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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

#291
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Were you not aware of the subsequent court judgment in favor of the guy in the 2019 article? It. Doesn't. matter. The article linked is but one incident. There's been plenty others, some involving public figures. Cops are literally acting like thought police and no, that isn't hyperbole. The problem that this occurs in the UK far more widespread than it does. I get you want to defend your country but I think you're…

Erm, it matters because the police were required to change their approach in light of that court judgment, as explained in the article that I linked. How can it possibly not matter that the checks and balances provided by the court of appeal succeeded in preventing future police action infringing on free speech? It’s because of this court decision that your Google search turned up a Daily Mail article from 2019 and n…

> Erm, it matters because the police were required to change their approach in light of that court judgment, as explained in the article that I linked.

It's a UK wide problem seemingly and has happened numerous times since the DM article incident, so clearly not. Maybe one little police dept did, but it's a systemic problem or seems to be.

> It’s because of this court decision that your Google search turned up a Daily Mail article from 2019 and not something more recent!

I pasted the first result I found. I'm not interested in finding every. single. incident so you can dispute it one by one to keep trying to defend the UK. You either acknowledge there is an issue or you don't, for me, the numerous incidents of this happening are a problem, not just isolated incidents being blown out of proportion. You clearly disagree.

> You’ll have to remind me of the Chapter of 1984 in which the actions of the Thought Police are reined in by a system of legal checks and balances…

Heh. There were building blocks before Big Brother was introduced, and it was no accident the story was set in the UK either.

> But it’s not a sinister Orwellian police state.

I never said it was. My claim was that it's closer to being so than any other first world country. Downplaying cops acting as literal thought police (in that they are literally policing thoughts) is a problem and despite your assertion that your willing to be critical of the UK (which I don't doubt but don't tae as absolute), reads to me like being patriotic to the point of denying the issues being discussed.

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

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the IRS need to access my records? Or need to impose non-US citizens to sign affidavits outside the US? FYI I am not a "US Person", whatever that means, yet when I signed up with my bank account in an EU country I had to sign an affidavit claiming I am not a "US Person", although that designation has no meaning in the local laws.

(Note: this is an explanation, not an endorsement or any form of support.) These requirements are in place in part because the US wants to tax the income of US citizens no matter where they are in the world. So, they make requirements like FATCA and make requirements on foreign banks that amount to "we won't do business with you unless you impose these requirements on all US citizens (which inherently also means aski…

These decryption requirements are being put in place in part because the UK wants to find potential criminals no matter where they operate from in the world. So, they make requirements like back doors and make requirements on companies that amount to "we will fine you a % of your global revenue unless you impose these requirements on all potential criminals" (which inherently also means decrypting everyone's messages)".

Totally OK, given the precedent?

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

#293
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm, it matters because the police were required to change their approach in light of that court judgment, as explained in the article that I linked. How can it possibly not matter that the checks and balances provided by the court of appeal succeeded in preventing future police action infringing on free speech? It’s because of this court decision that your Google search turned up a Daily Mail article from 2019 and n…

> Erm, it matters because the police were required to change their approach in light of that court judgment, as explained in the article that I linked. It's a UK wide problem seemingly and has happened numerous times since the DM article incident, so clearly not. Maybe one little police dept did, but it's a systemic problem or seems to be. > It’s because of this court decision that your Google search turned up a Dail…

Indeed, it is probably not a coincidence that George Orwell set his novel in the country that he's from. I think you might be onto something there!

> I'm not interested in finding every. single. incident so you can dispute it one by one to keep trying to defend the UK

When I Google, pretty much every instance of the police interviewing people about transphobic tweets (that aren't actually hate speech) occurred before the court judgment I linked to. What you're saying in effect is that you want to go with the vibes about the UK you get from Twitter but don't want to look into the specifics and check their basis in fact.

If you think there are numerous instances of this happening following the court judgment, and that these instances are easy to find by Googling, then it should be easy to provide sources. I am willing to change my mind if you do that, but if you continue to just assert that this is happening frequently without providing evidence, then I won't respond further. I personally was able to find exactly one incident by Googling (which I would not entirely trust the Telegraph to report accurately): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/15/police-drop-hate...

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

#294
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Erm, it matters because the police were required to change their approach in light of that court judgment, as explained in the article that I linked. It's a UK wide problem seemingly and has happened numerous times since the DM article incident, so clearly not. Maybe one little police dept did, but it's a systemic problem or seems to be. > It’s because of this court decision that your Google search turned up a Dail…

Indeed, it is probably not a coincidence that George Orwell set his novel in the country that he's from. I think you might be onto something there! > I'm not interested in finding every. single. incident so you can dispute it one by one to keep trying to defend the UK When I Google, pretty much every instance of the police interviewing people about transphobic tweets (that aren't actually hate speech) occurred before…

> It is probably not a coincidence that George Orwell set his novel in the country that he's from. I think you might be onto something there!

