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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

#731

Post by owenversteeg »

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.

Indeed. It’s somewhat funny (and sad) how the average educated person simply denies this or says it doesn’t matter.

For example, in the Dutch constitution, freedom of speech, religion, privacy et cetera are all qualified “except as restricted by law.” [0] That is to say: if the government passes a law restricting your speech, religion or privacy, that will typically be Constitutionally acceptable. Meanwhile, in the US, the Constitution is absolute, to rather extreme ends. The Dutch constitution is of course rather obvious in its weaknesses, but there are other signs for other countries aside from the text itself. One good method is to take a look at the mechanisms of enforcement of the Constitution and measures of Constitutionality. For a good laugh: https://www.advocatie.nl/nieuws/rechter-mag-wetten-langs-de-...

[0] https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001840/2023-02-22 For example: “Ieder heeft, behoudens bij of krachtens de wet te stellen beperkingen, recht op onaantastbaarheid van zijn lichaam.” or “Everyone has, subject to restrictions under the law, the right to inviolability of his body.” Most other rights include such a provision.

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

#732

Post by brundolf »

altairprime wrote: post #452
Lio wrote: post #273

I don't think the UK government would try to put Apple out of business if they don't comply it's more likely that they would just get heavily fined until they do so. The most likely outcome, I would guess, is that Apple just stop offering Advanced Data Protection as a service in the UK rather than create some kind of backdoor. It's a weak proposition from the government because anyone with something to hide will just…

The UK government can’t put Apple out of business; Apple can easily afford to simply exit all business in the UK. The UK is betting that Apple’s greed outweighs their principles. Long odds.

It's betting that the size of Apple's UK market is larger than the impact Apple's privacy marketing has on its worldwide market. Those odds aren't obvious to me

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

#733

Post by thaumasiotes »

wordofx wrote: post #726
thaumasiotes wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Relations with China were pretty cosy till they did a 180 around the second Bush administration and started all that Wolf Warrior diplomacy, 9 dotted line stuff, Hongkong crackdowns....... No, relations with China were warm right up through the end of the Obama administration and into Trump's first term. That's why the first approach China took to the Biden administration was to hope for straightforward normalizati…

Relations were good until Xi took over.

You don't have the slightest clue what you're saying. He took over in 2012.

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

#734

Post by AlgebraFox »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #565

The complete lack of any kind of technological understanding by the people in power of most major governments is a huge existential risk. Thankfully businesses like Apple are completely staked on privacy, but Apple is actually big enough to give a middle finger to the UK. Other companies might not be able to.

Apple is a hypocrite. They already were a huge partner to NSA's PRISM and China's surveillance programs. Their privacy marketing is solely because they could not tolerate profits made by Google and Meta. Now they also want to become ad company.

Even if you ignore the above points, Apple's software is closed source. You cannot change OS or install any unapproved app on your own phone. Apple phones are Orwellian's wet dream. If people still trust bigtech then society is doomed.

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

#735

Post by endgame »

GeekyBear wrote: post #584
switch007 wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's just negotiation and PR. That's why I asked about previous examples - judge them by what they do, not say Guess we'll have to see what happens in a few months

It' s also what they testified they would do. >Apple previously made its stance public when it formally opposed the UK government's power to issue Technical Capability Notices in testimony submitted in March 2024 and warned that it would withdraw security features from the UK market if forced to comply. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/uk-demands-apple...

> Technical Capability Notices

> The 2016 law [Investigatory Powers Act] is nicknamed the Snoopers' Charter and forbids unauthorized disclosure of the existence or contents of a warrant issued under the act.

> "Apple can appeal the UK capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government's needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal," the Post wrote.

Sounds like the godawful "assistance and access" laws that were rushed through in Australia a couple of years ago, right down to the name of the secret instrument sent to the entity who gets to build the intercept capability.

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

#736

Post by homefree »

Lio wrote: post #273

I don't think the UK government would try to put Apple out of business if they don't comply it's more likely that they would just get heavily fined until they do so. The most likely outcome, I would guess, is that Apple just stop offering Advanced Data Protection as a service in the UK rather than create some kind of backdoor. It's a weak proposition from the government because anyone with something to hide will just…

Maybe USG will now stand behind American companies and push back on this sort of thing? Enough of the EU or UK fining US companies over bullshit. In this case it's also better for the UK consumers too.

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

#737

Post by Ekaros »

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.

So it is entirely okay to bomb a few dozen cities in USA to ground. As long as the reason for it is not to invade it? Good for world to know.

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

#738

Post by DocTomoe »

anonym29 wrote: post #724
8note wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the UK has been ahead of the US on anti-liberal policies for the past decade or more. bexit came before the trump election

do you have other examples? I have a limited perspective as an American, but I understand Brexit to have been more or less an exception to the way the political winds have generally been blowing in the UK in the last 15 years? Also, to be clear, are you using anti-liberal in the American political sense of the world liberal (i.e. progressive), or in on the classical liberal sense (which has some overlap with small-l…

Well, ever since the early 1990s the UK have been CCTV capital of the world, where you could not go to a neighborhood shop without being watched by the government in medium-to-large cities.

We talk a lot about Red China being a dystopian Orwellian state - but their inspiration came from the UK, both the novel and it's implementation.

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

#739

Post by talldayo »

somenameforme wrote: post #729

There is so much utterly cynical LARPing in that article. Apple was one of the earliest members to join PRISM. [1] And given the nature of the 5-eyes surveillance [2], The British government almost certainly already has access to 'encrypted' accounts from Apple. The difference is that that access is probably not lawful, which means they need to engage in parallel construction as is already regularly done in the US [3…

Not to mention, Apple has already sheepishly admit to implementing warrantless dragnet surveillance in the United States: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/06/apple-governments-surve...

If Apple can be compelled to keep shut about Push Notifications being bugged, who knows what else they're obligated to keep under the covers. Caveat emptor.

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