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Apple says it'll remove iMessage and FaceTime in UK rather than break encryption

• obituary_latte 3y ago
  Stuff like this is why I'm an Apple fanboy. I'm happy to pay a premium and be locked into their walled garden for some things if it means supporting a company that has the power to shift policy in favor of human rights (privacy in this case).
  • Doches 3y ago
    In fairness, Meta has said the same thing re: WhatsApp, so while Apple deserves _some_ credit here for sticking to their principles, they're not exactly leading the pack. Which brings home the point that if _Meta_ isn't onboard with your privacy-obliterating proposal then you know you've really lost the plot...
    • hbn 3y ago
      If anything that's a bolder move considering everyone uses Whatsapp there and barely anyone uses iMessage
      • iainmerrick 3y ago
        Both are very popular in the UK.
        • joshuaissac 3y ago
          WhatsApp is used by 78% of the users in the UK, and iMessage is used by 25%. https://www.statista.com/forecasts/997945/most-used-messenger-by-brand-in-the-uk https://www.statista.com/forecasts/997945/most-used-messenge... (non-free link)
          • thejohnconway 3y ago
            25% of the entire population is a pretty popular application! Not “hardly anyone”. Also, I’d like to know the volume of messages shared, I have WhatsApp, but wouldn’t miss it it it disappeared. iMessage disappearing would be very inconvenient.
            • Reason077 3y ago
              I'm surprised it's even 25% in the UK, and I wonder how that's measured. Maybe the 25% includes things like "opening the iMessage app to read SMS messages sent by two-factor authentication services" etc.
              • thejohnconway 3y ago
                I’m not surprised, SMSing people is still common, and sliding from that to iMessage is totally frictionless for iPhone users. With iOS market share being around 50%, I’m surprised (skeptical even!) that it’s not closer to 50%.
          • vxNsr 3y ago
            But who is that 25%? iPhone users have money. I’m sure there is some significant overlap between iMessage and WhatsApp users (I know I and everyone I know use(s) both). But if you threaten politicians with losing their blue bubbles they’re gonna fall in line.
            • XajniN 3y ago
              No one in Europe cares about the blue bubbles. I prefer iMessage over the other messengers, but I still haven’t met anyone who cares. A lot of people don’t even know why the bubbles are sometimes green.
              • scarface_74 3y ago
                Yet, the EU have their panties in a knot about having it be interoperable…
      • wintermutestwin 3y ago
        I've noticed that too and it is super annoying having family in the UK that will only communicate via Whatsapp. Is this because cell providers outside the US charge for SMS? Even the ones who have iPhones end up using it because it is too much of a pain to use separate messaging apps.
        • rejectfinite 3y ago
          The opposite is more annoying... Whatsapp works on PC, Mac, Android and iOS iMessage only works on Apple devices.
        • dtech 3y ago
          SMS is cheap now but wasn't universally when Whatsapp gained critical mass. Nowadays it's mostly about convenience and features compared to SMS, and iPhone has a much smaller marker share in Europe so iMessage isn't a thing.
          • meling 3y ago
            I beg to differ. iMessage is definitely quite common in Europe as well.
            • dtech 3y ago
              iPhone has like a 33% market share so I wouldn't call it common if you can't reach 2 out of 3 people on it at least. In contrast, in many European countries Whatsapp has 90%+ penetration [1]. Even where it's relatively unused it's more common than iMessage. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1311229/whatsapp-usage-messaging-app-users-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1311229/whatsapp-usage-m...
        • lotsofpulp 3y ago
          It is mostly because international SMS and MMS is not free. People in the UK travel more to other countries, and communicate more with people in other countries. Not to mention MMS is vastly inferior to WhatsApp and iMessage for sharing media and other information.
    • frankfrank13 3y ago
      I think Meta _needs_ WhatsApp to be their loss-leader (not really, but you know) when it comes to security. They always get to say "oh but WhatsApp is E2E!! We do care about security!"
