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Comment by pavel_lishin | Hacker News Reader

> I am not a casual user. I have literally written the book on Apple development (taking over the Learning Cocoa with Objective-C series, which Apple themselves used to write, for O’Reilly Media, and then 20+ books following that). I help run the longest-running Apple developer event not run by Apple themselves, /dev/world. I have effectively been an evangelist for this company’s technology for my entire professional life. We had an app on the App Store on Day 1 in every sense of the world.

I am surprised that with such a pedigree, the author doesn't already have contacts at Apple they could reach out to for that personal touch.

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> I have escalated this through my many friends in WWDR and SRE at Apple, with no success. Ouch. If he can't get it fixed, it's scary

From my experiences with people at Apple, everyone seems so siloed that it doesn't surprise me that they couldn't help him. It doesn't seem like they have the culture where you could just drop by the Apple fraud team and ask for help for a friend.

Or, they hit the brick wall that is US anti-money laundering laws. It’s illegal to “tip off” (warn) the person if they’ve tripped the AML checks.

At that point, it doesn’t matter how many friends you have on the inside, unless you’ve got one that’s ignorant of the law or willing to risk the penalties.

Apple isn't filing SARs - they want no business in that and have banking partners to do that for them.

AML is a concept not a law itself. Which law is forcing Apple to act like this?

I am surprised that evangelists keep thinking they are safe from the evil of big corporations.

There's no reason to presume that the author 'thinks' that.

“This isn’t just an email address; it is my core digital identity”

If he doesn’t think like that, then why does he act like it?

Then why did he mention it (their credentials)? It has literally zero relevance in this case. Maybe they were trying to show off?

It's relevant because it shows they are not newbie on the platform and are unlikely to have misbehave in some capacity to warrant a full deactivation. It adds credibility to their story.

There is if you want to blame the victim and/or work for Apple.

If you don't have root access to your machine, it's not your machine.

If you don't have root access to the machine your data is on, it's not your data.

Brillant, I'm stealing it.

Even Meta approves. If it is not your data why should data protection laws apply ?

And Linus himself mostly just stores data on the cloud. At the end of the day, practicality matters.

Sure, you can be as "practical" as you like, just as long as you don't come crying when Apple decides to revoke your access to their data. You accept the benefit, you accept the risk.

That’s stupid. We can have a law that protects users from bullshit like this. Lacking technical savvy should not mean you forfeit the right to your data.

I think this is speaking in the absense of sufficient protections like laws. Because how does it help that a hypothetical law protects you if that law doesn't exist?

I think you’ve missed some context now, we’re responding to someone who is being dismissive of the pain experienced by users in these cases.

I bet you even store your money in a bank!

If you're a scientist at an institution, why would you need root on the cephs or whatever storage system?

In that case it's the institution's data, not the scientist's personal data.

I went to Uni with this person (though I doubt they remember me.) They have a very high reputation. If anyone should be able to resolve this, it’s them — that they can’t, and they have to go public, is absolutely terrifying and should make Apple execs pay attention.

I mean that. Exec level. This story and that this specific person cannot get it fixed indicates absolute failure.

This reminds of a joke we have in Russia which roughly translates into English as follows: "Comrade Stalin, it has been a terrible mistake!" The phrase could belong to one of Stalin's own sycophants who unluckily for themselves got imprisoned and executed during the big purge in the 1930s. They didn't understand why it happened to them.

I have a feeling that this guy also doesn't get why this happened to him and that he himself contributed towards it with the work of his life.

Indeed. The machine eating its enablers.

or the common sense to not store absolutely everything they own with one giant megacorp

Oh, yes, only "important" people deserve customer service. That is an appallingly elitist attitude.

Nobody said that.

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