counterparts. What do you think?

<comment><USER34> I think free software has caught up on the prettiness score. KDE Plasma 5 looks pretty slick. Graphic designers might niggle at aspects of it, but the layperson won't care.

However, human factors is undervalued. There's a cultural issue in free software wherein good UI is rejected as being for sissies and not worth the effort. Hacking is a social activity, and hackers naturally like to make stuff for other hackers. Hackers tend to be the kind of person who has a lot of patience for tedious bullshit, or they would have thrown up their hands in despair long before becoming a hacker. And so you often hear people defend poor UI with talk of "investing in tools" and "if <UI annoyance> is enough to stop you, you don't have the patience for <activity> anyway". Which is possibly true! But it's a gatekeeping self-fulfilling prophecy.

The trouble is, by the time you're expert enough to write software, you've long since forgotten what good UI even looks like:

"I liken starting one's computing career with Unix, say as a undergraduate, to being born in East Africa. It is intolerably hot, your body is covered with lice and flies, you are malnourished and you suffer from numerous curable diseases. But, as far as young East Africans can tell, this is simply the natural condition and they live within it. By the time they find out differently, it is too late. They already think that the writing of shell scripts is a natural act." — Ken Pier, Xerox PARC

<comment><USER35> Haha nice, enjoyed reading that. I'm a UI/UX Designer myself and was just thinking it comes down to designers contributing to these projects.

Especially new people starting out and needing a portfolio, seems like a win - win for everyone involved.

<comment><USER36> Part of the problem is likely that it's often difficult for non-programmers to contribute to open source projects directly.

If I as a software engineer have a new feature I'd like to add to an open source project, I can usually just write that feature myself and submit a PR that the project maintainer can review and merge with minimal effort. But what if a UI/UX designer wants to contribute an improved UI for a particular feature? They could probably create a mockup and submit it to the repository as an issue, but then who's going to actually go and implement those changes?

<comment><USER37> FOSS projects absolutely have big accessibility problems. Many projects are still centered around mailing lists, IRC channels, and diff patches and some don't even use what's comes to be the "standard" version tracker (git). This is massively unwelcoming to even newer software engineers, let alone UI/UX people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Think Different*

*but not so differently that it challenges an authoritarian government who is scared by ideas

</comment><comment><USER39> Companies are going to have to decide how important the Chinese market is or risk eroding the trust and good will for all of their other customers. You can't stand on the boat of democracy and the boat of a dictatorship t the same time.

<comment><USER40> You may recall that Google dramatically pulled out of the mainland Chinese market about 10 years ago on the basis of exactly these principles (at least ostensibly).

That didn't exactly last. And China is a much more important market now than it was then. I wouldn't hold out too much hope for a bunch of gazillion dollar companies to decide to favor principles over revenue anytime soon.

<comment><USER41> Google merely closed their office in China and (passively) stopped offering their search and mail services. The money making part of Google (AdSense, Android) has been making a killing in China over the past decade. Despite the posturing on both sides, the relationship between Google and the Chinese regime is much cosier than people often assume.

<comment><USER42> I don't think Chinese Regime and Google are any close to each other, your other remarks are also inaccurate.

<comment><USER41> Which part of my post was inaccurate?

Google still has access to the google.cn domain as well as several valid ICP licenses; a number of services (fonts, firebase and chrome/SDK downloads to name a few) are accessible from China hosted on a Google affiliated server in Beijing. AdWords have been thriving in China for a number of years and even the localised version of Google maps (ditu.google.cn) is still being maintained despite a nonexistent user base.

None of this would have been possible if the government is actually hostile to Google in the way you believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Just to give some clarification:

The app is banned from being on the Apple App Store but it never actually made it to the App Store and so was not actually removed from users. Users couldn't have used it before.

Their application has been rejected (a few times it appears?). The latest rejection carried that notice

[https://twitter.com/hkmaplive/status/1179618848644812800](https://twitter.com/hkmaplive/status/1179618848644812800)

<comment><USER44> Wow, can't believe this essential piece of information is so far down. How does one get in contact with the HN moderators to get bad titles fixed?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> >"Your app contains content - or facilitates, enables, and encourages an activity - that is not legal ... specifically, the app allowed users to evade law enforcement,"

Wait...doesn't Waze do this too?

<comment><USER46> Technically, so can iMessage, so they should ban that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This shouldn't come as a surprise, since Apple is well known for being authoritarian with its platforms. It just so happens that most of the time its values align with those of the users, which is why it's so popular.

