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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

#511

Post by t-writescode »

sbarre wrote: post #482
lynx23 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And we literally have examples, right now, of Facebook handing over private messages between people talking about abortion and then those were used to convict someone.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=facebook+police+abortion

It's the first like 4 links right now

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

#512

Post by Given_47 »

hot_gril wrote: post #404
wonderwonder wrote: post #78

This is a scam by the UK government, they don't care about child abuse, they are going to look into all sorts of communications to leverage people. If they cared about child abuse they would have shut down the open child prostitution rings running rampant. They openly let it continue because they are afraid of being branded racist since the gangs running them are minorities. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telford_ch…

"Think of the children" is always the reason rights (good or bad) get taken away.

The ultimate trump card

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

#515

Post by b59831 »

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…

[flagged]

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

#516

Post by stronglikedan »

93po wrote: post #240
wonderwonder wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It certainly doesn't imply that, strongly or other. It's referencing a specific trend, but not negating other possibilities at all. Context is important.

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

#517

Post by throwaway894345 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #21
throwaway894345 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has been around for a pretty long time as far as tech companies go. I have grievances with them, but mostly they do a better than average job on privacy.

>Apple has been around for a pretty long time as far as tech companies go. So have 100 year old car companies, and I'm old enough to remember many people saying the same things about their favorite car brand in the past ("I'm only buying X brand because they make quality stuff and they never broke my trust") and I also know they changed their opinion recently after a couple of decades. And changing car brands is way…

It’s not that hard to pivot ecosystems. Unless you have extremely high-end devices and an extremely low end car, you can almost always move from Apple to another ecosystem for a lot less than changing cars (assuming you’re buying new devices and a new car OR used devices and a used car). You can even make the move gradually over months or years.

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

#518

Post by [deleted] »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #312
mcpackieh wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's more, a National Security Letter is not necessarily addressed to the company's executives and lawyers. A National Security Letter could be send to somebody lower in the organization, closer to the targeted data (for instance a sysadmin) with a clause threatening them with prison time if they tell anybody, even their boss or company lawyers about it. They can essentially conscript anybody in the company to work…

I didn't consider that, but it aligns with my experience as well. From a C-Level perspective that is probably desirable as they don't want to get involved with that sort of thing in the first place.

[deleted]

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

#519

Post by javajosh »

mrweasel wrote: post #502

There was an interview with the CEO of Signal and some UK conservative politician[1]. It's a pretty infuriating interview, as both parties try to debate two complete separate issues. Meredith Whittaker of Signal, rightfully tries to debate the issues with breaking encryption and it's ramification, but the politician has that sorted. See they don't want to break the encryption, they want the apps to pick up the messag…

Anyone wishing to control a network of computers must choose either the tube or the box. That is, either you break the tubes and intercept traffic between opaque boxes, or you break into the boxes and leave the tubes opaque. If you assume opaque boxes then by arguing for opaque tubes Meredith Whittaker is arguing for full abdication of control of the network. Politicians don't like that. Some don't like it because in good faith they see their role as that of a protector, a threat detector. Some don't like it because in bad faith they know this is giving up a significant chunk of power. (And in reality every political leader falls on a spectrum between these two).

In practice, I think we'll waver between losing control of the box and gaining it back, as it sinks in that, truly, no backdoor can be reserved for some and not for others. I think the only viable solution is to break the tube: make it illegal to send encrypted messages over the wire. Period. Then we could keep the box inviolable, opaque, and secure. But it can no longer communicate secretly to others. In practice this will mean more "sneaker net" movement of illicit and/or secret data, and probably leaps and bounds in steganography. It would also end the internet as we know it, especially any and all e-commerce. But hey, that's a small price to pay for eliminating CSAM, right?

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

#520

Post by piva00 »

hellojesus wrote: post #485
anigbrowl wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'll also play Devil's advocate even though I'm a very vocal advocate for data privacy in real life.

These government agents are people as well, and as people they'll suffer to wade through the dark corners of the web to locate a minuscule part of all the CP data available worldwide. These people will inevitably require mental care to deal with the trauma of looking at GiBs and GiBs of small kids being raped, that's not a cost we can handwave to "we employ government agents", there's not a limitless supply of people willing to do this job, and doing this job doesn't come for free, not for the individuals doing it neither for society (mental trauma care; staffing high enough to allow rotations and avoid burn out, or PTSD, etc.).

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