[HN Gopher] Time to start de-Appling
___________________________________________________________________
Time to start de-Appling
Author : msangi
Score : 262 points
Date : 2025-11-10 14:57 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (heatherburns.tech)
(TXT) w3m dump (heatherburns.tech)
| spankalee wrote:
| Something's wrong with the CSS on this page. The end of every
| line is cut off.
| tempfile wrote:
| Same for me. You can get around it by zooming in.
| daemonologist wrote:
| .site-content .post has `overflow: hidden;`, .site-content
| .entry-content has `max-width: 965px;`, and .wide-content has
| `margin-right: -34.0740%;` Disabling the margin-right or,
| preferably, the max-width rule will fix the layout. Or make
| your browser less than 1700px wide.
|
| (Crazy rats nest of CSS rules, I assume this is a
| wordpress/wordpress template thing.)
| fwip wrote:
| If you resize the window to a narrower width, it will wrap more
| normally.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Yes, same issue for me. The negative margin-right is causing
| the issue: margin-right: -34.0740%;
| joshstrange wrote:
| Ahh, just saw this after posting my comment. Yes, it appears
| that at 1700px or greater it cuts off text. Shown in this
| video: https://cs.joshstrange.com/BB60xzBW
| iwontberude wrote:
| Wouldn't it be easier to just move away from the UK? (I jest, but
| actually...)
| exasperaited wrote:
| Not as many easy paths anymore for a British worker, tech or
| otherwise, thanks to The Foolishness.
|
| And the most popular choice -- the USA -- is off the table for
| the majority of Brits, I think, who cannot comprehend The Other
| Foolishness. (Mind you, the ones it encourages... I hope they
| follow their hearts)
| yearolinuxdsktp wrote:
| What about the Republic of Ireland?
| exasperaited wrote:
| That is straightforward to the point that a British citizen
| can just go there and work, even go there and freelance.
|
| (I have given it some consideration myself.)
|
| Generally speaking, though, it's not a route Brits take in
| huge numbers, for legacy reasons. Though plenty
| investigated their potential for citizenship.
| ceuk wrote:
| No need to leave, move up north and wait for all the
| shenanigans to blow over. Hard to be annoyed at the government
| and the corporations when you're walking through the Yorkshire
| dales on a sunny day
| webdevver wrote:
| nobody is going to stop you leaving the UK.
|
| its _entering_ another country that suddenly becomes a real
| problem, and ofcourse, if you 're in the UK, the only country
| worth moving to at that point is the US with (as I understand)
| quite stringent immigration restrictions.
|
| in reality, if the US were to open their doors to the UK, holy
| moly - this entire country would turn into Ukraine overnight,
| with nobody but pensioners left. which actually isn't in either
| governments interest: obviously not the UK, but infact, the UK
| presents a source of cheap labour for the US: read any
| hackernews thread concerning tech wages in the UK, the comments
| are hysterical/diabolical ("you make HOW much!?" - "A fast food
| worker makes more..." - etc.)
|
| so, the current state of affairs is probably a good business
| arrangement for both parties involved, and aren't gonna change
| any time soon.
| reboot81 wrote:
| Apple obeys the law. Policians set the law. You vote for
| politicians.
|
| So nu, it makes no sense to blame Apple here.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| it does if you're clickbaiting via ragebait, like she is?
| veleek wrote:
| I think it's a stretch to say the author is blaming Apple in
| the title and she explicitly calls out in the very first
| section:
|
| > But I will say that the shutdown of ADP is Apple being on
| the right side of the geopolitical fight, as inconvenient as
| that may be to you and me.
| cbsmith wrote:
| > But I will say that the shutdown of ADP is Apple being on the
| right side of the geopolitical fight, as inconvenient as that
| may be to you and me.
|
| I don't think there's any blaming of Apple going on here. This
| is about dealing with the practical realities of the
| circumstances for people in the UK.
| cjs_ac wrote:
| Unlike most writing about politics, the article isn't arguing
| that 'those are the bad people over there'. The article
| describes a current aspect of reality and how it came about,
| and suggests a way of responding to that reality.
| smsm42 wrote:
| The right way to respond to this reality would be to stop UK
| government from being insane by electing a more sane
| government. Stopping using iphones is going to help only for
| a short term - once encryption is de-legalized, they will
| come for everybody who they deem worth coming for, sooner or
| later. If it'll require introducing licenses to run
| encryption software and mandating key escrow, they'd do that.
| Yes, you still would be able to sneak in encrypting software
| on USB drive hidden in your... let's say, pocket. But the
| mere fact of using it would make you a criminal then. That's
| the natural progression of where it is going, unfortunately.
| criddell wrote:
| The writer isn't blaming Apple.
| sedatk wrote:
| The title certainly disagrees.
| dare944 wrote:
| I does not in the slightest. Rather, It suggests it's time
| to start removing Apple entanglements from your digital
| life, for reasons that are described in the article.
| sedatk wrote:
| See my sibling comment.
| caconym_ wrote:
| No, it doesn't.
|
| If I get up in the morning and say "time to get out of the
| house" I am not blaming my house for anything; I am simply
| articulating that I want or need to be somewhere else, for
| whatever reason.
| sedatk wrote:
| Eh, the whole "de-Brand" lingo comes from "de-Googling"
| which has unambiguously blamed Google for the act. The
| use of the same type of terminology automatically implies
| the same set of circumstances.
|
| When you say "time to de-CocaCola" while all soda
| products are susceptible to a certain health hazard, you
| can't say "Obviously, CocaCola isn't being blamed here".
|
| The analog of your example would be "time to get out of
| the cloud" for the article.
| caconym_ wrote:
| The issue is specific to Apple! IIUC they're the only
| mainstream cloud storage provider that provides E2EE, and
| I'm sure many of their customers chose them over their
| competitors for that reason.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> the whole "de-Brand" lingo comes from "de-Googling"_
|
| Which no doubt stems from more practical usage, like "de-
| worming". That does not imply that there is blame to go
| around. You are not blaming the worm -- you just want rid
| of it because it is not something that is working for
| you.
| adolph wrote:
| The frog refusing to carry the scorpion is not to blame the
| scorpion for their condition but to recognize that they are
| a scorpion and behave thusly.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| Apple obeys the law. They operate in countries where you can
| not vote.
| encom wrote:
| England has been speedrunning the dystopian surveillance police
| state for a while now, through numerous governments. Voting is
| pointless.
|
| Same (but different) in Denmark where politicians vote to give
| themselves more money[1], snoop on everything[2], violate our
| constitution unpunished[3], delete evidence of corruption[4],
| open the borders[5], etc. etc. etc. I used to care - a lot - I
| really did. But I'm done.
|
| [1]https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/ny-aftale-politikeres-
| loen...
