Apple threatens to remove Hey from App Store unless they implement in-app purchases
Europe opens investigations into Apple Pay and the App Store’s potential anti-competitiveness
CIA report into Wikileak’s Vault 7 dump finds the CIA’s nerds sucked at opsec
Black people struggle to be taken seriously in the Silicon Valley startup scene
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Everyone's hyped about Hey (that email service I mentioned yesterday) besides Apple. The first version of Hey was accepted on to the store but subsequent versions with bug fixes have been blocked because Hey "allows customers to access content, subscriptions, or features they have purchased elsewhere, but those items were not available as in-app purchases within the app". One of Hey's co-founders went on an excellent Twitter rant about how unfair this is, showing examples from other email apps (e.g: Fastmail & Gmail) that don't have in-app purchases yet have subscriptions/payments on their websites. Even Gruber reckons this is bullshit and when he thinks something Apple's done is cooked, it's fucken cooked.
The European Commission has opened two investigations into Apple's business practices for Apple Pay and the App Store. The EC's concerns with Apple Pay are that "Apple's terms, conditions, and other measures related to the integration of Apple Pay for the purchase of goods and services on merchant apps and websites on iOS/iPadOS devices may distort competition and reduce choice and innovation". In regards to the App Store, the EC will look into "the mandatory use of Apple's own proprietary in-app purchase system and restrictions on the ability of developers to inform iPhone and iPad users of alternative cheaper purchasing possibilities outside of apps". Apple told The Verge that "it's disappointing the European Commission is advancing baseless complaints from a handful of companies who simply want a free ride, and don’t want to play by the same rules as everyone else" - I sense a strong amount of salt in Apple’s statement.
When you think CIA, you think spies, you think security and you think over the top protocols to keep secrets safe. According to a report from the CIA about the now infamous "Vault 7" leak, where 34TB of the agency's software tools and documentation were published by Wikileaks, the CIA's hacking arm (the Center for Cyber Intelligence) was too focused on 0-days and had incredibly poor security practices. "Most of our sensitive cyber weapons were not compartmented, users shared systems administrator-level passwords, there were no effective removable media controls, and historical data was available to users indefinitely". Remember that quote when the brain dead idea of giving government agencies secret backdoors into every encrypted messaging platform that only they hold the keys to is floated.
Bloomberg has a fascinating article on the types of humiliation and embarrassment Black people face trying to get startup cash in Silicon Valley. It starts of with some of the most prominent historical members of Silicon Valley like William Shockley and Leland Stanford arguing that Black people are inferior to white people. Fast forward to today and Black founders have to convince white venture capitalists that their businesses aren't just for black people or constantly being mistaken for a subordinate when entering meetings. Even in this article, Black founders in the startup community didn't want to name names "because they feared speaking out would harm their fundraising prospects" and "didn't want their race to overshadow their credentials". For what most people would consider a very liberal area, it's disappointing that Silicon Valley still pulls this kind of shit.
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