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Funny how nobody in this thread has mentioned which party is running the UK right now…
UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
81–90 of 438 posts
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#82tl,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 in this case, the UK is a country in north-western Europe.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#83I 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.
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.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, t…
It’s a difference in kind I think. Creation of any type of work - art, writing, programming, modeling, deep research, etc is much more accessible on a PC than on a smartphone. Not only because of the input devices available, but also the restrictions of the platform and OS.
Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but the form factor of the modern smartphone discourages creation.
When I was a young child me and all my friends would “use the PC together” just to open MSPaint and create shitty drawings. I don’t see anything similar today.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#85Earlier 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 position of the US executive on encryption can easily shift depending on who holds the presidency and certain cabinet positions. I'm not sure the Trump administration actually has a coherent position on the subject.
> I'm not sure the Trump administration actually has a coherent position
That seems to be the most salient property of his presidency. His position on any issue is whatever he just said, with no regard to what it might have been yesterday.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#86The 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??)
To answer your question: because the Conservatives just couldn't be arsed to put up an alternative.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The U.S. also attempted to force Apple to add a back door just a decade ago. > Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, which has been ordered to help the F.B.I. get into the cell phone of the San Bernardino shooters, wrote in an angry open letter this week that "the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create." The second part of that formulation has righ…
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With physical access to the device or not?
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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, t…
It’s a difference in kind I think. Creation of any type of work - art, writing, programming, modeling, deep research, etc is much more accessible on a PC than on a smartphone. Not only because of the input devices available, but also the restrictions of the platform and OS. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but the form factor of the modern smartphone discourages creation. When I was a young child me and all my friends wo…
>the form factor of the modern smartphone discourages creation
Ever take photos or videos with your phone? Is that not creation?
>When I was a young child me and all my friends would “use the PC together”
Same, but this is more "old man yells at clouds". Children today have their own way of creation, now using AI.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#89I’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.
This is my fundamental problem with Elizabeth Warren et. al..
They act like the choices are omni-powerful US tech companies, or a plethora of small companies building utopia. They say "we need to hamstring our most successful companies to make space in the market for smaller players."
The problem is that it isn't making space for smaller players; it's making space for countries with worse perspectives on human rights to try to catch up/fill the void. The world isn't a better place if we replace Google and Meta with ByteDance and Yandex. It's not even that those are bad companies (from what I hear, they're pretty similar internally to their US counterparts); it's that they are under the jurisdiction of administrations that are hostile to human rights.
Re: UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US
#90I 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.
Sadly, UK Parliament is made up of political careerists and art students, which is probably similar to most Western democracies. There's a saying 'those who can do, those who can't teach', it probably needs a final 'and those that can't teach, go into politics'.
Every time ukgov tries to make some sort of tech policy, it's embarassingly wrong, or naive, or both.
This comes from a country that effectively gave away ARM.
https://studee.com/media/mps-and-their-degrees-media
The most popular subjects for MPs who won seats in the Dec 2019 election
Politics - 20%
History - 13%
Law -12%
Economics - 10%
Philosophy - 6%
English - 4%