| [2]https://www.justitsministeriet.dk/pressemeddelelse/i-dag-
| tra... [3]https://www.information.dk/indland/2020/12/jurister-
| ja-grund... [4]https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/politisk-
| flertal-presser-m... [5]https://integrationsbarometer.dk/tal-
| og-analyser/INTEGRATION...
| graemep wrote:
| Might come across as pedantic, but its important, "the UK"
| not "England". Confusing the two can upset people, especially
| those from the rest of the UK.
|
| Personally I do not think its just the UK and Denmark, its
| pretty much everywhere.
| encom wrote:
| I specified England because I don't know what's going on in
| the rest of the Kingdom. Might be just as bad, I dunno.
| graemep wrote:
| The surveillance laws are all UK wide AFAIK. Some policy
| with regard to policing is devolved so there might be
| some small differences in how they are applied, but it is
| essentially just as bad.
| BirAdam wrote:
| In general, if voting had the power to change much, it would
| be illegal. Rulers allow voting to change a few things, but
| never the things that benefit themselves.
| stOneskull wrote:
| it keeps people divided and against each other, rather than
| united against the rulers
| infinitezest wrote:
| It must be nice to live somewhere that has politicians that
| represent the will of the people enough to have a take like
| this. Where I live, your vote only counts if you have enough
| money.
| vkou wrote:
| You're asking for a monkey's paw.
|
| The current ruling party in the US has given its voters
| exactly what they think they wanted, and it's a fucking
| disaster.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Because no matter who they vote for, they get this. The
| previous ruling party hasn't had a real primary since 2008
| (and didn't even go through the motions in 2024.) H.
| Clinton makes a fairly good case that even that one was
| fixed (because they knew the best horse to bet on.)
|
| No matter who you vote for you get Hillary Clinton's
| governance, though. She's become very complimentary about
| Trump's foreign policy.
| infinitezest wrote:
| What specifically are you referring to here?
| fsflover wrote:
| > Apple obeys the law
|
| No, they don't:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45854441
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44529061
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45492410
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Did you read the article? She doesn't blame Apple.
|
| Sixth paragraph: "But I will say that the shutdown of ADP is
| Apple being on the right side of the geopolitical fight, as
| inconvenient as that may be to you and me."
| nsxwolf wrote:
| While waiting for this site to come back up can someone explain
| the word "appling"? Is that a typo?
| colechristensen wrote:
| "Apple-ing"
|
| turning a name into a verb is common these days
| liotier wrote:
| You mean verbing a noun ?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Verbing weirds language.
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| The trees are really sneezing today.
| waffletower wrote:
| 'Appling' - using Apple products. In this case iCloud SaaS
| products I believe.
| veleek wrote:
| In the context of the article de-appling is what you should do
| after de-googling.
| croemer wrote:
| https://archive.is/8SI66 if you don't want to wait
| codexb wrote:
| Sounds more like people need to de-UK. It's going to be a problem
| with any company or technology.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Ah yes, 70 million people find a country they are eligible to
| move to, quitting their jobs, uprooting their families.
| Definitely the most straightforward fix. Thankfully other
| countries have no problems either, or they'd have to leave from
| those too!
| jajuuka wrote:
| Granted it would be more impactful that to stop using Google
| and Apple services.
| cmsj wrote:
| The actual straightforward fix isn't available to us -
| namely, we aren't due a general election until 2029 and right
| now the "good guys" are in power, so it's not at all clear
| that anyone would even offer to reverse this TCN if they were
| elected instead, in 4 years time.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| At least the US hasn't postponed the general elections to
| keep the unpopular party in power.
|
| https://www.local.gov.uk/our-support/devolution-and-lgr-
| hub/...
| exe34 wrote:
| I wish they would help get as many reform councils as
| possible. Given how incompetent they have been in the
| ones they did get elected, I think it would put a damper
| on the enthusiasm of their supporters.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Fact check - the UK hasn't postponed the general
| election.
|
| Your link points to _some_ local council elections (the
| people responsible for bin collections, parks and care
| homes) and the extension has been requested by the local
| councils themselves.
| kcartlidge wrote:
| Neither has the UK government.
|
| * It wasn't the general election.
|
| * They offered local councils the chance to request it if
| they were going through a reorganisation or devolution
| process.
|
| * 18 councils requested and 9 were accepted as justified.
|
| * And even those are only delayed until May next year
| (one year after the rest of the UK).
|
| So to be clear the UK government not only didn't postpone
| the general elections but half the councils who requested
| the _local_ elections were postponed were denied, with
| the other half having reasons and still doing it a year
| later anyway.
|
| And all that is actually covered in the page you link to.
| benoau wrote:
| It's more likely to be a problem with Apple (and Google)
| because they have put themselves in a position where they are a
| gateway to _everybody_. There are multitudes of online storage
| providers outside of the UK 's reach and jurisdiction but 0% of
| iPhone users back up to them because of technical limitations
| that inhibit iCloud competitors or any compatible storage
| solution.
| stavros wrote:
| > 0% of iPhone users back up to them because of technical
| limitations that inhibit iCloud competitors or any compatible
| storage solution.
|
| To clarify, by "technical limitations" here you don't mean
| "it's not possible with our current technology", you mean
| "Apple purposely blocks this".
| benoau wrote:
| Allegedly it's deliberate, according to a pair of legal
| actions they face in the UK (hearing in 9 days) and US
| (hearing in August 2026).
|
| > 13.1 a set of technical restrictions and practices that
| prevent users of iOS from storing certain key file types
| (known as "Restricted Files") on any cloud storage service
| other than its own iCloud and thus ensuring that users have
| no choice but to use iCloud (a complete monopolist in
| respect of these Restricted Files) if they wish to meet all
| their cloud storage and/or back up needs, in particular in
| order to conduct a complete back-up of the device ("the
| Restricted File Conduct"); and/or
|
| > 13.2 an unfair choice architecture, which individually
| and cumulatively steer iOS Users towards using and
| purchasing iCloud rather than other cloud storage services,
| and/or limit their effective choice, and/or exclude or
| disadvantage rivals or would- be rivals ( "the Choice
| Architecture Conduct "). See further paragraphs 6 to 9 and
| 97 to 132 of the CPCF.
|
| https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/16897724-consumers-
| assoc... (via summary of ruling of the chair)
|
| > 30. By sequestering Restricted Files, and denying all
| other cloud providers access to them, Apple prevents rival
| cloud platforms from offering a full-service cloud solution
| that can compete effectively against iCloud. The cloud
| products that rivals can offer are, by virtue of Apple's
| restraints, fundamentally diminished because they can only
| host Accessible Files. Users who want to back up all of
| their files--including the basic Restricted Files needed to
| restore their device at replacement--have but one option in
| the marketplace: iCloud.
|
| > 31. There is no technological or security justification
| for Apple mandating the use of iCloud for Restricted Files.
| Apple draws this distinction only to curtail competition
| and advantage its iCloud product over rival cloud
| platforms.
