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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

#281

Post by pphysch »

ghusto wrote: post #236
obituary_latte wrote: post #2

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. invas…

> but it's just a coincidence that it aligns with what we want.

I agree with your comment, but I think it is naïve to assume that Apple does PR by happenstance. Effective marketing/messaging is the bedrock of their business strategy.

So yes they probably did this primarily for raw profit/power reasons, but the positive PR is a close secondary.

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

#282

Post by idiotsecant »

fennecfoxy wrote: post #87
frankfrank13 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Meta _needs_ WhatsApp to be their loss-leader (not really, but you know) when it comes to security. They always get to say "oh but WhatsApp is E2E!! We do care about security!"

I mean Apple didn't give two stones about security until it became a marketing/selling point as a counterpoint to the big G.

>Apple didn't give two stones about security until it became a marketing/selling point

I don't much care. Companies don't have ethics, they have fiscal goals. If Apples fiscal goals happen to line up with my own goals, so much the better.

I would tend to trust a company who is doing something to selfishly support the bottom line way easier than I would trust a company who claims to be doing it for the common good of all humanity.

Google famously started off trying to not be evil and also be a profitable company simultaneously. It didn't work out great in that one of those goals became slightly more important than the other.

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

#283

Post by lostlogin »

Larrikin wrote: post #198
lostlogin wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? I do. Non Apple work machine?

Signing into your personal accounts on a work machine is a terrible idea, as it opens up your personal accounts to search if there is a lawsuit (against you or against the company). That's assuming it's not already strictly forbidden by the company rules to prevent you from sending yourself confidential data. Also outside of programmers, IT, and designers, you rarely get a choice in the company issued laptop. It neve…

> Signing into your personal accounts on a work machine is a terrible idea, as it opens up your personal accounts to search if there is a lawsuit

The machine is mine and I do work on it. Thanks for the concern but I’m not worried about getting sued. I’m sure it’s happened here previously, but it’s not like the US.

> Also outside of programmers, IT, and designers, you rarely get a choice in the company issued laptop. It never makes sense for a company to issue more expensive Apple computers instead of ThinkPads or Dell computers.

I’m not one of those professionals and I can get my job done quicker on a Mac. My employer doesn’t dictate how I get things done and paid for the machine I want. I think this is a good thing.

Any job that requires a crappy trackpad isn't a job worth having.

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

#284

Post by hospitalJail »

nashashmi wrote: post #185
obituary_latte wrote: post #2

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).

Actions like this is why I used to trust Google. Fighting government overreach should have been a critical part of technology and data. But it seems Google was more political in its relationships than idealistic. And now the entire sector is compromised. Apple will be one day compromised too. In some crevice of some unknown government office is a person working on a ten-year initiative to get access to inaccessible i…

They are already compromised. They give data to the US government, China, and Russia.

OP is repeating marketing.

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

#285

Post by ryandrake »

colechristensen wrote: post #142
whartung wrote: post #134

Will Apple still support SMS? Will users be notified that they’re “suddenly” dropped down to a less secure channel or will the simply have to pay attention to the text color and actually know what they mean?

I assume just green text boxes instead of blue ones.

They could also add support for RCS if they didn't feel like punishing their non-iMessage iPhone users by falling back to SMS.

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

#287

Post by hospitalJail »

eltoto wrote: post #220
obituary_latte wrote: post #2

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).

The way I put it, is Apple's business is selling high added value products (i.e. luxury, overpriced whatever you want), while most of the other big tech companies have you and your data as their main product. I'm fine paying for the luxury and privacy that comes with it

This is marketing though.

PRISM for the US, giving personal data to China, and Russia are examples of them not respecting privacy.

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

#288

Post by f6v »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #110
f6v wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in a society.

Interesting viewpoint. Care to elaborate on your thinking? Genuinely interested.

The parent post defined “human rights” as something from holy scriptures. What I can see from being part of highly functional societies is that they require me to give up a big part of my privacy. Like, I can’t get salary without bank account. Which I can’t get without submitting a whole lot of personal information to the bank. There’re many essential services which you can’t access anonymously. At a very least “privacy” isn’t a binary category. There could be more privacy or less privacy, but not 100%.

One more example: some societies will require you to disclose any relation to politically exposed persons. Which is beneficial to society, but I can’t withhold even if I wanted.

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

#289

Post by thejohnconway »

joshuaissac wrote: post #197
iainmerrick wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are very popular in the UK.

WhatsApp is used by 78% of the users in the UK, and iMessage is used by 25%. https://www.statista.com/forecasts/997945/most-used-messenge... (non-free link)

25% of the entire population is a pretty popular application! Not “hardly anyone”. Also, I’d like to know the volume of messages shared, I have WhatsApp, but wouldn’t miss it it it disappeared. iMessage disappearing would be very inconvenient.

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

#290

Post by draw_down »

yankput wrote: post #202

Hm, I wonder what they do in China. In China they are running their own infrastructure on servers owned by party-affiliated businesses. I wonder how strong their encryption is over there? China blocks many services with strong encryption but it doesn’t block iMessage.

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