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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

#721

Post by nvm0n1 »

gloryjulio wrote: post #621
crackercrews wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this a self-own?

It's just hilarious from the outsiders' view. It's just a bunch ppl want to insult but don't want to say the exact words.

So many levels of meta-irony in this thread. You're laughing at a non-existent strawman you've been fed by the media.

The people saying Let's Go Brandon are perfectly happy to say Fuck Joe Biden. That's how the whole thing started. A large crowd at a televised NASCAR race started chanting it in unison whilst the winning driver called Brandon was being interviewed. The words they were saying were perfectly audible, but the interviewer tried to claim the crowd were not saying "Fuck Joe Biden" but rather enthusiastically chanting "Let's Go Brandon".

https://youtu.be/u9UjgITXUJ4?t=60

This immediately became a meme because it's such a perfect shorthand for the duplicity and accountability-free manipulation of the US media.

That's why it became a conservative meme in the following months. But of course because the media don't tell anyone where it came from or why, the people who get their information from it now believe that it's a "hilarious self-own" and people saying it "want to insult but don't want to say the exact words"!

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

#722

Post by pjerem »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #361
Johnny555 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you got downvoted, it’s purposely hard to switch ecosystems, I’m in the middle of switching from android to IOS, but still have over a decade of data in gmail, google photos, and google drive. And I waited until my wife was willing/ready to switch because it’s harder to share across ecosystems. Fortunately we don’t own many apps (mostly things with external subscriptions like news, streaming media, etc)…

>Not sure why you got downvoted Fanboys don't like you pointing out the hard to swallow truth pills. They expect comments to validate their lifestyle choice, not contradict them. Any contraction is a direct offense to them. > I’m in the middle of switching from android to IOS At least for you it's easy, because all google apps exist for iOS, but switching away from iOS is absolutely impossible as there is no iCloud o…

There is a web version of iCloud Drive and iCloud Photos.

They are not "great" but they are more than enough to download a zip with all your files and all your photos. From there you go where you want.

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

#723

Post by gloryjulio »

nvm0n1 wrote: post #721
gloryjulio wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just hilarious from the outsiders' view. It's just a bunch ppl want to insult but don't want to say the exact words.

So many levels of meta-irony in this thread. You're laughing at a non-existent strawman you've been fed by the media. The people saying Let's Go Brandon are perfectly happy to say Fuck Joe Biden. That's how the whole thing started. A large crowd at a televised NASCAR race started chanting it in unison whilst the winning driver called Brandon was being interviewed. The words they were saying were perfectly audible, bu…

Keep living in your small political world, you guys are just a joke. You know there are ppl don't care about politicians;)

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

#724

Post by ben_w »

nonethewiser wrote: post #541
gretch wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hard to tell about the principles of the law itself.

I don't hold any of the British government departments in high regard, so I will assume malicious power-seeking on their part regardless of anything else.

But for the principal of forced decryption?

Most non-criminal organisations don't know how to secure their communications properly, so while organised criminals that hire decent IT can trivially secure their communications, I don't expect criminals to be generally capable of keeping out of sight of the authorities.

Non-professional criminals will probably all get scooped up easily by a surveillance dragnet.

And the only way past the competent criminals is old-fashioned intel gathering.

But the British government can't actually act on dragnet-scale information anyway:

They've been cutting back on police, court buildings, magistrates, public lawyers, prison buildings, prison staff, and parole boards.

Even if they hadn't, surveys of drug use alone suggest they'd be criminalising a double-digit percentage of the population they can't afford to put through the police let alone the courts. Given what the UK counts as "extreme" porn, I'd guess that's also a double-digit percentage of the population.

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

#725

Post by peoplefromibiza »

fastball wrote: post #243
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How exactly does he do it? Just imagine this: Tim Cook travel expenses amount to an half a million dollar per year. travel expenses only. A professional hit man costs between 1/100th and 1/33th of that. Tim has to simply give up on a pair of new shoes that year.

Where do you find a hitman for $5k?

Costs vary: In Australia, contract offers ranged from $500 to $100,000, with an average of $16,500. One undercover investigator, hired as a hit man more than 60 times in 20 years, lists his largest proposed payoff as $200,000 in jewels (and that was just the down payment) and his stingiest as “seven Atari computer games, three dollar bills, and $2.30 in nickels and dimes.”

Some of the highest-profile hits nowadays happen in Russia, where the rise of wild-west capitalism has led to a boom in contract killings, with victims including politicians, editors and journalists, businessmen, even poets.

How much do you think it would cost to hire a Russian blackop/elite troop fleeing from his country?

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

#726

Post by peoplefromibiza »

jrockway wrote: post #298
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How exactly does he do it? Just imagine this: Tim Cook travel expenses amount to an half a million dollar per year. travel expenses only. A professional hit man costs between 1/100th and 1/33th of that. Tim has to simply give up on a pair of new shoes that year.

Are you saying that the internal accounting controls at Apple are so lax that Tim Cook can pay contractors off the books out of his own travel expenses? I also imagine the post-arrest interview of the $5000 hitman going like this: "You're charged with Murder 1, which is a capital offense in this state. Are you ready to die for $5000?" "Tim Cook made me do it."

> his own travel expenses?

I am simply saying that a man with 2 billion dollars in his bank account can do whatever he wants.

It is also pretty naive to think that Tim Cook expenses can be questioned by an Apple anonymous accountant.

of course this is all hypothetical, men like Tim Cook would never hire an hitman paying cash personally face to face.

> "You're charged with Murder 1, which is a capital offense in this state. Are you ready to die for $5000?"

> "Tim Cook made me do it."

at best that could legally qualify as insanity

But even assuming it costed 200 thousand dollars, would not change that for a Tim Cook it's a day's pay

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

#727

Post by chakintosh »

wrboyce wrote: post #664
chakintosh wrote: post #47

Easy decision considering Apple gains little to no money from them.

What? How did you arrive at this conclusion?! Apple enjoy a good market share in the UK. Over 50% of the market according to my cursory search.

I'm talking about iMessage and FaceTime as apps not the entire business. Apple is threatening disabling those apps not their presence in the UK.

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

#728

Post by _cenw »

scarface_74 wrote: post #426
_cenw wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever actually tried to convince a non-technical friend or family member to use a different platform for communicating? Now try that with 10 people at the same time. The only reason Discord ever became successful is the huge vacuum of good UX that existed before it. A fragmentation of Skype, Steam, XFire, Teamspeak, Vent and Mumble. Jabber if you were playing certain MMOs. Signal and Keybase aren't even close…

> Have you ever actually tried to convince a non-technical friend or family member to use a different platform for communicating How many non technical people have heard of Discord?

Essentially everyone my age and down? I'm a late millennial.

If the number in your name is your birth year I'm not too surprised, but don't assume you can project from your own experience onto others 1:1.

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

#729

Post by _cenw »

scarface_74 wrote: post #423
_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.

Someone is forcing you to use Discord? An app that I personally have never used?

You are rude enough that I'm tempted to say "OK Boomer" because you clearly are a different generation with no insight into mine.

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

#730

Post by raxxorraxor »

hiatus wrote: post #506
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…

It's crazy that we allow this at all. The government can't observe clandestine conversations that occur in person, does that mean they can mandate us to carry a government recording device? That people don't equally balk at requests to encumber encryption is baffling.

It was predicted that encryption would be attacked with a veneer of being against child pornography or terrorism.

Problem is most people aren't politically involved and just don't think about any implications of a state being able to fish your messages. And for tech affine users this will likely not be true, but certainly for the masses.

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