|
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68303306/felix-
| gamboa-v... (via document 1 the complaint)
| buran77 wrote:
| > they are a gateway to everybody
|
| They are, and most time this allows them to abuse you. But
| what do you think happens once you that gateway is blown
| open, isn't your front door next?
|
| > There are multitudes of online storage providers outside of
| the UK's reach and jurisdiction
|
| What I said above means that once you normalize the situation
| that providers have to open the gate to your yard whenever
| the state comes knocking, the state will just come knocking
| directly at your door. In other words I'm not sure the state
| will stop in its pursuit of access to your data when it can
| just incriminate trying to evade the law by storing it out of
| reach.
| benoau wrote:
| > But what do you think happens once you that gateway is
| blown open, isn't your front door next?
|
| Yes this is the way policing should work, if they think you
| have done something they knock on _your_ door rather than
| go to Apple and Google and compromise the entire population
| all at once through the convenience of their monopolies.
| Bonus points if a judge needs to grant them the privilege
| of knocking on your door too.
| buran77 wrote:
| > Yes this is the way policing should work, if they think
| you have done something they knock on your door [...]
| Bonus points if a judge needs to grant them the privilege
|
| How exactly would they come after you if your data is
| "outside of the UK's reach and jurisdiction"? They went
| after the gatekeepers because they wanted a one stop shop
| for accessing people's data. They will look to take the
| same easy road in the future and there's nothing easier
| then framing any attempts to keep data out of UK's reach
| as a crime. They get your data or get you for not
| providing the data.
|
| The law will be "stupid", tech savvy people will find
| ways around it. But it's enough to throw a or a noose
| around as many people as possible and tighten as time
| goes by. Authoritarianism 101.
| benoau wrote:
| > How exactly would they come after you if your data is
| "outside of the UK's reach and jurisdiction"?
|
| By suspecting you of a crime _first_ , then they can
| establish access to your device through legal due process
| and access the data on your device or imprison you for
| not facilitating it. Same thing they do with computer
| passwords and whatnot.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > There are multitudes of online storage providers outside of
| the UK's reach and jurisdiction
|
| Not according to the UK, lately. The problem is still
| domestic. UK wants to exert this control over any service a
| UK citizens happens to use, whether they have a UK presence
| or not. Same with the ID/Age verification stuff.
|
| Moving away from Apple and Google probably is something they
| should do, but it's not going to be a solution to the problem
| of the UK government's overreach.
|
| UK citizens need to turn their attention inward against their
| government.
| jen20 wrote:
| To be clear, Apple and Google both have huge UK presence. I
| don't know the extent of Google, but Apple has offices with
| thousands of people working in them. Compliance with what
| the UK wants in this regard is not optional.
|
| What the original poster does is completely misplace blame
| under the guise of "clever" writing - blame should be
| assigned squarely on the idiotic policies of the UK
| government.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Google has been building a huge new office in London for
| a bit now, with the apparent intent to move most of their
| EU presence there.
| amelius wrote:
| It's an Apple problem, because with libre tools you can run
| your own software to circumvent this law.
| j45 wrote:
| The majority of apple and android users can't run their own
| libre software, until libre software is as easy and seamless
| to use as the comparables.
| bnastic wrote:
| You can run your own software, but if asked by UK authorities
| to provide the keys/password and you don't comply you face
| prison time.
| amelius wrote:
| You can safely leave it to FOSS to implement ways around
| that.
| odiroot wrote:
| There's more good reasons to de-Apple besides just residing in
| UK.
| thw_9a83c wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Otherwise, please make sure you de-Apple, de-Google, and de-
| American Stack yourself when you have time, clarity, and focus to
| do it. Start today.
|
| I don't understand the core of this advice. So if you're in the
| UK and do all the above, can you suddenly get similar E2EE cloud
| storage from a different provider without a UK government-
| mandated backdoor?
| benoau wrote:
| Hopefully pretty soon Apple _will_ have to provide the same
| functionality iCloud monopolizes so you can have an equivalent
| service. But right now you can do an encrypted transmission to
| a privately-owned NAS like Synology and then E2E cloud storage
| provider of your choice, with the caveat that things like
| background syncing are strategically monopolized and no app may
| backup your full phone.
|
| https://www.catribunal.org.uk/cases/16897724-consumers-assoc...
| (hearing in 9 days)
| nine_k wrote:
| It's a bit like the famous HN post where somebody said that
| Dropbox is not needed if you have rsync and friends.
|
| Technically this can even be correct. You can build and
| operate a good, secure solution for yourself _if you have
| time and skill to build_. Could make sense for a company
| handling sensitive data. Would hardly make sense for most
| individuals who are not professional SREs / SWEs. (To check
| how it feels, an engineer can try to sew themself a pair of
| pants to wear daily, or do something similarly mundane in
| what they are not skilled.)
|
| A solution that can reliably work for non-experts is very
| important.
| benoau wrote:
| Sure but in this case most of the difficulties are
| artificially imposed by Apple, depending on how the
| tribunal responds to their alleged iCloud monopoly it could
| become as simple as choosing a compatible provider and
| putting your username/password in.
| smsm42 wrote:
| And as soon as you have "a provider" as a business
| entity, UK government can ban them from providing E2EE
| solutions to Apple users the same way they did ban Apple.
| Or the provider would just silently bend over hand hand
| all the keys to the UK govt.
| benoau wrote:
| They can't police every online server you can possibly
| rent, and they can't police them "all at once" like they
| can with the Google/Apple duopoly, all they can do is go
| after them one-by-one as they _need_ access and as we see
| with 4chan, rejecting their assertions on jurisdiction is
| certainly an option.
| smsm42 wrote:
| They can't. But they can police any service that has
| substantial number of users. And that's what most of the
| people would use. So, the hardened criminals would use
| their own underground darknet services which the
| government couldn't breach, but the regular people would
| have no privacy at all.
|
| > 4chan, rejecting their assertions on jurisdiction is
| certainly an option.
|
| 4chan can tell UK regulators to take hike because 4chan
| has no business presence in the UK. Any service that does
| want to serve UK users and is successful in doing so,
| will eventually find itself in UK regulators' crosshairs.
| For services that are based outside UK, they'd just stop
| serving UK users because that's the easiest way to handle
| it. Which is completely fine with UK regulators, in fact,
| that's exactly what they want - so that nobody would be
| able to provide privacy to UK subjects.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| I have done all this. All inhad to do was provide my passport
| scans, fingerprints, photos of my face, phone number so now I
| can use tencent cloud in china! /s
| caconym_ wrote:
| E2EE cloud storage is not some kind of magic that only tech
| bigcorps can provide. I de-Dropboxed a few years ago, replacing
| it with Syncthing running on a local NAS with e2ee backups in
| Backblaze and Wireguard VPN out to my mobile devices. Sure,
| this is not the sort of thing most people can set up for
| themselves, but I don't think that's particularly relevant in
| context.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Syncthing and e2e is great but the issue is that the law
| force you to give away your phone and your password if asked.
