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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

#541

Post by nonethewiser »

gretch wrote: post #370
Aachen wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inversely, is the UK so much worse off for not having a few games in their market? Neither is so big it can go without the other, not only the UK.

Individually no, but in aggregate... A few games here, iMessage, Facetime, Whatsapp maybe, some other internet products, etc Does it boast something else to make up for the loss of these things? Trading something for nothing always feels kinda bad. And if the trade is "We stood up for the right thing with respect to Cloud Gaming monopolization", you constituents might be kinda pissed after a while. You know the old a…

The question is this: is the law good in principle?

Meaning is the law good regardless of what Apple decides to do? Or is it only good if it forces Apple to break encryption?

I think the answer is obvious. Its not a principled law. Its just a threat. They wouldn’t rather lose access to facetime and iMessages than have access to them but encrypted. Thats just crippling themselves.

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

#542

Post by TheBigSalad »

jimbob45 wrote: post #305
actionfromafar wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wikipedia article doesn’t exactly support your claim.

The police didn't investigate child sex crimes because the perpetrators were non-white and the police didn't want to be seen as racist. What about that is incorrect?

The implication that this local police force is the same "UK Government" pushing for encryption standards.

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

#543

Post by hellojesus »

piva00 wrote: post #520
hellojesus wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure I subscribe to that. I've spent a lot of time or the web, and I've seen a lot of gore. So much so it doesn't phase me now, even after not visiting those sites for a decade. I haven't dealt with csam, but I imagine the impact is similar. You get desensitized to it. The difference: LE gets to put and end to it via their investigations. That is rewarding enough for people to stay, I assume.

Plus even if you did dragnet everything, you'll still need a human in the loop to verify the findings, even if ml classifiers are used to find leads.

Plus what about people that just encrypt their messages locally before sending them across a backdoored platform? The gov can't make encryption illegal. It's just math. Folks will steno it into memes or whatever is hot that gets shared to allow it to live in plain sight.

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

#544

Post by nonethewiser »

zarzavat wrote: post #292
paxys wrote: post #207

The same Apple that lets the CCP operate its entire App Store in China? It's easy to criticize a government when you know there will be no retaliation. To judge a company's true stance on such issues see how they behave when there's a prospect of real financial loss.

The UK and China are not comparable. China is the worlds most populous country (for now). The UK has a population of under 70m. China is a totalitarian regime where even an imperfect freedom is preferable to no freedom at all. The UK is a democratic country which should be upholding the right to privacy. If Apple weakens crypto for the UK, it affects people in other countries as well. iMessage is not exactly popular…

> China is the worlds most populous country (for now).

nit: they arent. India is.

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

#545

Post by jdiez17 »

ninth_ant wrote: post #527
zarzavat wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK and China are not comparable. China is the worlds most populous country (for now). The UK has a population of under 70m. China is a totalitarian regime where even an imperfect freedom is preferable to no freedom at all. The UK is a democratic country which should be upholding the right to privacy. If Apple weakens crypto for the UK, it affects people in other countries as well. iMessage is not exactly popular…

> The UK and China are not comparable. China is the worlds most populous country (for now). The UK has a population of under 70m. You say they are not comparable, and then compare them in a way that backs up the point you're trying to argue against. It _is_ two-faced of Apple to give China a pass here, undoubtably in large part due to the massive loss of sales were they not to comply and be removed by the Chinese reg…

>> The UK is a democratic country which should be upholding the right to privacy. > >I mean sure, but Chinese people should have the same rights of privacy as anyone else. It's not suddenly less-bad because their government is totalitarian.

The extent to which Chinese people oppose the government being able to read anyone's conversations is quite different vs. the UK. Unfortunately, it's not likely that this or the Chinese government's behaviour will change any time soon. But in the UK it is an active political question that is still undecided.

And as you said, the size of the market -> how much money they get probably has an influence on Apple's decision to operate in China, even with all the caveats. But it's also not the only factor. If it was, Apple wouldn't consider blocking iMessage/etc for UK customers.

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

#546

Post by TheBigSalad »

bradly wrote: post #401
sidewndr46 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as "We have never heard of PRISM", that could be true. When you receive a national security letter it isn't like they give you detailed info about the specific operation and why you are receiving it. It's more along the lines of "you're going to do this pursuant to US code section..."

Even internally at Apple is it common to work on projects that you do not know the name or details of. I was disclosed and worked on multiple projects that my own team members were not aware of.

Why?

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

#547

Post by hellojesus »

anigbrowl wrote: post #531
hellojesus wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, and I specifically said I don't support the UK legislation so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

My point was that minimizing the csam issue isn't that relevant to the terribleness of a proposed law. Csam will likely always exist, unfortunately. It's too hard to prevent; the punishments seem to be nondeterrents.

We already have mountains of awful laws that are passed via appeal to csam emotion. I see no reason to pass another one under the appeal of csam reduction when we all know how it will really be used.

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

#548

Post by nonethewiser »

hot_gril wrote: post #439
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.

Seems nobody uses iMessage in China. The stats I can find don't even list it. Maybe they're ok with leaving it as a way for visitors to talk to people at home.

So the CCP is just content to leave this encrypted form of communication controlled by an American company while simultaneously locking down every other avenue of electronic communication? Because “no one uses it?” If no one uses it why not block it then?

I mean, I hope so. Im not convinced though.

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

#550

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

Loquebantur wrote: post #410
_cenw wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

People miss the forest for the trees here. Democratic society needs a way for people to communicate freely. Those ways are dying out fast. In modern life, people don't discuss politics in townhalls, pubs, or whatever anymore. Online communication is by now far too siloed and supervised to the point of being unusable. Media are one-way streets, pushing the agenda of billionaires. But you need to be able to have contro…

To be honest, I think you've got at least part of it backwards.

> But you need to be able to have controversial discussions about "heavy" topics without fear of being ostracised.

Uh, why? People should have freedom of speech, but it feels like a lot of people want freedom from the consequences of the their speech. If anything, I think a lot of our current social disharmony is a direct result of the extremely recent development of people being able to mouth offline with very little social constraints.

Mike Tyson probably said it best: "Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it."

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