Lessons From San Bernardino and ICEBlock

There's a lot of fear-mongering about the risks, however academic and unproven, to side-loading. So far we have yet to see anything substantial Materialize. Don't like it, go to Android is the most common refrain. There's also a compelling if uninformed belief Apple somehow has cultivated some mythic and unique lion's share of safety with a walled-garden approach. That term alone is used by Apple-faithful not in any pejorative meaning of the word, but in a locked-eyes, dead-serious stare-you-in-the-face fervor. Meanwhile that faith is misplaced as can plainly be seen by the myriad scam apps that are slowly (if ever) removed because they net the company serious cash. The chickens have come home to roost but the cognitive dissonance is too much to bear for many fans. I'm sure the silence will be largely deafening in those circles. For everyone else that sees the long game play out, you have to wonder what if any tipping-point would ever compel people towards a mea-culpa. Or is it just that the Internet has thoroughly insulated people to constructive criticism and opposing points of view that most people occupy an echo chamber that serves as an unintentional, propagandistic indoctrination arm.

Ironically, the DMA, with the mandated availability of third-party app stores, didn't address the kill switch issue.
Because of notarization, Apple can still wipe any app, even those outside of the official app store.
To my knowledge, the only way for a developer to be immune to that kill switch is by offering a web app.
Funnily enough, Steve Jobs initially thought it would be the main way third-party "apps" would be distributed on the first iPhone.

The real tragedy and the reason the status quo is so hard to break is that both sides of the debate are right to some extent: while having a master kill switch is wholly undesirable for all the excellent reasons that MJTsai and others have pointed out, countless users will install anything on their devices.

The (very) relative security of smartphones has allowed them to become indispensable devices. An entire economy relies on the fact that is is not utterly suicidal for the average, non-technical user to put random games, dating apps, ID cards, and banking apps onto the same device. The worlds of commerce and finance expect every person on this planet to possess a device that is both full of junk and reasonably secure, even if it is never consciously secured or updated.

Can this be achieved with extreme sandboxing? Sure! But then comes the EU with demands for extreme interoperability — which, again, are not ideologically wrong at all, but ignore all of the above. Plus, extreme sandboxing is extremely limiting, as early versions of iOS and iPadOS showed: there is only so much one can do (or sell) on a device with no accessible filesystem, no inter-app communication, etc.

Since we cannot have watertight sandboxing, both for legal and technical reasons, and since we cannot under-estimate the crazy things that will happen across billions and billions of smartphones, I understand why Apple and Google are reluctant to let their grip go. A kill switch is a last resort, but last resorts are good to have at this scale. (Remember when Apple remotely un-installed parts of the Zoom client from every Mac? That was both a terrifying capability and a very welcome development.)

Remember, we on the Internet write about replacing our phones every year, even if we do not necessarily do so. A large number of commentators run iOS betas as a matter of course. In the “real world,” people go into stores every day to buy fresh, unopened devices that run already obsolete versions of their operating systems and will never be updated. This is why companies like Meta support positively ancient versions of Android and iOS: “real people” do use them for years after the tech world has moved on. And don’t let’s get started on “environmentally responsible” second- or third-hand devices that have been “refreshed” in shady shops. Good for mother earth they certainly are, but secure? Hell no.

Yes, things more or less work on computers and user education would allow a great deal more flexibility, but the whole point of the smartphone is that it started life as an “appliance” the Disneys, Banks of America, and DMVs of this world could trust by default to faithfully spy on you and protect their Intellectual Properties. Turning smartphones into general-purpose computing devices would require a fundamental shift in how users and corporations alike think about them.

My hope is that Apple and Google will, at some future point, realise they have backed themselves into a legal corner. With the US, the EU, China, Russia, India, and other large markets each demanding conflicting and contradictory capabilities, it will, at some point, become easier and cheaper for them to just wash their hands of the whole problem, like they do with computers. Maintaining a kill switch may well, with a bit of luck, become economically and politically unfeasible, but this won’t happen overnight. It will take a lot — a lot! — of wasted development time and a lot — a lot! — of random, politically motivated fines for the App Store or the Play Store to stop making economic sense.

A lot of the talk about installing apps being too dangerous makes it sound like we are all running Windows XP unpatched.

Apple are the East India Company of our time.

With a bit of security awareness and a reliable antivirus, even an unpatched Windows XP can be a useful system. More work for the user, I know, but nothing is free. And I don't think a perfectly secure device/system is a realistic expectation.

The saddest thing is this: Apple have inserted themselves as the choke point of app distribution for one single reason - greed! Their discourse of "user protection" is utter bullshit, and in my eyes it disqualifies everything else they say or do. I'm really, really bummed by this.

They also used the kill switch on Alex Jones but I don't recall much or any backlash from the tech community. Yes Jones is a provocateur and says outlandish stuff but I don't recall an incident where someone used the Info Wars app as a tool to locate people and then kill them. Not sure what anyone is surprised about here.

> I used to believe that Apple were unequivocally ‘the good guys.’

So cringe.