| Meaning, they have the encrypted data on your phone and the
| password to unlock it.. same for computer ofc.
|
| If you're in England and have to keep things secured
| (including from government eyes), i have no idea how you can
| do. They soon will be allowed to put a camera in your small
| room and watch you take a dump.
| disambiguation wrote:
| # Encrypt a file openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -salt -in secret.txt
| -out secret.enc
|
| # Decrypt openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -in secret.enc -out
| secret.txt
|
| Wow that was hard.
| prophesi wrote:
| I'm reminded of the infamous HN Dropbox comment.
| runjake wrote:
| Reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Yeesh, this seems like a good example of the fact that a
| feature (encrypting a file) is not a product (an E2E
| encrypted storage solution.)
| exe34 wrote:
| Re: rubber hose attack on cryptography.
| Zak wrote:
| Threat modeling is important of course. The UK government
| does have tools with which to punish people who don't turn
| over the cleartext of targeted documents once it's directly
| investigating them, but that's not scalable. The method the
| grandparent comment proposes greatly reduces one's exposure
| to mass surveillance, criminals, and abusive service
| providers.
| smsm42 wrote:
| You may think you're being sarcastic, but you are just
| stating a true fact here. For about 99.9% of this planet's
| population, it's not just hard, it's something they'd never
| ever know how to do and have no intention to ever learn. Like
| it or hate it, but that's what it is.
|
| And, for 99.9% of people who know how to do that, they'd
| still be too lazy to do it properly (hint: where do you keep
| secret.txt exactly? What happens if your dog eats it?) and
| will use some third-party solution instead.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| > where do you keep secret.txt
|
| Reminds me of using Ansible Vault and preciously encrypting
| every secret (so we can say that repos doesn't contain any
| secrets), then just putting ~/.vault_pass in plaintext on
| every Ansible controller to be taken by anyone with access
| to the servers.
| alexpotato wrote:
| The author of AGE has a great point in the below blog
| post [0]: If you use something like
| SOPS or just check age secrets into a git repository next
| to source code, you need an authentication story for the
| whole repository. Having authentication for the secrets
| will do nothing if the attacker can change the source
| code that decrypts and uses them. That story
| can simply be "we trust GitHub" like most projects.
| Encrypting secrets with age will keep them confidential
| even if the project is Open Source, and anyone wanting to
| replace them will have to make a PR even if they can
| generate a new valid age file.
|
| 0 - https://words.filippo.io/age-authentication/
| jcynix wrote:
| >where do you keep secret.txt exactly?
|
| Hidden. Encrypted. And the passphrase is: at 5,21 which is
| the 5th line on page 21 of your favorite book. Which you
| have more than one copy of, because you like it that much.
| And you need copies to lend. Or you have the PDF from
| Gutenberg.org?
|
| And 5/21 might be the birthday of your first child, or your
| wedding day, or whatever?
|
| It might be a favorite quote, like "Those who would give up
| essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety,
| deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Augmented by the above
| date if needed?
| smsm42 wrote:
| Hidden where? Are you writing it on a post-it and putting
| it on top of your screen? Are you keeping it in your
| wallet? In a safe? What if you lose it or your house is
| flooded?
|
| > And 5/21 might be the birthday of your first child, or
| your wedding day, or whatever?
|
| How sure are you that you'd remember all that scheme for
| 20 years? How about 50 years? Some documents may be
| relevant for a very long time. What about if you need
| more than one key? What about if you need to give access
| to one document to specific set of persons?
|
| Once you consider all the scenarios that can happen
| through a lifetime, you start to understand why managing
| all those complexities correctly is not trivial. And
| that's why people pay third parties to do it for them.
| It's not because encrypting a bag of bytes is hard. It's
| because of all the things that surround it.
| raincole wrote:
| > And the passphrase is: at 5,21 which is the 5th line on
| page 21 of your favorite book
|
| Yeah, it's one of those things that you'll forget in N
| years. That's exactly what prompted "where do you keep
| secret.txt" question.
| jcynix wrote:
| As of now I have to care for my (digital) backups, that
| is, I cannot ignore them for N years. I had to copy
| things from discettes to magnetic tape, from tape to hard
| drives, etc. I have to periodically check my backups if
| they are restorable. That's life.
|
| It's the same for documents, as for secrets, which I have
| to transfer from one medium to another, I have to check
| that I remember secrets and passphrases. And places. As I
| already said, that's life.
| disambiguation wrote:
| The double entendre occurred to me, I don't disagree.
|
| But the relative ease does not merely apply to users, but
| to the barrier of entry for alt products as well.
|
| Consider that the current paradigm is contingent on the
| "blind trust" users have held in tech for a long time. It's
| possible that a new kind of app will thrive in a different
| paradigm.
|
| For example, is there any reason we couldn't have a simple
| "message wrapper" which only sends encrypted payloads via
| SMS or Email and decrypts on the fly in a secure sandbox?
| Easy for the user and hard to regulate.
| cmsj wrote:
| Yes, but you'll have to trust that they haven't been issued a
| secret government order to implement a backdoor.
|
| Not all of those companies will loudly object in the way Apple
| does.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >when you have time, clarity, and focus to do it.
|
| i thought this a joke, lol
| kakacik wrote:
| On personal level, you have to choose whether your priority is
| privacy or convenience. If its privacy, no whining about 'I
| want this and that and I am too lazy to rollback' is relevant.
|
| Never trust US services, 3-letter agencies are endlessly greedy
| to fill your profile with another tens of thousands of data
| points. As do all advertisers all around the globe. As do (with
| various success) all other governments and private companies
| who have something to gain, HDD storage has never been cheaper
| and all personal data are worth gold and beyond.
|
| Or if you have to use them, use your own encryption with
| strength to not be broken for next few hundreds of years, to
| stand a chance. That is, if you actually have something to
| hide, but I have never met a person who really doesn't :)
| isodev wrote:
| Because no US corp can promise you true E2EE. Even an app like
| Signal - are you sure the version you're getting from the App
| Store is always the one with "unbreakable E2EE"?
| bink wrote:
| With Signal they provide a toolkit you can use to verify that
| the checksum for your App Store download matches that of the
| public build or one that you compile yourself.
|
| edit: This is apparently currently not working for Apple and
| MS builds.
|
| https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-
| Desktop/blob/main/reprod...
| InTheArena wrote:
| The first two are reasonable positions. The third, on the
| merits of the argument in the article, is absolutely bonkers.
| It's the UK government that is unleashing this stupidity on the
| world. There is no European alternative that is any safer, and
| it's the UK's own hands that are at fault in the first place.
|
| Not that there aren't other reasons to be skeptical of American
| companies' right, but it's just so easy to fall into
| nationalistic prattle instead of fixing the real problem.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > but it's just so easy to fall into nationalistic prattle
| instead of fixing the real problem.
