Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

351–360 of 1001 posts

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

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right to point out how carefully worded these statements are. But I suspect it's rare for companies of Google's status to not have been asked for a backdoor. It's not really an informative question to ask Google.

Can you elaborate on why you say it is not informative?

My guess is Google, Microsoft, Signal, Apple, Cloudfare, etc etc etc have all been asked if they could make backdoors. I expect they have all been asked. It's not the same as asking if they have made a backdoor.

So I think a journalist asking an organization like Google if they've been asked isn't really informative, because they almost certainly have been.

I'm not sure how it's relevant other than to say an answer from Google's response might seem oblique, but they're also being asked obliquely and that colors how you might interpret their response.

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

#352
post #307
post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the British Intelligence agencies must be bored coming up with new ways to make Apple look good. We know they collude with US intelligence serviceUS

Collude is such a fucking weird word to describe an alliance.

Collude seems like a pretty good word for an alliance formed for the purpose of subverting the law.

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

#353

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.

Cryptomator does this and it's on the App Store. And it's open source! https://github.com/cryptomator/ios

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

#355
post #36
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green bubble is messages you sent via SMS (and so may have been charged by your carrier depending on your cellular plan) Blue bubble is messages you sent via iMessage. All incoming messages are grey, regardless of whether they were sent to you via SMS or iMessage.

> and so may have been charged by your carrier depending on your cellular plan I don't know of any UK plan that charges.

PAYG plans do.

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

#356

Archive link: https://archive.is/3Pp0U I was wondering whether this is about Advanced Data Protection, which encrypts almost all data end-to-end on iCloud. It’s only later in this report that it gets into this key detail: > At issue is cloud storage that only the user, not Apple, can unlock. Apple started rolling out the option, which it calls Advanced Data Protection, in 2022. Before stating this, the article says:…

[deleted]

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

#357

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…

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?

Why are you using Russia and China as examples of the bad guys here. They're not asking for global access to everyones data, the UK is. The UK are the bad guys.

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

#358
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…

[flagged]

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

#359
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple still has legal entities in the UK. Pulling out cloud services would be insufficient to prevent the UK authorities from interfering with their activities.

> prevent the UK authorities from interfering with their activities I'm still missing how this could be enforced ? To my layman understanding, this reads the same as if China said : "Meta, Tesla, Valve etc has entities in China therefore we get to see all data they store in the EU and the US. The UK has Zero jurisdiction in Ireland for example where a lot of EU data may be stored.

It can be enforced in this way: police raids the local headquarters and jail a bunch of people because their company didn't comply with the law.

The only way to prevent that is not having any local office, no employees, nothing. Sell physical objects only by the means of local 3rd party resellers which will import goods. Same thing for services. Of course they can ban imports and services or go after those 3rd parties. It depends how nasty they want to be.

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

#360

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. To use poker terminology: I think that if the UK made this bet that Apple would call.

Apple stockholders would never allow that.
Post reply on HN