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Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

reuters.com

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Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#191

Post by vineyardmike »

onethought wrote: post #132
vineyardmike wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, its actually extremely believable that its launching everywhere that gets iOS 15. And your confidence indicated you had a source ;) > so surely if this was “BeCAusE ChIna!!!” It’d be switched on there first right? Is all of your comments on here arguments?

Not at all. But the consistent “China are evil, and that is the reason These pure US companies do bad things” is infuriating. Then when you point out the fallacy of this kind of thinking getting one word: “source” adds to the frustration. Even if it was launched globally it didn’t at all invalidate my point. They would ban the entire App in question, not back door it. See Facebook/Twitter as a well known example.

TLDR: China is bad. This change is probably not because of china, but china will certainly use it.

> China are evil, and that is the reason These pure US companies do bad things

China (the gov) is evil.

> is the reason These pure US companies do bad things

The companies are not pure. China certain does things to coerce them them to do bad things that wouldn't otherwise do. Some things are very bad. Some things aren't bad inherently, but are very unlike apple. Examples:

[1] Hong Kong app removal

[2] iCloud CN being run by another company.

> They would ban the entire App in question, not back door it

China already does this, except it's a phone not an app. They already monitor in-flight data [3], so likely not a huge concern for them, but considering the monitoring they do, why wouldn't this be a nice perk for them. Personally, i doubt that china required apple to do this since they already get what they want. I'm sure they'll love to (ab)use this though. I'm confident that a government somewhere wants this (new UK/EU anti-e2ee laws?).

China can't ban the iPhone, apple actually has that much political power. They are a huge poster child of chinese manufacturing power. Every time a senator asks tim cook to move manufacturing stateside and he says that only china is capable, it pumps china up.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/technology/apple-hong-kon...

[2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

[3] https://citizenlab.ca/2019/07/cant-picture-this-2-an-analysi...

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#193

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #56

In the first half of 2020, Apple gave data on over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests National Security Letter requests[1]. Apple provided data to the government's requests roughly 9,000 times. About 85% - 92% of the time, according to Apple, they responded to data requests from the government with the data that was requested. I don't see why Apple would turn about face and make it impossible to respond to…

FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It's for foreigners. And 31,000 is meaningless without context. How many foreign Apple users are there?

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#194

Post by heavyset_go »

Thorrez wrote: post #70
heavyset_go wrote: post #56

In the first half of 2020, Apple gave data on over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests National Security Letter requests[1]. Apple provided data to the government's requests roughly 9,000 times. About 85% - 92% of the time, according to Apple, they responded to data requests from the government with the data that was requested. I don't see why Apple would turn about face and make it impossible to respond to…

What data are they responding with? Account name and creation date? IP addresses used to log in to the account? iCloud backups?

Apple specifically says that it gives customer information and customer data when responding to data requests. Given that delineation, I'll trust Apple when they say they gave customer data away instead of just information like account name or creation date.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#195

Post by heavyset_go »

sneak wrote: post #153
heavyset_go wrote: post #56

In the first half of 2020, Apple gave data on over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests National Security Letter requests[1]. Apple provided data to the government's requests roughly 9,000 times. About 85% - 92% of the time, according to Apple, they responded to data requests from the government with the data that was requested. I don't see why Apple would turn about face and make it impossible to respond to…

FISA orders (PRISM) are not NSLs. Neither FISA/702 orders or NSLs are warrants though, and they do not require probable cause.

> FISA orders (PRISM) are not NSLs.

I didn't say they were. Apple specifies both FISA requests and NSL requests in their reports, and doesn't combine the two.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#196

Post by heavyset_go »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #193
heavyset_go wrote: post #56

In the first half of 2020, Apple gave data on over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests National Security Letter requests[1]. Apple provided data to the government's requests roughly 9,000 times. About 85% - 92% of the time, according to Apple, they responded to data requests from the government with the data that was requested. I don't see why Apple would turn about face and make it impossible to respond to…

FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It's for foreigners. And 31,000 is meaningless without context. How many foreign Apple users are there?

> FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It's for foreigners.

FISA can spy on Americans, and does spy on Americans[1]. Not only that, PRISM and other domestic surveillance programs are based on the Protect America Act of 2007 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008[2].

[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#197

Post by heavyset_go »

shmoe wrote: post #182
simion314 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, so I do not see Apple implementing true end to end encryption and telling to the FBI/NSA to fuck off. The fact that Apple can catch some CP now won't convince the government or some judges that is fine to stop the collaboration. In fact I can see it more likely that in secret or with a judge approval new hashes would be added into the secret database(maybe someone leaked some stuff to the press and some gov want…

Just fyi the new acronym CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) is much more fitting.. CP just makes it seem like dudes getting off on pictures and not evidence of a crime having taken place which is how I had it explained to me.

Apparently a lot of the CSAM on Tumblr were Snapchat selfies.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#198

Post by charbonneau »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #187
charbonneau wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is doing the right thing. About 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys experience child sexual abuse in the US at some point in childhood (underreported) [1]. What's more important? Your right to "privacy" (which you can still invoke by simply not using iCloud) or their right to a normal life? And yes, their CSAM detection has lots of false-positives, but it will evolve. It will be doubleplusgood. [1] https://www.cdc.go…

So what? Children are suffering so everyone must submit to surveillance? No. If abuse happens at all, you've already lost. Detecting pictures isn't gonna undo anything that happened in them.

I suggest you read my comment again.

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#199

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #196
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It's for foreigners. And 31,000 is meaningless without context. How many foreign Apple users are there?

> FISA - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It's for foreigners. FISA can spy on Americans, and does spy on Americans[1]. Not only that, PRISM and other domestic surveillance programs are based on the Protect America Act of 2007 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008[2]. [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)

Is this where US intelligence watches a foreign target and the foreign target talks to an American? How do you prevent that other than halting all foreign intelligence collection?

I'm not sure how I feel about it, and I don't have a better alternative, but this sounds a lot less alarming than you make it seem. Do you know a better alternative?

Re: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained (2020)

#200

Post by pseudalopex »

planb wrote: post #61
babesh wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An obvious solution would be to allow third-party storage services where you can dump your device data pre-encrypted and restore from those services. Only you would have the key. It isn't hard to implement. The hard part would be getting the US security apparatus to allow it. ALL major storage providers DON'T support end-to-end encryption for this reason. Not Google. Not Microsoft. Not Apple. Not Dropbox. Isn't this…

> The hard part would be getting the US security apparatus to allow it. This is why ALL the major storage providers DON'T support end-to-end encryption. I don't think so. The reason is there's no money to be earned with being simply a storage provider. Additional processing, indexing, workflow tools etc. is what people pay for. That's not possible with E2E encryption.

What do you call Tarsnap, rsync.net, S3, and Backblaze?
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