|
| Right. This, right now, is 100% a UK problem. De-
| Americanising your tech stack isn't going to fix the
| political issues domestically. Hence Apple pulling ADP out,
| they made the choice of not complying with the UK and not
| offering the service instead of compromising the service for
| everyone else in the world.
|
| UK citizens need to direct their attention inwards against
| their own government.
| dpoloncsak wrote:
| I'm sort of out of the loop as a US citizen....Does the UK
| really have the ability to enforce every E2EE storage solution
| on GitHub to comply?
|
| Even if you monitor downloads, every VPN, every ISP..... can't
| I copy paste the source code?
|
| Isn't SFTP already E2EE? They're not going to come down on
| SFTP....right? I really hope not...
| mmh0000 wrote:
| The simple answer is: Money.
|
| If you're making money in the UK, they have a lot of legal
| authority over you.
|
| If you're based in the UK, they have a lot of legal authority
| over you.
|
| If you're neither of those things, they might complain, but
| the actual consequences are close to nil.
|
| And they're not banning the tools (this is arguable, but they
| "can't" logically, as you point out). They're banning
| businesses from providing the tools.
| dpoloncsak wrote:
| Thats reassuring...but still frightening, just less so I
| guess.
|
| _Most_ of my homelab is self-hosted (Cloudflare and
| Tailscale stop me short of saying it 's 100%, plus an
| Oracle VPS for a Minecraft server if you count the WHOLE
| stack I guess)...and you tell yourself its 'better to own
| your own data' or whatever your personal mantra is, but
| it's bizarre to see this play out
| bob1029 wrote:
| My new high-privacy, high-control data management solution
| revolves around pen & paper. As far as I am aware, these
| implements have not yet been banned in the UK.
|
| I don't know why everything must be digital. If you don't put
| it on a computer, it's almost as if it doesn't exist. If you do
| this often enough, it is almost as if _you_ don 't exist.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Party members were supposed not to go into ordinary shops
| ('dealing on the free market', it was called), but the rule
| was not strictly kept, because there were various things,
| such as shoelaces and razor blades, which it was impossible
| to get hold of in any other way. He had given a quick glance
| up and down the street and then had slipped inside and bought
| the book for two dollars fifty. At the time he was not
| conscious of wanting it for any particular purpose. He had
| carried it guiltily home in his briefcase. Even with nothing
| written in it, it was a compromising possession.
|
| The thing that he was about to do was to open a diary. This
| was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no
| longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain
| that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-
| five years in a forced-labour camp. Winston fitted a nib into
| the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen
| was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures,
| and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty,
| simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper
| deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being
| scratched with an ink-pencil. Actually he was not used to
| writing by hand. Apart from very short notes, it was usual to
| dictate everything into the speak-write which was of course
| impossible for his present purpose. He dipped the pen into
| the ink and then faltered for just a second. A tremor had
| gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the decisive
| act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:
|
| April 4th, 1984.
| mbirth wrote:
| In the latest Janus Cycle video he explained how he started
| carrying an IBM WorkPad c3 around to manage his contacts and
| appointments. I found that a great idea for people like me
| that struggle with deciphering their handwriting an hour
| later.
| burningChrome wrote:
| I've thought of going back to a palm pilot for the same
| thing. There are tons of Handspring and Palm Pilot Tungsten
| versions on ebay for under $40.
|
| I believe the Palm T2 and T3 had bluetooth so would be
| interesting if you could connect the two to keep contacts
| and appointments off your smartphone. I'm seeing Handspring
| Treo 650's for under $100 as well.
| smsm42 wrote:
| It's not a backdoor per se. UK just banned using E2EE (at least
| for Apple users' data). I don't think though they can ban E2EE
| in general - like, if I upload a binary blob to a data store,
| how would they know whether it's encrypted or not? Short of
| banning all strong encryption completely (which even UK yet is
| not stupid enough to do) it's not possible to prevent. But they
| did not build a "backdoor" into encryption - they demanded
| that, and Apple refused, so there's now no encryption at all
| for UK users. There's no door.
|
| They are just going for service providers that make E2EE easy
| for users - clearly betting on the fact that people they want
| to surveil would be too lazy/incompetent to use a custom
| solution providing strong E2EE encryption. And they may be
| right - most iphone users would keep using the same services
| even with the knowledge that the data is now widely open - and
| eventually of course will be breached and available to every
| kind of criminal, as it happened many times already with other
| massive data warehouses.
|
| But I believe even is the UK you still can encrypt your own
| backup and upload it, e.g., to rsync.net and nobody would be
| able to stop you. Just most people won't.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| It seems like the real solution is de-UK'ing, a wise move for a
| number of reasons. Move to the continent, to Ireland, or the US
| (or Australia for that classic British expat experience), but
| leave the sinking ship. Ideally the time to leave was when the
| passport was still in the EU, but now is better than never.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Probably easy to do with a Mac, but iOS is a different
| question. Way too restrictive if you don't use iCloud.
| croemer wrote:
| https://archive.is/8SI66 (to bypass HN hug of death)
| sedatk wrote:
| > You need to start that because, as we recently learned, at some
| point in the very near future Apple is withdrawing its Advanced
| Data Protection (ADP) feature from the UK altogether as a result
| of the Home Office TCN through the Investigatory Powers Act.
|
| So, a UK-only advice, and it strangely assumes that any other
| service in UK wouldn't be bound by the same laws.
| omnicognate wrote:
| I can encrypt anything and store it in anything that provides
| storage. Why are people acting like "end to end encryption" is
| a feature you need a cloud service to provide to you. Rather
| the opposite - it's really something you can only do yourself.
| culi wrote:
| Sure, but almost no one is managing their own keys and knows
| enough about the various e2ee algorithms to make these
| decisions on their own.
|
| Do you know of a good piece of software or tool that lets a
| layperson interface with any cloud storage provider?
| jank199x wrote:
| https://github.com/restic/restic
|
| not exactly for a "layperson", to be honest, but easy
| enough for someone familiar with a command line
| Kerrick wrote:
| The closest I've found is VeraCrypt, which is near the edge
| of what I'd call layperson-friendly. But if you store a
| VeraCrypt drive on the cloud, you'll need to re-upload the
| entire encrypted file--usually quite large--every time you
| change anything at all. That's a _lot_ of bandwidth, and
| likely to be quite slow to sync.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| And you must then give the password to your data.
|
| https://thblegal.com/news/can-i-be-prosecuted-for-failing-
| to...
|
| https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-
| edicola/articoli/2025/01...
|
| etc.
| omnicognate wrote:
| In the extremely unlikely event that I'm compelled to by a
| judge, yes. Or if someone chooses to beat me with five
| dollar wrench, of course. And even then A) it can't happen
| without my knowledge and B) I have the option of refusing
| and bearing the consequences.
