Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 1001 posts

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

#341

Post by ForHackernews »

hackernewds wrote: post #334
matthewdgreen wrote: post #295

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 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

I have bad news for you...

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

#342

Post by ninalanyon »

Surely any moderately sophisticated group of criminals can simply create there own end to end encryption apps. So even if the UK, or other governments, get there own way they will only et to see the content related to the less competent criminals. Perhaps it's still worth it to some.

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

#343

Post by mahkoh »

bilekas wrote: post #231
insane_dreamer wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm still missing how this could be enforced ? By banning Apple from doing business in the UK. The US used a similar strategy decades ago to break Swiss Bank Secrecy laws (either Swiss banks had to give up the info or they were going to be kicked out of the US).

> By banning Apple from doing business in the UK. As someone else here said, Apple would 100% call this bluff. And you can be certain the UK won't have the US to put pressure on Apple for them. All the would happen is the UK Apple users would be with an expensive paperweight.

That assumes that Apple's shareholders believe that Apple's privacy reputation (relative to other companies) is more valuable than access to the UK market.

All evidence that I have seen suggests that consumers by and large do not care about this kind of privacy. They do not buy iPhones instead of other phones due to the privacy properties.

Therefore Apple's shareholders could order Apple to stay in the UK market.

And if not, then Apple's customers could be compensated with money and other UK-held assets that the government could confiscate.

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

#344

Post by gnfargbl »

bluGill wrote: post #339
gnfargbl wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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). Ap…

The UK public would never accept this. There's basically almost no interest in E2EE at all, but the idea of not being able to take your iPhone to the Apple Store would be riot-inducing. And I think the average Brit would be more comfortable posting their phone to the US than to France.

If Apple really has the guts to stare this one down, then I would expect it's the government who blinks.

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

#345

Post by snapcaster »

Spoom wrote: post #325
matthewdgreen wrote: post #295

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.

Yes, this would be something i would love to read

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

#346

Post by ninalanyon »

Chance-Device wrote: post #262
yesco wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Future totalitarianism? Is the UK's government restricted in anyway right now? What line have they not crossed yet?

As far as I know they haven’t started murdering political opponents yet, so that’s something. But I take your point, the UK is today not a serious country for a variety of reasons.

Are there really any political opponents any more? Al the parties that matter are either explicitly in favour of these ideas or at least behave as though they are.

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

#347

Post by TechnicalVault »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #295
Lio wrote: 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…

It creates a nasty precedent doesn't it? If Apple can provide the UK government with foreign data, what's to stop Russia or China making them provide data on UK minister's phones, or more likely dissidents in exile? I can't see on what basis the government thinks they're going to get to be exceptional here?

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

#348

Post by rjmunro »

jeroenhd wrote: post #99
reify wrote: post #71

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. 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 cybersecurit…

I believe they switched to pagers because their location can't be tracked. Every pager message is broadcast across the whole country and the pagers just listen to all of them and only tell the owner about the ones meant for them.

A phone has to at least tell the nearest tower that it's within range so that the tower can know to send it messages. After that, when it get's a message it sends some sort of acknowledgement. In theory anyone can pick up those messages with a phased array or set of directional antennas and get a directional fix on the phone.

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

#350

Post by yreg »

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.

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

Can you give an example then? It would be major hacker news news if supposedly E2EE iCloud data were used in a prosecution.

Post reply on HN