      • gruez 3y ago
        Messenger also has e2e, but it's opt in.
      • fennecfoxy 3y ago
        I mean Apple didn't give two stones about security until it became a marketing/selling point as a counterpoint to the big G.
        • zikduruqe 3y ago
          It's called market shift. Automative manufactures didn't give a rats ass about fuel economy until customers wanted it.
        • codetrotter 3y ago
          > Apple didn't give two stones about security until it became a marketing/selling point as a counterpoint to the big G That’s not true. Apple was position itself as being better at security than Microsoft long before Google was selling devices to people. For example: https://youtu.be/VuqZ8AqmLPY https://youtu.be/VuqZ8AqmLPY
          • i_am_jl 3y ago
            Apple sold itself as having better security. It's debatable whether or not that was true, and even if you believed it it was up for another debate whether that security was by design or because Apple's vanishingly small share of the PC market made it uneconomical to write malware targeting OSX. This isn't to say that Microsoft was doing security properly back then either, they weren't.
          • elishah 3y ago
            True, but security and privacy are different things. At most, one could say that security is necessary-but-not-sufficient for privacy. Google is generally excellent at security, but that doesn't change the fact that they're a nightmare for privacy.
    • dagmx 3y ago
      Has Meta threatened to boycott? I know Signal has, and now Apple. However my searches for Meta/WhatsApp seem to show that there’s been contention over their introduction of E2E but they haven’t actually threatened to pull out over it. That said, I’d be very happy to see that they did threaten a boycott as well.
      • nani8ot 3y ago
        https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/09/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption-online-safety-bill https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/09/whatsapp-... Meta: > Some countries have chosen to block it [WhatsApp]: that’s the reality of shipping a secure product. We’ve recently been blocked in Iran, for example. But we’ve never seen a liberal democracy do that. They said they won't comply. UK would have to simply block WhatsApp.
        • dagmx 3y ago
          Thanks. Hopefully they continue to stick to their guns.
    • j45 3y ago
      WhatsApp was a little late to the encryption party
      • brasic 3y ago
        What do you mean? WhatsApp rolled out E2E encryption between 2014 and 2016. It’s by far the largest messaging service that is e2e encrypted by default. I think it’s more than fair to call it ahead of the curve for a service of its size. https://www.wired.com/2014/11/whatsapp-encrypted-messaging/ https://www.wired.com/2014/11/whatsapp-encrypted-messaging/ https://blog.whatsapp.com/end-to-end-encryption https://blog.whatsapp.com/end-to-end-encryption
        • j45 3y ago
          It's a very easy search and might surprise ya. As recent as 2021, there's been questions: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/whatsapp-end-to-end-encrypted-messages-arent-that-private-after-all/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/whatsapp-end-to-end-... But, let's go to the start - WhatsApp started in 2011. Encryption arrived in varying degrees until there was some pressures to change the amount of privacy messages had for advertising purposes. Lots in the news at the time. 2018 "Another point of disagreement was over WhatsApp’s encryption. In 2016, WhatsApp added end-to-end encryption, a security feature that scrambles people’s messages so that outsiders, including WhatsApp’s owners, can’t read them. Facebook executives wanted to make it easier for businesses to use its tools, and WhatsApp executives believed that doing so would require some weakening of its encryption." https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/whatsapp-founder-plans-to-leave-after-broad-clashes-with-parent-facebook/2018/04/30/49448dd2-4ca9-11e8-84a0-458a1aa9ac0a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/whatsapp-fou... 2018 "Acton said he tried to push Facebook towards an alternative, less privacy hostile business model for WhatsApp — suggesting a metered-user model such as by charging a tenth of a penny after a certain large number of free messages were used up." https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-acton-says-facebook-used-him-to-get-its-acquisition-past-eu-regulators/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-act... 2018 "WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum quits over privacy disagreements with Facebook" https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/30/jan-koum-whatsapp-co-founder-quits-facebook https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/30/jan-koum-... 2018 WhatsApp co-founder: "I sold my users' privacy" to Facebook "https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brian-acton-whatsapp-on-facebook-forbes-interview-today-2018-09-26/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brian-acton-whatsapp-on-faceboo...