|
| I didn't say it solves every problem, just that it's the
| only way to have proper end-to-end encryption.
| hex4def6 wrote:
| This seems like a job for a truecrypt style system. Either
| you do it at a file-level, or you have it split into (say)
| 10MB file chunks, and if you want to access a certain file
| you have an encrypted local db that acts as a magic decoder
| ring ("file test.csv is spread across CLOUD1.DB
| CLOUD3443.DB CLOUD132.DB").
|
| Combine that with steganography (Enter real_password, and
| test.csv is a list of bank accounts, enter fake_password,
| and test.csv is a list of apple store locations, enter
| random_password, and it decodes junk). Maybe combine that
| with multiple layers of passwords (one ring to rule them
| all, except certain files).
|
| Obviously, you'd want to steganographize the decoder ring
| as well.
| caconym_ wrote:
| > So, a UK-only advice
|
| So what?
|
| > it strangely assumes that any other service in UK wouldn't be
| bound by the same laws.
|
| From the linked article:
|
| > I'm not going to tell you where to move your stuff other than
| to say that if you're moving it from one big tech company to
| another, you're just being daft. Likewise, if you're moving
| your stuff to a non-e2ee service, don't bother. If you need an
| e2ee service try Proton. They have a Black Friday sale on.
| sedatk wrote:
| > So what?
|
| The title felt like there was a greater issue with Apple
| specifically. There wasn't. There was a greater issue with
| the new UK laws and cloud storage systems. I think people
| deserved a clarification before getting wound up about it
| before reading the article.
| caconym_ wrote:
| The issue _is_ with Apple specifically in the sense that
| they have been offering a superior E2EE cloud storage
| service that will soon be denied to UK residents (IIUC,
| E2EE isn 't offered by their competition e.g. Google,
| Microsoft). But the article goes out of its way in its
| first section to note that Apple isn't in the wrong at all
| here:
|
| > But I will say that the shutdown of ADP is Apple being on
| the right side of the geopolitical fight, as inconvenient
| as that may be to you and me.
|
| It is, if you care about the issues the author evidently
| cares about, "time to start de-Appling". I am a satisfied
| ongoing customer of Apple and I didn't find this headline
| to be the least bit inflammatory. It is, at worst, minor
| clickbait--but it's not really bait at all, since the
| contents of the article match the headline.
| cmsj wrote:
| FYI, this is not about a law, this is about a Technical
| Capability Notice. This is a thing the UK government is
| able to issue to a specific company or companies, that
| require them to implement technical measures to enable data
| collection. This applies only to the company/ies that the
| notice is issued to.
|
| That could be one of them, some of them or all of them, but
| it's not really a law that automatically applies to all of
| them.
| sedatk wrote:
| Everything a government does is about a law, but, even if
| only Apple had received this notice, why would it change
| the unfairness of singling out Apple? Did UK government
| issue this request as their final request of this kind?
| Did they forbid any further requests to be made? Did they
| single out Apple out of something specific to Apple Inc
| (or, say, United States) or did Apple happen to be just
| too visible?
|
| Singling out Apple in the article's title sends the wrong
| message here. The author should have gone with something
| along the lines of "UK residents should stop using E2EE
| cloud services". Current title implies there might be a
| safe E2EE service in the UK. Heck, they even claim that
| in the article: "If you need an e2ee service try Proton"
| as if Proton is exempt from getting a notice from the UK.
| It's not.
| smsm42 wrote:
| Yes, it's nothing to do with Apple per se - any major E2E
| provider would be under the same attack. The problem here
| is UK government is drunk with power and doesn't want their
| citizens to have any privacy rights, and UK citizens are
| largely ok with that, as evidenced by them keeping to elect
| such governments. Apple is just the most prominent target
| of the attack - eventually, they will try to attack smaller
| targets still, and make usage of the strong encryption as
| hard as possible, maybe outlaw it completely and mandate
| government key escrow. They already tried it in many
| countries, and UK seems to be very ripe to try again.
| jlokier wrote:
| _> UK citizens are largely ok with that, as evidenced by
| them keeping to elect such governments_
|
| I don't think that's true. I think plenty of UK citizens
| do want better privacy rights and data protection, as
| evidenced by the very large petition against national ID
| cards for example.
|
| It doesn't win the vote because it's not the most
| important factor when it comes to voting, because there
| are bigger issues people care about more.
|
| Many people are somewhat despondent, due to economic
| decline, ever-increasing pressures and poor prospects for
| so many people. There's no choice of party which
| simultaneously supports privacy rights at the same time
| as other things most UK citizens appear to care about
| more, which can also survive the intense tactical voting
| pressure under the FPTP voting system. Consider that most
| people who voted Labour in the "landslide" last election
| appear to have done it tactically to "get the Tories
| out".
|
| So issues like privacy which aren't at the top of
| people's concerns, end up not having much influence over
| voting decisions.
|
| The Lib Dems and Greens are the nearest to that, imho. Of
| the major parties, they seem the most aligned with
| privacy rights in their DNA, as far as I can tell.
|
| Reform are getting some political benefit from talking up
| privacy at the moment, and they stand a real chance of
| winning next time. But I doubt very much if Reform would
| ever implement real privacy rights. I think it's just
| opportunistic dodgy politician talk in their case, and
| that real privacy isn't in their DNA at all, because they
| don't believe in universality of human rights. They are
| openly eager to remove the Human Rights Act and strip
| many people of those rights, after all. Strong online
| privacy also clashes with one of their core missions, to
| find and deport vastly more people than before; privacy
| clashes with that both on grounds of investigative
| capabilities, and on grounds of principles and rights. I
| could imagine Reform trying to offer strong privacy only
| for approved citizens, alongside mandatory reporting on
| other users, but the contradictions in that are too much.
| graemep wrote:
| > So, a UK-only advice
|
| Not for long
| kcartlidge wrote:
| > _So, a UK-only advice, and it strangely assumes that any
| other service in UK wouldn't be bound by the same laws._
|
| I suspect it's because whilst other services _would_ be
| affected we only know about Apple currently and, thanks to iOS
| and Mac, a large percentage of the population will be using
| Apple by default for the services impacted. Only Google
| (Android) and Microsoft (Windows) really overlap in that
| regard.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Just to clarify, she's advocating people stop using Apple, quite
| literally the only big tech company with a slightly better focus
| on privacy compared to all the others and with a reputation for
| saying no to the latest authoritarian power grab by the UK
| government?
