“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin
China looks pretty safe to me. Unless you‘re a dissident of course.
U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
871–880 of 1001 posts
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#872In 10 years we'll all be shocked to discover this headline should have read "US Tells UK to Demand Apple Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor".
How does Apple have any interest building encryption back doors?
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#873Earlier quoted context omitted.
A compromise here is not technically possible. There is no half crypto. Crypto with a backdoor is not crypto. Someone's encrypted files should be regarded to be in the same category as material they memorized in their brain. Off limits. Find some other way to get evidence about their wrongdoing to convict them.
So, strictly speaking, that's not how UK law, at least, works. The court can absolutely compel you to say things you memorized - in fact, including encryption passwords. You can of course, physically, refuse, but you can be held in contempt of court, and jailed until you reveal the information, indefinitely. So not at all off limits.
Indefinitely jailing people to get a confession sounds like a midevil torture tactic. Is that a good balance of the Average Joe's right to privacy and privacy restrictions for fighting crime you speak of?
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#874Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I just don’t understand where they went wrong on curtailing free speech rights of their citizens, privacy rights, etc. Isn’t this precisely the set of causes that precipitated The Declaration of Independence?
Yes but no, post WW2 the UK was one of the most liberal places in the world. Somehow things took a turn in the past two decades or so. And then around the 2020s the decline started to rapidly accelerate. The stories that have come out lately are really insane.
You can’t really put the UK surveillance state on a political left right axis though. Its an orthagonal trend where various Britains have always been trying to monitor each other for various purposes and that’s why it grows and grows. At least that’s how it looks to me as an outsider.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#875Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think 3 letters agencies care about the law? Ever heard of Snowden leaks?
Didn’t these leaks precisely show that the agencies were effectively above the law? I mean, they tried to make it look like they were abiding by the regulations, but effectively tried every work around they could come up with. Including subcontracting domestic spying to foreign intelligence agencies, using the exact mechanism the parent mentioned? It seems you’re contradicting them by making their point.
There is an important distinction between blatant disregard for the law like you would see in authoritarian countries and this trying to twist the letter of the law into allowing something that it wasn’t intended to allow. Both are bad of course, but the latter shows some fear of the checks and balances. Being nefarious is much more expensive if you fear the courts, and have to spend time and effort circumventing it. Trumps recent behavior shows none of this fear of the courts. Even if the courts overturn the executive orders, much of the damage has already been done.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#876Earlier quoted context omitted.
Musk is a libertarian not an authoritarian. His job is to reduce the size and power of government. Authoritarians don’t do that. Libertarians do that. Two opposite ends of the spectrum. “Misinformation” is a very subjective word, so I’m afraid you and I will have to agree to disagree that Musk is spreading misinformation. Don’t believe everything you read about Musk in the mainstream media. Don’t forget that the medi…
> Musk is a libertarian not an authoritarian. What, your claim is that libertarians suppress speech? Explain why Musk is censoring speech on Twitter. Musk is authoritarian by nature. He always has been. > “Misinformation” is a very subjective word It isn't. It's lies, falsehoods, and untruths. Here are some of the lies Musk has spread: - Lies about Paul Pelosi: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/30/business/musk-tweet-p…
Quoting opinion pieces in rags like the Washington Post (owned by Musk's bitter personal rival Jeff Bezos) is not the way for us to come to a consensus on what is true (or not) about Musk.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#877Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think stuff like Parallel Reconstruction show that they do care about the law. They care about working around it.
That doesn't mean they care about the law, it just means that they care about maintaining the public perception that they care about the law. They're perfectly happy to keep up the pretense as long as they can still get what they want anyway, even if they have to add a couple extra inconvenient steps to the process. What they won't do is allow the law to stop them from getting what they want.
It is still a good thing that they had to spend so many extra resources hiding. It means at least some of the checks and balances were imposing a cost on bad behavior.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#878Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is an extreme take - they only had those mass surveillance tools since the start of the internet, and any other method of communication (phone calls, physical mail) all required warrants individualized to specific people to tap. But somehow the internet is excluded from all those privacy protections, and now that there’s technology available to ratchet us back to where we used to be, law enforcement agen…
These (mass surveillance) programs go back to 60s, and it was already prevalent before internet was widespread, also internet was also under blanket surveillance way before. Moreover, this is not only limited to internet per se. Phone calls and any form of unencrypted communications are probably actively monitored for signals intelligence. We're not seeing laws related to this, because mechanisms are probably already…
There are very strict laws against wiretapping on calls within the US. Warrants are required before the call can be recorded. That’s why there was so much controversy over blanket metadata collection.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#879Earlier quoted context omitted.
> iCloud Backup is not end to end encrypted. iCloud Photos is not end to end encrypted. DO NOT SPREAD FUD. If you could be bothered to spend two microseconds on a search engine, you would find this[1] which states IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH : For users who turn on Advanced Data Protection, the total number of data categories protected using end-to-end encryption rises from 14 to 23 and includes iCloud Backup, Photos, Not…
Approximately nobody has turned on advanced data protection. When you go to an Apple store and buy and use an iPhone, as millions do, you are prompted to create an Apple Account and log in. iCloud and iCloud Backup are automatically and silently enabled. The device automatically runs non-e2ee backups nightly. This is how almost every iPhone on Earth runs. Most people don’t even know the feature exists. Even amongst t…
The real practical reason for that is that that even techies know the risks of being wholly responsible for your encryption keys and most are comfortable with the current tradeoff. I have a couple more security minded friends who simply disable iCloud backups and make encrypted backups locally, which was available before ADP.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#880Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a situation where a criminal used Whatsapp and decrypting it is needed for the conviction, why should I suffer because of your absolute views on privacy? I hold neither of the extreme views, and frankly I am baffled by anyone in either of them.
In a situation where an accused criminal used Whatsapp and decrypting it is needed to view the content which may or not lead to a conviction. This ridiculous idea that law enforcement knows people are guilty and it is these pesky rights that keep getting in the way is just false. Police regularly and consistently abuse their power to railroad people and take the easiest path to convicting someone . Even in situations…
This seems so obvious and logical. Why cant we live in a world where everyone understands this.