</comment><comment><USER48> This should underscore the importance of a free and open web.

<comment><USER49> That's coming to an end too, the web will be google's "app/play store" someday.

<comment><USER50> Google AMP project is a pretty big step by Google towards trying to control the entire web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Does anyone know how much of Apple's hardware is actually manufactured in China? I realize this is a complicated question, as some is assuredly assembled outside of China. But as a total percentage of the supply chain at a component level ... how much is Chinese?

I'm going to wait for judgement on Apple's actions here until I have more information.

<comment><USER52> What difference would it make? Apple and other companies follow the laws of countries they operate in, regardless of whether they produce there or not.

<comment><USER51> It makes a tremendous difference. If Apple can leverage some other aspect of their supply chain so that they can ignore any or some "requests" from the Chinese government ... that is a significant data point. If they can't, well, that is also a significant data point about who has leverage over Apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> That's what you get when you use walled garden system. One huge single point of failure. Which always can be efficiently attacked by a resourceful adversary. I get the use case where you need apps "just work" and don't step one step out of the walled garden. HK use case is obviously not that - <USER2> should not be using any Apple mobile technology, it's all one huge single point of failure.

</comment><comment><USER54> I think people/Apple defenders are creating a false dichotomy between "regulated app store" and allowing people to install their own software.

Apple could still have a regulated app store to protect the masses (who will never venture outside of the app store), but still allow users to install their own software if they really need it.

At least no one can deny that the inability to prevent users from loading their own software causes a lack of freedom. If someone wants to accept authoritarianism in the name of making it harder for clueless people to install malware then that's a trade-off they can make, but they shouldn't pretend to be pro-freedom/pro-user/pro-privacy.

</comment><comment><USER55> Business strategy question. It seems like there will always be a conflict between the US view of censorship (bad!) and the reality of trying to operate in China's huge market (comply or be booted, basically)....

Is that good cause to create a separate brand or subsidiary so the reputation damage of having to comply with this stuff (you know they got nudged) doesn't hit home on the US brand?

Just seems like you're going to have a rough time if you're attempting to service both markets under the same brand...

<comment><USER56> I wish American companies would focus on finding ways to bypass China's censorship rather than complying with it.

When Google first acquiesced to China they made a mistake and set a bad precedent. They should have rather focused their China business on building search engine and tools that would work around China's firewall. I don't think there is an obligated to adhere to laws when those laws conflict with human rights.

<comment><USER55> Morally, I agree with you.

From a practical perspective, however, that would cede what little voice the American companies have in the process to the Chinese government who would replace them with local lapdogs controlled by political allies.

The result would be software where censorship wasn't a bug, it is a feature...

<comment><USER57> This already happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Next startup: Build an ML model and let it feed on Chinese anti-insurrection laws and Apple app review guidelines. Then, let the ML model generate apps that comply. Should be an instant smash hit.

</comment><comment><USER59> Wondering if Steve Jobs would have pulled the plug.

<comment><USER60> He totally would have. In the early days of iPhone, he had a strong contempt for the idea of an app store since it would allow anyone to publish any app and he didn't want anyone other than Apple doing that.

Making it a walled garden was his idea.

<comment><USER59> Fair point. It's just sad that reality doesn't live up to the marketing.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I)

<comment><USER61> You must be sad.. a lot

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Think Different, Think like China I guess?

At least their 1984 commercial was cool, too bad they don't grasp what it meant anymore.

</comment><comment><USER63> This article, and all the response here on HN, is really quite baffling to me. Apple complies with local laws. If the local government says the app violates their laws, Apple doesn't have a whole lot of choice here; either pull the app, or be in violation of the law. AFAIK all the app stores do the same thing.

<comment><USER64> Maybe soon a local law in China will say everyone needs to report where all homosexuals live because they need to be executed, and then Apple will send that exact info to the police (e.g. anyone with grindr installed) and then you will say "Oh what? they are just folling the law". Yeah we know they are just following the law, still doesn't mean we shouldn't give them bad press and opinions about it.

<comment><USER63> Slippery slope is not a valid fallacy.

<comment><USER64> Is not a slippery slope (because I'm not saying it will happen, I'm just amplifying the core of your opinion), is just an example with a different law; that btw exists in other countries such as Nigeria, just be honest and say you agree more with this one law than the one in the example.

<comment><USER63> You're trying to compare Apple taking down an app that violates local laws (which, again, everybody does) with... I don't even know how to characterize your new law proposal except it's ridiculous.

