Live data from Hacker News

Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

bbc.com

991–1000 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#991
post #106

Too right, it was far more problematic than they ever made out. > The UK government's demand came through a "technical capability notice" under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), requiring Apple to create a backdoor that would allow British security officials to access encrypted user data globally. The order would have compromised Apple's Advanced Data Protection feature, which provides end-to-end encryption for iCl…

Your smartphone cannot be considered a private device. You as the owner don’t have sufficient control over its operating system and applications to ever make that claim.

In theory you have the likes of the PinePhone where you can run a full Linux kernel [1]. You could then use something like Waydroid to run Android apps [2].

I think the biggest concern is that many of the important apps are anti-emulation, for example banking apps and authentication apps.

[1] https://pine64.org/devices/pinephone_pro/

[2] https://waydro.id/

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#992
post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assumption is that Google has keys to everything in its kingdom [1]. [1] https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...

> My assumption is that Google has keys to everything in its kingdom If that were true, then their claims to support E2E encrypted backups are simply false, and they would have been subject to warrants to unlock backups, just like Apple had been until they implemented their "Advanced Data Protection" in 2022. Wouldn't there have been be some evidence of that in the past 7 years, either through security research, or t…

They are so used to bend reality that could easily call it e2e encryption even if the key was generated by Google or had a skew that made it vulnerable with some extra knowledge that they have or will have in the next sync.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#993

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My assumption is that Google has keys to everything in its kingdom If that were true, then their claims to support E2E encrypted backups are simply false, and they would have been subject to warrants to unlock backups, just like Apple had been until they implemented their "Advanced Data Protection" in 2022. Wouldn't there have been be some evidence of that in the past 7 years, either through security research, or t…

A trivial method for circumventing code review is to simply push a targeted update of the firmware to devices subject to a government search order. There are no practical end-user protections against this vector. PS: I strongly suspect that at least a few public package distribution services are run by security agencies to enable this kind of attack. They can distribute clean packages 99.999% of the time, except for…

Telegram author claims this is the case [1]:

> They were curious to learn which open source libraries are integrated to the Telegram app. You know, on the client side," Durov said. "And they were trying to persuade him to use certain open source tools that he would then integrate into the Telegram code

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/telegram-tucker-carlson-government-...

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#994
> "Apple saw this as a point of principle - if they were going to concede this to the UK then every other government around the world would want this."

How is withdrawing the full encryption capability from UK users not condeding to the UK government?

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#995
post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple did the right thing. I would much rather they were transparent, so that people can move services, rather than build a backdoor in secret, to appease the far-left Labour government.

Oh stop with "far left" nonsense, none of our main political parties are much further than slightly left or right of centrist.

Bizarre statement. The far-left are so far-left, that they call everything center "far right".

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#996
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States has the strongest laws for freedom of speech. You can't get arrested and face years of criminal legal trials, ending in an £800 fine for making a joke with your dog in America. Police won't show up at your house for Facebook posts like they do in Aussiestan. American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to u…

> American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to use your own blood donors for the operation. Whenever someone writes "just" in a case like this I can tell there's a complicated, ugly legal case that's being grossly misrepresented, and quite possibly one where no responsible journalist is reporting because of child privacy…

> Whenever someone writes "just" in a case like this I can tell there's a complicated, ugly legal case that's being grossly misrepresented, and quite possibly one where no responsible journalist is reporting because of child privacy issues/laws.

No. No. No. It's really not. The parents were fully willing to give the infant surgery. They wanted their own blood donors. You can watch the video of the police taking the baby from the parents. It's horrific. It's authoritarian. There is zero justification at all. You didn't even look it up did you, because if you had bothered, you know what the "controversial" part is. You didn't mention it. I won't mention it here, because it's verboten on HN to criticism certain global events.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#997
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States has the strongest laws for freedom of speech. You can't get arrested and face years of criminal legal trials, ending in an £800 fine for making a joke with your dog in America. Police won't show up at your house for Facebook posts like they do in Aussiestan. American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to u…

this is not a free speech issue, it's about key escrow and the US invented technical crypto backdoors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

I guess you're right there, but they don't have free speech at all in the UK, so this is a step even further into the new era of technocratic authoritarianism. It's about free speech AND illegal warrant-less searches.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#998

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wouldn't even be able to. WA is end-to-end encrypted.

WhatsApp is closed source. They could backdoor it if they wanted to (or were forced to).

sure, but

a) that would involve changing the code base b) more privacy minded users would just delete the messages or not update.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#999

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say EU isn't planning anything like that when the last meeting to introduce just that was a few weeks ago? https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/XXVIII/EU/9693/imfname_... Nobody backed off, it's still on the agenda. You are right however that the main lobby comes from US NGOs as exposed by documents coming from EU Commission.

> How can you say EU isn't planning anything like that when the last meeting to introduce just that was a few weeks ago? I can say that because that PROPOSAL at the European PARLIAMENT was brought by a number of MPs. Its not an official Eu thing, it is not pushed by any official Eu organ. Any MP can bring ANY proposal to Euparl. It does not mean that Eu is 'pushing something'. > Nobody backed off, it's still on the a…

You're talking about MPs but the proposal is being actively worked on by the EU Commission, the executive branch of EU.

Re: Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

#1000

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time this argument comes up, I just feel like rolling eyes, it is so overplayed. Yes, in a direct confrontation and an all out war, the populace stands no chance against the US military (assuming the military will unwaveringly side against the populace), no argument there. But an all out war is not an option, the government wouldn’t be trying to pulverize an entire nation and leave a rubble in place. If you com…

A first world military that has remotely piloted drones with IR cameras and other surveillance tools will have no problem crushing any form of resistance. They don’t even need to field any troops, they can remotely kill the rebels. How on earth do you wage a rebellion against such a force?

> How on earth do you wage a rebellion against such a force?

I am not an expert, but taliban+al qaeda forces from the Afghanistan war era (that ended in 2021) should be able to provide a solid answer to your question. All I know is that they definitely didn’t make the US give up due to their military tech/firepower advantage, that’s for sure.

Post reply on HN