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U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

washingtonpost.com

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Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#641

Post by zimpenfish »

int_19h wrote: post #639
SlavikCA wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is no more terrorist state, than USA is. That was USA scorched Vietnam. That was USA killing civilians in Iraq and Afganistan. That was USA overthrowing foreign goverments, including Ukrainian... And then it preached to Russia on what to do with neighboring states...

USA did a lot of nasty things. But since WW2, it did not invade other countries with explicit intent to annex them and forcibly assimilate their population.

> But since WW2, it did not invade other countries with explicit intent to annex them and forcibly assimilate their population.

True but the current lunatic POTUS is essentially threatening that to 2 territories (Canada, Greenland), making noises towards part of a 3rd (Panama), and explicitly calling for ethnic cleansing in a 4th (Gaza). I think the USA's "we're not as bad as Russia" sheen is rapidly disappearing (which makes sense when you consider the two lunatics at the top are essentially considered to be Putin lackeys.)

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#642

Post by dragonwriter »

blindriver wrote: post #535

The US is the only country with codified freedoms from the government. Every other country has rights given by the government to their citizens. The US may suck every now and then, but the US constitution is one of the best things in human history. It protects us from governments like the UK that don't think they have any limits to control their citizens.

> The US is the only country with codified freedoms from the government.

No, its not. Plenty of other countries have written constitutions with codified rights against the government. Many of them are more explicit about how the conflict between explicit grants of power to the government and explicit rights of the people balance in conflict, which may make them seem superficially less strong; OTOH, the fact that the US Constitution has both unqualified grants of power and unqualified enumerated rights has led to that conflict being resolved by the courts, by...qualifying the rights based in large part on the grants of power.

> Every other country has rights given by the government to their citizens.

That's no more true of “every other country” than it is of the US. The Constitution itself is a deal negotiated between representatives of and ratified by state governments, so all of the rights it protects are, ipso facto, granted by government.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#643

Post by gambiting »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #583
gambiting wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give any example of this "preferential treatment" that people who aren't UK citizens supposedly receive?

(Cops doxx a man who burned the Koran) Manchester Police name Quran-burning suspect despite threat to life https://freespeechunion.org/manchester-police-name-quran-bur... Muslim abuser who 'didn't know' that sex with a girl of 13 was illegal is spared jail https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2268395/Adil-Rashid...

Neither article specifies if either of these men are British citizens - I think you are trying to imply something, but I'm not quite sure what.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#644

Post by lupusreal »

sneak wrote: post #364

There is already a global iCloud encryption backdoor. iCloud Backup is not end to end encrypted. iCloud Photos is not end to end encrypted. Apple can read all of your iMessages and see all of your photos. The governments where they operate can compel them to turn over this data. They can and do. Often. Operationally this doesn’t really change much.

Came here for your comment. Thank you for your dedication to the truth.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#645

Post by gambiting »

foldr wrote: post #492
gambiting wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, in the UK just planning a non-violent protest can get you 5 years in prison as many people have already discovered. Protesting has been pretty much made illegal by a very broad legislation that defines any protest that causes "disruption" as illegal - what "disruption" means is up to interpretation of course.

I don't support the legislation you're referring to, but I think you're painting an exaggerated picture (unfortunately a common theme of these threads on HN about the UK). You can easily find examples of recent protests in London: https://news.google.com/search?q=protests%20london&hl=en-GB&...

Note how I didn't say that protests don't happen in the UK. They obviously do. But the problem is that now that effectively every protest has been made illegal due to the fluid definition of what "disruptive" means, the enforcement is arbitrary. Just stop oil protesters? Thrown in jail. Protesting in front of the Chinese embassy? Carry on. That's the problem with the broad legislation in the UK - government wants to have the power to spy on everyone, but obviously it doesn't mean everyone will be spied on. Just people who do something the government doesn't like.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#647

Post by tzs »

gnfargbl wrote: post #232
bluGill wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of different ways to do business. UK is unlikely to be able to ban the iphone, and I doubt Apple has much business in the UK. As such they can lay off all workers in the UK "because of legal issues" and the workers feel the pain. They can still sell in the UK through third parties, and go to the EU if you need warranty work

Except perhaps for people living near the border in Northern Ireland, "going to the EU" for warranty work is a completely unfeasible suggestion. It's not exactly a short or cheap journey for most of us!

That got me curious. Google maps says that from London to the Apple store in Lille, France is about 4 hours by car, and the same for the return trip. Googling suggests that it would be about £120 for round trip transport through the tunnel.

It says that by train it is about 90 minutes each way and would cost about the same as the car trip.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#648

Post by ycombinatrix »

SkyBelow wrote: post #629
atonse wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they can still notify the public, through those canary statements. (I forgot the name commonly used). For example (a simplistic one), you can have a statement like "we do not have any backdoors in our software" added to your legal documents (TOS, etc). But once a backdoor is added, you are compelled by your lawyers to remove that statement. So you aren't disclosing that you have added a backdoor. You're just upda…

Such actions, even just the act of deleting text, conveys a message you were ordered to not convey and the government is not likely to take too kindly to that.

That is a fraudulent TOS if you're lying to the customer though

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#649

Post by rad_gruchalski »

n1b0m wrote: post #294
pastyboy wrote: post #287

"Stupid is as stupid does...", this is the same Home Office Minister, Yvette Cooper (Flipper) that says pointy kitchen knives and Amazon orders are the reason for knife crime epidemic in the UK. Next up x.com banned from the UK.

What is the reason?

It’s a propaganda machine.

Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

#650

Post by talldayo »

Miraste wrote: post #600
talldayo wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As Apple isn’t based in the UK and owes no fealty to their government Apple isn't based in China, they owe nothing to them either. Apple's willingness to backdoor and modify their services for actual authoritarianism is well[0] documented[1], at no point did they ever threaten to leave the respective markets. Every single spectator knows that Apple leaving these markets would be an admission of guilt. > Bribing loc…

Apple needs China. It's a big market that still manufactures most iPhones, despite their efforts to change that. The surveillance bill the UK has passed is in some ways worse than China's (a UK shard would not satisfy it), and the UK is far less important.

I'm well aware. It's a star-crossed romance that is bound to end during this administration. It should have ended a long time ago, Apple simply wanted to exploit the ambiguity of America's politics until it no longer benefit them.

I suspect, no different from the iPhone adopting USB-C or the App Store adhering to EU legislation, Apple needs the UK as well. It really isn't as simple as walking away from certain markets, and even if Apple did abandon it they would still be subject to warrantless surveillance from the UK via Five Eyes.

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