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UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

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

#61
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.

In the distant past technical skill and knowledge was increasing as more and more people used personal computers. Then Steve Jobs invented the smartphone. This caused the world to get dumber and dumber.

>Then Steve Jobs invented the smartphone. This caused the world to get dumber and dumber.

Preposterous. Did the invention of the calculator make people dumber? A smartphone is another tool. Not Steve Jobs's fault people use it for TikTok or gooning instead of studying programming, math, medicine or whatever. Stupid people are gonna be stupid with or without smartphones.

Plus, we already had smartphones before Jobs, they were Pal OS, Windows Mobile or Symbian based.

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

#62
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.

The people in office now were already old by the time the Internet and especially Mobile took off. But it’s not like many young adults today who grew up with mobile phones understand computers either. At 51 growing up with computers in the 80s, I find myself explaining what I think should be simple computer concepts to both my parents generation and my adult children. My 80 year old mom is not a stereotypical old per…

There was a very idealistic move in education to believe that younger students would be "digital natives" and self taught on typing, computer programs, etc. So we deemphasized classes on this, and now kids grow up on consumption oriented devices and can't type again. So it goes in circles I guess

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

#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??) She already has a reputation from her career in German politics, having earned the nickname Zensursula (censoring Ursula).

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

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump will do a lot more harm to US tech companies than Biden. A lot of us here in Europe are moving away from US tech, and as we are building more of our own it's very unlikely we will come back. Right now there aren't too many EU alternatives yet which is why you don't really notice yet. But the damaged trust in the US as a 'partner' will outlive Trump for decades. As they say "trust arrives on foot and leaves on h…

The EU is not going to build its own Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, AWS etc. Anytime the lack of “influential European tech companies” come up, the best anyone can do is money losing/barely profitable Spotify. And the data doesn’t back your idea up that Europe is moving away from any of those companies. The EU is moving its dependence away from the US military industrial complex admittedly.

I guess not no, but we don't need those, really. We definitely don't want carbon copies of those companies because they are causing a lot of what's wrong with this world. What we need is more ethical companies that understand the EU market. No paying with our data, no manipulative algorithms. We've been pushing for that for years but Trump has been the turning point, now people are really on board with the idea that leaving US services is better.

It will take time to build local alternatives but I'm sure they will come. We have time. You can see that companies like Microsoft are really shaken up when they're starting appeasement projects like those vows to actually protect our data (though those promises are weak because they remain bound to US law)

And this goes hand in hand with the defense initiatives. IT is important though to society to be considered a critical asset.

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

#65

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.

Trump will do a lot more harm to US tech companies than Biden. A lot of us here in Europe are moving away from US tech, and as we are building more of our own it's very unlikely we will come back. Right now there aren't too many EU alternatives yet which is why you don't really notice yet. But the damaged trust in the US as a 'partner' will outlive Trump for decades. As they say "trust arrives on foot and leaves on h…

The US was never a trusted partner, Europeans just didn’t have a choice. No one company was able to spend the amount of money required to compete with American technology, so nobody did.

Don’t anthropomorphize the lawnmower, the “friendship” is nothing more than economic interdependency. French aircraft carriers are not using Windows because they trust the US government, their diagnostic software just doesn’t work on anything else.

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

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump will do a lot more harm to US tech companies than Biden. A lot of us here in Europe are moving away from US tech, and as we are building more of our own it's very unlikely we will come back. Right now there aren't too many EU alternatives yet which is why you don't really notice yet. But the damaged trust in the US as a 'partner' will outlive Trump for decades. As they say "trust arrives on foot and leaves on h…

The US was never a trusted partner, Europeans just didn’t have a choice. No one company was able to spend the amount of money required to compete with American technology, so nobody did. Don’t anthropomorphize the lawnmower, the “friendship” is nothing more than economic interdependency. French aircraft carriers are not using Windows because they trust the US government, their diagnostic software just doesn’t work on…

[dead]

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

#68
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.

A reason why my first vote ever (20 years ago) went to the pirate party. We needed people with digital understanding 30 years ago.

"Das Internet ist für uns alle Neuland" Angela Merkel (2013) during a press conference with Obama.

"The internet is uncharted territory for us"

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

#69
post #3

tl,dr: "Vance argued that free speech and democracy were threatened by European elites." edit: Don't shoot the messenger.

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 whole set.

Meanwhile the Taliban have been taking revenge: https://pressway.org.uk/news/300408-hunt_for_tranclators_tal...

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

#70
post #3

tl,dr: "Vance argued that free speech and democracy were threatened by European elites." edit: Don't shoot the messenger.

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.
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