This is so disheartening. I thought we were making progress in the anti-surveillance privacy narrative, but this says otherwise. As a UK citizen, is there anything I can do to dissuade this?
edit: typo
U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
91–100 of 1001 posts
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#92I doubt very much if any terrorist, criminal or child abuser is going to use any google or apple cloud service to back up their files. Anyone with a fundamental understanding of online privacy and security would encrypt any files prior to uploading them to the cloud rendering any back doors and access to those files useless and toothless. I dont use any of these services. I have never understood the thinking around u…
> I doubt very much if any terrorist, criminal or child abuser is going to use any google or apple cloud service to back up their files.
Most of the time, people become terrorists, criminals or child abusers because they're stupid, not because they're smart.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Jurisdiction, schmurisdiction. What's that, you know?
And that conversation will look something like this: "If you want to sell phones in our country, you have to give us access to anyone we say is a criminal using your phones in any country". "You are asking us to break the law in those other countries." "Do you want to sell phones in our country, or not? We know you'll blink first." (Will Apple blink? I don't know. But I am confident that the UK government is filled w…
It depends on whether other countries make or enforce conflicting laws. The UK order says they can't tell people after implementing the backdoor that Advanced Data Protection no longer provides the claimed level of security, which is a form of dishonesty that probably violates consumer protection laws in many countries.
And Apple argued to the UK Parliament when the relevant law was being enacted that it violates the right to privacy confirmed by the European Court of Human Rights, which other countries will still be bound by even if the UK follows through on its occasional threat to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
The UK doesn't have the geopolitical clout it once did, especially not after Brexit.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#94I doubt very much if any terrorist, criminal or child abuser is going to use any google or apple cloud service to back up their files. Anyone with a fundamental understanding of online privacy and security would encrypt any files prior to uploading them to the cloud rendering any back doors and access to those files useless and toothless. I dont use any of these services. I have never understood the thinking around u…
News stories seem to indicate that many criminals use computers just like any given person does.
Even people concerned with security who know a little seem to be terrible at it.
A local protest group in my area was passing around an image with security tips. They were hilariously bad, suggestions based on very confused understandings of risk. These people weren’t criminals necessarily, but they were motivated and concerned and somehow just terrible at basic security.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#95I doubt very much if any terrorist, criminal or child abuser is going to use any google or apple cloud service to back up their files. Anyone with a fundamental understanding of online privacy and security would encrypt any files prior to uploading them to the cloud rendering any back doors and access to those files useless and toothless. I dont use any of these services. I have never understood the thinking around u…
I think you have a very high opinion of the millions of people around the globe, with varying levels of computer literacy, who are terrorists, criminals, and/or child abusers.
I once worked with a business lady who used her dumbphone as an argument in a discussion where we were deciding whether all our users have smartphones. She proudly displayed the dumbphone and said that if she has one, others probably have too.
I learned only much later that her husband was prosecuted for fraud related to government funds. So she had a good reason to have a dumbphone.
It's anecdotal evidence, but still.
You are of very low opinion of people, probably assuming that you are smarter because you are some kind of IT guy.
And you are likely wrong.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this is likely not intended to catch the most sophisticated of hackers, but your average drug dealer / murderer / thief / paedophile. I don't know where the belief that all criminals are tech experts comes from; the popularity of cool-looking "encrypted" phones as opposed to actually encrypted apps like Signal should have long dispelled that myth. I'd argue that the opposite is probably true, people who think t…
> I don't know where the belief that all criminals are tech experts comes from; From forums of tech experts. I do not think this attempt by the authorities will be any useful, while it would initially work... well these guys may not be hackers but are not idiots and over time you will get your average baddies become tech-savvy enough to circumvent this.
last time I checked, our prisons are full of people dumb enough to get caught.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#97I doubt very much if any terrorist, criminal or child abuser is going to use any google or apple cloud service to back up their files. Anyone with a fundamental understanding of online privacy and security would encrypt any files prior to uploading them to the cloud rendering any back doors and access to those files useless and toothless. I dont use any of these services. I have never understood the thinking around u…
I think you have a very high opinion of the millions of people around the globe, with varying levels of computer literacy, who are terrorists, criminals, and/or child abusers.
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Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#98I doubt very much if any terrorist, criminal or child abuser is going to use any google or apple cloud service to back up their files. Anyone with a fundamental understanding of online privacy and security would encrypt any files prior to uploading them to the cloud rendering any back doors and access to those files useless and toothless. I dont use any of these services. I have never understood the thinking around u…
News stories seem to indicate that many criminals use computers just like any given person does. Even people concerned with security who know a little seem to be terrible at it. A local protest group in my area was passing around an image with security tips. They were hilariously bad, suggestions based on very confused understandings of risk. These people weren’t criminals necessarily, but they were motivated and con…
> News stories seem to indicate
What's the inverse of survivor bias?
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#99I doubt very much if any terrorist, criminal or child abuser is going to use any google or apple cloud service to back up their files. Anyone with a fundamental understanding of online privacy and security would encrypt any files prior to uploading them to the cloud rendering any back doors and access to those files useless and toothless. I dont use any of these services. I have never understood the thinking around u…
Hamas switched from smartphones, with encrypted messengers to pagers, a communication device with encryption so weak it may as well not be there. Criminals get caught because they used plain phone calls and texts _all the time_. Hell, child abusers are regularly reported to the police because someone saw a suspicious picture on their phone when scrolling through the gallery. Crime and an understanding of cybersecurity don't necessarily overlap.
I agree that cloud services cannot be trusted to do encryption within their clients, but on platforms like iOS it's difficult to do automated backups using independent encryption. It's also quite difficult not to accidentally enable backups to these services because the setup flow for every phone guides you to hitting the "upload everything I do to Apple/Google".
To Apple's credit, while they normally store a copy of the encryption key, making most cloud encryption entirely useless, they do offer setting a custom key at least. GDrive and OneDrive sure don't.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#100This is so disheartening. I thought we were making progress in the anti-surveillance privacy narrative, but this says otherwise. As a UK citizen, is there anything I can do to dissuade this? edit: typo
> I thought we were making progress in the anti-surveillance privacy na[rra]tive
What lead to to believe that? The Conservatives and Conservative-Continuity governments both agree that our data simply must be in the hands of the police, DEFRA, and your local council.
RIPA will never be repealed and only strengthened.