UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data • Hacker News Board

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#11

Post by ben_w » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:11 PM UTC

Longhanks wrote: post #5

redserk wrote: post #2

> And withdrawing the product from the UK might not be enough to ensure compliance - the Investigatory Powers Act applies worldwide to any tech firm with a UK market, even if they are not based in Britain. That's incredibly demanding for a country that's been desperately trying to cling onto relevance for decades.

To what extent is a country's relevance (whatever that even means) the decisive factor in determining what it is allowed to demand?

Allowed? UK government can "demand" anything. Anything outside the UK's sovereign control, is necessarily only going to be given by those who have other reasons to do so besides the threat of being arrested by a police force that has no jurisdiction.

The company wants to do business in the UK, it has to follow UK law. UK law claims for itself the right to act globally, and has the power to arrest and fine the companies and officers of Apple that are based in the UK if they don't… but then the Pope claims supremacy over all Catholics* and gets ignored somewhat in this also, and for the same reason:

There are other governments involved, and they don't accept the UK's (/Pope's) jurisdiction exceeds their own.

And in this case, the laws of other nations seem to require Apple to violate this law, so Apple's officers have to decide between which country to risk having arrest their officers, or to leave the UK.

(I have no idea what's going to happen, because the intelligence community in every nation has reasons to want Apple to be forced to do this, so if Apple decides to agree with the UK and violate other nations' privacy laws, those privacy laws may get conveniently ignored).

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_supremacy

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#12

Post by coldcode » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

Apple could start with the UK politicians' iCloud backups, I am sure there is a lot of useful compromising information in them. That might cause a change in attitude.

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#13

Post by tene80i » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:15 PM UTC

redserk wrote: post #2

> And withdrawing the product from the UK might not be enough to ensure compliance - the Investigatory Powers Act applies worldwide to any tech firm with a UK market, even if they are not based in Britain. That's incredibly demanding for a country that's been desperately trying to cling onto relevance for decades.

The U.K. is the sixth largest economy in the world. It’s hardly irrelevant, unless the only relevant countries are the USA and China.

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#14

Post by jonathanstrange » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:15 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #11

Longhanks wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what extent is a country's relevance (whatever that even means) the decisive factor in determining what it is allowed to demand?

Allowed? UK government can "demand" anything. Anything outside the UK's sovereign control, is necessarily only going to be given by those who have other reasons to do so besides the threat of being arrested by a police force that has no jurisdiction. The company wants to do business in the UK, it has to follow UK law. UK law claims for itself the right to act globally, and has the power to arrest and fine the compani…

The problem is that I would like to visit the UK as a tourist again as a developer of end-to-end encrypted applications. Geo-blocking all traffic from the UK, not selling to UK citizens, and strictly prohibiting the use of my applications for anyone from the UK should suffice to fulfill the UK's totalitarian demands. Anything else sets a horrible precedent.

Are you ready to fulfill China's and North Korea's requirements as a UK company?

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#15

Post by portaouflop » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

tene80i wrote: post #13

redserk wrote: post #2

> And withdrawing the product from the UK might not be enough to ensure compliance - the Investigatory Powers Act applies worldwide to any tech firm with a UK market, even if they are not based in Britain. That's incredibly demanding for a country that's been desperately trying to cling onto relevance for decades.

The U.K. is the sixth largest economy in the world. It’s hardly irrelevant, unless the only relevant countries are the USA and China.

large economy /= relevance

The uk economy is 80% services, mostly financial services and tourism, only 18% come from manufacturing

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#16

Post by miohtama » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

portaouflop wrote: post #15

tene80i wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.K. is the sixth largest economy in the world. It’s hardly irrelevant, unless the only relevant countries are the USA and China.

large economy /= relevance The uk economy is 80% services, mostly financial services and tourism, only 18% come from manufacturing

The UK is a poor country with London attached to it

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#17

Post by sureIy » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #6

Politicians living in dreamland again about what encryption can and cannot do. I thought this stupidity had died with our last excuse for a government. Sad to see this is back.

What do you mean? Do you have the key to your iCloud backups? You do not, your phone does. You know who has root access to your phone? Apple.

It would take a minute to set up some code to fetch the key, if they were legally forced to.

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#18

Post by miohtama » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:25 PM UTC

krisbolton wrote: post #8

Lawfare has some good articles covering the different perspectives on the encryption debate from the last 10 years. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/search-results?prod_search-inde...

And then in 90s

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#19

Post by throw0101c » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:26 PM UTC

Re: UK demands access to Apple users' encrypted data

#20

Post by pydry » Fri, Feb 07, 2025, 2:27 PM UTC

redserk wrote: post #2

> And withdrawing the product from the UK might not be enough to ensure compliance - the Investigatory Powers Act applies worldwide to any tech firm with a UK market, even if they are not based in Britain. That's incredibly demanding for a country that's been desperately trying to cling onto relevance for decades.

One of the ways it hangs on is by being a part of 5 eyes "mutual spying club" meaning that US intelligencies can bypass domestic legal protections.