Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

331–340 of 1001 posts

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

#331
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that turning off ADP in the U.K. is sufficient to appease the British Government. The Investigatory Powers Act can also be interpreted to give the U.K. the right to ask for encrypted data from users outside of the U.K. (see Apple making this exact point in a filing here [1].) Turning off ADP in the U.K. doesn't end the controversy if that's what's at stake. [1] https://bsky.app/profile/matthewdgreen.b…

I mean, "Apple refuses to hand over private data to government at cost of UK business" is a pretty good headline.

Give me that sort of commitment to privacy and translucent colorful cases for future Macs and Tim Apple's got my money for the next five years at least.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not even the main issue in my opinion: how can Apple do this without breaking laws in other countries ? I am not a lawyer, but I think that this would be illegal under EU privacy law.

The same way it operates in China? I guess, China is much bigger market, so it’s worth the effort. Not sure how it’ll go in the UK.

> a back door that allows UK security officials unencumbered access to encrypted user data worldwide

As far as I can tell, China is asking to keep Chinese data in China and have access to it, but it is not asking to access data of American or European citizen and if it did we would be pissed off.

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

#334
post #273

I don't think the UK government would try to put Apple out of business if they don't comply it's more likely that they would just get heavily fined until they do so. The most likely outcome, I would guess, is that Apple just stop offering Advanced Data Protection as a service in the UK rather than create some kind of backdoor. It's a weak proposition from the government because anyone with something to hide will just…

You're assuming that turning off ADP in the U.K. is sufficient to appease the British Government. The Investigatory Powers Act can also be interpreted to give the U.K. the right to ask for encrypted data from users outside of the U.K. (see Apple making this exact point in a filing here [1].) Turning off ADP in the U.K. doesn't end the controversy if that's what's at stake. [1] https://bsky.app/profile/matthewdgreen.b…

I will stop using a service or hardware that could grant peaking rights into my folders to a possible administration like the one currently in the US. On day 1, zero hesitation

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

#335
post #312

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're specifically talking about files encrypted E2E using ADP. Can you point to any such files being used in prosecutions?

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

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of different ways to do business. UK is unlikely to be able to ban the iphone, and I doubt Apple has much business in the UK. As such they can lay off all workers in the UK "because of legal issues" and the workers feel the pain. They can still sell in the UK through third parties, and go to the EU if you need warranty work

Except perhaps for people living near the border in Northern Ireland, "going to the EU" for warranty work is a completely unfeasible suggestion. It's not exactly a short or cheap journey for most of us!

"Europeans think 100 miles is a long distance. Americans think 100 years is a long time."

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

#338
post #107

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.

> If you voted for this Tory-lite government

If you agree that Brexit happened under the Tories and not Labour, then we can also agree that THIS order is happening under the newly elected "Labour Party" and not the "Tories", or so-called "Tory-lite" names.

It's completely pointless trying to remove accountability of this government's illogical actions and then to immediately resort to blaming the previous government for bad decisions like this one.

Just admit that this is under the Labour government.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of different ways to do business. UK is unlikely to be able to ban the iphone, and I doubt Apple has much business in the UK. As such they can lay off all workers in the UK "because of legal issues" and the workers feel the pain. They can still sell in the UK through third parties, and go to the EU if you need warranty work

Except perhaps for people living near the border in Northern Ireland, "going to the EU" for warranty work is a completely unfeasible suggestion. It's not exactly a short or cheap journey for most of us!

You don't have to go in person. Put it in the mail. In person can get same day service though. Next day mail is expensive, but you can get it (and if Apple is serious they can partner with the next day mail and do overnight repairs.). It isn't uncommon for someone to ship you are replacement device and then you ship your broken one back after the new arrives (if the old is only partially broke this can be useful). Apple has a lot of options to make this not too inconvenient.

Though will Apple blink is still unknown. Just because they can doesn't mean they will.

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

#340
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Wait. The Tories aren’t in power yet you want to attribute this to “Tory-lite?” It’s the Labour Party that is in charge, so why not put the blame on the actual perpetrators? Is it because you don’t want Labour getting blamed? I am confused. The Labour Party is the one jailing people for speech, so it follows that they would want backdoors into iCloud so they can better investigate ThoughtCrime. The director of public…

This stuff started from the Online Safety Act 2023 passed under Rishi Sunak's Tory government.

For some reason Americans, including Musk, go all partisan and feel the need to blame speech restriction on the lefty party but it's not what happened.

Post reply on HN