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U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#311

Post by 63 »

doublerabbit wrote: post #266
Chance-Device wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the way that the UK has passed laws for a while now, make them so broad that they potentially criminalise everyone, then selectively prosecute. This is a very obvious setup for future totalitarianism. I’m surprised that the British public stands for it, but I guess they must not care.

> I’m surprised that the British public stands for it, but I guess they must not care. I can educate people but it always comes back to "I've not got anything to hide". What are we suppose to do, go out to the streets and protest? Start a petition, right to a PM who has no idea what encryption is? Mentioning Linux to my family opens a can of worms. We are naive to think protesting actually changes something, it's old…

They have this power precisely because you have given up. Government power is derived from the consent of the goverened. Collective action does work and always will, but it needs to be coordinated. If enough people in the UK stopped going to work, they could affect change pretty quickly I reckon.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#312

Post by mdhb »

madeofpalk wrote: post #274
tacomagick wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As far as we know" is the most important part.

It seems apparent to me that Apple leaked this information to US press in an attempt to get the UK to back off. Wouldn't Apple also try to subvert the attempt for US intelligence to get a backdoor? Or do we think Apple has less of a leg to stand on with US and would be more likely to roll over?

You are out of your mind if you think files in iCloud are somehow outside the reach of US intel.

It’s been publicly used in a bunch of prosecutions at this point.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#313

Post by snapcaster »

scarface_74 wrote: post #281
snapcaster wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind, the only way to beat these efforts for good is to win hearts and minds of the larger public. Currently because only weirdos like us care about this stuff, we have to constantly be on top of these things and writing letters making posts etc. Overall i agree with you, it is really disheartening. That being said, i've made progress with my family on valuing privacy and the dangers of surveillance. I think pe…

Thought experiment: let’s say that Trump said that he thinks Apple is helping hide illegal immigrants because they are communicating with each other over channels that ICE can’t decrypt, how much pressure do you think he could put on legislatures to pass a law here? Now let’s say that some Republican Senators and Representatives were ethically opposed to but then threatened to be primaried and President Musk said he…

I'm not sure what the hypothesis is in your experiment, i agree that all that stuff is really bad

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#314

Post by Malidir »

I assume its the USA using the UK to do its dirty work, as always?

Hence why Trump was cheering on Starmer the other day, despite all that has gone on between them.

Americans need to wake up and realise their state uses uk/israel to do what they don't want to be seen to be doing.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#316

Post by kstrauser »

michaelt wrote: post #280
bilekas wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the way, this is similar to why for true GDPR compliance, data centers should be operated by EU companies that aren't subsidiaries of US companies, because even if the latter operate data centers located in the EU, they would still be bound to secret orders by the US government. This is interesting, I know GDPR does not mandate data localization but I was under the impression that the requirements are a bit more…

The EU has a law saying "don't transfer data out of the EU without the right paperwork, but of course if your American sysadmins have SSH access to servers in the EU to do maintenance that's no problem, just tell them not to copy the data off it" The US has a law saying "If our spies tell American sysadmins to SSH into a server in the EU and copy data off it, they must do it and they must keep it secret"

I’ve never worked in a company with data the gov’t cared about that wouldn’t have sirens going off. Why is Joe SSHing into the EU data center? And now why’s he trying to turn off the GuardDuty rule that caught him? And why is he trying to delete that from CloudTrail? And why is the SOC 2 auditor asking why he has access to delete things from CloudTrail in the first place?”

You’d have to get a surprising number of people to go along with it.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#317

Post by MileyCyrax »

throwaway290 wrote: post #233
y-curious wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia does a great job of enacting wacky authoritarian policies in the last 5 years; It would make sense to use them as a staging ground. Does any specific legislation come to mind?

Any specific whacky examples?

Something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia...

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#318

Post by Lio »

maeil wrote: post #107
botanical76 wrote: post #91

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

> As a UK citizen, is there anything I can do to dissuade this? If you voted for this Tory-lite government, then you can stop voting for any future Tory-lite governments. If you did not, there's not much you can do in practice without devoting your life to it.

Which party, with a realistic chance of being first past the post, could you vote for that wouldn't bring this in?

This is Hobson's choice as far as I can see.

I don't think there's anyone you could currently vote for that wouldn't do this.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#319

Post by echelon_musk »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #168
sharpshadow wrote: post #105

Question: Would it be technically feasible to make an Apple app which encrypts/decrypts the files used in iCloud and is able to use iCloud itself? As a solution to never have unencrypted files in iCloud.

My gf doesn't have iCloud. She makes a backup from time to time by connecting her iphone to her macbook, encrypts the backup folder with 7z, and then I store the resulting file in my dropbox. I follow the same procedure with my Android phone, no google cloud. BTW anything I upload to Dropbox is encrypted first.

In case you don't already know, if you don't encrypt an iPhone backup with macOS first the backup won't contain _all_ of your data.

Apple says "Encrypted backups can include information that unencrypted backups don't" however the list they give is non-exhaustive. You might find yourself disappointed when trying to restore a non-encrypted backup that you've encrypted yourself in a disaster scenario.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#320

Post by madeofpalk »

mdhb wrote: post #312
madeofpalk wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems apparent to me that Apple leaked this information to US press in an attempt to get the UK to back off. Wouldn't Apple also try to subvert the attempt for US intelligence to get a backdoor? Or do we think Apple has less of a leg to stand on with US and would be more likely to roll over?

You are out of your mind if you think files in iCloud are somehow outside the reach of US intel. It’s been publicly used in a bunch of prosecutions at this point.

We all know Apple (and everyone else) gives data to law enforcement all over the world https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/

You're including end-to-end encrypted content in that as well, like from Advanced Data Protection?

> If you choose to enable Advanced Data Protection, the majority of your iCloud data – including iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes and more – is protected using end-to-end encryption. No one else can access your end-to-end encrypted data, not even Apple, and this data remains secure even in the case of a data breach in the cloud.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/108756

I have no opinion on whether US intel has a backdoor into this e2e encryption or not. It seems like the sort of thing where people non-chalantly state that it must happen, but of course no one ever has actual proof or a source.

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