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The hysteria about this is extremely childish. After the Pegasus news that showed that a relatively small private company in a very small country could have co

The hysteria about this is extremely childish. After the Pegasus news that showed that a relatively small private company in a very small country could have complete remote access to your phone and sell it on the market, do you really think that a powerful government like China or the US can't already do it??? How could you be this naive? Especially after the Snowden revelations. And about Apple's having a change of hearth in the future and using something like this against you. Have you stopped to think for one second and consider that they have complete control over the updates that your phone receives?? They can quietly do what ever they want without you ever knowing and you can't do sh*t about it. So drop the concerned citizen act. We all abdicate privacy a long time ago when we sold our souls for cool free services like google and sexy gadgets. At the end of the day the "slippery slope" argument boils down to one thing: do you trust your institutions? Any law or service can be abused, and the only thing preventing that is the integrity of the people on your society and the institutions both public and private that they work for. The exact same law that is used to fight corruption in a great country like Norway or Denmark can be abused to persecute political opponents in a shitty country like North Korea or China. If the answer is no, I don't trust my institutions and my people, then you have a far more severe and fundamental problem than an specific law or service. In that scenario, focusing in an specific issue is like trying to cover the sun with your hands.

noptd 5y ago
And? These whataboutisms are a distraction and in no way support the idea that people shouldn't be worried about Apple implementing a new client-side system that's ripe for abuse. If things are already bad, we should be working towards making them better instead of rolling over and apathetically allowing them to get worse.
Jensson 5y ago
If we don't speak up when they push the boundaries they will just continue pushing. The only thing stopping Apple from doing all of those bad things today is that they are afraid of bad PR. You should be happy that others speak up now rather than you waiting until what they do becomes bad enough that you feel the need to speak up against it.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  I think the disagreement is whether this actually is pushing a boundary. To me, this is roughly identical to the ways that services have been checking for illegal material for years and years. All of the threats are the same.
  - deleted 5y ago
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throwjd764glug 5y ago
There's nothing childish or hysteric about caring about principles. > How could you be this naive? Especially after the Snowden revelations. You make a good argument, but you're wrong to dismiss the slippery-slope counter-argument. This move by Apple is normalizing your own devices betraying you. Like if door locks all had a master key the police could use to open them. It doesn't matter that they're easy to lockpick, what matters is the principle, because that is what stops you from taking the first step down a very dark road. And every step along that road will be portrayed as the "first". As for "do you really think that a powerful government like China or the US can't already do it???" - this argument can be used to dismiss any effort at preserving privacy.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Complete hogwash. Not everyone sold their privacy. There were and are loud and clear voices that warn against closed ecosystems. Any company is open to blackmail or pressure. Also I don't trust institutions. This is axiomatic and why separation of power is essential. So > the only thing preventing that is the integrity of the people on your society and the institutions both public and private that they work for is plainly wrong in my opinion. If you let people abuse this, they will. Also I don't think that can meet with reality. Police departments alone have quotas they must match, so they have to find criminals... It doesn't take a genius to figure out the repercussions. But it is still practiced in many countries. Separation of powers is plainly ignored for everything under the guise of safety and a disease infecting politics the last few decades. That is due to incompetent leadership. Another reason why you should not trust "institutions". Instead, you check them and burn their asses if they fail as often they do today. The reaction that trust is falling in press and public officials is completely rational on the other hand.
WorldMaker 5y ago
I still have the impression that Apple is trying to do the privacy-supporting best option in their toolkit. The FBI has asked them multiple times to provide a generic back door and Apple has refused to give them general access and asks for specific warrants. So the FBI comes to them with a lot of very specific warrants about child pornography and they build a system specific to that use case and only that use case. There's definitely still a "slippery slope" argument here that in handling this specific use case they are going to feel more pressure to handle other specific use cases of government actors, but they are also setting the precedence that they still will not support a generic backdoor. That seems to me, at face value, a greater privacy win than a loss.
- deleted 5y ago
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noptd 5y ago

And? These whataboutisms are a distraction and in no way support the idea that people shouldn't be worried about Apple implementing a new client-side system that's ripe for abuse. If things are already bad, we should be working towards making them better instead of rolling over and apathetically allowing them to get worse.

Jensson 5y ago

If we don't speak up when they push the boundaries they will just continue pushing. The only thing stopping Apple from doing all of those bad things today is that they are afraid of bad PR. You should be happy that others speak up now rather than you waiting until what they do becomes bad enough that you feel the need to speak up against it.

UncleMeat 5y ago
I think the disagreement is whether this actually is pushing a boundary. To me, this is roughly identical to the ways that services have been checking for illegal material for years and years. All of the threats are the same.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

throwjd764glug 5y ago

There's nothing childish or hysteric about caring about principles. > How could you be this naive? Especially after the Snowden revelations. You make a good argument, but you're wrong to dismiss the slippery-slope counter-argument. This move by Apple is normalizing your own devices betraying you. Like if door locks all had a master key the police could use to open them. It doesn't matter that they're easy to lockpick, what matters is the principle, because that is what stops you from taking the first step down a very dark road. And every step along that road will be portrayed as the "first". As for "do you really think that a powerful government like China or the US can't already do it???" - this argument can be used to dismiss any effort at preserving privacy.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Complete hogwash. Not everyone sold their privacy. There were and are loud and clear voices that warn against closed ecosystems. Any company is open to blackmail or pressure. Also I don't trust institutions. This is axiomatic and why separation of power is essential. So > the only thing preventing that is the integrity of the people on your society and the institutions both public and private that they work for is plainly wrong in my opinion. If you let people abuse this, they will. Also I don't think that can meet with reality. Police departments alone have quotas they must match, so they have to find criminals... It doesn't take a genius to figure out the repercussions. But it is still practiced in many countries. Separation of powers is plainly ignored for everything under the guise of safety and a disease infecting politics the last few decades. That is due to incompetent leadership. Another reason why you should not trust "institutions". Instead, you check them and burn their asses if they fail as often they do today. The reaction that trust is falling in press and public officials is completely rational on the other hand.

WorldMaker 5y ago

I still have the impression that Apple is trying to do the privacy-supporting best option in their toolkit. The FBI has asked them multiple times to provide a generic back door and Apple has refused to give them general access and asks for specific warrants. So the FBI comes to them with a lot of very specific warrants about child pornography and they build a system specific to that use case and only that use case. There's definitely still a "slippery slope" argument here that in handling this specific use case they are going to feel more pressure to handle other specific use cases of government actors, but they are also setting the precedence that they still will not support a generic backdoor. That seems to me, at face value, a greater privacy win than a loss.

deleted 5y ago
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