@ObjC4Life The Alex Jones case was interesting. First, Apple only removed the podcast from their directory. That didn’t seem very controversial, as there were multiple directories and it could still be added to the app manually. They let the app stay in the App Store, and even made a statement saying that it had not violated any guidelines. Then, after Jones got banned in more places, they removed the app but refused to comment, only pointing reporters to the guidelines. Seemingly nothing had changed with the app or its content in the interim that would have caused a guidelines violation. Then, a month later, Tim Cook gave a statement, not mentioning any guidelines, where he said the reason was “reassuring users that humans were actually paying attention” but denying that there was any coordination with government (I’ve seen no evidence that there was) or other tech companies (the timing sure doesn’t seem like a coincidence, but they can follow the herd without officially coordinating). So, yeah, they basically just do whatever they feel like and turn on a dime depending on how the wind is blowing.

"I don't recall an incident where someone used the Info Wars app as a tool to locate people and then kill them"

As far as I know, the government hasn't claimed that ICEBlock was used to plan the attack. The quotes I saw were very carefully worded to say only that Jahn had used the app, not that he used it to locate the ICE agents he shot at.

The attack took place at an ICE facility. You don't need ICEBlock to know that there are ICE agents at an ICE facility.

@plume Even if he didn’t use it ultimately to find the location (we don’t know yet) it’s not inconceivable that another individual would use iceblock location info and carry out an attack and it’s removal is likely being viewed as a preventative measure. He used it almost certainly not to avoid ICE but to find ICE. Maybe he ultimately decided on going to a facility outside the app, we don’t know.

In any case Apple doesn’t want to be associated with another shooting and that’s all there really is to it. They are liberal tech and if they weren’t they wouldn’t have let the app in in the first place but now there is bloodshed and they aren’t going to stick their neck out there.

My point with bringing up Jones, a controversial figure but basically a right wing shock jock…. is that Apple has always been this way. Far less controversial apps have been removed from the store for reasons that were not clearly defined. All this pearl clutching is rather nauseating. This Wiley Hodges believes his own marketing spew. Apple puts users first…no Apple puts Apple first and if you think otherwise you’re cuckoo like the bird.

"Even if he didn’t use it ultimately to find the location (we don’t know yet)"

And we'll probably never know. All I'm saying is that you're presenting something as a fact that you don't actually know.

"it’s not inconceivable that another individual would use iceblock location info and carry out an attack"

It's funny how readily people accept this line of reasoning when they are usually firmly in the "guns don't kill people, people kill people" camp. What other apps should Apple ban, based on this argument? If someone gets poisoned, should all plant identification apps be banned because the poisoner might have used one to find a poisonous plant?

"My point with bringing up Jones, a controversial figure but basically a right wing shock jock"

You're describing him very differently from how you describe people like Keith Olbermann, even though what he did was arguably much worse than anything Olbermann ever did.

"In any case Apple doesn’t want to be associated with another shooting and that’s all there really is to it."

It seems very implausible that this is "all" there really is to it. Again, you are presenting something as a fact that is, at best, conjecture. I would argue that it is very implausible that the government's position on this had nothing to do with what Apple did.

At any rate, I don't disagree that, fundamentally, Apple can do whatever it wants with its App Store. The real problem is Apple's monopoly on controlling which apps its users can run.

There are several red herrings in your reply. From my views on Keith Olbermann to your assumptions about my views on guns and what “camp” i’m in.

I’ll try to avoid going too far off topic this time going back and forth on all that…

> It seems very implausible that this is "all" there really is to it

Why does this seem implausible? Apple has a long history of removing apps with content or functionality that is controversial but not illegal.

But b/c this topic (illegal immigration) tickles liberals in the funny bone you get embarrassing open letters to Tim Cook like this. Sure Apple does it’s virtue signaling BS but the notion that Apple cares about marginalized people is a total crock.

They exploit workers and marginalized people just like any other large corporation.
Look how it treats most of its developers. FAR worse than that look how it treats its factory workers. You think they manufacture overseas because the Chinese are more skilled or because they can pay them less and they aren’t burdened by US labor law? Adding a rainbow Pride flag wallpaper doesn’t change that.

But those factory workers… THOSE people are on the other side of the world and that behavior goes way back so even people with the most severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome can’t draw that imaginary line.

Iceblock was out for what a month, two months? And there was a shooting. And we know he at least used the app. Why it’s a shock to ANYONE that Apple would want to distance themselves from these kinds of apps actually is somewhat surprising. All lives matter but it’s also ironic that only detainees got killed. The idea that ICEBlock is actually in their best interest is at least debatable. It certainly wouldn’t be in the case of ppl being abused by sex traffickers.

When you’re a company as large as Apple you don’t wait for the bomb to go off before you clear the room

"Apple has a long history of removing apps with content or functionality that is controversial"

I don't see how this helps your point. Assuming that everything you wrote is correct, the conclusion is still that Apple was influenced by the government: the app has become extremely controversial because the government implied that the shooter used it to find his target.

"You think they manufacture overseas..."

I don't know if the "you" in this sentence is addressed to me, but if it is, I don't know what you're responding to.

"even people with the most severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome"

Insulting people isn't an argument, and your actual argument boils down to "Apple is a company", which, yes, we all know that. Nobody thinks that adding a Pride flag changes Chinese labor standards.

"It certainly wouldn’t be in the case of ppl being abused by sex traffickers."

I would rather not be accused of slapping you with another red herring, so I will simply say that I haven't seen anyone protest ICE detaining human traffickers.

Just wading in here to say it doesn’t sound like there’s a logical argument for “de-platforming” Alex Jones or this app.

Free speech is a bitch because it only applies to speech people don’t like. Speech that goes along with the public sentiment / government narrative doesn’t need protecting.