    • aqme28 3y ago
      Interesting. I was going to say that many people use WhatsApp anyways, so if both of them go down that might actually lead to some pushback against these regulations.
    • viraptor 3y ago
      I'm not even sure anyone apart from Signal is really sticking to any principles. This system would be annoying to implement, costly to legally manage, and introduce some ops overhead and security exposure. There's way more incentives for WA and iMessage here to oppose it than just protecting their users. But only one is a cool talking point.
    • ColinHayhurst 3y ago
      True, but to be fair leading the pack was first Element, with Session, Threema, Viber and Signal.
    • glimshe 3y ago
      In even more fairness, Meta has literally skipped the EU for Threads instead of increasing privacy. In their case, it's just a careful balance of virtue signaling, it had no qualms about pushing their spyware to hundreds of millions of people, violating basic human rights in the process. Check Article 12: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
      • hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
        Your comment would have been stronger if you left out the piece re: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, because it's an eye roller. Article 12 is: > No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. I'm no fan of Meta or their privacy violations, but saying that voluntarily downloading an app (which by the way does clearly outline their privacy practices) is equivalent to having my humans rights violated just really waters down what "human rights" should mean.
        • _cenw 3y ago
          > voluntarily downloading an app that's all true until an app becomes the only way to interact with certain groups of people. i certainly wouldn't call my usage of Discord voluntary. it doesn't actually matter how often i read their privacy policy and shake my head. either I break off contact with a large part of the internet that's important to me or I begrudgingly agree "voluntarily" to their terms and conditions.
          • dmbche 3y ago
            May I ask, what compels you to use discord if it's not voluntary? It's absolutely impossible to use keybase or signal?
            • _cenw 3y ago
    • Roark66 3y ago
      Is WhatsApp still requiring access to your phone's address book before it allows you to use it? It did last time I tried it. There is no chance in hell I'm giving it all the phone numbers, emails and names of people that trusted me by giving me their details. At the time I set up a virtual android environment (samsung called it knox) just to setup WhatsApp in a way it couldn't access my phone's address book. It is extremely unethical on Meta's side to continue with this requirement. So I'm dubious every te they're presented as champions of privacy protection.
      • lostlogin 3y ago
        > There is no chance in hell I'm giving it all the phone numbers, emails and names of people that trusted me by giving me their details. The sad thing is that all their details and yours are already known to Meta. The dozen of us who behave like you will keep trying though.
      • gavinsyancey 3y ago
        I currently have WhatsApp installed without access to my address book (on Android). It doesn't require it, but it makes it harder to use and locks out some features. Among other things, you can't start a new group / direct message, but you can participate / reply if someone else messages you first.
        • bilkow 3y ago
          I use an app called "Open In WhatsApp" which lets you paste / write a phone number and it will open a conversation with that number (by using android intents). You can also share contacts from the Phone app to this App, so you don't have to copy/paste manually. https://github.com/SubhamTyagi/openinwa https://github.com/SubhamTyagi/openinwa (I recommend downloading from f-droid)
        • paulmd 3y ago
          If only there were a strong, centralized app store that could perform app review and prevent applications from degrading user experience beyond the extent actually necessary without that permission. Good thing the EU just outlawed that model and forced everyone to support "third party app stores" that are thinly-veiled shells for Facebook/Google/etc to bypass that review process. the "I wanna sideload" crowd are nothing more than allies of convenience for FB and others. Facebook was already experimenting with getting users to manually sideload the full-telemetry build and now they can just say "oops not supported on safari, install the native app". https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-offered-gift-cards-for-root-level-access-to-ios-users-data/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-...
