Tim Cook’s internal email about HKmap | Hacker News Reader

Tim Cook’s internal email about HKmap

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97 pointsDVassallo36 comments

> However, over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present.

So just like Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. They should probably get rid of those too

From the most recent tweet that has some confirmation of the 'leaked email' [0]

> Finally, I offer my sincerest condolences to @waze, which unlike HKmap is an app specifically intended for evading law enforcement, and which by Mr. Cook's logic must therefore brace itself for imminent removal from the App Store.

So this leaked internal email is Mr Cook's and Apple's justification for removing the HKMap due to it 'violating HK law' and questions the lack of evidence of which laws that lead to this decision.

Right now the last tweet is outright accusing Waze of 'specifically intended for evading law enforcement' without supporting evidence too. (I'd like to see evidence for this) If this evidence is also true then this sounds much like of a App Store double-standard, that large companies can get away with it unless they are brought into the light.

If that is true, I will offer to press F to pay my respects to @waze in advance.

[0] - https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1182353727329488896?s=21

It's probably a reference to how Waze alerts people to speed traps. It seems Google Maps has started doing this too.

(I find these alerts an annoying distraction and shut them off.)

I have spoken to Police officers in the Bay Area who have told me they love waze, and its the best way for police to get around most traffic. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if cops just post the "Speed Trap Warning" on waze just to get people to slow down even if cops aren't actually there.

We need a WazeWaze which show the false police warnings so it's safe to drive over the speed limit. But soon the cops will notice it so it could lead to WazeWazeWaze and then...

NYPD complained to Waze about warning drivers of police checkpoints [0]. This quote from the article seems as compelling an argument as anything I've seen re: HKMap:

> The Waze website advertises the feature on its website, saying, "Get alerted before you approach police."

---

[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/us/nypd-tells-google-stop-waz...

I can't find that in the mobile version, at least. It does have an icon if a police officer among many others.

In any case, that for avoiding, not harming police officers so I don't think it's in the same category.

It’s a different category of action, but the app comes down to the same. It marks locations, right? Or I suppose moving points. Or am I misunderstanding something?

It specifically alerts you to police presence a few hundred yards or more before the location. It also flags speed cameras and more.

You are misrepresenting the message either deliberately or through a misunderstanding of it.

Nowhere is it mentioned that the app was removes because it allowed avoiding police. It was removed because it violated the clauses on personal harm.

> we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present. This use put the app in violation of Hong Kong law. Similarly, widespread abuse clearly violates our App Store guidelines barring personal harm.

When waze starts advertising that it will show you police-stops so you can drop by and beat up the police they would find themselves in a similar category.

That isn't what HKmap does, at all. I believe the people, like Zeynep Tufekci, who are reporting on the ground.

Even the most basic research about the app in question shows that it does not make it possible to “target individual officers”. Since you are suggesting that the app has been marketed for this use, could you produce a link?

one can target individual officers using email. Are we now getting rid of that too?

I’d need to see this “credible information” before accepting Apple’s excuse. To me it seems much more likely that the app is being used to avoid the police and that Apple and the Hong Kong authorities are lying to cover their true intentions.

That seems like an intentionally uncharitable reading of the email. “the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present“ is the purported problem, the app having information about the location of police checkpoints (like waze) is specifically called “benign”.

Couldn’t this easily be circumvented by indicating a generic POI.. if there’s no symbolism attached to it then the app is not a position of recommending anything other than a point of interest. As a sidebar, I’m surprised no one has thought of an ingress-style game as an organizing tool. For ex. A blue beacon equipped in a certain way is indicative of one thing while an green beacon another.

> we believe this decision best protects our users.

I'm sure the protesters are very grateful a CEO on the other side of the world decides how they may protect themselves.

If the information they have recieved is indeed credible as they state. Then the users who would be grateful are the police officers who were targeted in violent assaults and the locations that where vandalized.

Apple is not in a unique position to judge who’s “the good guys” and who’s the “bad guys” they recognized the app was being used as a tool of violence and removed it because they did not wish to distribute tools used for violence.

If ever there were an appropriate time to invoke Godwin's law.

