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U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

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Re: U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

#141

Post by foldr »

parasense wrote: post #120
hnlmorg wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t like the UK governments stance on cyber security / counter-terrorism / et al either. In fact, as a UK citizen I’ve actively campaigned against a great many of their policies. However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. What actually happened was people were arrested for instigating riots. This is no different to what…

>However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. Are you for real? These accusations are not merely memes. While I don't endorse terrible people, it is note worth sometimes awful people are the target of even more awful laws. For example, you can do research into a person named "Adam Smith-Connor" who was literally convicted for standin…

The event you’re referring to is actually a bit of a non-story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9kp7r00vo.amp You’re not allowed to protest right outside an abortion clinic: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/abortion-service-protecti... You can protest against abortion as much as you like. Someone spent a long time trying to politely get this man to leave the protected zone, but he refused, which is why he was then arrested.

As usual in these HN threads on the UK, there’s a reasonable point that could be made about whether or not this restriction correctly balances the right to free speech against women’s right to access healthcare. But instead we see a lot of wildly exaggerated talk about “thought crimes”, etc. etc.

The concept of restricting the time and place of protests is not exactly unknown in the US either: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

Re: U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

#144

Post by kypro »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #106

As a brit I would find it amusing if Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft jointly announced that privacy is a hill to die on, and they'd rather collectively withdraw their businesses from the UK than accede to demands like this. My government would cave within the hour.

100%. We have very little power to demand this in my opinion.

Honestly I don't think Apple would even need to work with other tech giants on this (although that would help). The UK makes up a few percent of Apple's total revenues so while Apple would take a hit, they can afford to pull out of the UK and it could be worth doing if they're serious about proving how important privacy is to them.

Apple will face some reputational harm should they choose to put a back door in their products at the threat of an authoritarian government, and that harm will need to be weighed against the cost of pulling out of the UK entirely.

And realistically Apple announcing that they're going to pull out of the UK will result in panic in confidence in UK tech. How the hell are we going to build competitive tech companies if developers can't even access Apple products? And after 14 years of economic stagnation it's not like we have excess growth we can give up...

Apple should be very firm in their response to this. The UK are over playing their hand.

Re: U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

#145

Post by gruez »

croes wrote: post #121
gruez wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own article admits it's basically used nowhere. That's important, because OP specifically claims that the US government has"access to all non-American's personal data". Moreover it was widely condemned, contrary to OP's claim of "but when the UK/EU wants something similar, suddenly it's a massive outrage. Is it just "we're stronger than you", so it's ok when we do it?".

At least UK demands it openly. The US spied on EU’s industry with ECHOLON, 9/11 prevented further investigations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON And the US and Germany sold backdoored crypto hardware to allies per Crypto AG in Switzerland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG My point is: the UK demands are bad but I‘m sure the US agencies have similar demands and also backdoors, I‘m looking at you Cisco, j…

>The US spied on EU’s industry with ECHOLON, 9/11 prevented further investigations.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

>And the US and Germany sold backdoored crypto hardware to allies per Crypto AG in Switzerland.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG

From a quick skim it looks like in both cases surveillance was bilateral? In other words, European partner countries also got access. Again, I'm not claiming US doesn't do any surveillance, that would be absurd. I'm specifically arguing against OP's claim that "American government have [...] access to all non-American's personal data", and that their access was somehow exclusive. All the source you presented so far only points towards the US having access to some data (in other words, they have an intelligence agency), and that they cooperate with foreign governments in some cases to get data.

>My point is: the UK demands are bad but I‘m sure the US agencies have similar demands and also backdoors, I‘m looking at you Cisco, just not openly.

Do you have evidence for US having backdoors in cisco hardware other than being "sure"?

Re: U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

#146

Post by impossiblefork »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #128

I keep saying this, and nobody believes me, but I'm just going to keep trying: These things happen because so often we focus the privacy conversation on corporations, which is exactly where the governments want it to be. My controversial but strong opinion is that privacy from corporations matters very little, but privacy from governments matters very much. We need to stop allowing the conversation to get distracted…

Corporations can steal your work, etc. and thereby cause enormous problems that do not fit governments.

For me I think they're a much greater danger than at least my government. My government has no reason to care about what's on my computer. A company however, has an incentive to use every scrap.

Re: U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

#147

Post by daedrdev »

gambiting wrote: post #11

Not to be cynical, but if anyone has looked at anything revealed about security agencies in the last few years it's very clear what's happening here - whenever US wants to do something unpopular/straight up illegal, it just asks the UK(or any other partner country) to do it instead. American government can't ask Apple for data on any American citizen, but if UK obtains that data and then it happens to be shared betwe…

I highly doubt that considering this article is about US complaints towards the UK demand.

Re: U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

#148

Post by impossiblefork »

hnlmorg wrote: post #90
wonderwonder wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a government that believes in thought crimes. They will likely arrest people for having illegal memes on their phones or for texting messages to friends of which the government does not approve. If there was prequal to 1984, it would look something like this.

I really don’t like the UK governments stance on cyber security / counter-terrorism / et al either. In fact, as a UK citizen I’ve actively campaigned against a great many of their policies. However this “thought police” and “arrested for posting memes” comment that often gets pointed on here is itself a nonsense meme. What actually happened was people were arrested for instigating riots. This is no different to what…

People have been arrested for perfectly legal anti-royalist propaganda, and threatened with arrest for such things as protesting by holding a blank sheet of paper, so I don't agree.

Re: U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

#149

Post by schiffern »

amelius wrote: post #131
Nifty3929 wrote: post #128

I keep saying this, and nobody believes me, but I'm just going to keep trying: These things happen because so often we focus the privacy conversation on corporations, which is exactly where the governments want it to be. My controversial but strong opinion is that privacy from corporations matters very little, but privacy from governments matters very much. We need to stop allowing the conversation to get distracted…

> The worst thing a corporation is likely to do (other than giving your data to governments) There, you said it. If we want to keep data out of the hands of wrong governments, we better keep it out of the hands of corporations.

Thank you. If governments have more restrictions than corporations, all that will happen is that corporations will immediately spring up to exploit this arbitrage opportunity.

Re: U.K. demand for a back door to Apple data threatens Americans, lawmakers say

#150

Post by alt227 »

quesera wrote: post #104
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US, through the Intel ME software, already got a backdoor in most laptop. Using PRISM, it also had one on most big Saas, and now that it's over, it probably has a similar one we don't know about given Snowden's revelations about xkeyscore and how it works. It's very likely they also have a backdoor in Apple phone with a gag order, given Apple was part of PRISM and we can't check their proprietary system. We also…

> very likely they also have a backdoor in Apple phone with a gag order, given Apple was part of PRISM People keep repeating this as if PRISM was a voluntary, or even secretly cooperative, program. PRISM was no such thing. PRISM was the US govt snarfing up whatever data they could (under questionable legal authority), but no one has ever alleged that the data they were snarfing was provided willingly or knowingly by…

> People keep repeating this as if PRISM was a voluntary, or even secretly cooperative, program. PRISM was no such thing.

Wheres the evidence to say they had no idea about it and it was purely an external hacking effort?

> All have explicitly refuted claims of any backdoor into their systems. There is no evidence that they are lying, or being forced to lie.

Except all the previous times they have lied because the government asked them to. Like the time they willingly gave all users push notifications to the US government and then lied and said they didn't, until it leaked and they admitted they did and then openly spoke about how the government had forced them to keep quiet about it.

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/06/apple-governments-surve...

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