    • nashashmi 3y ago
      In Saudi Arabia and other places, Whatsapp is not encrypted. Otherwise those services would be banned.
      • Sunhold 3y ago
        This is pure speculation. WhatsApp is banned in some authoritarian countries such as China and UAE. It probably remains unbanned in others simply because it is so important for business.
        • nashashmi 3y ago
          https://saudi.works/does-whatsapp-work-in-saudi-arabia/ https://saudi.works/does-whatsapp-work-in-saudi-arabia/ I had to look it up.
      • throwaway1777 3y ago
        Incorrect. WhatsApp is encrypted in all countries.
    • make3 3y ago
      didn't eta just move to make WhatsApp not end to end encrypted? Meta was also in the biggest mass surveillance & influence scandal of all times for a private not too long ago, please don't forget
      • dspillett 3y ago
        > didn't eta just move to make WhatsApp not end to end encrypted? If so I missed the memo (that isn't unlikely, I'm not saying you are wrong!). Any references/links for that? A quick search doesn't turn up much, but Google isn't what it used to be…
      • curiousllama 3y ago
        Opposite, actually. They said they're making Messenger and Instagram Direct e2ee.
    • wredue 3y ago
      I keep writing and deleting responses. I am completely baffled. Speechless, really. You cannot actually believe that meta gives a single solitary fuck about privacy?
      • slg 3y ago
        For me at least, it is the opposite. It is not that I think Facebook is principled, it is that I don't think Apple is particularly principled. They care about money. Unlike many of their competitors, they are not fundamentally an ad-tech company which means your personal data has much lower value to them. This has caused them to build their brand around privacy because that is something their competitors have difficulty doing due to their business models. Apple's pro-privacy stance is just as much a capitalistic position as a principled one.
      • whimsicalism 3y ago
        This isn't Reddit, please make higher quality comments. I think the GP is likely aligned with you anyways.
    • starttoaster 3y ago
      Didn't Facebook (now Meta) buy WhatsApp, and it was originally its own thing? I guess you can say Meta kept WhatsApp operational, but I don't necessarily consider it a privacy win for Meta to just buy up some privacy-centric technologies with their billions.
  • jmclnx 3y ago
    I hope they really do this. All too often Companies will say this then when the law is passed they back down. Why, stockholders. Has Apple really removed iMessage and FaceTime anywere else ? Are these available with 100% full encryption in China ? If so then they are just blowing wind :(
    • epcoa 3y ago
      > Are these available with 100% full encryption in China ? If so then they are just blowing wind :( Talk less, read more.
      • garyNeedsa 3y ago
        [dead]
      • jmclnx 3y ago
        Well here is something for you to read, if you are a Chinese Citizen living in China, then these messages can be seen by the Government because iCloud data must be stored in China. https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/cskufy/imessage_encryption_when_sending_msgs_to_chinese/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/cskufy/imessage_encryp...
        • decentsafety 3y ago
          I was looking around to see what china has access to after seeing this post... However, people mention their messages can only be visible if icloud backups are enabled? Seems risky to trust either way.
          • epcoa 3y ago
            People should read actual documentation and expert or academic writing rather than a bunch of terminally online nerds on Reddit. I’ve seen nothing credible that the E2E for iMessage and FaceTime isn’t as advertised. If you backup to the cloud you’re electing to disclose your data outside the boundaries of encryption.
  • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Stuff like this is why I'm an Apple fanboy. I'm happy to pay a premium and be locked into their walled garden Such statements rarely end up ageing like wine in the long run. Why would you be so happy about being owned by some big corporation just because it's your favorite big corporation? Self preservation has taught me not to trust any big corporation, regardless of how good their PR is.
    • throwaway894345 3y ago
      Apple has been around for a pretty long time as far as tech companies go. I have grievances with them, but mostly they do a better than average job on privacy.
      • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >Apple has been around for a pretty long time as far as tech companies go. So have 100 year old car companies, and I'm old enough to remember many people saying the same things about their favorite car brand in the past ("I'm only buying X brand because they make quality stuff and they never broke my trust") and I also know they changed their opinion recently after a couple of decades. And changing car brands is way easier than changing smartphone ecosystems, should one of the two players decide to screw you. My point is people should not be fanboys of any corporation. History has proven they can always turn against their customer, even if Apple so far hasn't done it, but there's time, company management and culture can, and will always change with time, and with constant shareholder pressure for infinite growth there's plenty of opportunities in the future for the tides to turn, mark my words.
        • pjerem 3y ago
          > And changing car brands is way easier than changing smartphone ecosystems, should one of the two players decide to screw you. In what world ? I have switched from iOS to Android and vice versa multiple times while still driving the same car.
          • 3y ago
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • ryaneager 3y ago
    They will only continue to do so while it remains profitable, at some point they will give in. They are a capitalist company, profits are their only concern.
    • scarface_74 3y ago
      How much would it affect Apple’s profit by not having iMessage in the UK?
      • FollowingTheDao 3y ago
        Have you been seeing all the videos of women not dating men if they get a green text bubble! :)
        • scarface_74 3y ago
          We don’t need more British people mating with their fancy tea and accents anyway /s.
  • pjmlp 3y ago
    Except they are quite selective regarding the countries.
  • Keats 3y ago
    Unless it's China in which case they will not care about it!
    • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      If they did it for China, it will be the same of UK. The cat's out of the bag on this one. They will probably comply with some backdoor in partnership with Five-Eyes NSA & GCHQ. This is just PR posturing to build consumer trust. Same with their venture into CSAM in the west. China could ask Apple for the ML be applied to scan for political dissidents. It's a slippery slope and the frog gets boiled every year.
    • BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Or America, as we have seen with PRISM. Basically, it's as usual a financial calculation of what PR can brings vs what you can lose in the market. And fanboys believe it's because they are the good guys.
    • m3kw9 3y ago
      Yep in that case let’s just close down the company because every country will want some privacy breaking rules imposed on you
    • judge2020 3y ago
      China had all the bargaining power, in that non-compliance meant no more iPhones, and Apple going out of business. Apple wasn't ready to move production entirely to India or another country.
      • justapassenger 3y ago
        Google, Meta (Oculus) are banned in China and still produce their HW there. It was about getting a slice of hugely lucrative pie of customer market.
    • Gorbzel 3y ago
      It's very strange because like OP, huge fanboy. Early on it felt wrong to also burden Cupertino with being a cultural leader, but somewhere around $1.0T+ market cap, that has evolved. Vaguely remember a charity used to have a thing where they'd auction off a dinner with Steve, then later Tim. Given time with a leader who has literally revolutionized supply chain in CN and a CEO who made Apple his own following the most notable CEO ever, going after various gotcha points would feel like a wasted opportunity. But think I'd have to ask why a company designed in California of the 1960s and 1970s doesn't have line in the sand policies when dealing with a genocidal government and perpetual backdoors in software and politics, but will take a move like this. Would hope for something more than a canned answer.
  • brucethemoose2 3y ago
    > has the power to shift policy in favor of human rights Except for right to repair... And software freedom...
    • blitz_skull 3y ago
      Those are not human rights. Privacy, on the other hand, is.
      • robin_reala 3y ago
        Specifically, it’s Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
      • 13of40 3y ago
        The right to repair is a direct extension of "banging the rocks together" - i.e. toolmaking, the main thing that defines us as humans. How can that not be a human right?
        • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
          > the main thing that defines us as humans. How can that not be a human right? Plenty of animals use tools [1]. And this isn’t how we define human rights. Bipedalism is quintessentially human, that doesn’t make tunnels a crime against humanity. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_non-humans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_non-humans
          • 13of40 3y ago
            I'm fine giving the animals the right to repair as well.
      • tomefaire 3y ago
        I think I'd prefer to have both privacy and control over devices I own.
