[HN Gopher] Apple takes UK to court over 'backdoor' order
___________________________________________________________________
Apple takes UK to court over 'backdoor' order
Author : latexr
Score : 615 points
Date : 2025-03-05 18:07 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| ohgr wrote:
| I am very glad they are doing this as a UK based ADP user.
| Waiting to see how long before they forcibly turn it off for
| existing users. I will of course just remove everything from
| iCloud at that point.
| kennysoona wrote:
| It's not like you can use an alternative without facing jail
| time if you don't give up the keys.
| ohgr wrote:
| Indeed. But you can of course say _" show me the court
| order"_ and defend yourself.
| kennysoona wrote:
| Is a court order explicitly needed in the UK to demand a
| key?
| blitzar wrote:
| A warrant is required - can be issued by the Secretary of
| State.
| ohgr wrote:
| Yes there has to be magistrate approval and you can
| challenge a notice with legal representation.
| OsrsNeedsf2P wrote:
| Not in the UK. In fact there's precedence they can arrest
| you for not unlocking your devices, without a warrant[0]
|
| [0] https://www.independent.co.ug/activist-convicted-uk-
| terror-o...
| ohgr wrote:
| They can arrest you for anything. I've been arrested
| twice. And questioned once. And apologised to twice.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| apologised?!
|
| Surely you're joking!
|
| No way that really happened or it was an empty apology
| like.
|
| > I'm sorry you made yourself suspicious
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| He didn't even explain why he was arrested or what he was
| suspected of
| ohgr wrote:
| First time I was arrested for being next to a fight until
| I was cleared of any involvement. This required some
| explaining and the policeman was an idiot.
|
| Second time some busybody reported to the police that I
| was carrying a knife. This was a Santoku knife that I'd
| literally bought and was still in the plastic packaging
| but you could see it through the plastic bag I was
| carrying it in. We had a bit of a laugh about it and they
| apologised for wasting my time. They did however arrest
| me so that they could do a formal search and had right to
| as they had reasonable suspicion I was carrying it as a
| weapon. I'm not bothered they were very reasonable and so
| was I.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Nothing about either of those is reasonable.
|
| In the US both of those would have been handled with an
| Investigatory detention - same as being pulled over for a
| traffic stop. Not even remotely an arrest.
|
| > They did however arrest me so that they could do a
| formal search and had right to as they had reasonable
| suspicion I was carrying it as a weapon.
|
| What "reasonable suspicion"? They could see the "weapon"
| that had been reported and at that point it should have
| been "have a nice day" and then them trundling themselves
| over to whoever called it in and charged them with making
| a false report.
|
| I swear, UK police seem generally nicer than US cops but
| infinitely dumber and the shit you brittons put up with
| in terms of having your rights violated is astounding.
| lolinder wrote:
| > In the US both of those would have been handled with an
| Investigatory detention - same as being pulled over for a
| traffic stop. Not even remotely an arrest.
|
| I'm not from the UK, but it seems likely that this is
| just a question of semantics. Many US traffic stops are
| far more stressful--and handled in a way that is far less
| conciliatory--than the "arrest" that OP describes. It
| doesn't sound like they were taken to a police station or
| even necessarily handcuffed, more just formally detained.
|
| As for US detentions: It doesn't especially matter if
| they're not technically "arrests" in US parlance, you're
| still being stopped by the police and you still can't go
| anywhere until they let you because there's a too-high
| probability that they'll find an excuse to make your life
| miserable if you don't cooperate.
| ohgr wrote:
| At the same time they don't tend to blow holes in the
| victim here.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| Because of the increase in knife crimes in the last
| couple of years the UK police have become incredible
| aggressive towards anybody in possesion of even small
| purpose knifes in public. I'm honestly surprised OP got
| away with it.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> I 'm honestly surprised OP got away with it._
|
| Buying a knife and carrying it home is 100% legal, so
| there's nothing to "get away with" here.
|
| Carrying a Santoku knife in public is only illegal if
| it's being carried without a "good reason" and carrying a
| newly purchased knife home is certainly a good reason.
|
| The police have the power to stop and search people when
| they have "reasonable grounds" to suspect they're
| carrying a weapon; if the knife is clearly visible that's
| certainly reasonable grounds. So the search was not
| illegal.
|
| A stop-and-search means being "detained" in the sense
| that you are not free to leave until the search is
| completed, but it's not an "arrest" that would appear on
| your arrest record. Perhaps there was a miscommunication
| about the distinction between being 'detained' and being
| 'arrested' ?
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| UK police are nothing more than legal mobster. If they
| don't like your face they can just decide the good reason
| is not good enough.
|
| https://professional-troublemaker.com/2018/04/10/u-k-
| knife-c...
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > If they don't like your face they can just decide the
| good reason is not good enough
|
| The article you linked does not support the claim that
| the UK police not liking someone's face is sufficient for
| them to be allowed to stop and search someone.
|
| In fact, this goes directly against the PACE guidelines
| as described at https://www.college.police.uk/app/stop-
| and-search/fair
|
| > A person's physical appearance [...] cannot be used as
| the reason for stopping and searching them [...] unless
| there is information or intelligence giving a specific
| description of a person suspected of carrying an item for
| which there is a power to search.
| michaelt wrote:
| "Reasonable suspicion" is the UK equivalent of what
| Americans call "probable cause" i.e. jargon for when the
| police are allowed to search you.
|
| The police have to conduct stops in a certain manner,
| because of the law that gives them the power to stop
| people: They are _legally required_ to tell the person
| they 're being detained for the purposes of a search, the
| purpose of the search, the grounds for the search, and
| the legal power used.
|
| Getting a load of jargon thrown at you about "detained"
| and "offensive weapon" and "Police and Criminal Evidence
| Act" sound a bit officious, but once they've stopped you
| they've _got_ to give you the officious jargon, it 's
| required by law.
|
| Also, while it's rare that the police will have occasion
| to stop and search a middle class, middle age white guy
| like myself, when the situation _does_ come up, it 's
| reasonable for them to do it thoroughly and by the book.
| They should treat a report of me carrying a knife the
| same as they'd treat a report of a black teenager in a
| bad neighbourhood carrying a knife.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| > In the US both of those would have been handled with
|
| Shooting. They would probably have shot him.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| I was stopped and questioned twice within a span of about
| ten minutes while walking around near Parliament in the
| middle of the night because someone _supposedly_ called
| in some sort of a threat. I was severely jetlagged and
| had never been to London before, so I figured it wouldn't
| be any different than walking around NYC but that may
| have been naive on my part.
| Reason077 wrote:
| You can walk around 99.9% of central London at any time
| of night and nobody is going to raise any eyebrows no
| matter how jet-lagged you look. But there's always a
| chance you're going to attract some attention outside
| Parliament, or certain embassies, especially if there's
| an "elevated threat level" or whatever.
| gambiting wrote:
| If you are stopped at the border then you don't have such a
| right. British border force can just demand you give them
| keys to all your devices and hold them for 7 days, no court
| order needed.
|
| Watch this if you're curious how that looks like:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=991kRp8KUmo
| lucb1e wrote:
| The part that stood out to me, copying from the automatic
| transcript:
|
| > they're sitting there with these like blank A4 Bits of
| Paper writing down everything I'm telling them like you
| know bits of interest and it's exactly the same thing the
| Russians did when they interrogated me [...] to be honest
| interactions with the Russians have been pretty much the
| same as inter with the British government
|
| I didn't do my research before going to the UK for the
| first time two months ago and just went with my gut
| feeling, that is, deleting files from my phone that I
| don't want to end up in a government system through
| Cellebrite's "accelerated justice" or whatnot. Never done
| this for any other country before (I cross borders on a
| weekly basis). Seeing this video and the Ugandan article
| from the sibling comment, that was definitely the right
| move
| Marsymars wrote:
| I don't know of any country where border guards _don't_
| have the authority to seize your device if you're trying
| to cross.