Not so much that it just happened to be where he was from but more that he saw issues in the government of the day, some of which still persist since they seem to be cultural.

> When I Google, pretty much every instance of the police interviewing people about transphobic tweets (that aren't actually hate speech) occurred before the court judgment I linked to. What you're saying in effect is that you want to go with the vibes about the UK you get from Twitter but don't want to look into the specifics and check their basis in fact.

I'm aware of several incidents happening after the DM article linked which was six years ago. I'm not particularly motivated to find incidents and link them here because I think you're in a mode to dismiss anything found to try and defend against the notion the UK is less free than it's peers. I apologize for not being able to take you at your word that that isn't the case.

> then I won't respond further.

I appreciate that, and think that's for the best for both of us. Cheers.

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

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I should have been more explicit. Of course all US companies comply with US court orders. The controversial new revelation re: PRISM, via Snowden, was that NSA was also snarfing everything they could including unencrypted comms over frame relay/etc networks comprising, e.g., Google's internal inter-site networks. To which all mentioned companies said "we were not aware of this, we never authorized a backdoor f…

1 + 1 = 2 If they can ask whatever they want (they had secret courts that could provide any legal request), they have a massive data acquisition apparatus, they had many backdoors they actively used, and big companies complied while being silenced by a gag order, assuming they have direct backdoors provided officially today that we don't know about, and that companies with proprietary systems we can't check can't tal…

Oh, I don't trust any of the actors. But I trust the encryption math.

If the argument is that the encryption is compromised by weak factors or key escrow etc, then that is a really interesting conversation, on which I'd like to hear more informed opinions.

But if all we can do is speculate, my trust remains in the mathematics.

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

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Note: this is an explanation, not an endorsement or any form of support.) These requirements are in place in part because the US wants to tax the income of US citizens no matter where they are in the world. So, they make requirements like FATCA and make requirements on foreign banks that amount to "we won't do business with you unless you impose these requirements on all US citizens (which inherently also means aski…

These decryption requirements are being put in place in part because the UK wants to find potential criminals no matter where they operate from in the world. So, they make requirements like back doors and make requirements on companies that amount to "we will fine you a % of your global revenue unless you impose these requirements on all potential criminals" (which inherently also means decrypting everyone's messages…

1) Not at all, and I did explicitly note a key difference.

2) As stated, I don't support either. But I also think there's a meaningful difference between the two.

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

#297
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, it is probably not a coincidence that George Orwell set his novel in the country that he's from. I think you might be onto something there! > I'm not interested in finding every. single. incident so you can dispute it one by one to keep trying to defend the UK When I Google, pretty much every instance of the police interviewing people about transphobic tweets (that aren't actually hate speech) occurred before…

> It is probably not a coincidence that George Orwell set his novel in the country that he's from. I think you might be onto something there! Not so much that it just happened to be where he was from but more that he saw issues in the government of the day, some of which still persist since they seem to be cultural. > When I Google, pretty much every instance of the police interviewing people about transphobic tweets…

Even if you don't want to have an evidence-based discussion with me, I hope that you will check more carefully before making sweeping claims about the UK on HN in future.

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

#298
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is probably not a coincidence that George Orwell set his novel in the country that he's from. I think you might be onto something there! Not so much that it just happened to be where he was from but more that he saw issues in the government of the day, some of which still persist since they seem to be cultural. > When I Google, pretty much every instance of the police interviewing people about transphobic tweets…

Even if you don't want to have an evidence-based discussion with me, I hope that you will check more carefully before making sweeping claims about the UK on HN in future.

I'm confident in the claims I've made, not feeling like it's worth the work to convince you personally is quite a different thing.

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

#299
post #136

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.

It's not that bad. I think the demanding a backdoor from Apple is over the top / stupid. But I haven't heard mention of thought crimes yet (brit here).

Where would you have expected to see that?

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

#300
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the BBC report on the matter: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20g288yldko It applies to content stored using ADP, Apple's E2EE tech. A backdoor into that would mean applying a backdoor into iOS on the phone itself, which is a much larger attack surface than anything centralised. All of which highlights the clownish nature of these regulations. They are so easy for bad actors to circumvent (eg using their…

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.

> 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.

It's a country that raids people over "illegal" anime artwork on anime artwork websites.

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