This headline is misleading as it seems the issue is with the way countries are sanctioning Russian developers (assuming based off the Russian name) as opposed to being related to torrents.
Not to play devil's advocate here and also IANAL but:
If (as as it is) Apple is still controlling apps via notarizarion/digitally signing apps of and recognizing developers, and if the app is developed for something that would land Apple in legal trouble (e.g. it makes it easy to freely and illegally download music and Apple also has legal contracts with record labels as they have Apple Music, and not only legal but it also affects Apple's own music revenue too) as the app has passed explicit notarization of Apple (in other words: Apple "knowlingly" allowed them and greenlighted them by notarizing the app), wouldn't it cause legal trouble for Apple?
For that, it's the logical behavior for a company like Apple to stop allowing the app.
Again, I'm not supporting it, but I can imagine where it's coming from and that makes sense from a business perspective as torrenting on mobile has almost no legal use cases. We all know you have not installed it to download your favorite Linux distro to your iPhone.
Some more context from the linked github issue[0], the app was removed because of European sanctions against Russia, it seems that the app developer who now lives in Malta, has a Russian background.
What is interesting is that it's Apple enforcing these sanctions, rather than AltStore.
The amount of control that Apple exercises over these alternative app stores, really does seem to be against the spirit of the DMA.
last time I checked if there are no sanctions against you personally you shouldn't have any troubles?
I believe sancitons lists are public so that has to be verifiable by searching for "Daniil Vinogradov". Quick search on EU sanctions tracker [0] did not yield any results. Neither did [1]. So what's up with that?
That statement cannot be taken at face value. Russian developers and Russian registered entities are freely publishing apps on App Store. EU sanctions do not prevent that.
Lots of Russian apps and services registered in Malta or Cyprus, but their devs continue to live in Russia. And naive users think they’re using a European app or service. For example Adguard.
When it comes to your personal data, Apple loves (correctly) to say "all of our user's data is encrypted, we can't access it even if we wanted to, so we cannot respond to this government request for data"
When it comes to application distribution, all of Apple's courage immediately disappears. They could say "We don't sign or control apps distributed through third party app stores, that's out of our hands, so we cannot respond to this government request". But, they chose not to. It was a choice, and Tim Cook chose an ugly, dishonorable, cowardly path.
I’ve never managed to get this torrent client working myself. I paid money for Altstore, but I’ve only ever found some emulator. I think I just don’t understand how it works.
Just now: I open Altstore, see an ad for the Epic Games Store, I tap it, the install button at the top sends you in a loop back to the same page, nothing happens. Oh, there’s another button (lower on the "page"): Install on iPhone or iPad, I tap that, then another button, Install. I tap it. New screen: Open the Epic Games Store on your home screen. Except that there is no Epic Games Store anywhere on my device.
And that’s basically all my experiences with Altstore.
The idea is really nice, indeed, which is why I paid for it immediately (just 1-2 euros or so I believe) but I never got anything out of it, ah well.
So in the end we got the worst of both worlds in Europe. Apple does malicious compliance while still holding control of app stores while EU users are being kept out of things like iPhones remote screen.
I'm gonna get bashed here because the average HN user is a EU-weeb but if you can't properly write regulations don't do it at all. I'm tired of good intentioned candy colored EU regulation that ends in worst experience for everyone.
from torrentfreak > "No further context was provided, but the developer purportedly had a Russian developer account, despite living in Malta."
"seems the issue is related to government sanctions" - so he is still connected to the Russian government then?!
btw, Malta is a good place for Russian agents, Sergey Gorokhovsky is one such and he oversees White House Personnel while telling everyone he's not Russian
While of course not quite apples to apples, it's still interesting to consider what the reaction would be if Apple complied with a government order to block a domain entirely on all its devices. Where, ultimately, is the difference?
27 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 41.8 ms ] threadIf (as as it is) Apple is still controlling apps via notarizarion/digitally signing apps of and recognizing developers, and if the app is developed for something that would land Apple in legal trouble (e.g. it makes it easy to freely and illegally download music and Apple also has legal contracts with record labels as they have Apple Music, and not only legal but it also affects Apple's own music revenue too) as the app has passed explicit notarization of Apple (in other words: Apple "knowlingly" allowed them and greenlighted them by notarizing the app), wouldn't it cause legal trouble for Apple?
For that, it's the logical behavior for a company like Apple to stop allowing the app.
Again, I'm not supporting it, but I can imagine where it's coming from and that makes sense from a business perspective as torrenting on mobile has almost no legal use cases. We all know you have not installed it to download your favorite Linux distro to your iPhone.
What is interesting is that it's Apple enforcing these sanctions, rather than AltStore.
The amount of control that Apple exercises over these alternative app stores, really does seem to be against the spirit of the DMA.
[0]: https://github.com/XITRIX/iTorrent/issues/401#issuecomment-3...
last time I checked if there are no sanctions against you personally you shouldn't have any troubles?
I believe sancitons lists are public so that has to be verifiable by searching for "Daniil Vinogradov". Quick search on EU sanctions tracker [0] did not yield any results. Neither did [1]. So what's up with that?
[0]: https://data.europa.eu/apps/eusanctionstracker/
[1]: https://sanctionssearch.ofac.treas.gov/
Google can and will do exactly the same thing for Android.
What do
When it comes to application distribution, all of Apple's courage immediately disappears. They could say "We don't sign or control apps distributed through third party app stores, that's out of our hands, so we cannot respond to this government request". But, they chose not to. It was a choice, and Tim Cook chose an ugly, dishonorable, cowardly path.
Just now: I open Altstore, see an ad for the Epic Games Store, I tap it, the install button at the top sends you in a loop back to the same page, nothing happens. Oh, there’s another button (lower on the "page"): Install on iPhone or iPad, I tap that, then another button, Install. I tap it. New screen: Open the Epic Games Store on your home screen. Except that there is no Epic Games Store anywhere on my device.
And that’s basically all my experiences with Altstore.
The idea is really nice, indeed, which is why I paid for it immediately (just 1-2 euros or so I believe) but I never got anything out of it, ah well.
I'm gonna get bashed here because the average HN user is a EU-weeb but if you can't properly write regulations don't do it at all. I'm tired of good intentioned candy colored EU regulation that ends in worst experience for everyone.
"seems the issue is related to government sanctions" - so he is still connected to the Russian government then?!
btw, Malta is a good place for Russian agents, Sergey Gorokhovsky is one such and he oversees White House Personnel while telling everyone he's not Russian