|
| I just use devices with ephemeral storage for crossing
| borders to save myself from having to do any research on
| any particular country's device privacy practices.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Then I'm not sure what we're criticizing China for, if no
| country has such fundamental rights for the people under
| its control. The warrant system exists for a reason. I'm
| not more likely to be carrying something illegal when
| going between countries than within the jurisdiction
| where my registered place of residence is; _less_ if
| anything because there might be spot checking indeed
| ohgr wrote:
| I get bagged and tagged at least once a week when I go
| shopping in the UK in the last 50 years. You don't want
| to come here at all. I'd rather hang around in Russia
| these days.
|
| Facetious comment aside the only time I've had problems
| with border security anywhere is getting a large carpet
| back home from Azerbaijan. This was very interesting and
| required them to examine every square centimetre of it.
| China, US, UK, Europe all really boring. Russia was
| incompetent. They didn't even check anything at all
| (2012)
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Imagine you're a citizen and say no.
|
| Are they arresting you?
|
| Because they have to let you in.
| gambiting wrote:
| You don't have the right to say no or even stay silent.
| If you refuse to give up your passwords they will charge
| you with the whatever the legislation around it is, it's
| 2 years behind bars for refusing.
| UberFly wrote:
| God this is scary. What if this "authority" figure is
| abusing their position? Do you have any recourse?
| johnisgood wrote:
| Probably not, just a waste of money and time, but
| hopefully someone can provide a reasonable recourse.
|
| What if you say you forgot? I actually had times (after
| not having used my phone for a month or two) that I (& my
| muscles) forgot my PIN (not for the SIM card) and I had
| to do a factory reset.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well it's not automatic 2 year prison sentence. The state
| charges you with a crime, it goes to trial, and then you
| have to defend yourself - if your argument is that you
| forgot, then it would be an interesting case - ultimately
| the prosecutor would need to prove that it's unlikely you
| forgot, say if they had proof (say CCTV recording at the
| airport) showing you using your phone 5 minutes before it
| was confiscated - it would be pretty hard to argue that
| in the space of those 5 minutes you forgot the password.
| But if you had a device in your suitcase and could
| successfully argue that you haven't used it in ages and
| the password was long and complex then yeah, I guess
| you'd be found not guilty - up to the judge/magister/jury
| depending on where exactly in the justice system you end
| up. But yeah, while stopped at the border saying "I
| forgot" is not a good card to play.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| It probably won't end well but I'm curious what would
| happen if you give them a password that resets the
| device. Theoretically it unlocks it, it's just that it
| takes a minute and it's factory new at that point.
| gambiting wrote:
| They'd charge you with destroying evidence, or
| "perverting the course of justice". They aren't stupid,
| they would know that you gave them a password that wiped
| the device.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| They would image the device and try the password against
| the image, if possible.
| gsnedders wrote:
| This depends on who the Border Agency officer is:
|
| An Immigration Officer may search you until they are
| satisfied you are a citizen. As long as you have a
| passport (or emergency travel document) listing you a
| citizen, this should be straightforward and they're
| unlikely to have grounds for any further search. At that
| point, you have been let into the country.
|
| Customs Officers are much more likely to have grounds for
| a search -- if they believe you are bringing prohibited
| material on the electronic device into the country (and
| "reasonable grounds" is low, as it typically is for
| customs -- "you're acting kinda sus" is a reasonable
| ground), they can search your device. It is an offence to
| refuse a search, so while you've been admitted to the UK,
| you could be arrested for that offence.
|
| This is all broadly comparable to most other countries
| immigration and customs laws; the UK is not an outlier
| here.
|
| The problems with the UK are primarily things that apply
| to everyone, not just at the border -- for example the
| Terrorism Act 2000 and Regulation of Investigatory Powers
| Act 2000. But again, in the border case -- that's
| basically all going to be _after_ you are admitted to the
| UK.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Some firms routinely forbid carrying company data
| (including encrypted data) across five-eyes and PRC
| borders, this is why.
| ben_w wrote:
| That's still a big improvement. A backdoor can be exploited
| by criminals who want personal gain, not just used as
| intended by police.
| cpressland wrote:
| This is correct - but I'd rather my law enforcement had a
| pre-existing reason to investigate me rather than just
| stumbling upon something in random hidden searches. Innocent
| until proven guilty is key here.
|
| I have nothing to hide, but I'm still not giving you access
| to my photo library.
| paxys wrote:
| Whether the data is encrypted or not, they still need a
| warrant.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Those warrants are secret. We don't even know if they're
| following the rules they lay out.
|
| In the US, the secret FISA court hasn't turned down a
| single warrant. Either the government is only coming to
| them with completely justified cases or they're just a
| rubber stamp. Either way, there's no oversight so we have
| no way of knowing.
| account42 wrote:
| For now. Once the means are there it's only a matter of
| time until everything is scanned automatically.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| The penalty for not giving up keys is max 2 years in prison.
| Most offences that they're trying to use the encrypted data
| to use as prosecution evidence (for example, child
| pornography), have penalties that are way more than 2 years
| in prison.
|
| If you're genuinely innocent, the 2 years is horrid. If
| you're actually guilty, it's a cheap way to serve your time.
|
| It's a weird and perverse law that shouldn't exist, but it's
| likely in time the government will need to move the needle
| one way or the other, as habitual criminals are getting used
| to doing the maths.
| llm_trw wrote:
| This comes up every time someone wants to give the death
| penalty for rape.
|
| If the punishment for rape is harsher than the punishment
| for murder than anyone committing it may as well remove the
| evidence by using a blender.
| robocat wrote:
| Is there a academic study of the heuristic of choosing
| between option A versus option B?
|
| People (even criminals) are not perfectly economic
| thinkers. That's probably a good thing. I have this
| terrible thought of a quant rapist: juggling their risk
| that the victim stays quiet or otherwise acts (police or
| revenge). Deciding on the Kelly Criterion for losing 20
| years in prison.
|
| I'd watch a movie about a killer using statistics
| properly. It is annoying when muderers are cast as being
| idiots. I imagine the protagonist runs a hedge fund and
| gets bored of getting away with white collar crime.
| chii wrote:
| > People (even criminals) are not perfectly economic
| thinkers. That's probably a good thing.
|
| why is that a good thing?
|
| Perfect economic thinkers are good, because they'd be
| predictable and can be reasoned with. Providing economic
| incentives to such means you can direct behaviour in an
| easy and efficient way.
|
| Irrational thinkers cannot be reasoned with via economic
| rationality. Therefore, either you have to stack the
| incentives so high that the cost becomes overbearing, or
| you use some other means of control that's less nice.
| contravariant wrote:
| Perfect economic thinkers will kill one guy so his organs
| can save three others.
|
| Utility is a flawed way to capture ethics.
| chii wrote:
| Being perfect economic thinkers doesn't mean they are all
| powerful. How does one go kill one guy without
| consequence? The only person this perfect economic
| thinker has access to is himself, and surely, he values
| his own life at infinity.
|
| Ethics is an agreement between people in society, which
| cannot be captured via economic rationalism alone, but
| economic rationalism can take into account current
| ethics, as well as other actors' propensity for more or
| less ethics.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| But if criminals are not perfectly rational economic
| thinkers, harsher prison sentences may not be morally
| justified!
| johnisgood wrote:
| A behaviorist perspective on justice, punishment, and
| rehabilitation does not require morality.
|
| 1. Pragmatism - Justice can be effectively framed around
| practical outcomes and societal safety, it requires no
| moral framework.
|
| 2. Remorse and Emotional Response - Feelings of remorse
| can be understood as conditioned responses shaped by
| environmental influences rather than as reflections of
| moral responsibility; remorse does not necessitate moral
| weight as they can arise from societal conditioning and
| past experiences.
|
| 3. CBT - Cognitive Behavioral Approaches demonstrate that
| behavioral and emotional changes can occur without
| delving into moral implications, and requires no moral
| reflection.
|
| 4. Behavioral Accountability - Individuals can be held
| accountable for their actions based solely on their
| observable behavior and its consequences, without the
| need for moral judgments. The focus is on modifying
| harmful behaviors through interventions and
| reinforcements rather than assigning moral blame.
|
| So, this framework provides a rational and effective
| approach to understanding and managing human behavior,
| focusing on the pragmatic aspects of justice,
| rehabilitation, and accountability, it does not require
| an already shaky and subjective moral judgment or moral
| accountability, and as thus, need not be morally
| justified.