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| No, she's saying that due to UK legislation that Apple will no
| longer be allowed to offer e2ee and it's time to start moving
| your data off of their cloud services before you're forced to
| turn off ADP.
|
| It's not an article about advocacy so much as the pragmatics an
| upcoming data migration.
| adammarples wrote:
| Yes, she's advocating people stop using them for a few services
| if they require e2ee for those services. Why? Because apple
| will be removing e2ee for those services. She is also clearly
| advocating not to use another big tech company for those
| services. Source: TFA
| ZebusJesus wrote:
| Seeing as the UK is part of the 5 eyes alliance I wonder how long
| until this is attempted in the other countries
| tantalor wrote:
| > Hi, I'm Heather Burns -- yes, that one.
|
| Ok, I was going to ask, but taking "yes, that one" seriously I
| suppose confirms the author is the actress Heather Burns best
| known for playing the best friend role in a string of successful
| romantic comedies.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0122688/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Burns
|
| Kind of weird to be reading some blog post about tech privacy
| from such a well known actress.
|
| Am I missing something?
| dmbche wrote:
| https://heatherburns.tech/
| small_scombrus wrote:
| > Am I missing something?
|
| A joke? A fun tagline? A little zing for under the heading?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I wouldn't classify "best known for playing a side character in
| some 90s movies" as a well known actress. Also, different
| Heather Burns.
| tantalor wrote:
| I'd put her in the top 1% of actors.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| She might be, but it might also be the case that there are
| so many actors, to be "well known", you need to be in the
| 0.001%
|
| I probably have seen movies with her in it, but I have no
| recollection of her as an actor. I did recognize her
| husband as Samir from Office Space, though I couldn't tell
| you his name.
| ssbash wrote:
| The author is a different Heather Burns from the actress.
|
| https://heatherburns.tech/about/
|
| If you scroll down you'll see an image of the author.
| hvs wrote:
| It's not that one.
| joncrane wrote:
| "-- yes, that one."
|
| ? Who is this person?
| 9rx wrote:
| The person whom you went out of your way to reach out to.
| numbers wrote:
| just noticed your CSS has an issue on wide screens that cuts off
| some of the words at the end of a line, here's the culprit:
|
| ``` @media screen and (min-width: 1200px) { .site-content .entry-
| content .wide-content, .alignwide, .alignfull { margin-right:
| -34.0740%; } } ```
|
| that margin-right is causing some of the content to move too far
| to the right and gets hidden in `.entry-content`
| nickcw wrote:
| Very clever image and caption (right at the bottom of the page)
|
| > Header image by me: Alan Turing memorial, Manchester, where he
| reminds you why keeping data private can be a matter of life and
| death.
|
| The image shows a close up of a statue of Alan Turing, his hand
| holding an apple.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Death
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| The very Wikipedia page you link explains in great detail why,
| although we can never know for sure, it's actually unlikely
| that he committed suicide, and more likely that his death was
| an accident.
|
| The suicide story will probably never go away, because it's
| _too good_ a story. It fits so neatly into popular culture.
| raincole wrote:
| I read that section word by word and I honestly don't think
| it "explains that it's actually unlikely that he committed
| suicide." The opinions are diverse at best.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Maybe people in UK should de-stupidify their politicians.
| cmsj wrote:
| It's doubtful that we can, the "good guys" are in power right
| now.
| odiroot wrote:
| The two major parties are both supporters of the nanny state.
| webdevver wrote:
| the people are a lot stupider than the politicians. sorry but
| it needs to be said.
|
| as for the MPs, theyre ok. not as stupid as most think. they
| are very self-interested and not in the business of 'rocking
| the boat'. strongly prefer managed decline than any risk taking
| that could result in things going sideways.
|
| its easy to critique but truthfully the UK is structurally in a
| dead end (well ok, maybe not... but it does feel that way). but
| things could be a _lot_ worse, and many don 't appreciate that
| reality. having clean tap water and paved roads is pretty damn
| good for a country held up by fintech and scraps of last
| century's industry.
|
| people calling for reforms have no idea what they're in for.
| Thankfully Reform was deployed together with Nigel Farage, God
| bless him, rolled in to do narrative control and provide a safe
| and controlled sponge for dissent. That guy is a 'fixer' for UK
| political radicalism - every time the crowd starts to have
| funny ideas, he magically appears and slowly but surely
| everyone goes back to their PS32k/year jobs. I think he's
| 'retired' from politics thrice now.
|
| truthfully, nobody does politics better than the Brits. but
| then again, they invented this game to begin with!
| api wrote:
| IMHO Apple is actually being honest here. They cannot legally
| operate in the UK without providing a back door, _so they are
| dropping the claim of ADP in the UK_. This is letting the user
| know what 's up, and might also help inspire a backlash against
| these laws. Apple needs to make it clear that they are being
| forced by UK law to degrade service.
|
| Corporations can't really resist governments unless they're not
| operating in a given government's jurisdiction and therefore have
| nothing to lose. They can take things to court, but in lieu of a
| verdict or an injunction they have to comply with the law or they
| can be fined, have assets frozen, be de-banked or banned from
| processing payments, etc.
|
| I'm sure there's services out there that will secretly comply and
| still claim to be secure.
|
| There's also a lot of companies that will simply abandon security
| features like ADP or never develop them. Apple is going to the
| trouble of disabling it only for UK people not everyone, instead
| of just deprecating it. The latter would be less expensive and
| expose them to less legal risk.
|
| If you really want security in the UK now you have to roll your
| own and do the encryption yourself. Honestly that's always the
| best security, since you can never be 100% sure a closed cloud or
| software vendor isn't messing with you.
| api wrote:
| Is it now effectively illegal in the UK for a company to provide
| end-to-end encrypted services to users?
| welder wrote:
| Move away from the UK. This is a UK law forcing Apple to share
| your data if you live in the UK.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| De-appling is easy. I just don't have anything from them. Apart
| from the work laptop, but that is a problem for my employer, not
| me.
|
| De-googling however is extremely hard. I have been slowly
| chipping away at it, but there are things I just have no decent
| option to (such as Waze and Android Auto).
|
| Android itself is another problem. I have high hopes for a
| Graphene device.
| whstl wrote:
| De-Googling is also extremely easy, I haven't had a Google
| account in 10 years, I use uBlock to block the ads, DuckDuckGo
| for search and a Youtube app that downloads from it instead of
| using the website.
|
| Perhaps the only thing I use directly is Recaptcha.
|
| The bigger problem is doing both.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| It's easy to use a different calendar, search engine, etc,
| but it's far from easy to use an Android device without
| Google Services. Can be done, but banking apps, contactless
| payments, etc, become painful or impossible.
| 827a wrote:
| > Apple cannot disable ADP automatically for these users
|
| Extremely interesting.
| odo1242 wrote:
| ADP means that you own the encryption key to the data and Apple
| can't access it, so Apple being able to turn ADP off by itself
| would invalidate the whole point of the system.
| 827a wrote:
| In theory, sure, but that theory surviving practice (e.g. a
| G20 government bearing against it) is meaningful. E.g. they
| could push an OS update to automatically turn off ADP for
| impacted users, but they aren't.
| 0manrho wrote:
| > We are all liabilities to our own opsec now.
|
| Always have been.
