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UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

arstechnica.com

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Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#111

Post by thewebguyd »

dsign wrote: post #23

Things got so out of control because the UK doesn't have heavily muscled tech emporiums that can spend time in bed with their politicians. US does. But it's a sad world the one where citizens are so helpless against their governments and the corporations.

> But it's a sad world the one where citizens are so helpless against their governments and the corporations.

Helpless indeed - but, government still requires the consent of the governed. It's just that we are all very comfortable, with a lot to lose and easily distracted, so that consent to be governed is too easily given nowadays.

If we do anything together as a society it should be making sure to preserve E2E Encryption as it's one of the most important tools to organize a resistance should we wish to revoke our consent to be governed.

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#112

Post by terminalshort »

duxup wrote: post #4

I really sort of expected that by the time I reached my age that we'd have more policy makers that understood tech a little better. I feel like in the last say 25 or more years ... the needle hasn't moved.

They do understand the tech. They understand that allowing everyone to use E2E encryption gives them less power.

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#113

Post by andrepd »

reactordev wrote: post #48
GeekyBear wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. also attempted to force Apple to add a back door just a decade ago. > Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, which has been ordered to help the F.B.I. get into the cell phone of the San Bernardino shooters, wrote in an angry open letter this week that "the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create." The second part of that formulation has righ…

[flagged]

Emails and GSM calls yes, obviously. But e.g. Signal communications? You need a Pegasus-tier exploit for that, which means that unless you're high profile enough you should be safe.

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#114

Post by alexey-salmin »

duxup wrote: post #4

I really sort of expected that by the time I reached my age that we'd have more policy makers that understood tech a little better. I feel like in the last say 25 or more years ... the needle hasn't moved.

I think this is a very dangerous deception. They understand.

When politicians say "we need a special key for police to stop child abuse" it's not that they don't know this means "a backdoor with no technological way to limit its use". On the contrary, they know it very well and it's exactly what they want to achieve under the guise of children protection. It's the public at large that don't understand it -- or so they hope.

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#115

Post by ok123456 »

jjani wrote: post #102

> Apple did not respond to a request for comment. “We have never built a back door or master key to any of our products, and we never will,” Apple said in February. This must be some "technically correct" weasel words bullcrap, as without at least equivalent access there is no chance Apple would be operating in China.

"We have never built." ok, so then who built it?

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#116

Post by inglor_cz »

mschuster91 wrote: post #86
inglor_cz wrote: post #63

The EU has similar nefarious plans as well, under the Orwellian name "ProtectEU". https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/the-european-commissi... I wonder how this clash is going to turn up. I would hate this development. This proposal is worthy of the Chinese Communist Party, and I am aghast just how many member states are fine with the concept of a preemptive surveillance state and breaking privacy left and right.…

> Of course, that is what we get for giving Ursula von der Leyen a second term (why??) To answer your question: because the Conservatives just couldn't be arsed to put up an alternative.

UvdL is the last remnant of Merkel's era, her only qualification for such a high job was her blind loyalty to Mutti.

IIRC current Kanzler, Friedrich Merz, is not at all her friend and will complicate things for her on purpose. So we will see.

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#117

Post by reactordev »

Silhouette wrote: post #110
reactordev wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter. Wikipedia doesn’t know everything. NDA’s are enforceable.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you really have access to secret information of that significance and you really are under an NDA that prohibits you from talking about it then why are you casually posting innuendo about it on HN?

To point out that your data isn't safe from law enforcement. Quite the contrary. I think everyone should be aware of the state we are in. And while I can't go into detail about how I know, I want others to be aware that anything on their devices is fair game. Now a day's with or without a warrant. Three letter agencies are operating with impunity. Using this very tech.

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#118

Post by strbean »

scarface_74 wrote: post #31
duxup wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're arguing with foreign countries. Meanwhile the federal government continuously working consolidate all data available under groups like DODGE or ICE or Palantir. Arguing to preserve a tech in a given situation but with other goals ... not sure the first part matters at that point. Perhaps he likes the idea of E2E, but just for himself and his friends. I duno, but whatever it is, it's not about the important th…

While Palantir is a private company and shouldn’t have access to government data, why shouldn’t in theory all government data be accessible to the government? DOGE is clearly operating illegally for other reasons - not distributions funds that were appropriated by Congress for instance. But data sharing isn’t the root issue. It’s spineless Republicans in Congress and a sycophantic Supreme Court. And it’s possible to…

Different data requires different access controls, and government agencies that collect / deal with a given piece of data on a regular basis are equipped to enforce those access controls.

You don't want your local dog catcher to be able to look at your medicare records just because "he's the government, and medicare records are government data".

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#119

Post by thewebguyd »

bsimpson wrote: post #89
scarface_74 wrote: post #26

I’m by no means a Trump fan. But I thought it was negligent how the Biden administration didn’t fight for American tech companies internationally and how the prior administration was actively hostile to them. Then people wonder why tech embraced Trump.

This is my fundamental problem with Elizabeth Warren et. al.. They act like the choices are omni-powerful US tech companies, or a plethora of small companies building utopia. They say "we need to hamstring our most successful companies to make space in the market for smaller players." The problem is that it isn't making space for smaller players; it's making space for countries with worse perspectives on human rights…

> The problem is that it isn't making space for smaller players; it's making space for countries with worse perspectives on human rights to try to catch up/fill the void. The world isn't a better place if we replace Google and Meta with ByteDance and Yandex.

I mean, the foreign companies taking that space can be solved with sanctions, or digital services taxes, etc.

What would you propose? Maybe Google, Apple, Meta, etc. are the lesser of the big evils but we definitely have a monopoly problem in the US, and there is very little space for competition, which only continues to harm consumers.

Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

#120

Post by freedomben »

bsimpson wrote: post #85
Zak wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The position of the US executive on encryption can easily shift depending on who holds the presidency and certain cabinet positions. I'm not sure the Trump administration actually has a coherent position on the subject.

> I'm not sure the Trump administration actually has a coherent position That seems to be the most salient property of his presidency. His position on any issue is whatever he just said, with no regard to what it might have been yesterday.

For anyone that wants a good (and fair) example of this, check out his positions on the debt ceiling going back to 2012 (and then on every time it's come up since). When he isn't in power raising the debt ceiling is Unamerican, a political ploy and bad. When he is in power, it should be scrapped entirely and should be above politics. He was remarkably frank about it in an interview a year or two ago when he was running for president when he was pressed by the interviewer about the flip-flop, he smiled and said approximately "I wasn't running for president back then"
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