|
| If you want me to elaborate (with examples, too), I am
| willing to as my time allows.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I know a woman who was raped by her father. The state is
| going to release him in a few years, so now her family
| lives in terror of that day. Where is the justice in
| that, and what does the rapist bastard being or or not
| being a ""rational economic actor"" have to do with any
| of it?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Indeed, a big part of a society's system of justice is
| "letting most people sleep at night."
|
| Whether there's justice or not in a rapist serving their
| sentence and going free (given that, one assumes, the
| sentencing guidelines were decided by dispassionate
| thinkers trying to reason about society as a whole)... It
| goes out the window if a family lives in so much fear
| they decide to "fix" the issue by taking the law into
| their own hands.
|
| Then the society has to decide whether to jail the
| family, and so on.
|
| Hammurabi's code seems harsh by modern standards, but at
| the time it was positively progressive. It was attempting
| to replace a retaliatory tradition so bloody it could
| wipe out entire bloodlines. He was trying to impose an
| _upper limit_ on consequence to allow a society of semi-
| strangers to reach some meta-stability.
| drdaeman wrote:
| In this modern age, I'm rather interested in the inverse:
| lawmakers doing proper scientific research, and
| legislating based on that; attempting to discover the
| sociological or economical truths rather than chasing
| slogans and acting on beliefs and agendas.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| They do that in many countries. Basically they check the
| likelihood of being a repeat offender and try to minimize
| that. Tax crimes become harsher than violent crimes
| because of it, for example... it is not popular amongst
| the population though.
| genewitch wrote:
| I've only heard rumors that Scandy countries do this, do
| you have any references?
| matwood wrote:
| > I'd watch a movie about a killer using statistics
| properly.
|
| At the start of the movie Heat, one of the hot head
| robbers kills one of the guards. De Niro, the leader of
| the robbers, immediately kills the other guard and says
| something along the lines of 'it's capital murder either
| way so may as well not leave any witnesses'. Ultimately,
| it's Di Nero being non-rational and driven by emotion
| that leads to the final scene in the movie.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> People (even criminals) are not perfectly economic
| thinkers._
|
| This imperfection feeds into the argument for not
| punishing rape as harshly as murder: the rapist is likely
| to misjudge the chances of the murder being discovered
| and traced back to them, when doing the risk math to
| decide how to proceed. If their imperfect thinking leads
| them to overestimate their chance of pulling off the
| perfect murder (or the perfect coverup after one) then
| that pushes the chance of equal punishment leading to
| more murders higher.
|
| "Doing risk math" oversells it for crimes of opportunity,
| where decisions about how to keep the action quiet after
| it has happened is going to be very emotion/panic (rather
| than facts/stats) driven, but for premeditated attacks I
| suspect things will flip the other way.
| opo wrote:
| >Is there a academic study of the heuristic of choosing
| between option A versus option B?
|
| I don't know of a paper on that specific question, but
| for example, Gary Becker got his Nobel prize because he
| applied economics to a wide range of human behavior
| including crime and punishment. Here is a famous paper of
| his on crime:
|
| https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c3625/c3625.pd
| f
| kennysoona wrote:
| Except that rape and murder are separate offenses and
| both would be charged, not one or the other.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| they can't execute a criminal more than one time.
| kennysoona wrote:
| Not everywhere has the death penalty. Some countries are
| civilized.
| cloud-ranger wrote:
| Like Germany and the UK? However, it's no problem at all
| for them to supply Israel with support in their murder of
| 18,000+ children. Remote killing good, local killing bad?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| this subthread was about how if rape has the death
| penalty then s rapist may decide to commit murder to
| lessen the chance of being identified.
| kennysoona wrote:
| Right, and my point was that if rape doesn't have the
| death penalty, then murder is less likely.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Would be rapists and murderers simultaneously aren't
| deterred from committing their crime in the first place
| by the threat of execution, but also will escalate their
| crime in response to the threat of execution. Very
| curious.
|
| Liberal Europeans and Americans like to say that no
| civilized country executes criminals, but in fact several
| developed democratic countries in Asia do, and to say
| they aren't civilized seems absurd. Executing criminals
| seems to work well for them. Very curious.
| wezdog1 wrote:
| I lost some braincells reading this one
| lupusreal wrote:
| Thank you.
| regularfry wrote:
| > no civilized country executes criminals, but in fact
| several developed democratic countries in Asia do, and to
| say they aren't civilized seems absurd.
|
| If you're saying the first bit, you're saying that it's a
| disqualifier from the second.
| lupusreal wrote:
| And I'm saying that anybody who claims Japan, South Korea
| or even Singapore isn't civilized is being absurd. Their
| own country is almost certainly more dangerous than
| those, there are _very_ few countries with lower
| intentional homicide rates than those three.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It is, perhaps, worth observing that one of the stories
| told about how English law pulled back from death-
| penalty-for-thievery was that if a thief had their life
| on the line already, they may as well murder too.
|
| It's an interesting story, but the historical record of
| how English law changed is, I think, a bit more
| interesting. Kids in London would steal. They'd go on
| trial. A jury of Londoners would see what looked like a
| twelve-year-old in the docket and just flat-out refuse to
| find them guilty because they couldn't sleep with
| themselves thinking they'd sent some kid to the gallows.
| This pattern became such an issue that merchants
| petitioned the King to pull back the penalties because as
| the system was implemented, _it was going to stop
| protecting their property from thievery._
| stevetron wrote:
| Blender? A 3-d drawing program? How would that remove
| evidence?
| cortic wrote:
| When you are released from prison, they can simple ask you
| to decrypt the data again, and if you refuse or can't, you
| have broken a law with another 2 years in prison (5 if they
| think you could have anything to do with 'terrorism').. Its
| theoretically an infinite prison sentence for forgetting
| your passwords.
| oxcidized wrote:
| I believe double-jeopardy laws wouldn't allow this, but I
| could be wrong.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Double jeopardy was abolished in England and Wales almost
| twenty years ago:
|
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4406129.stm
| teekert wrote:
| Really? So you can have your own Nextcloud server, connect
| over Tailscale and you'd face jail-time? I can't imagine
| that.
| kennysoona wrote:
| The law is about making sure the UK government has access
| to your encrypted data if they want it. It doesn't only
| apply to big corporate solutions.
| teekert wrote:
| Wtf. What is next, my thoughts? Who are these people?
| Thinking they can outlaw basic maths operations.
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| Look up "decolonize math" or "critical mathematics".
| jackjeff wrote:
| That's not necessarily true.
|
| RIPA notices do indeed assume you're in possession of the
| keys of anything encrypted and you must disclose when asked
| nicely.
|
| You just need an airtight provable way of showing you have a
| way to destroy that key when you push a button and do that
| before the notice arrive. I suspect that's after they seize
| your stuff.
| volemo wrote:
| I can be criminally charged for encrypting my data (and
| keeping it encrypted)? That's mental!
|
| Guess, I better delete that big file of random numbers from
| my computer.
| kennysoona wrote:
| > I can be criminally charged for encrypting my data (and
| keeping it encrypted)? That's mental!
|
| That's the UK.
| v3xro wrote:
| Yes, and they have the resources to go after every (former)
| user of ADP. </s>
| like_any_other wrote:
| But then you will know they are spying on you - they won't be
| able to do it secretly.
| justinclift wrote:
| > I will of course just remove everything from iCloud at that
| point.
|
| The iPhone's backup utility doesn't seem to support _anything_
| other than iCloud, so you 'd probably have to individually set
| up some kind of automated scheduling that (no idea how) for
| your main apps.
|
| Not sure if you'd be able to backup system stuff though. :(
| ohgr wrote:
| I don't backup my phone anyway. There's nothing I can't
| replace in about 30 minutes work.
| lang4d wrote:
| Do you save photos and messages somewhere?
| treesknees wrote:
| It's not automated but you can certainly still use iTunes to
| create a local encrypted backup of the entire phone, apps,
| and data. Works over USB and Wirelessly on the same network.
| People who decide not to use iCloud can certainly still keep
| their data safe.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| On a Mac, creating encrypted local backups of your iOS device
| is built into MacOS.
|
| On Windows, you create an encrypted local backup of your iOS
| device using iTunes.
|
| It backs up everything. OS, Apps, and data.
| volemo wrote:
| > It backs up everything. OS, Apps, and data.
|
| I'm not claiming you're wrong, but I think the backup
| includes the list of apps and versions and excludes data
| that can be easily downloaded from AppStore.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Doesn't Syncthing work on Apple machines?