  • blitz_skull 3y ago
    [flagged]
  • GoToRO 3y ago
    You are just giving your secrets to a company you can't change instead of a goverment you can elect.
    • HatchedLake721 3y ago
      Ok, I give my secrets to a non-privacy focused company. I still cannot change that company.
    • can16358p 3y ago
      Except that those "elected" governments are already just storefronts of big corps anyway.
    • wonderwonder 3y ago
      The company doesn't have a hundred thousand armed officers with the ability to arrest / kill me for anything they can claim they found. Government comes equipped with legal violence, the company comes equipped with targeted ads
      • ohgodplsno 3y ago
        It's true, they merely have enough cash on hand to fund a small army, enough legal power to crush you in court with anything you attempt. Make no mistake: if Apple needed to get someone killed, they would. They're not some miraculous pinnacles of good in a sea of evil. It's just that they merely need to flex the law at you to destroy your life forever. Apple is no different, they'll hire the Pinkertons and break your fingers should they find the need to. Carnegie Steel did it, Apple's not above it either.
        • sebzim4500 3y ago
          >Make no mistake: if Apple needed to get someone killed, they would. Ok, I'll play along. Suppose Tim Cook wakes up tomorrow and decides for some reason he wants me dead. How exactly does he do it?
          • 3y ago
  • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Stuff like this is why I'm an Apple fanboy. I'm happy to pay a premium and be locked into their walled garden @dang Is there any way I can counter-argument this statement without it getting flagged? If so, please let me know how. Because so far I have failed and I don't know what rule I broke by countering this statement.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • lolinder 3y ago
      Flags aren't for rule breaking, they just mean enough people found your comment inflammatory or otherwise objectionable enough to hit the "flag" button. If you have a link to the flagged comment, I can probably help you understand why HN users would have flagged it. This comment is getting downvotes because complaining about downvotes and flags always does.
      • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        What's objectional or inflammatory about my opinion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36800745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36800745
        • brasic 3y ago
          It doesn’t show as flagged for me. Time heals all wounds, if your comment is not objectionable it will usually be vouched for eventually. Which is one of the reasons it’s a rule here that you don’t complain about voting. Such comments also rarely age like wine :)
          • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
            Well it was flagged in the beginning, it's not like I imagined it. IMHO people should be allowed to complain otherwise how can we spot deficiencies and injustices and improve?
  • barbazoo 3y ago
    Sounds like their PR works. I bet that's the exact "feeling" they're aiming for.
    • unshavedyak 3y ago
      Yea, and even if it is actionable and "real" - they're .. i think, correct me if i'm wrong, by law a for-profit company. Meaning none of this is noble, this is just aligned with our interests because they believe that to be the most profitable image for them currently. Which is all well a good for now, but profit directions can change, and i suspect it's easier to change a direction guided by profit than a direction guided by morals. Ie i suspect their current "good direction" is less stable than some would suggest.
  • mrangle 3y ago
    Ignoring the client side scanning ability that is built into the OS, which raises other suspicions. It takes a lot of unearned trust to to assume that there isn't classified surveillance occurring. If it is, public virtue signalling about not breaking encryption is theater. As the surveillance occurs prior to encryption.
    • elishah 3y ago
      > Ignoring the client side scanning ability that is built into the OS Which client side scanning would that be?
      • sp332 3y ago
        https://www.wired.com/story/apple-photo-scanning-csam-communication-safety-messages/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-photo-scanning-csam-commun... This scandal about scanning your end-to-end encrypted photos on one of the ends, kinda defeating the purpose and reducing everyone's privacy. It lead directly to the legislation that Apple is coming out against today, which I would call ironic but is very predictable. How dare governments require us to do this thing we already planned to do.
        • elishah 3y ago
          That CSAM detection method was something that apple published a whitepaper about to get feedback. The feedback was strongly negative, so they never implemented it. I would hope that the grandparent was not referring to this thing that never existed as "the client side scanning ability that is built into the OS."
