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

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221–230 of 331 posts

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

#221

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…

I think this is partially correct but as the center moved rapidly to the right I’d say you need to study early 20th century governments and the arc of the US government as they decline into fascism. This is characterized primarily by privatization (and ofc surveillance and militarization of police.) In practice this means that the corps become a government just one that has zero accountability so people can’t use words like “authoritarian”

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

#222

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…

> I keep saying this, and nobody believes me, but I'm just going to keep trying:

You’re the top comment currently and you are repeating the hegemonic American belief for the last half century+. Although focusing narrowly on the government has become less popular lately

> The worst thing a corporation is likely to do (other than giving your data to governments) is to sell you something. That's all they want. They collect data so they can make money off you. That's not so scary to me.

Coca Cola has allegedly murdered trade unionists.[1]

> That's not so scary to me. Governments want to put you in jail (or freeze your bank account, etc) if you get out of line.

Yes. And corporations want to fight against you if you unionize. It’s not like it can sell products in order to fight unionization.

[1] (progressive source apparently) https://prospect.org/features/coca-cola-killings/

[2] (does not blame any corporation) https://www.amnesty.org/ar/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/AMR230...

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

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you can’t. If you live in California, with a population of 39.43 million, you get the same representation in the Senate as Wyoming with a population of 538,486 residents. Not to mention gerrymandering, the electoral college, etc. Your vote even as part of a collective doesn’t represent the will of the people. We are seeing right now with President Musk that the President can complete ignore the constitution and th…

Citizens aren't represented in the Senate. Citizens are represented in the House of Representatives. That's why California has 52 representatives and Wyoming has 1. The Senate represents the state itself, which is why each state has 2 senators. This misunderstanding of the difference between the House and the Senate needs to end.

Indeed, California has 52 times the representation but about 80 times the people. That disconnect is why the cap on the size of the House needs to be lifted.

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

#224
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The worst thing a corporation is likely to do (other than giving your data to governments) is to sell you something. That's all they want. They collect data so they can make money off you. That's not so scary to me. Governments want to put you in jail (or freeze your bank account, etc) if you get out of line. It depends what government and what corporations. If it's a healthy functionally representative government…

In a democracy, the government is an outcome of elections, however they represent the majority and you may not be in that majority. This is why you can't talk about democracy without a strong culture focusing on the individual's rights, aka liberalism, otherwise all you have is a tyranny of the majority. You're also deeply wrong. The fundamental difference between a state and corporations is that the state has a mono…

> For example, there is no such thing as a natural monopoly, all monopolies are granted by the state in one way or another.

I don't see that. They could just not care. As I said it depends on what state you mean. Are you thinking a particular one? Because the state could be busy or care about other stuff than handling monopolies. Maybe there is a war going on, political in-fighting, military coup, etc. If a company buys every other competitor and is now the sole electric toaster maker some governments could just care less.

> This is why you can't talk about democracy without a strong culture focusing on the individual's rights, aka liberalism, otherwise all you have is a tyranny of the majority.

Of course. So it depends. Again, are you talking about a particular instance or in general. You can certainly talk about anything you want. The "culture of individual's rights" may not last long if a large majority of the citizens decided to either directly vote against or elect officials who are against it. Can the citizens effectively influence the government to change or can't?

> You're also deeply wrong. The fundamental difference between a state and corporations is that the state has a monopoly on violence and anything that a corporation is doing, and that harms individuals, can only happen with the complicity of the state.

I don't think you've shown the depth of wrongness here. It would take a bit more convincing.

> anything that a corporation is doing, and that harms individuals, can only happen with the complicity of the state

So, there is a way to the citizens to influence the state? And the state then has to influence or control the company, and then company would change its behavior, because it's forced to. Ok, then why the extra level of indirection, and not just influence the government to not harvest private citizens data and stop there?

> Actually, depriving Apple of the money you'd pay for an iPhone has more impact that your democratic vote.

So someone has to already be wealthy enough to buy iPhones to affect some change. Sure, that could work in some countries/corporations it might not work in others. In a healthier environment citizens should aim to influence their government instead. In the model you're proposing citizens try to influence a corporation by boycotting products, that in turn would indirectly influence the government, so it can then again influence the laws, which influence the corporations? That seems like a less healthy and more convoluted dysfunctional scenario. Certainly possible, one may argue that's what's happening in US or Western Europe, but one can image a better a different scenario than that.

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

#225
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point to the law that requires them to do it and keep quiet about it. The US law. I'll wait.

Heres an example of when Apple got caught giving the US government all users push notifications, and then quite openly said they had been bound by law to keep quiet about it. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/06/apple-governments-surve... > "In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information,"

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

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

To be fair, Apple seem to try really quite hard to keep users data out of its hands

Non E2E encrypted on by default iCloud backups say otherwise..

And remember that enabling advanced data protection just means they'll get your conversations from the other partys' iCloud backups.

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

#229
post #183
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several examples, including blank piece of paper: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62883713

Nothing actually happened to the guy with the blank sheet of paper (or at least, if it did, that’s not reported in the article). Certainly you can find examples of the British police overpolicing protests, and that’s something that people rightly get angry about. It’s just that there’s a huge distance between that kind of thing (which happens pretty much everywhere from time to time - do US police forces have an exem…

Perhaps, but I am not comparing it to American forces. I'm Swedish and while I have some things to do with America, mostly indirectly, it's not my centre of reference.

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

#230

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…

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