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| I wonder how the metadata comes into play here. Metadata is
| fair game even with ADP. Apple retains it and could probably be
| compelled to pass that along
| HexPhantom wrote:
| Yet I don't have much faith that the UK government will back
| down
| aryan14 wrote:
| As they should. You can't throw an ultimatum for something that
| benefits nobody but the govt. and kick everyone around.
|
| Would like to see other companies who were affected by similar
| situations also take this to court
| aryan14 wrote:
| How well it'll do in court is debatable, could go for either
| side, but regardless of the outcome it's always good to see
| resistance and pushback
| immibis wrote:
| Apple will lose, because the government didn't break any law.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| I don't know what they are arguing in this case, but there is
| a chance that the government violated the US-UK Bilateral
| Data Access Agreement 2019, which governs data access
| requests from either country's government to technology
| companies based in the other country.
| Tagbert wrote:
| If the British government insists on this applying to non-
| british citizens in other jurisdictions, they are likely to
| be in conflict with privacy laws in those countries and that
| will trigger an international court case.
| basisword wrote:
| Can't see much coming of this. At the very least the largest two
| parties are all for this kind of encryption backdoor and
| regardless of what the 'court' decides parliament can just
| legislate around it.
| Defletter wrote:
| Yup, the Courts are ultimately there to fulfil the will of
| Parliament: if there's a clear power granted by Parliament to
| do this sort of thing, and there's no compelling objection from
| other areas of law, then this is more just a delaying tactic.
| drcongo wrote:
| I'm not sure that's entirely true, the UK government gets
| sued regularly and loses a fair amount.
| Defletter wrote:
| Sure, but that's because the government acted in ways
| contrary to what Parliament willed.
| krona wrote:
| Essentially true however judicial review can expose legal
| flaws, incompatibilities, or breaches of higher legal
| principles (e.g. the Human Rights Act 1998) essentially
| compelling (not forcing) the government to amend or adjust
| legislation.
|
| A notable example being section 23 of the Anti-terrorism,
| Crime and Security Act 2001.
| Defletter wrote:
| There's an interesting talk involving Baroness Hale, who'd
| later go on to be President of the Supreme Court, where she
| mentions the Belmarsh case:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYR414Q8v6A&t=2605s
| switch007 wrote:
| Fun facts about the UK supreme court:
|
| - It was created by an Act of Parliament
|
| - It is a government department
|
| - It can not overturn primary legislation
|
| - Parliament could dissolve the court if it so wished
| Defletter wrote:
| Yup. What Parliament giveth, Parliament can taketh away. It
| is scary to think what Parliament can do with a simple
| majority.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > It is scary to think what Parliament can do with a
| simple majority.
|
| If so, why don't we see parliaments misbehave more often
| and do crazy shit?
| switch007 wrote:
| Good question.
|
| Mostly self preservation I guess. It's not unheard of for
| a party to get wiped out.
|
| I feel the Queen made moves behind the scenes to keep the
| government in check too. As much as she could. Not sure
| about Charles
|
| I'm sure they're looking at Trump and realising they can
| get away with anything if they want to.
|
| Ministers used to resign in disgrace over far less severe
| things than we've seen the past 2 decades. Now you can
| just easily distract the public with scandal after
| scandal or issue after issue. Then they can re-enter
| politics
| Lanolderen wrote:
| Probably the pitchfork risk. Governments have gotten good
| at keeping safe distance from the point where things
| might get violent.
| Defletter wrote:
| Well, we _are_ unfortunately seeing more of this with the
| rise of populism. However, I feel as if certain factors
| come together to provide a pretty effective stop-gap:
|
| 1. Members of Parliament (MPs) represent roughly 70k
| people. And while that's still a significant number, it's
| small enough for them to know and be known by their
| constituents. It's more difficult to vote against your
| constituents when you know them.
|
| 2. The House of Lords (HoL) can revise and delay, but not
| block, which means we are functionally immune from cross-
| chamber games of chicken that result in US-style
| government shutdowns, or European-style budget bills as
| confidence motions. We _did_ come pretty close to this
| with Brexit in 2019, but this was all within the House of
| Commons given that the ruling party did not command a
| majority.
|
| 3. Parliamentarians usually respect the inertia of
| institution. As in, the idea that it's right to continue
| things as they've always been done, unless there's a
| compelling reason. It's why we're still a Monarchy, why
| there's still bishops and hereditaries in the House of
| Lords, etc. Basically, there's a culture of
| incrementalism. Because if you don't have the inertia,
| you appear to lack legitimacy, it's just a gimmick.
|
| 4. And on the heels of that, I think Parliamentarians
| have an occupational understanding of the adage "With
| great power comes great responsibility."
|
| 5. The Civil Service, while ostensibly neutral, tends to
| resign when asked to do anything believed to be damaging
| to the country.
|
| All of this put together (and probably more than I
| haven't thought of) means that MPs understand that they
| could do great damage, and so they restrain themselves.
|
| Contrast this with other countries with difficult systems
| where politicians stir up the passions of their
| constituents by naming their systemic limitations, "I
| would love to do X, but I can't because Y prevents me." A
| somewhat related example would be abortion in the US,
| where after Roe v Wade was decided, many states became
| soapboxes for anti-abortion rhetoric. It's a safe
| rhetorical position: you can say what you like and then
| blame the federal government for not being able to do it.
| But then Roe v Wade was overturned and many of these
| politicians and states have changed their tune, because
| the power is now in their hands, they are now answerable
| to their constituents on this matter. Not that it matters
| given how much gerrymandering there is, but still, the
| effect was noticeable.
| OJFord wrote:
| I see from your comment history you're British, so I don't
| get why you describe this as surprising. There's the
| Commons, Lords, and the King. Who or what else would be
| creating or dissolving the court? Why would it be able to
| overturn primary legislation that's received royal assent?
| That would just be swapping things around so you'd be
| saying 'fun fact about parliament, supreme court can...'
| anyway, surely?
| dmix wrote:
| Not having a judicial body that is fully independent of
| the legislative branch (parliament) and not being able to
| strike down laws is interesting/surprising to me _shrug_.
| I 've always liked the idea of strong judicial oversight.
| But I guess without a strong constitution, where
| parliaments laws can't be ruled unconstitutional, it
| doesn't matter much... the public will be fully at the
| whims of parliament.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > But I guess without a strong constitution
|
| The UK doesn't have a written constitution. This is rare
| amongst highly developed democracies. Also, to my
| knowledge, most parliamentary systems don't have a final
| court that can overturn laws passed by the parliament.
| OJFord wrote:
| Aren't US SC judges picked by the president? Can't he
| override everything with pardons and executive orders
| anyway? Can't the US constitution be, uh, amended?
| dagw wrote:
| _Aren 't US SC judges picked by the president?_
|
| They're nominated by the president, but approved by the
| Senate. There have been cases throughout history where a
| nominated judge doesn't get through the approval process.
| Of course when the president and the Senate are aligned
| and in agreement this approval process is largely a
| rubber stamp.
|
| _Can 't he override everything with pardons and
| executive orders anyway?_
|
| Not at all. Despite what it sometimes looks like, the
| president's executive order powers are quite limited. But
| again, if congress isn't willing to challenge the order
| and the Supreme Court isn't willing to rule on it, these
| limits are more theoretical.
|
| _Can 't the US constitution be, uh, amended?_
|
| It can, but it is a slow and difficult process, requiring
| 2/3 support of both the house and the senate, plus
| support from 3/4 of the States. There have apparently
| been over 10000 attempts to amend the constitution since
| the founding, of which 27 have passed. Furthermore the
| president has no power to suggest or approve
| constitutional amendments.