|
| It's unfortunate that gross government overreach and corporate
| cooperation with it is what it takes for people to even recognize
| the concept of data privacy and data ownership is a thing, much
| less that they should do something about it and that their data
| is and never was "safe" in the cloud, no matter which corporate
| overlords walled garden you called home. Apple has never been an
| exception to this rule.
| joshstrange wrote:
| On a 1700px or wider screen your text is cut off on the right-
| hand side: https://cs.joshstrange.com/BB60xzBW
| isodev wrote:
| > please make sure you de-Apple, de-Google, and de-American Stack
| yourself when you have time, clarity, and focus to do it. Start
| today.
|
| That's the message. It's high time. We can what-about-argume
| about what's E2EE and what Apple "pinky promises" isn't used or
| sold but the reality is that anything seated in the US may as
| well be a publicly open http for the right buyer (be it the US
| government, Saudi Arabia, Israel or whatever...)
|
| Especially if you're in charge of customer data, you can't "just"
| setup something on a EU server if the corp is based in the US,
| those days are over now. You need to do the legwork.
| peterspath wrote:
| Maybe it is better to de-tech a bit. Go back to some older
| decentralised stuff.
|
| Like buy cd's and blu-rays instead of digital/drm
| locked/streaming service shit. Be an owner again instead of a
| renter.
| jckahn wrote:
| It's all fun and games until you learn that physical media has
| a limited shelf life.
| peterspath wrote:
| so does digital..
| Klonoar wrote:
| It's why you archive the things you buy on physical media.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| You can de-Google, de-Apple, de-Microsoft, de-bank, de-whatever,
| go live off-grid in a thatched hut in Sherwood Forest. But the
| government will spy on you all the same.
| ebbi wrote:
| Taking inspiration from the East India Company, Apple should
| colonize the UK and take over the government - the iGovernment,
| if you will.
|
| Citizens will regain their right to e2ee privacy, they will not
| have to deal with voting for mediocre politicians to lead them.
| Instead, Tim Cook will be their new leader, and every morning
| over the mandatory installation of HomePods in each home,
| citizens will be greeted with an ecstatic "Good morning!" to get
| them energized for the day ahead.
|
| Voting will be done via iPhones, where FaceID will verify the
| eligibility of the voter before the vote has been submitted.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Either way we're totally cooked
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Tim Cook'd
| sargun wrote:
| I have wondered why the likes of McKinsey, KPMG, and PWC do not
| put up candidates (don't even sponsor them, just say you're
| electing _well known consultancy_).
| ebbi wrote:
| "Here is my 300 slide pack to explain why you should vote for
| me"
| dan-robertson wrote:
| 1. Why would McKinsey etc be interested in a well-functioning
| government? Best argument I have is that if the economy grows
| then government (and private) spending on consulting may
| grow.
|
| 2. Note that the consulting firms already managed to get the
| legislation they most cared about - creation of the LLP as a
| kind of entity - despite not having any candidates
|
| 3. If the government is too associated with a big consultancy
| then (a) they may be pressured out of giving them contracts
| (not good for McKinsey!) and (b) failures by that consultancy
| will be highlighted more than usual in the news (also not
| good!)
|
| 4. I mean plenty of people would go through the consultancy
| meat-grinder before becoming politicians. If you are training
| juniors to think similarly then that may carry over after
| they leave.
| tristor wrote:
| Maybe this was intentional by the author to annoy Mac users, but
| the word/line wrapping is broken on the latest Firefox on the
| latest macOS: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15;
| rv:144.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/144.0
| raincole wrote:
| > > Otherwise, please make sure you de-Apple, de-Google, and de-
| American Stack yourself when you have time, clarity, and focus to
| do it. Start today.
|
| So American companies are complying UK laws, and the conclusion
| is that UK citizens should "de-American"...?
|
| Am I reading it wrong?
| hunterpayne wrote:
| No, you got it right. Anti-Americanism is one of the few
| canards that the UK government can use as a boogieman to force
| through their most questionable policies.
|
| One of the most shocking things about Europe when I have
| visited is what your average European (or Brit, since I guess
| they don't call themselves European anymore) thinks the US is
| like (even ignoring politics, just basic standard of living
| stuff). They've never been and probably will never be able to
| visit so all they know is what they've been told. When they do
| visit, they return with a much poorer opinion of how their
| country is doing. That's why the "I was lied to..." clickbait
| is so common in European made US travel videos now.
| bnastic wrote:
| Isn't Apple taking UK gov't to court over this, and the reason
| they have abandoned encryption for everybody is to avoid being
| forced to provide backdoors. On this you should be on their side,
| not against them.
| bdcravens wrote:
| Apparently she's so thoroughly de-Googled and de-Appled that the
| page doesn't display correctly on Chrome on MacOS on my machine,
| cutting off part of the text on the right margin (manages to
| render correctly if I resize the window to a smaller width
| however)
| NoSalt wrote:
| I do not believe she is, in fact, "that one".
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=heather+burns
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Burns
| skrebbel wrote:
| It's a joke
| jlokier wrote:
| From the article, I'm suprised at this unusual twist:
|
| _> What about that second TCN?_
|
| _> On the 1st of October, the Home Office issued a second TCN
| against Apple for the same as before, but only for_ _British
| citizens'_ data. _World-leading!_
|
| _> Those who follow my work know that this phrase made me spew a
| double barrel of Glaswegian swearing. British citizens' data, as
| opposed to British users' data? The dividing line here is not
| e.g. being located in the UK or having registered an account
| here, but what it says on your passport? How is Apple going to
| know that, much less roll it out? ( /s)_
|
| _> Did Apple just publicly state that they're going to be
| removing a security layer and adding a nationality check layer?_
|
| _> We don't know._
|
| _> We don't know because as with the first TCN, that information
| only became available in the public domain due to someone leaking
| it to the media. That's all there is to know. Everything else is
| confidential and NCND. There is nothing else to say because
| nothing else is known. If someone who did know something was
| sitting across from me right now, and they told me, they would be
| committing a crime._
|
| Does that mean my non-UK citizen friends who are resident in the
| UK now have better privacy rights than UK citizens in the UK?
| Does it mean it's _better_ to remain only a resident, than to
| attempt to obtain citizenship in the long run?
| mattrad wrote:
| UK Govt. stupidity aside, Apple could allow iOS users to switch
| their backup provider from iCloud to other services or backup
| targets. But they won't because they want to continue to grow
| their services revenue.
| tammer wrote:
| Recent history of Apple vs. sovereign states is a real time
| vindication of Polanyi. Capital is always subordinate to the
| state (even if it proclaims to be the opposite).
| stOneskull wrote:
| > Capital is always subordinate to the state
|
| the international monetary fund has every state in debt. some
| third-world countries become subordinate to it, not even being
| able to pay the interest payments.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| apple privacy has always been marketing
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-11-10 23:01 UTC)