Friday, September 9, 2022 10:02 am6 Comments

• News

The Chinese Communist Party’s latest quixotic COVID lockdown has virtually paralyzed a city of 6 million in China that houses much of the country’s electronic information, forcing Apple’s iCloud datacenter operator to take emergency measures.

The CCP sealed off parts of Guiyang this week after an increase in virus cases triggered yet another quixotic “zero COVID” authoritarian lockdown.

Bloomberg News:

Apple’s partner in Guiyang, which operates the server center that houses all online data generated and stored by hundreds of millions of Chinese iPhone users, described what amounted to a “closed loop” system under which employees are barred from leaving the premises. Many haven’t seen their families for a week, Guizhou Cloud Big Data, Apple’s government-backed partner, said in a WeChat notice.

The firm, which also manages data for other clients, didn’t say whether the iPhone maker’s servers had been affected or when the lockdown will lift.

Since its unveiling in 2017, Apple’s Chinese datacenter has become the heart of its nationwide operation, storing and handling an array of information from photos and videos to email. Apple was forced to hand control to a state firm under Chinese law, which critics have said jeopardizes user privacy and security.

MacDailyNews Take: At this point, anyone advocating for mass lockdowns over COVID is either morbidly stupid or has an ulterior motive. (Given the CCP’s socioeconomic ideology, it’s certainly the former and also very likely the latter.)

There is no such thing a “zero COVID.”

The repercussions from stupidly shutting down entire economies over COVID in a rights-trampling panic, instead of thoughtfully working to protect those with comorbidities who were most at risk, will be felt by all of us for many years. – MacDailyNews, August 30, 2022

The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020

As per iCloud data being stored on Chinese servers:

Apple should immediately make iCloud an opt-in service, rather than opt-out, for Chinese users.

Chinese users should not use iCloud for any data they wish to keep private.

Exit question: Why can’t Chinese citizens be trusted with freedom? — a href=”http://macdailynews.com/2018/02/26/apple-moves-to-store-icloud-keys-in-china-raising-human-rights-fears/”>MacDailyNews, February 26, 2018

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