|
| Basically a president that doesn't have the support of
| Congress and the Supreme Court has surprisingly little
| power.
| basisword wrote:
| UK judicial oversight is actually pretty good. The
| government at the time lost numerous important cases when
| trying to implement Brexit. While Parliament can create
| legislation to overrule the courts decisions it's not
| typical and in the case of EU legislation they were stuck
| because they couldn't easily change that. The UK does
| have a strong constitution despite the fact it's not
| codified. In my opinion the US Supreme Court is farcical
| compared with the UK one. The fact it has lifetime
| appointments and is accepted as politically biased
| astounds me. NB: I know you didn't mention the US but
| it's my only point of comparison.
| Defletter wrote:
| Well, the British system is particularly unique because
| there is no formal Constitution, and thus we have no
| Judicial Review for Constitutionality. There's a pretty
| interesting talk about this here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIlkY90Cck8
| hnfong wrote:
| This is basically a "the Emperor's new clothes" situation
| where the UK's constitution can only be seen by smart and
| educated people. (Yes, you have QCs [now KCs] saying
| otherwise, but that's exactly my point.)
|
| Face it, if the constitution is "whatever the prevailing
| political elite class says it is", then you don't have a
| constitution.
| _benedict wrote:
| I'm not sure how a written constitution that is anyway
| interpreted by "the prevailing political elite class" is
| functionally much different?
| hnfong wrote:
| At least there are words.
|
| The Brits have nothing.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > At least there are words.
|
| > The Brits have nothing.
|
| There are words in the British constitution as well. Acts
| of Parliament that define how the Parliament and the
| courts function are constitutional laws, such as the
| Parliament Acts of 1911 & 1949 and the Constitutional
| Reform Act 2005. If we are going by words, there are a
| lot more words in these multiple constitutional documents
| than in the constitutional documents of many countries
| that only have one such document.
| switch007 wrote:
| I was speaking to the wider audience here
|
| Our supreme court is different to the US supreme court
| for example
| ohgr wrote:
| Apple will do it for the attention, PR and to hurt the idea
| generally even if they lose. Mindshare and ire towards the
| government are as strong as any legal judgement over time.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Mindshare and ire towards the government are as strong as
| any legal judgement over time.
|
| Much stronger.
| blitzar wrote:
| It will be good to have a test of the legislation, the last
| government spat out some horrifically written legislation, so
| it might not even say what they think it says.
| aeim wrote:
| I wonder if this case will be dropped by the uk, now that it's
| more clear that trump/ us gov serves (or is aligned with...)
| russia
|
| The global landscape has changed significantly since (last
| week) this case began
| Frederation wrote:
| If Apple had the wherewithall, theyd give up on the UK and be
| done with it. Should they not prevail legally. Pipe dream, I
| know.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I hope for the same. Likely not for the same reason as you, but
| we are together in hoping.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Isnt that their soft plan? They plan on just removing the
| encryption for all UK users to make the point moot domestically
| if this gambit doesnt bare fruit. If they want to continue to
| push that they want it for all users globally, Apple can
| attempt to leave the market fully.
|
| Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security
| row (bbc.com) - 1769 points , 1105 comments
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43128253
| ohgr wrote:
| I never get this perspective. Firstly we do give them a crap
| load of revenue. Secondly it'd probably trash any of their non
| US business almost immediately as people start looking for
| contingency in case they pull out of other countries. Thirdly
| they didn't pull out of China. And fourthly there are a lot of
| Apple engineering staff here in the UK - it'd cripple them
| because they won't move to the US.
|
| They will comply with the law and make a lot of noise and not a
| lot else.
| wil421 wrote:
| How can a company the size of Apple be crippled by employees
| in the UK?
| ohgr wrote:
| Literally a large chunk of the ARM core team are in
| Cambridge including most of the GPU folk and there are a
| ton of infra and software team in a couple of other UK
| locations.
|
| On top of that, a big chunk of the follow the sun on call
| engineering (SRE) are here that look after global infra and
| most of the European support operation are in Northern
| Ireland.
| sureIy wrote:
| Fruit Engineering Ltd. hires brits and contracts with
| offshore Apple Inc. The former does not have the keys and
| cannot be forced to do anything iCloud-side.
|
| It's not like corporate doesn't know all the tricks
| already. The only reason they need is whether the UK
| market is worth the hassle. That's all.
| theshackleford wrote:
| Define a "crapload." My understanding is that it's actually a
| number that could be walked away from.
| ohgr wrote:
| 8000 staff including very high level engineering and
| technical.
| theshackleford wrote:
| Isn't that potentially devastating to the UK, not Apple
| in the long run? Choosing to walk away from the market in
| terms of supplying goods does not mean needing to walk
| away from high level engineering staff.
|
| Of course, you may mean these staff are only required to
| service the UK market...but it sounds like you mean they
| are valuable to Apple, at which point I am unsure as to
| why they would not be retained/shifted as appropriate.
|
| Also my apologies, I assumed revenue here. Also thank
| you, I had not considered staffing, but it makes sense.
| ohgr wrote:
| Yes it's more critical staff. And it's more a cultural
| thing. I know a couple of Apple folk and they will
| definitely not relocate to retain the job. Especially in
| the current political climate.
|
| You don't actually need as much money to survive in the
| UK as the US for example. So there isn't the motivator to
| retain high level salaries other than luxury.
|
| It would be "no thanks" and take a 30% cut to go and work
| somewhere else.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| The Apple engineer staff can keep their jobs.
| Lanolderen wrote:
| The perspective is that if Apple bricks its devices for a
| couple days in the UK the pitchforks will come out
| considering they have the moral high ground and the better
| marketing team to pitch it to the general population.
|
| Whether it's good for a US corpo to interfere with the stable
| 1984 progression of the UK is another issue. If I were in a
| decision making position at Apple I wouldn't want to bother
| with this either. Just take the easy marketing W and move on.
| Maybe prepare a plan for market exit just in case they're not
| satisfied with disabling encryption and demand a global
| backdoor.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| What happens when Australia blocks this next? Then Japan? Then
| Brazil? Then Sweden? Then the US?
| autoexec wrote:
| "What if every country on Earth violated everyone's rights"
| isn't really much of an argument against standing up to
| countries that try. If that actually happens then we're all
| screwed anyway. Until it does actually happen, why roll over
| and allow it to happen without even trying?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| If Apple gives in, it will certainly happen in dozens of
| countries. China alone would be a dealbreaker.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Apple gave in to China years ago. Apple gave operation of
| iCloud servers to a chinese company.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| According to Apple, everything in their system still
| works the same and they still have control of their own
| hardware, even if it's in a Chinese data center. Systems
| like iMessage are still fully end-to-end encrypted even
| in China. Maybe they're lying but it would be a huge
| opportunity for devastating leaks if that's true.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > Systems like iMessage are still fully end-to-end
| encrypted even in China.
|
| I do wonder about this. How can an authoritarian state
| allow a (very!) large foreign corporation to operate an
| important communications network without data
| transparency to their domestic spy agency? I am not
| normally a tin-foil-hatter, but I just assume that the
| domestic spy agency has a copy of the private encryption
| keys used for HTTPS/TLS. Then, Apple can continue to
| advertise "end-to-end encrypted" (in Mainland China), but
| the local spies can read the comms.
| momo_hn2025 wrote:
| The simplest answer to your question is "it exists" and
| "iMessage isn't important," but instead, you chose to
| write a whole fiction for your brain. If that's critical
| thinking, I'd call it hallucination.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| See, I don't see just withdrawing from the country as
| 'standing up to'. It's just giving up in a more disruptive
| way, especially when It seems very likely to me that other
| countries will start demanding the same.
|
| Actually taking them to court and objecting seems more
| productive to me.
| autoexec wrote:
| > I don't see just withdrawing from the country as
| 'standing up to'. It's just giving up in a more
| disruptive way...actually taking them to court and
| objecting seems more productive to me.
|
| "objecting" alone does nothing. Objecting + lawsuits or
| objecting + withdrawing might accomplish something.
|
| I'd agree that lawsuits are a good idea but they are also
| entirely dependent on the courts (of the same country
| that already wants to violate people's rights) to do the
| right thing. If the lawsuit works and the government
| forces the government to back off it's a good thing, but
| if not a company keeps the power to take their technology
| and leave. They can choose to do that regardless of what
| the laws or courts of another country thinks.
|
| Walking away might be seen as a company "giving up" on
| the corrupt country that wants to violate people's
| rights, but it's certainly not a company giving up on
| their principles. A nation full of people angry that they
| won't be able to get highly sought after products and
| services can change policy too.
