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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

would you not make the same argument for google?

The legal environment is wildly different. Google doesn’t have an internal board of government officials controlling it. All large software companies in China do. Google doesn’t operate in China for this reason. Apple divested their cloud operations to the Guizhou government for this reason.

In the US is it normal and routine for corporations to dispute government demands. In China, If you don’t play ball with the party, your company ceases to exist and you are put behind the great firewall.

>> In the US is it normal and routine for corporations to dispute government demands.

But we already know that's just somescreen and the U.S gov/NSA gets the data. Poor Snowden ruined his life for almost nothing.

The difference is that there is a non-zero amount of friction in the US.

We also know that many companies in the US say “no” and have the legal ability to do it. For example, when the FBI asked Apple to unlock a phone for them, they said no, and they never did.

In China, your company doesn’t say “no” because the CCP members forcibly installed on your company’s board always vote “yes”.

And in fact, the CCP holds the iCloud keys for all Chinese iCloud users. (As well as the entire data center)

> The difference is that there is a non-zero amount of friction in the US.

This kind of statement should always end with "for now". Data lives forever, laws change. Just take a look at Roe v. Wade and how formerly benign data now has potential legal implications for users.

Thankfully we have a statute of limitations for many legal matters

Which, funnily enough, is a law.

The few legislative protections apply mainly to U.S citizens. I guess the europeans and the rest of the world is doomed. Of course CCP is not same as the U.S government but we know that when money/interests of U.S corporations or U.S government is at stake bad things happen(i.e data is/could be weaponized).

What I’m mostly referring to are the laws that enable autonomy of business decisions, and those implications apply regardless of citizenship.

>> What I’m mostly referring to are the laws that enable autonomy of business

In practice big corporations bow to gov demands (i.e apple, microsoft etc via PRISM) as they value their relationship with the government. The small companies don't have the resources to fight the gov (i.e NSA). You may see some smokescreen(i.e that Apple iphone vs FBI) but it's not the first time we see that ki d of stuff/PR. The only thi g you may trust is e2e encryption and open source

Companies don't deploy warrant canaries[0] just for fun. Lavabit[1] was also US based and shut down without the ability to defend itself thanks to a gag order. It might not be just as bad as China, but secret data extraction is definitely not exclusive to them.

And, since you mentioned

> And in fact, the CCP holds the iCloud keys for all Chinese iCloud users.

Quoting from [1]:

> The court records show that the FBI sought Lavabit's Transport Layer Security (TLS/SSL) private key. Levison objected, saying that the key would allow the government to access communications by all 400,000 customers of Lavabit. He also offered to add code to his servers that would provide the information required just for the target of the order. The court rejected this offer

(I'm well aware that Levinson wasn't a halo figure, either. But that's beside the point)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit#Suspension_and_gag_ord...

Lavabit would have never voluntarily shut down if it were operated in China, because the CCP members on the board would have voted to hand over the keys.

Of course, governments in every country collect data in at least some circumstances, and the details of those circumstances are a topic of great public debate in western democracies. This friction is how democracies continually improve. It isn't an indication of disaster, it's an indication of progress being made. Disaster is when you don't hear about it at all, because it happens unilaterally and without contest.

Yes, but Google is on our, well "my" side.

I would expect an "adversary" nationstate, like China, to respond with similar alarm.

China has, they’ve banned most Western social media.

not quite true, most Western social media companies withdraw from China market in order not be subject to govt request for information

Google is on nobody’s “side” but their own. They’re an amoral bureaucracy trying to make money. Nothing more or less.

Hence my use of quotes.

Depends on what you do. As long as you don't plan on visiting China, them knowing your sexual orientation, whether you do drugs is or where you were is pretty irrelevant, while it might be quite interesting for you government (and therefore Google, if you're in the US).

Except when it does matter, say for example you become a politican or work in a corporation that has valuable IP.

All of the sudden, private details about you can be weaponized and used as blackmail in order to carry out the will of a state actor.

It really doesn't take much creativity to think about how this information can be weaponized against you.

That's why I said

> Depends on what you do.

It's not great if a foreign intelligence has data on you, but depending on your threat scenario, it _might_ be better than your government having it.

Doesn't Google not operate in China for just this reason?

Many would, yes. But Google can use the “but we are an American company, so you are threatening to harm American industry” argument and can afford to pay for a large army of lobbyists to push that agenda if America tries to reign them in.

Google is banned in China

If you’re china then absolutely

Is Google an American company?

How many of their employees in critical roles are not American citizens?

I swear this is a trick question... but they are headquartered in America, yes.

I could have sworn they were Irish just a few years ago...

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