Live data from Hacker News

Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

bbc.com

191–200 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#191

It's the right choice: don't bow to government pressure, let the people pressure the government.

How? In the UK, there's no right to bear arms, so people are pretty helpless against their oppressing government.

Small arms are no match for drones and a fully armed military, a successful rebellion by any populace against a first world military is impossible unless the military lays their arms down voluntarily, full stop.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#192
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> other than the possibility of leaks of the nation’s most sensitive data Amusing when you consider the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC, a part of GCHQ), along with the Information Commissioners Office, both publish guidance recommending, and describing how to use, encryption to protect personal and sensitive data. Our government is almost schizophrenic in its attitude to encryption.

> Our government is almost schizophrenic in its attitude to encryption. Of course: it's not a monolithic entity. It's a composite of different parts that have different goals an interests.

And yet if I steal your money and refuse to give it back, or let you steal it back, you'll call that hypocritical. What does the size of an entity have to do with whether this is idiotic or not?

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? In the UK, there's no right to bear arms, so people are pretty helpless against their oppressing government.

>> In the UK, there's no right to bear arms, so people are pretty helpless against their oppressing government. There's a right to bear arms in the US and it doesn't seem to be helping them with their oppressive government.

Look into the Black Panthers. It actually does work quite effectively.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bloomberg article has a little more detail about this: > Customers already using Advanced Data Protection, or ADP, will need to manually disable it during an unspecified grace period to keep their iCloud accounts. The company said it will issue additional guidance in the future to affected users and that it does not have the ability to automatically disable it on their behalf.

Wow, thanks for sharing! I thought that might be the case but "disable it or we'll have to nuke your data" seems so extreme I thought there must be a better way.

I'm thinking that by losing their iCloud account is just means it will be blocked from syncing anything with Apple's servers.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? In the UK, there's no right to bear arms, so people are pretty helpless against their oppressing government.

Small arms are no match for drones and a fully armed military, a successful rebellion by any populace against a first world military is impossible unless the military lays their arms down voluntarily, full stop.

Rebels are able to use techniques that a government never could or would. I think you underestimate the usefulness of small arms in guerilla warfare.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#196
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're after freedom, you absolutely do not want Singapore or Dubai.

The United States has the strongest laws for freedom of speech. You can't get arrested and face years of criminal legal trials, ending in an £800 fine for making a joke with your dog in America. Police won't show up at your house for Facebook posts like they do in Aussiestan. American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to u…

> American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to use your own blood donors for the operation.

Whenever someone writes "just" in a case like this I can tell there's a complicated, ugly legal case that's being grossly misrepresented, and quite possibly one where no responsible journalist is reporting because of child privacy issues/laws.

The problem with both British and American surveillance state authoritarianism is it's hugely popular with the public when used against the ""wrong"" people. You might have "free speech" (subject to qualifications such as Comstock and their modern day equivalents) but you're much, much less likely to be shot and killed by the police - or a random stranger - in the UK.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#197

Think about it.. You don't even have to be an Apple user to be affected by this issue. If someone backs up their conversations with you to apple cloud, your exchange is now fair game. You get no say in it either. We all lose.

Very similar to sites like LinkedIn, which ask you to share your personal info & contact list.

I don't want to share my contact details, but the second someone I know decides to opt in, I lose all rights to my own data as they've shared it on my behalf.

Maybe they have other info, such as birthday, home address, other emails or phone #s, etc. stored for me, which is all fair game, as well.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#198

Think about it.. You don't even have to be an Apple user to be affected by this issue. If someone backs up their conversations with you to apple cloud, your exchange is now fair game. You get no say in it either. We all lose.

That's why it's important to use apps like Signal where you can set the retention of your messages. I've got everybody I know using it now!

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#199
Note that this doesn’t satisfy the government’s original request, which was for worldwide backdoor access into E2E-encrypted cloud accounts.

But I have a more pertinent question: how can you “pull” E2E encryption without data loss? What happens to those that had this enabled?

Edit:

Part of my concern is that you have to keep in mind Apple's defense against backdooring E2E is the (US) doctrine that work cannot be compelled. Any solution Apple develops that enables "disable E2E for this account" makes it harder for them to claim that implementing that would be compelling work (or speech, if you prefer) if that capability already exists.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#200

So instead of building a back door they're just completely removing the option to use E2E encryption altogether, thus making everything freely available to government by default? How is that not worse or at least equivalent to a back door?

It _is_ equivalent to a back door, that's the point. The UK demand can be accessed more rapidly and properly by disabling the feature than by implementing a backdoor, since it is the same thing.
Post reply on HN