Apple not publishing illegal content is a _far_ cry from what you're proposing and it does not make sense to compare the two at all.

<comment><USER64> The core of your argument was "They are just following the law", it clearly wasn't "They are following a sensible law"; if you believe the law to be within the ethical bounds of laws that should be followed for the sake of keeping business there just say so but just saying "they are just following the law" is dishonest at best.

<comment><USER63> They are following the exact same law _literally everyone follows and always has followed_ , which is to take down apps that violate the local laws. I don't understand why you're taking a particular issue with this. "Apple, in its capacity as an app store owner, shall not publish apps that violate local laws" is not even a remotely problematic stance. If you have an issue with this particular app being taken down, you should be directing your ire at the law that makes it illegal, not at Apple for complying with the law, because taking the app down does no more harm to anybody than the alternative, which is for Apple to take the whole store down and stop doing business in the country.

<comment><USER64> > because taking the app down does no more harm to anybody than the > alternative, which is for Apple to take the whole store down and stop doing > business in the country.

Only the future will tell if that's true

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> This type of stuff is why Warren wants to break up tech.

It should NOT be up to apple to decide stuff like this.

<comment><USER66> Who should decide?

<comment><USER67> No one should get to decide is the point.

You may be a bit young to remember this but it was once possible to install any software on hardware you owned without permission from the manufacturer.

<comment><USER68> And that's how the common person ends up with devices riddled with viruses, malware, and spyware. I don't disagree with you, but the walled garden approach is certainly a safer option for the vast majority of end users.

<comment><USER69> No. Linux Desktop suffer much fewer virus attacks and they are certainly NOT walled garden.

<comment><USER70> That's function of its obscurity, not its design.

<comment><USER71> not entirely, more a function of it's multi user mode as default and repos. Those two things would have gone a long ways for early windows as well.

It's also worth noting that there are a lot of linux servers in the wild that are hacked serving shitty wordpress malware and spam email servers. Sure the desktop is fine, it's a very small piece of the pie, but the overall linux install ends up running bad software and poor configurations just like any OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Remind me of the original Napster - which is only providing the channel for users to share music but not providing the music by itself.

</comment><comment><USER73> Think Different.

[https://youtu.be/RSyy2-Z2m-U](https://youtu.be/RSyy2-Z2m-U)

</comment><comment><USER74> Yeah, that was the last straw. No more Apple products for me.

I hope they will enjoy all their rich Chinese customers.

</comment><comment><USER75> For what it's worth, so far Umbrella app hasn't had any problems in HK.

<comment><USER76> Because nobody cares about Umbrella app.

[https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1169323269297717248](https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1169323269297717248)

<comment><USER75> Thanks. Have you used it? You seem to have lots of comments about it based on here-say but I'm curious have you used it yourself?

<comment><USER76> Is any part of what Zeynep said here inaccurate?

<comment><USER75> Yes, there is in various parts.

I'm curious, have you actually used Umbrella?

<comment><USER76> Could you be more specific? Zeynep Tufekci has actually been out in Hong Kong talking with and reporting on the protesters and their tactics, which your organization --- in her telling --- got comically wrong. Where is she mistaken?

<comment><USER75> There are many points which I have spoken about in multiple places. On the things she legitimately pointed out that I got wrong I put my hands up (like the flag things), admitted were incorrect and quickly changed.

A number of other things she said were partly/entirely incorrect, did not apply to us or could not be refuted in a public forum without admitting to previous experiences or potentially endangering people we work with in HK or elsewhere.

If you want more detail my email is in my bio and I am always happy to speak with people who are doing their best to help people at risk. Hence I am not being cynical, I actually am curious about whether you have used Umbrella? You talk as if you have so I am curious to know what we could do better...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Any word if this app is available on the playstore/fdroid in Android form?

<comment><USER78> [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=live.hkmap.app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=live.hkmap.app)

It's not on F-Droid, but it has a perfectly usable webapp. [https://hkmap.live/](https://hkmap.live/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> This is yet another reason proprietary app stores should be supplemented, if not replaced altogether, by the open web and progressive web apps.

Having a central authority that dictates what software you can and can't use is bad for user freedom.

</comment><comment><USER80> It's worth noting that anyone can side-load apps on their iPhone or appletv using a free apple developer account and Xcode. It's annoying to have to re-do it every 7 days, but it is an option.