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| I wish this issue were playing out in Australia right now,
| rather than the UK. It would be _hilarious_ to see Apple walk
| out of the Australian market right before a federal election.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I wish they placed a red warning on every phone instead: "Your
| government is forcing us to weaken your security because it
| wants to snoop on you."
|
| One of the problems of digital surveillance is that is doesn't
| feel intrusive, indeed it can be fully hidden from the users.
| With a message like this displayed every time you unlock your
| phone, plenty of people would start asking questions.
| cakealert wrote:
| > red warning on every phone instead
|
| This is silly. The average consumer will just avoid Apple
| products.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > "Your government is forcing us to weaken your security
| because it wants to snoop on you."
|
| They're not allowed to actually tell you about the UKGOV
| order. That's the point of it being a secret order.
| genewitch wrote:
| And yet
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| Apple can't discuss any of the details, but I'm sure they
| could point their customers to a person who can.
|
| "This feature is no longer available in the UK.
|
| For further information, contact:
|
| Mr Xxxxx Yyyyyy
|
| UK Home Office
|
| 02070 xxx xxx
|
| xxxxx.yyyy@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk"
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > Mr Xxxxx Yyyyyy
|
| *Mrs
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Secretary
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I think that the people who want to use encryption should use
| their own software for encryption, which is separate from the
| cloud service. (This alone might not do, because you also need to
| implement other security, but it will be one thing to do.)
| tonetegeatinst wrote:
| Remember software can be banned or regulated via export
| control.
| 14 wrote:
| Exactly. Just like the pirate bay.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| That ban seems to be incredibly toothless considering a
| simple DNS/IP change can bypass it.
| kjsingh wrote:
| at least Apple should provide a way of inserting a module to
| encrypt decrypt files. and say, we just store the bytes user
| provide us.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This is the issue. If you encrypt your own, then the software
| will not be able to use it as it's not a file it expects. So
| all of the software that you want to use your encrypted files
| will need to have this type of module.
|
| At that point, I feel like we've opened pandora's box. If
| every single app had to be able to decrypt/encrypt with your
| personal key, we just know someone will roll their own and
| fuck it up for everyone else.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| It depends on where you put that module.
|
| In NT you can have modules that sit between various
| operations on the file system. It's how AV works without
| having to hook into every single application that reads and
| writes from storage.
|
| There's no technical reason why this kind of approach
| couldn't be applied by Apple for encryption. But it would
| require relinquishing some control over their platform, so
| it would never happen.
| immibis wrote:
| Microsoft gets that excuse, because it lets you run anything
| at all on your computer. Apple doesn't, because it only lets
| you run things approved by Apple. Instead of "why did you
| make this encryption system we can't break into? Trillion
| dollar fine!" it'd be "why did you let XYZ Corp install this
| encryption system we can't break into? Trillion dollar fine!"
| Nevermark wrote:
| You are suggesting people be able to insert an encryption
| module into other services?
|
| Or that everyone has to constantly manage a non-default set of
| tools, and deal with all the interoperability issues of all the
| mish-mashes of choices others make?
|
| Or, ...?
|
| Personally, I cannot see a safe online world that doesn't have
| hard privacy.
|
| Why not give people easy ways to report "very bad behavior"
| online, to authorities that build up a reputation of responding
| responsibly. Including bounties for the most egregious stuff.
|
| Then every recipient of anything rotten becomes a honeypot for
| the criminals.
|
| Breaking everyone's privacy is going to attract every nefarious
| and security conscious actor in the world to the buffet. Every
| state actor, "good" or "bad" is going to want to have access to
| everything that can theoretically be accessed. Worst possible
| kind of honeypot.
| HexPhantom wrote:
| And this whole situation just reinforces the fact that relying
| on a provider's encryption means trusting that they won't be
| forced to weaken it later
| 5kg wrote:
| "In 2021: No (IPT) cases were found in favour of the
| complainant":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigatory_Powers_Tribunal#...
| bsimpson wrote:
| This sounds like something Douglas Adams would have written
| about.
| gred wrote:
| Good. Even if they lose, they should make as much noise as
| possible before giving up on the UK market. Maybe it will start
| to turn the tide of public perception.
| HexPhantom wrote:
| The more awareness there is, the harder it becomes for
| governments to quietly erode encryption without pushback. If
| nothing else, it might make other companies think twice before
| rolling over.
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| any qualified opinions here on tresorit? i'm using them now for
| about three years and the service is alright and reliable afaiac.
| supposedly they don't have the private key. that makes using it
| sometimes a little slow compared to other options. but i decided
| to go with them after reading numerous horror stories about
| dropbox et al.
| cantrecallmypwd wrote:
| Was Tarsnap evaluated? Those behind it are well known and the
| construction is simple and explained clearly. My general rule:
| never make technology recommendations without throughly
| vetting/testing multiple candidates and digging deep into
| support, the company, and demoing close to intended use.
| krunck wrote:
| How do we know there are not back-doors already in Apple's cloud
| storage (that the 5-eyes cult has access to)? This fight may just
| be theater the goal of which is to legitimize the view that
| Apple's cloud storage is secure and free from government
| snooping.
|
| Trust, then verify. No ability to verify? No trust.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| This fight is about providing encryption to the masses. If you
| want to use your own open source security solution, you should
| definitely do that (really!). But you will be one of a small
| number of people doing so. And a society where only a small
| number of "wizards" have freedom isn't a free society at all.
|
| I am very sympathetic to the idea that more components should
| be open source, and Apple's systems should be much more open
| (particularly backup.) But at the end of the day _if Apple is
| compromised_ there is no open source solution that can save
| you. They design the silicon.
| seanw444 wrote:
| Is the society that relies on everyone else to make the
| decisions that serve their best interests free either?
| knowknow wrote:
| It's impossible to live without depending on other people's
| decisions unless you live completely isolated. It's not
| "free" but most people are fine sacrificing some freedom
| for other gains. This has already been discussed for
| centuries, see Thomas Hobbes and the social contract.
| TheDong wrote:
| > This fight is about providing encryption to the masses
|
| If apple cared about providing encryption to the masses, ADP
| would be enabled by default and you'd have to opt out of it.
|
| As-is, all your messages, photos, and so on are backed up
| unencrypted to apple's servers where they can read them at
| will. End-to-end encryption is opt-in, and I doubt most "the
| masses" even know a setting for that exists.
| HnUser12 wrote:
| >If apple cared about providing encryption to the masses,
| ADP would be enabled by default and you'd have to opt out
| of it.
|
| Apple is also a company that needs to cater to its
| customers. If they enabled ADP by default and customer
| locks themselves out and goes to Apple, they want to be
| able to help. ADP is intended for people who understand
| what it is but nit savvy enough to run their own system.
| protocolture wrote:
| This is correct, apple has a very customer first support
| culture which has a famous history of blowing up in their
| faces.
|
| Internal metrics for support teams are almost entirely
| customer satisfaction focused, which built a culture of
| getting a result for the customer at all costs, which was
| very exploitable by social engineering.
|
| It doesnt surprise me that they dont want to let
| customers encrypt and lose all their baby photos by
| default.
| TheDong wrote:
| You can't have it both ways. Either you're providing
| encryption to the masses, or you're not.
|
| Providing encryption to the masses would in fact be
| telling people who lost their phone, or forgot their
| password "no, all your photos are gone forever, tough
| luck. Also, you have to make a new apple account and re-
| purchase all your apps".
| sadeshmukh wrote:
| You must have a different definition of "providing"
| because offering a service is definitely providing it.