The key bit is what is credible. Because it looks like it's the very same organisation which is against the demonstrators.

> The key bit is what is credible.

I strongly disagree. Our tools should not be making judgements on what is credible, or what is good, and based on that decide if they will serve or betray their owner. Power is already far too centralized.

> Then the users who would be grateful are the police officers

The police officers benefit regardless of if they are Apple's users, so to say the move is to protect "our users" is deceptive. They would have to say it is to protect the police and/or Hong Kong residents. But if they had phrased it that way, it would be obvious they made a choice - to put the safety of the police above that of their users.

> Apple is not in a unique position to judge who’s “the good guys” and who’s the “bad guys”

But they are judging! They judged that it is better the protesters face police violence, than the other way around. They weren't legally compelled to remove the app - just criticized for allowing it. (Mind you they were criticized by the same police force that's preventing paramedics from treating injured protesters, but my opinion wouldn't change even if the police were perfect and the protesters pure evil. A phone is a tool, and tools should not betray their users.)

Now I wouldn't blame them too much if they had merely followed the law, even if the law is unethical. Usually when corporations break the law, it's to be even more unethical, not less, so I'm in no hurry of asking them to play vigilante, especially not on foreign soil. But they deliberately disempowered their users by locking them in a walled garden, so they should get a big part of the blame when their users suffer for it.

Please Apple remove your Maps app. After all, it enables bad people to navigate roads to reach their target most efficiently.

I strongly feel that at this point the intuitive solution would be a broad boycott/protest of Apple’s products until they elect to allow sideloading of applications on iOS. They shouldn’t even _want_ to negotiate moral issues like this and I feel it’s just really ugly for them to be in a position to arbitrate matters of such gravity when they don’t have to be. Enough people will continue to use the App Store for convenience that I doubt it would have any substantial consequence for revenue, and even if it did, this is such an intuitively ugly thing that I would argue whatever the cost is it is worth it. Even dependent as I am on Apple products for my work, it may pain me too much to buy another if this is still going on come the time.

This seems to be genuine: https://twitter.com/pinboard/status/1182353727329488896?s=21

> However, over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that our manufacturing operation in China might suffer issues if we dont bend the knee

It's far too easy for mainland "security" forces or counterparts to go plain-clothes and attak HK police. It's a common tactic used against protestors. It gives an excuse for authoritarian responses, like shooting at crowds or, in this case, shutting down an app.

Trust the "Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau" lol.

Technically speaking so does the police in Venezuela and Zimbabwe feel threatened by protesters whom are also technically speaking violating laws of those countries. But those laws are meant to suppress freedom and to punish those wanting democracy.

By claiming such laws and such reports as valid reasons to remove apps and to aid corrupt governments these companies highlight the fact that they will be more than happy to suppress dissidence in their home countries as well.

The us, the eu, et al, are officially no longer the freedom loving freedom promoting countries they used to be.

In the us the masses are kept under control with managed healthcare and mortgages while in the eu they are kept under control with the threat of cheap labour imports.

Enjoy the new reality.

> the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence

How?

Perhaps he should just surf to https://hkmap.live/ and inform himself.

A ceo is just as good as his judgement.

Perhaps not a very good judgement on this case, except $$$ related ofc.

Weird too, since a lot of Western values should be more important to him than other ceo's. What if some values that he takes personal would become more dominant in our government, because of Chinese influence. I guess he would say "Oops" then.

Unless there's a declared civil war in HK, the physical integrity of police officers is as much important as that of the protesters. I would list that as a "Western" value.

The source of harming police officers, is not Apple.

It's Chinese censorship and bots/hired humans that give 1 star fake "user reviews".

Perhaps read this, found it after commenting: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/10/10/cook-hkmap-live...

Or does Quartz also harms police officers?

https://twitter.com/jkeefe/status/1182023843725971457

You have 2 eyes and a brain, use them :)

Seems like it would be trivial to make a web based version, this app doesn't need an app store.

"from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau"

LOL ... yep that is a sure an unbiased impartial state agency that one.

It seems that Tim learned a few tricks from his engagement with President Trump.

You lost me at” Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau“, Tim

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