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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

#671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Group messages. If I send an SMS message to a group of people, they all see a message from me. They don't know who else got it. And if they reply, they reply only to me. Is your experience different? WhatsApp (and I think iMessage) allow me to create a group with a name/purpose and send messages to the group and receive replies to the whole group. (P.S. I went from dumb-phones to Android and have limited exposure to…

> If I send an SMS message to a group of people, they all see a message from me. They don't know who else got it. And if they reply, they reply only to me. Is your experience different? Does MMS not exist in your country?

It does, but is priced uncompetitively compared to mobile data.

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

#672
Potentially going against the grain of HN opinion:

It strikes me as odd that people are now suddenly condemning the UK gov for trying to maintain its ability to keep its people safe, particularly when spying is not an unusual or a new power per se.

The UK government has had the means and the right to spy on its citizens for hundreds of years, via phone taps, espionage, bugs, steaming open letters and all sorts.

It’s served us very well as a country and has also saved many lives - just look at the stats on thwarted terror offences using intercepts as evidence. We are a democracy and if enough people didn’t want the government to hold these powers there exists the means to achieve that via electing a new government.

An American company is now threatening to stop selling some of its products in the UK if the government refuses to let it sell products that weaken their ability to police the nation.

In the context of what’s important to the country perhaps we should choose security over the profits of Apple’s shareholders.

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

#673
post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it makes people look like pathetic muppets. If you mean "Fuck Joe Biden", say "Fuck Joe Biden", don't clutch your damn pearls about it.

They did say that, but the media translated it to ‘let’s go Brandon’ as a self own, so it’s many levels deep :)

Yep, it immediately turned into a meme. Memes aren't always logical, and probably mostly aren't logical.

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

#674

The UK keeps trying to throw their weight around only to find out they aren’t that big. The CMA with Xbox and now this. They aren’t large enough for Apple and Microsoft to make massive changes just to accommodate a relatively small market.

> The UK keeps trying to throw their weight around only to find out they aren’t that big. Their (former) empire is a part of their cultural identity. It's going to take a few more generations to shed the expectations of what was. The days of two washed-up subjects of the crown taking Kafiristan all on their lonesome are dead and gone.

I think it'll die in this generation itself.

The UK with Brexit are starting to find out very quickly how insignificant their nation is and how easy it is to route around the oversized egos of their so-called leaders.

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

#675

The UK keeps trying to throw their weight around only to find out they aren’t that big. The CMA with Xbox and now this. They aren’t large enough for Apple and Microsoft to make massive changes just to accommodate a relatively small market.

> The UK keeps trying to throw their weight around only to find out they aren’t that big. Their (former) empire is a part of their cultural identity. It's going to take a few more generations to shed the expectations of what was. The days of two washed-up subjects of the crown taking Kafiristan all on their lonesome are dead and gone.

While I’m glad the rather embarrassing empire thing is on the wane I really don’t see how that is relevant here.

The UK isn’t trying to tell anybody what they can do in any other country. It’s just laying down the law for what happens within its own borders which it’s entirely within its rights to do.

Equally why you would think an American company could or should tell the British government what to do is surely itself an example of empiricism is it not?

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

#676
post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK keeps trying to throw their weight around only to find out they aren’t that big. Their (former) empire is a part of their cultural identity. It's going to take a few more generations to shed the expectations of what was. The days of two washed-up subjects of the crown taking Kafiristan all on their lonesome are dead and gone.

I think it'll die in this generation itself. The UK with Brexit are starting to find out very quickly how insignificant their nation is and how easy it is to route around the oversized egos of their so-called leaders.

British citizen here. I didn’t vote for Brexit. But would you mind perhaps not insulting my country?

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

#677

Someone should bring up lawyer and doctor privilege as an argument. Phones are intimately personal devices that people take to their homes and use for a lot of very private stuff. Phones cannot fulfill their job as a personal device and be a police snitch at the same time just like lawyers cannot advise their clients and inform the police at the same time. There needs to be a personal computer privilege.

How about as simple as going for a walk with a friend and having a conversation ... without anyone listening in. That's how my phone should feel.

But it’s never been that way in the UK. If you were suspected of planning a murder/bombing/atrocity/etc they could bug your phone even 50 years ago. And personally I’m quite glad about that!

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

#678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Correct - NewLab, just like the DLC (a subgroup of the Democrats) over in the US.

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

#679
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 “priv…

Very valid points, which I agree with.

As the famous saying goes: There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

Privacy is a trade-off.

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

#680
post #28

The current conservative government is on its last legs before being banished for at least a decade. It appears they already have their eyes on the lucrative private sector and are willing to vandalise the UK with little thought to public protest.

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

We have been able to bug phones, homes, offices, whatever, for years to keep the country safe. If enough people had a major issue with that they’d start a new political party and vote it in.

Personally I quite like it. Evidence suggests there’s quite a lot of people trying to blow us up and stuff.

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