</comment><comment><USER81> i am glad i have never used any products from apple,and will keep using unix and android for the future

</comment><comment><USER82> Careful Apple. Those faceless rioters will come to break your Apple store glass. Maybe time to upgrade them to bullet proof glass?

</comment><comment><USER83> Apple should allow app sideloading.

</comment><comment><USER84> Nice form Apple.

</comment><comment><USER85> Imagine this happening under Jobs, probably never. I truly miss Steve's leadership at Apple. The one guy who would've showed his middle finger to the communist regime.

<comment><USER86> Are you kidding?

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Use Waze.

</comment><comment><USER87> Bad apple.

</comment><comment><USER88> Apple can only stand up to the US government when it comes to privacy and security. They will refuse to unlock a terrorist's iphone when FBI requests it. They can do this because of the fundamental liberty everybody is granted in the US to everybody. The real test of character is how a company reacts to an authoritarian regime like China. That's what reveals the true nature.

And Apple has completely shit the bed in this regard. Google has handled it so much more beautifully.

<comment><USER89> Is Google helping the Hong Kong protests? Honest question.

<comment><USER90> No direct help...besides banning Huawei user, removal of fake news bots and pro-china propaganda on its platform

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> > Tim Cook Buckled Under Chinese Pressure

Mods: title is misleading. The article explicitly says that they don't know if there was Chinese pressure to remove the app.

Edit: title is now fixed.

<comment><USER92> The idea that the relevant PRC officials don't have at least a daily check in with Apple to sync on issues the CCP thinks "need more attention" is endearingly naive.

<comment><USER91> > The idea that the relevant PRC officials don't have at least a daily check > in with Apple to sync on issues the CCP thinks "need more attention" is > endearingly naive.

Your comment would be far more useful to the discussion if you would provide some evidence to back this or at least evidence to support the claim that the CCP does this generally to tech companies or foreign companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Of course Apple bitched out, what else have they ever done?

Acting like a revolutionary, counter culture company is one thing. Actually sticking it's neck out and doing something important is something completely different.

Part of the reason I can't stand apple. At least Microsoft acts like a lame computer company without sloughing on layers of pretentious BS.

<comment><USER94> so what would you have expected them to do, break the law? when they said no to the FBI they did it while respecting the law. should they just have quit the entire chinese market?

<comment><USER95> I should be able to install any app I want from a download link, that's what I expect. Apple has no business to make a decision about user choices.

<comment><USER96> Apple is a publically listed business operating a service (the app store). Their board and directors have a legal responsibility to comply with requests like this.

<comment><USER95> Then maybe they should not operate the app store at all if it's incompatible with user choices. Or at least, leave the user a choice to just download an app elsewhere if they want to.

Clicking on a link and installing an app like you would do on windows seems the right thing to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> Free people now know that its time to leave apple

<comment><USER98> And go where exactly? Self compiled Android without Google services? Welcome to the world. It's a messy place of conflicting values.

<comment><USER67> Self-compiled Android without Google services is not a bad place to start.

That said, these single-vendor proprietary mobile platforms are all dumpster fires so it may be time to start developing a free software alternative.

<comment><USER99> We need free hardware before we can build free software.

No one produces an LTE modem with open source firmware.

<comment><USER67> You absolutely do not need free hardware to build free software.

It was decades before the PC's we used to build FreeBSD, GNU, Linux etc. had even a free software BIOS available.

Historically, free hardware availability has followed in the wake of free software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> disappointing, but this was obviously going to happen. there was also precedent as i believe chinese gov has hooks into iMessage, so anyone thinking they were going to do the "right" think was not thinking rationally.

<comment><USER101> > there was also precedent as i believe chinese gov has hooks into iMessage

iMessage is end-to-end encrypted.

<comment><USER100> sure, but the encryption keys live in china, so it's naive to think that the chinese government doesn't have access to them. that means they can read the data on any chinese user's account.

<comment><USER44> Isn't this only if you have iCloud backup enabled for iMessage? I remember I had to explicitly enable that.

Otherwise the keys are stored in the enclave on your phone. Makes it a bit harder for the government - they have to use a zero-day to get your messages at that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> Was the advice qualitatively "good"? People are depending on the info in there to save their lives, and if bad advice lead to someone getting hurt, we would all surely put Apple on the hook.

<comment><USER44> > and if bad advice lead to someone getting hurt, we would all surely put > Apple on the hook

No, you'd put the app dev on the hook. Validating the truth of all statements in every app is not Apple's job and never was.</comment></comment>