| Apple makes "smart" devices that do what people want them
| to, and encryption is second to that. I think it's a fair
| compromise to have it easily available but not default.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I didn't say it was Apple fighting. I'm referring to the
| broader fight. Getting Apple to deploy encryption by
| default is one outcome I'd like us to fight for. But if we
| give up and start poo-pooing Apple's encryption because
| it's not pure enough, that fight is over.
| cpa wrote:
| I understand that's not your point, but the government is a
| massive entity: it's entirely possible that the intelligence
| community has capabilities that wouldn't be admissible in court
| and therefore are of limited use to law enforcement. Or that
| they might be unwilling to share them with law enforcement.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| "Trust but verify" was political double speak from the start,
| it's fascinating how it still lives on for so long.
|
| And yes, we shouldn't put trust in corporations in the first
| place.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| "Trust but verify" is a description of speculative execution.
| protocolture wrote:
| Yeah its a concern of mine.
|
| Australia introduced the concept of these laws with the Access
| and Assistance bill. The politicians were adamant it was
| necessary, however there were so many potential users of the
| system (Politicians, police, spy agencies) it never made a lot
| of sense.
|
| Fast forward a few years and ASIO gave a press conference where
| they admitted to only having used the powers under the bill
| twice. Which makes me concerned about who the bill was for and
| what it has been used for. Unlike the British version, any
| public information release leads to instant jail time, and it
| was unclear whether this extended to briefing legal counsel.
|
| I feel like, if the 5 eyes wanted to breach iCloud they would
| use Australia rather than Britain where it can be publicly
| contested like this.
| dwaite wrote:
| Partly because they document the doors which are there for LE :
| https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-guidelin...
|
| They also switched a few years back to provide signed firmwares
| rather than encrypted firmwares to ease independent
| verification, and have the Apple Security Research Device
| program to do runtime exploration with certain security walls
| turned off. (Supposedly creating these devices requires a
| partial factory retooling)
|
| Apple also only has per-device global builds, rather than
| regional builds which might obscure requested features. My
| understanding is that they take transparency measures to make
| sure it can be detected if a firmware was released out-of-
| stream, and anonymity measures to prevent targeting a specific
| device with a custom firmware.
|
| The Secure Enclave also requires the device passcode as part of
| an approval process for installing new device/enclave firmware;
| the underlying OS and security enclave are not meant to have
| the capability of being transparently updated/modified.
| willtemperley wrote:
| We can never truly verify, because there is no such thing as
| perfect security [1].
|
| However there is "Deterrence through Accountability. We can
| attempt to legally prosecute the attackers" [1].
|
| That is what is happening here. The attackers are being
| prosecuted.
|
| [1]
| https://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs5430/2017sp/l/03-princi...
| cantrecallmypwd wrote:
| We more need FOSS (and supply chain) hardware, software, and
| (distributed) cloud platforms with encrypted all at rest and
| in-flight with zero knowledge storage (minus specific private
| keys and offline authoritative key locations, of course). The
| problem, of course, is the main platforms are ultimately owned
| by single point-of-failure (SPoF) corporations that can be
| leaned on, banned, or raided. This would require immense,
| deliberate investment to avoid compromise/slowly replace closed
| choices and to avoid supply chain attacks. And then,
| ultimately, it requires a socio-political bargain to decide
| whom to trust and why, such as, based on interests and
| leadership team.
| HexPhantom wrote:
| Agree, blind trust in any big tech company is naive. But if
| Apple already had hidden backdoors, why would the UK government
| be pushing so hard for one now?
| Cypher wrote:
| Apple should be celebrating Stammer for his proud tradition of
| freespeech not taking him to court.
| muscomposter wrote:
| smells like PR/marketing
| volemo wrote:
| Sure, but it's the only thing they really can do in the
| situation, i.e. cause as much stir as they can to hopefully
| draw public attention to the matter.
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| It's completely disgraceful what the U.K. is doing to freedom of
| expression. Very happy to see Apple like this.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Until people start to really feel what losing privacy mean,
| nothing much will happen.
|
| Right now, there is still a strong support in the UK for the
| gouvernement crusade against encryption and overall ending of
| privacy.
|
| Because "why should I care, i have nothing to hide". It takes
| time and tragedy for populationd to educate themselves on matter,
| maybe in a few years or a decade the trend will invert.
|
| Until then, there isn't much apple can do. They haven't the law
| with them, they haven't the population with them, they got the
| money but they aren't going to spend it on educating people.
|
| Taking UK gouvernement to court is just the best they can do
| right now, a big pr stunt, like a giant ad to say to the rest of
| the world 'we care about your privacy, buy iphone'.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| From a leadership personality angle, who do you think initiated
| this brilliant marketing/messaging campaign -- sue a country
| because "it infringes on human rights and Apple upholds it."
|
| Do you think this kinds thing comes from someone in Marketing,
| Legal, a C-Suite, or is this kind of thing a thing by community
| at Apple? If it is the last, it would be brilliant to read that
| protocol/process/flow.
| relistan wrote:
| I don't know, but it feels like the UK gave them the softest
| pitch, straight over the plate, and all they had to do was hit
| it. (Maybe a cricket metaphor would have been better)
| relistan wrote:
| People seem to be misinterpreting the above post. I was
| referring to the UK giving Apple a great marketing
| opportunity for their privacy stance.
| mproud wrote:
| Fuck the UK government
| ipv6ipv4 wrote:
| I've been wondering. What would happen if Tim Cook personally
| 'leaked' the notice on twitter?
|
| How would the UK government reasonably sanction Apple?
| genewitch wrote:
| Force cell carriers to block imei of apple handsets
| volemo wrote:
| That surely wouldn't sit well with the public?
| ForTheKidz wrote:
| I'm fairly certain this would impact a large part of the
| government itself.
| harry8 wrote:
| Why would the UK government limit itself to being reasonable?
|
| I can imagine most CEOs pausing before picking a fight with the
| intelligence services.
| okasaki wrote:
| Imagine a Chinese company sued a Westoid nation over some
| national security feature.
|
| HN would be calling for world war.
| HexPhantom wrote:
| The "only used in exceptional cases" argument is the same tired
| line every government uses before mass surveillance becomes the
| norm. Once a backdoor exists, it's not just "good guys" using it;
| it's an open invitation for abuse.
| cedilla wrote:
| It also always lead to the same downward spiral of prosecutors
| complaining that the data they need to investigate drug trade
| is right there, but they can only access it for terrorism
| reasons, so why not add drug trade to the list of exceptions.
| Repeat with homicide, then fraud, all the way down to traffic
| infractions.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| Indeed. During the pandemic, restaurants in Germany were
| required to track customer's information including addresses,
| so people could be informed in case of a confirmed CoViD
| infection of another customer who was there at the same time.
| Of course, this information was never to be used for any other
| purpose whatsoever.
|
| In one case, however, there was a capital crime near a
| restaurant (or similar venue) and police and prosecutor used
| this information illegally to track down witnesses. They were
| sued after the fact and lost, but got nothing more than a slap
| on the wrist.
|
| Once information is available, it will be used for purposes
| other than the intended one, even by the "good guys".
| HPsquared wrote:
| Better to simply not collect the data in the first place.
| It's like the hierarchy of controls used in risk management,
| from most to least effective:
|
| - Elimination - physically remove the hazard
|
| - Substitution - replace the hazard
|
| - Engineering controls - isolate people from the hazard
|
| - Administrative controls - change the way people work
|
| - PPE - protect the worker with equipment
|
| Only with hazardous data, or things like moral hazards rather
| than physical hazards.
| moring wrote:
| Offtopic, but do you know some good sources to read on that
| matter?
