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UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
131–140 of 438 posts
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be clear in this case, this is not Europe or the EU, its solely the UK government wanting a backdoor for themselves.
Very much a matter of defining 'themselves'. Our data in their hands. How do we know these people aren't the same incompetents who emailed a spreadsheet containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 Afghan asylum applicants (who had risked their lives to help the Brits) to someone outside the Ministry of Defense. The government says the individual thought they were sending a list of about 150 names, not the wh…
> A spreadsheet containing the personal information of about 18,700 Afghans and their relatives – a total of about 33,000 people – was accidentally forwarded to the wrong recipients by email in February 2022, Healey told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
This is why authorization matters. Don't send the spreadsheet; send a link to it, because e-mail doesn't implement authorization. Then you can revoke access at any time, and even prevent accidents by setting up access rules and monitoring at the org level.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/17/how-were-identities...
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are forcefully pushing for whatever the position of US companies is in conflicts between US companies and EU regulators. The position of the US executive on encryption is well summarized by the Lavabit case.
The UK is not in the EU.
Close enough :)
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This article is explicitly about how J.D. Vance (age 40) & others at the White House are forcefully advocating for preserving E2E encryption. Arguably not for the right reasons, but still. I'm not sure what you mean by "more" but what you are asking for is in fact happening.
He's proven himself to be more of an asshat than I'd hoped (see the Zelenskyy meeting), but he did come up in Silicon Valley venture capital. There's a lot about this administration that causes concern, but I'm glad to see him on the right side of encryption.
It feels like hearing Diddy advocate for various legalized recreational drugs, sadly.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#135I 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 the ironic thing is that although everyone uses powerful technology on a practically constant basis, it is sooooo much more complicated that less and less people have even a clue. How many adults would know how to change their oil today versus back in the 70s? Changing spark plugs used to be a 30 minute task but now you have to take apart half the engine just to even gain access. Even though of us who make our living in tech are not immune. How would we verify that there isn't spyware or similar in the firmware or hardware on the computer we use daily?
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#136Earlier 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?
There are a lot of things that are publicly known but if he's signed an NDA he can't point at them or acknowledge their authenticity. Anyway Pegasus isn't even the correct ballpark lol.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#137I 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.
This article is explicitly about how J.D. Vance (age 40) & others at the White House are forcefully advocating for preserving E2E encryption. Arguably not for the right reasons, but still. I'm not sure what you mean by "more" but what you are asking for is in fact happening.
Well duh how do backdoors benefit Thiel?
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be clear in this case, this is not Europe or the EU, its solely the UK government wanting a backdoor for themselves.
To be clear, the EU is also pushing for encryption and hardware backdoors.
To be clear US does not need to push for hardware backdoors and more because they already got them.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#139> 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.
Apple stores Chinese users' iCloud data and encryption keys to that data in China in a datacenter run by a state owned firm [1]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/technology/apple-moves-to-st...
Basically, there is no backdoor. The front door is wide open, the government just needs to ask. Or not even that -- just take whatever they need themselves.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#140"Last month, Meta-owned WhatsApp said it would join Apple’s legal challenge, in a rare collaboration between the Silicon Valley rivals".
Apple makes home computers, mobile devices, AV equipment and productivity/multimedia software.
Meta makes social media platforms, and vr headsets. What exactly makes them "rivals"? WhatsApp vs iMessage? They're two big companies in the same sector, sure, but do they really compete against each other in a major way?