4 ms·

Why can’t we have the alternative we already have, where we don’t have our phones scans and E2EE exists without compromise? Why do we have to accept it any othe

Why can’t we have the alternative we already have, where we don’t have our phones scans and E2EE exists without compromise? Why do we have to accept it any other way? If you’re trying to frame this as “we need to prevent Congress from ever passing something like the EARN IT act”, I agree. Apple and other tech companies already lobby Congress. Why aren’t they lobbying for encryption?

gjsman-1000 5y ago
They did, they lobbied heavily against EARN IT, and so did groups like the ACLU and EFF. However, it didn't stop Congress members from moving it along through the process - they were only stopped because Congress just ran out of time. It was clear that Congress was not interested in listening at all to the lobbyists on the issue. It's clear that EARN IT could literally be revived any day if Apple didn't do something to say "we don't need it because we've already satisfied your requirements."
- orangecat 5y ago
  It's clear that EARN IT could literally be revived any day if Apple didn't do something to say "we don't need it because we've already satisfied your requirements." Alternatively, "Apple has shown that it's possible to do without undue hardship, so we should make everyone else do it too".
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Congress doesn't give a rip about "undue hardship." Otherwise why would we pay income tax? They were going to legally mandate that everything be scanned through methods less private than the ones Apple has developed here, through EARN IT and potentially LAED (which would have banned E2E in all circumstances and any device that could not be unlocked by the manufacturer). While that crisis was temporarily averted, the risk of it coming back was and is very real. Apple decided to get ahead of it with a better solution, even though that solution is still bad. It's a lesser evil to prevent the return of something worse.
- cwizou 5y ago
  While I broadly agree that this (and other attempts in Australia and rumblings about it in UK) may have been the impetus for developing the technology, I'm not sure it explains why they released it on Photos, where Apple holds the keys, and not very far since you can look at your entire photo roll on icloud.com with just your username and password. That tech is not being deployed on iMessage which is the only e2ee(ish) service from Apple (with Keychain) and is what those legislative attempts are usually targeting. One could argue it would have made sense (technically) there though, sure. Was it a reason to release it preventively, on something unrelated, to be in the good graces of legislators ? I'm not sure it's a good calculation, and it doesn't cover other platforms like Signal and Telegram that would still be seen as a problem by those legislators and require them to legislate anyway.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

They did, they lobbied heavily against EARN IT, and so did groups like the ACLU and EFF. However, it didn't stop Congress members from moving it along through the process - they were only stopped because Congress just ran out of time. It was clear that Congress was not interested in listening at all to the lobbyists on the issue. It's clear that EARN IT could literally be revived any day if Apple didn't do something to say "we don't need it because we've already satisfied your requirements."

orangecat 5y ago
It's clear that EARN IT could literally be revived any day if Apple didn't do something to say "we don't need it because we've already satisfied your requirements." Alternatively, "Apple has shown that it's possible to do without undue hardship, so we should make everyone else do it too".
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Congress doesn't give a rip about "undue hardship." Otherwise why would we pay income tax? They were going to legally mandate that everything be scanned through methods less private than the ones Apple has developed here, through EARN IT and potentially LAED (which would have banned E2E in all circumstances and any device that could not be unlocked by the manufacturer). While that crisis was temporarily averted, the risk of it coming back was and is very real. Apple decided to get ahead of it with a better solution, even though that solution is still bad. It's a lesser evil to prevent the return of something worse.
cwizou 5y ago
While I broadly agree that this (and other attempts in Australia and rumblings about it in UK) may have been the impetus for developing the technology, I'm not sure it explains why they released it on Photos, where Apple holds the keys, and not very far since you can look at your entire photo roll on icloud.com with just your username and password. That tech is not being deployed on iMessage which is the only e2ee(ish) service from Apple (with Keychain) and is what those legislative attempts are usually targeting. One could argue it would have made sense (technically) there though, sure. Was it a reason to release it preventively, on something unrelated, to be in the good graces of legislators ? I'm not sure it's a good calculation, and it doesn't cover other platforms like Signal and Telegram that would still be seen as a problem by those legislators and require them to legislate anyway.