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| Here's a nice OSHA doc on this: https://www.osha.gov/site
| s/default/files/Hierarchy_of_Contro...
|
| Might want to save it locally though.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > Might want to save it locally though.
|
| The real hazard is the infohazard of knowing how to deal
| with hazards. Hopefully some genius will eliminate it and
| increase efficiency.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| Oh is it being done by the same genius that built
| electric cars with no way to get out of the back when the
| power is out so if there's a fire and you're in the back
| you'll burn to death?
| sitkack wrote:
| I used the following query in your favorite ai powered
| search engine, "what knowledge would I need to able to
| make an intelligent post similar to <insert above
| comment>, please give me some high quality reading
| sources"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_hazard_control
| s
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_minimization
|
| https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/hazard/hierarc
| hy_...
|
| https://epic.org/data-minimization-is-the-key-to-a-
| meaningfu...
|
| I won't shovel the rest in here, but this is a good
| start.
| andrepd wrote:
| Damn, you used an LLM to tell you that to learn more
| about "hierarchy of hazard controls" you should google
| "hierarchy if hazard controls" :) Truly a revolutionary
| technology!
| sitkack wrote:
| You don't know what you don't know! Did I open myself to
| a sweet hindsight bias attack, luckily my saving throw
| worked. I used a search engine in a high dimensional
| space, not a fax machine.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> restaurants in Germany were required to track customer's
| information including addresses_
|
| Ironic they went along with this considering how chest-
| pumping Germans are about their government being all about
| protecting their citizens' "privacy".
|
| _> They were sued after the fact and lost, but got nothing
| more than a slap on the wrist._
|
| Government workers don't care about doing a good job since if
| they break the rules they won't get fired and the fines are
| not paid from their pockets but from the taxpayers pockets
| anyway so there's no incentive to be competent at your job.
| brookst wrote:
| It's always a mistake to generalize about a population as
| large as "employees of the German government".
|
| Some people are meticulous about their jobs. Some are not.
| Both types are present in any large organization.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| I'm not really all that surprised. Public opinion is easily
| swayed with good marketing.
|
| The government mandated contact tracing, but not how it was
| to be implemented. There was a publicly developed open-
| source app for contact tracing that was perfectly privacy
| preserving.
|
| Unfortunately, many restaurants instead used a commercial
| solution that was none of these things. What it did have
| was support from a mildly famous German musician and great
| lobbying. Most people didn't care, they just wanted to go
| to the restaurant.
| calmoo wrote:
| I remember reading a similar story in Ireland on Reddit,
| where a guy started receiving newsletters and advertising
| texts that he only ate at once during the pandemic. Turns out
| the restaurant were using the contact details for Covid
| tracking for advertising purposes... diabolical stuff.
| bayindirh wrote:
| I visited US once, for a week. I went through an E-ZPass
| controlled interstate once _as a passenger_ , and gave no
| e-mails to anyone.
|
| Yet, I received "Pending E-ZPass payment" scam _for a
| year_.
|
| I have no further comments.
| c0wb0yc0d3r wrote:
| So how do you think the connection was made?
|
| The best I can think was your location data was sold by a
| company behind one of the apps on your phone.
| bayindirh wrote:
| They might have correlated my shopping data plus with my
| location (the state/shop I'm in), and possibly went from
| there.
|
| Some of my phone apps might have betrayed to me, too, but
| I have no idea what I had installed at that time.
| ctrlp wrote:
| Possibly sold by an insider through unofficial channels?
| gruez wrote:
| >I went through an E-ZPass controlled interstate once as
| a passenger
|
| >Yet, I received "Pending E-ZPass payment" scam for a
| year.
|
| I think you're overestimating how precise scammers'
| targeting are. They're playing a numbers game, so they're
| going to spam every who might have used ezpass, not
| carefully curate their spam list by buying real time
| location data from data brokers. I received phishing
| texts for banks that I don't have accounts for, so next
| time I get a phishing text for a bank that I do use, I'm
| not going to think my bank got breached.
| bayindirh wrote:
| I think it's in the middle.
|
| I travel a lot due to work. Generally the destinations
| are the same, but a new country is added now and then.
| When I go there and come back, I also start to get spam
| in that country's language.
|
| I currently have English, Spanish, Dutch and Italian spam
| regularly in my mailboxes. They all started after I
| visited respected countries, and continue since I still
| visit them semi-regularly.
|
| That E-ZPass spam started right after I returned from US,
| continued for a year, ceased and didn't return.
|
| Spammers have better targeting tools than we know.
| gruez wrote:
| >I currently have English, Spanish, Dutch and Italian
| spam regularly in my mailboxes. They all started after I
| visited respected countries, and continue since I still
| visit them semi-regularly.
|
| It's far more likely your email addresses are getting
| leaked by airlines/hotels (or basically anyone you gave
| your email to during your travel) than random apps
| selling your location to data brokers, data brokers being
| competent enough link those locations back to your email,
| but somehow too incompetent to know that being in France
| for a month doesn't mean you're interested in buying
| French car insurance. The latter isn't impossible, but
| occam's razor says we should favor the more
| straightforward explanation.
| bayindirh wrote:
| The kicker? The e-mail address I give to the hotels
| doesn't get that spam. My other, personal, e-mail address
| gets them. A specific one.
|
| And no, I don't get car insurance scam. I get generally
| faster ones, like "you have a package" types...
|
| The rabbit hole is _a bit_ deeper to summarize with a #8,
| Solingen made Occam 's razor.
| manojlds wrote:
| > was a capital crime
|
| > track down witnesses
|
| Am I too naive that I think that's a worthy use of that
| information?
| quest88 wrote:
| I'd agree that is a good case. But I'd still object to this
| tracking. It's a slippery slope. Who determines what is
| worthy?
|
| We might like one government administration and highly
| expect them to respect the privacy. But what about the next
| administration? We've just seen Trump say he will withhold
| funding for universities with "illegal protests". I'd fully
| expect his administration to abuse this tracking, in the
| name of law and order.
| andrepd wrote:
| > It's a slippery slope. Who determines what is worthy?
|
| Who determines if a wiretap is worthy? Or a search and
| seizure? Or a simple arrest?
|
| We have an answer for this, it's called Law and an
| independent judiciary.
| quest88 wrote:
| You're right in theory but history shows us it's not
| black and white and rarely has an effect after the fact.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| It probably was. It was also illegal. As much as you, I, or
| even public opinion may agree that something is right, we
| can't have public servants knowingly violate the law when
| it is convenient. To accept that would be to forfeit many
| of your liberties.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| In my state the law said that this checking information
| could only be used for contact tracing. So when the law
| says this and the cops drive over it in in a bulldozer,
| it's a bit shit.
|
| That said, in my state the cops recruited and flipped a
| criminal lawyer who then back doored her high profile
| clients and gave confidential and privileged information to
| them them in order to build cases.
| andrepd wrote:
| Well. That's actually a good example. Because contact tracing
| can (and was) implemented in a completely anonymous way, at a
| technical level, storing no personally identifiable
| information.
|
| You can do this, just like you can do e.g. video
| surveillance, in a secure and privacy-respecting way. There
| is just no political will.
| zombot wrote:
| > it's an open invitation for abuse.
|
| And I refuse to believe that the politicians behind that
| travesty don't know that.
|
| Also, if you already go to prison for not handing over your
| decryption keys when asked, the one purpose left for a backdoor
| can only be criminal abuse.
| glonq wrote:
| I once naively believed that us "good guys" have little to fear
| or to lose by yielding a little privacy for the greater good.
| Then I grew up and realized that governments routinely fail to
| wield such power responsibly.
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| And even if the current government does wield such power
| more-or-less responsibly, the next one may not.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| The patriot act stayed in place 3 times longer than initially
| said.
|
| It removed the habeas corpus for 15 years.
| lucasRW wrote:
| How do you guys interpret the fact that the UK hasn't requested
| such backdoors for Android-based stuff ? Ie. is this an
| indication that they already have such thing ?
|
| The UK "laws" are extremely evil when it comes to violating basic
| rights, they can essentially force companies to shut up, "gagging
| orders", etc...
| miav wrote:
| This is about end-to-end encryption. Google doesn't do that.
| hu3 wrote:
| Where did you hear that?
|
| A quick search tells me google does end-to-end encryption
| since at least 2021 [1].
|
| https://www.androidcentral.com/how-googles-backup-
| encryption...
| neycoda wrote:
| Government backdoors to devices not only allow governments to
| manipulate their people in domineering ways, but make it easier
| for hackers to steal form users. This will always be true.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Honestly think they should just disable all iPhone functionality
| but phone calls and the politicians will fold within hours.
|
| End of the day people love their devices more than their rulers
| and it's a tangible way to action citizens who would normally
| sleep though this into having their privacy protected.
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