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Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

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Re: Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Make no mistake: if Apple needed to get someone killed, they would. Ok, I'll play along. Suppose Tim Cook wakes up tomorrow and decides for some reason he wants me dead. How exactly does he do it?

> How exactly does he do it? Just imagine this: Tim Cook travel expenses amount to an half a million dollar per year. travel expenses only. A professional hit man costs between 1/100th and 1/33th of that. Tim has to simply give up on a pair of new shoes that year.

I am confused. Are you arguing that this is a thing that happens? If so, I'd like to see any shred of evidence whatsoever.

On the other hand, we know that governments do this sort of thing all the time.

Re: Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labour are even more in favour of this than the tories are. Lib Dems, too. No mainstream party in the UK values your privacy.

Agreed, Sir Keith Starmer honestly seems like a relic from the Cold War

He’s from the same Labour right faction of those as conservative as any Tory, just pretending to do conservatism in a nicer way. Just like Blair, who ended up doing more of Thather’s plan to chip away at privatising bits of the NHS (through PFIs on hundreds of hospitals) than Thatcher managed. Not to mention the Iraq war…

Re: Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

#233
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment would have been stronger if you left out the piece re: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because it's an eye roller. Article 12 is: > No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. I'm no fan of Meta or the…

> voluntarily downloading an app that's all true until an app becomes the only way to interact with certain groups of people. i certainly wouldn't call my usage of Discord voluntary. it doesn't actually matter how often i read their privacy policy and shake my head. either I break off contact with a large part of the internet that's important to me or I begrudgingly agree "voluntarily" to their terms and conditions.

Not even that, if I’m not mistaken Facebook imported contacts from users agenda and then allow third part apps to access the information, so even if you didn’t have a Facebook, you data was leaked.

https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-data-leak-contact-impor...

Re: Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that too and it is super annoying having family in the UK that will only communicate via Whatsapp. Is this because cell providers outside the US charge for SMS? Even the ones who have iPhones end up using it because it is too much of a pain to use separate messaging apps.

It's because SMS is simply inferior to Whatsapp, Messenger, Instagram, Line, kakaotalk, Snapchat, Signal, etc unless you own an iPhone. All of them are cross platform and aren't intentionally broken for people who don't have or use iMessage. I personally avoid giving out my phone number as much as possible as all the other platforms have much better tools for communication, blocking, media, etc.

To be clear sms sucks on iPhones also. iMessage is also better then sms though.

Re: Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

#236

Stuff like this is why I'm an Apple fanboy. I'm happy to pay a premium and be locked into their walled garden for some things if it means supporting a company that has the power to shift policy in favor of human rights (privacy in this case).

> a company that has the power to shift policy in favor of human rights

Well you're _technically_ right; they do indeed have that power. However, it sounds like you're suggesting they are using that power _to_ shift policy in favor of human rights (emphasis is of importance).

Whilst I can't prove that their intention has nothing to do with human rights, it's only in the same way that I can't prove the last U.S. invasion of Iraq wasn't about protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction.

It is patently obvious to me that this is a business decision fuelled by the drive to keep profits up, that just happens to coincide with happily with a PR friendly action. It's great that they're doing this, but it's just a coincidence that it aligns with what we want.

Re: Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

#237

Stuff like this is why I'm an Apple fanboy. I'm happy to pay a premium and be locked into their walled garden for some things if it means supporting a company that has the power to shift policy in favor of human rights (privacy in this case).

Seems that the UK market is not big enough. In China Apple had no problems with ceding control of their local servers to the Chinese government [1]. Not to mention of using forced labor (mostly Uyghurs, against which China is committing acts of genocide [2]). So, Apple and human rights my ass! 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide

None of those investigations showed that parts supplied to Apple came from Xinjiang. Only that one of their suppliers operates a plant there. These suppliers are huge conglomerates with plants all over China. Apple is one of a tiny handful of companies that actually audit their supply chain, but they only audit the chain that actually supplies them.

From now on though any kind of audit in China is going to be almost impossible. They've started arresting researchers who perform due diligence reports for revealing 'state secrets'.

Re: Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

#238
post #11

> Apple previously withdrew plans for its own CSAM-scanning feature for iCloud Photos, following pushback from customers and human rights groups. Apple’s solution was more privacy-preserving than what is now proposed by the UK government. Preface: I don't have an opinion on one side or the other. Question: what were the arguments lobbied against apple that caused them to withdraw? Also, is CSAM the motivating factor…

The fear was that Apple would be coerced to add in non-CSAM hashes to the hit list, much as Apple is now compromised fully in China.

Thus any undesirable material - a campaign poster, a meme, a video leak of classified info - would be yanked from customer devices and trigger this automated reporting flow.

Apple already gives the Chinese government access to iCloud data for Chinese citizens. Being bullied into searching for eg anti-Xi material is a small jump.

The other concern is that the hashes themselves are prone to false positives. This is true of the source hashes and concerns in the algorithm. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children data has been known to match on pictures of tricycles and monkeys (clearly not CSAM). Do now we are in a world of pushing automated child abuse charges against people because a faulty algorithm.

The whole thing is just prone to abuse.

Re: Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

#240
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's pretty ridiculous to think there aren't white people dealing in organized sexual abuse of children

Who said there wasn't? I'm not saying only minorities do this, far from. I'm saying the police openly ignored it because they were minorities in this case. This is not some sort of accusation that only minorities abuse kids, only that the government that wants your data to protect kids is questionable at best in this area.

"the gangs running them are minorities" pretty strongly implies it's only minorities doing this
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