Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by justapassenger » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #436

justapassenger wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must love Meta then, who refused to compromise to enter China (and boy, they tried). While Apple happily shares data with Chinese government to make billions.

You mean how Facebook wouldn’t “compromise” when it was outright banned?

Zuckerberg was courting China hard around 2015-ish, to allow them to operate. He learnt mandarin, spoke at Tsinghua University in Beijing, met Xi, etc.

Of course, we don’t know real reasons why they didn’t open there, but end result is that Apple shares data with China and Meta doesn’t.

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

#482

Post by sbarre » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

lynx23 wrote: post #475

vbo wrote: post #419

I feel we've been collectively losing the battle to keep our conversations private. The anti-encryption laws are likely vocally opposed only by a minority, while the majority believes they had no privacy to begin with and governments can read your messages at a whim. And perhaps that's true to some extent. But since most people believe the battle is lost, moreso that this has always been the status quo, then any batt…

To me, there is one big argument for privacy: You never know what your govewrnment will change into in the next few years. This basic argument for encryption is often raised in combination with countries which we already consider non-free. But, frankly, I have finally learned the true meaning of this message during COVID times. I would never have expected society deteriorating into this fear/hate driven, media induce…

Yes, this is something a lot of people don't think about:

What is acceptable (even legal) today may not be tomorrow, or in X years (10, 15, or more)..

If we allow all our private conversations and messages to be permanently archived (and you know they will be, disk space is effectively infinite), who is to say that wouldn't be used against us in the future when laws, or even social standards, have drastically changed?

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

#483

Post by skdotdan » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

Aren’t iMessage and FaceTime irrelevant outside from the US? I don’t know a single non-American person who uses them.

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

#484

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #471

The goal of Mass surveillance is not to fight spies and pedophiles. The goal is to have a dossier on everyone.

It doesn't really matter what the goal is, and you'll never conclusively be able to prove the goal anyway.

What matters is the outcome, and indeed mass surveillance will lead to the dossier on everyone outcome, whether that was intended or not.

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

#485

Post by hellojesus » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #408

sva_ wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one is mass-sharing their safe of child-porn worldwide with thousands of other child-porn voyeurs. I wouldn't call 1 on 1 chats mass sharing

You can have multiple 1-on-1 chats, and CP collectors are pretty good at finding each other online. While I'm very much against this UK legislation, people in the tech sector do themselves no favors b¥ minimizing/handwaving the CP problem.

Isn't that why we pay gov agents to hang out in the seedy parts of the web? If CP consumers are able to find each other with relative ease, I'm sure agents impersonating them can find them too. Then it's up to them to locate them, likely by exploiting an opsec failure along the way.

I see no reason the give the gov eyes on everything when they have a perfectly valid route to investigations.

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

#486

Post by orangepurple » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #319

Roark66 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the UK ever decides to have a written constitution. On one hand they've been doing fine without one for centuries. On the other if this law passes the parliament that's it. There is no "constitutional court" to strike it down. No "president" to "not sign it". Etc.

The UK does have a system of judicial review and various laws are classed as “constitutional” (such as the Human Rights Act) and have special protection. The UK courts are currently weak because the government threatens their independence. But the same thing is happening in other countries such as Israel, so it’s not something that a written constitution can prevent. Ultimately the only thing that can guarantee judic…

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

#487

Post by philjohn » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:52 PM UTC

RektBoy wrote: post #342

mihaaly wrote: post #123

I wonder why the UK legislators not preparing a new regulation mandating every keys to every door and safe having a bypass mechanism for government officials. Behind every door and every locked place there could be child pornography and illicit materials hidden!! Every house, every hotel safe are suspects! Criminal oversight, criminal oversight! (and if they think their reasoning for backdoors into online chat and co…

[flagged]

Mr Narwhal Tusk disagrees https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-security-idUKKBN1...

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

#488

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:53 PM UTC

huntertwo wrote: post #135

Why do the British still think they have power to do dumb stuff like this? Their economy is floundering, their consumer market is small, and their government is a joke.

70M is small, but not that small. Larger than any US state, larger than most countries in the EU.

It's also anglophone, which to anglophone companies (Apple still is, to a significant degree), means that its 70M are worth a bit more than the absolute number suggests.

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

#489

Post by philjohn » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:53 PM UTC

skdotdan wrote: post #483

Aren’t iMessage and FaceTime irrelevant outside from the US? I don’t know a single non-American person who uses them.

Nope. Plenty of people use iMessage in the UK, facetime as well.

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

#490

Post by epcoa » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 5:55 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #254

epcoa wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should read actual documentation and expert or academic writing rather than a bunch of terminally online nerds on Reddit. I’ve seen nothing credible that the E2E for iMessage and FaceTime isn’t as advertised. If you backup to the cloud you’re electing to disclose your data outside the boundaries of encryption.

> People should read actual documentation Then they should read the leaked government documents from around the world that contradict what Apple says themselves. Failing that, they should at least be able to read the actual code to corroborate its security, but that's not an option either.

> Then they should read the leaked government documents from around the world that contradict what Apple says themselves.

On what specifically?

> they should at least be able to read the actual code to corroborate its security, but that's not an option either.

Why does that matter? You're already trusting Apple hardware. Public access to source code doesn't make security systems safer. I'm not sure what a journalist or even 99% of webshits on this forum would do with trying to audit crypto.