  • mupuff1234 3y ago
    Unless it's the human rights of those working at apple assembly lines.
  • peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    > Stuff like this is why I'm an Apple fanboy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choice-supportive_bias the tendency to retroactively ascribe positive attributes to an option one has selected and/or to demote the forgone options. It is part of cognitive science, and is a distinct cognitive bias that occurs once a decision is made. For example, if a person chooses option A instead of option B, they are likely to ignore or downplay the faults of option A while amplifying or ascribing new negative faults to option B. Conversely, they are also likely to notice and amplify the advantages of option A and not notice or de-emphasize those of option B
  • nashashmi 3y ago
    Actions like this is why I used to trust Google. Fighting government overreach should have been a critical part of technology and data. But it seems Google was more political in its relationships than idealistic. And now the entire sector is compromised. Apple will be one day compromised too. In some crevice of some unknown government office is a person working on a ten-year initiative to get access to inaccessible information in the tech sector. AT&T was compromised this way. Microsoft was compromised this way. Google was compromised. What is to say Apple won't be compromised??
    • hospitalJail 3y ago
      They are already compromised. They give data to the US government, China, and Russia. OP is repeating marketing.
      • dainiusse 3y ago
        This
    • JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM Apple is a participant in the NSA's PRISM mass surveillance program. They've been compromised for a long time. I doubt any decent sized corporation isn't.
      • leptons 3y ago
        Exactly this. When some government makes a big public proposal to invade privacy, Apple will speak up with bravado. But they won't say a word in all the other cases when a government demands to invade privacy when those demands are made in secret.
      • nashashmi 3y ago
        I am going to give them the benefit of doubt in the case of PRISM. It is not clear whether PRISM is the result of forced/voluntary participation, or the result of vulnerabilities found in their systems. Because of the diagrams in the PRISM powerpoint mentioning some of the integration is "coming soon", I feel it is definitely not legally coerced, otherwise everyone would participate at once. Also due to the integration having varying limits from service to service tells me this not given to NSA on a silver platter. Lastly, the outright denial of these companies further tells me that they are unaware. PRISM is the result of vulnerabilities found and purchased from hackers. And integrated together in a project codenamed PRISM. Each source has different levels of information sharing. And with Dropbox being a less integrated and more primitive resource for search, I know the entire PRISM program was a gum and shoestring project.
  • efitz 3y ago
    Apple, while imperfect, is the only large tech company with anything like a principle when it comes to user privacy. Meta/IG would sell literally any piece of information about you they can get their hands on and monetize.
    • aembleton 3y ago
      I'd have thought it'd be more profitable to sell access to you based on criteria rather than outright selling your data. If they sell your data then anyone can buy it and use it whereas only they can sell your attention.
  • comechao 3y ago
    I hope they do this, I would not trust my govt (Brazil) with this power. Judges would use it all the time.
  • geniium 3y ago
    I came here just to say this, thanks @obituary_latte for putting this nicely.
  • eltoto 3y ago
    The way I put it, is Apple's business is selling high added value products (i.e. luxury, overpriced whatever you want), while most of the other big tech companies have you and your data as their main product. I'm fine paying for the luxury and privacy that comes with it
    • hospitalJail 3y ago
      This is marketing though. PRISM for the US, giving personal data to China, and Russia are examples of them not respecting privacy.
  • ElectronBadger 3y ago
    Seems that the UK market is not big enough. In China Apple had no problems with ceding control of their local servers to the Chinese government [1]. Not to mention of using forced labor (mostly Uyghurs, against which China is committing acts of genocide [2]). So, Apple and human rights my ass! 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide
    • simonh 3y ago
      None of those investigations showed that parts supplied to Apple came from Xinjiang. Only that one of their suppliers operates a plant there. These suppliers are huge conglomerates with plants all over China. Apple is one of a tiny handful of companies that actually audit their supply chain, but they only audit the chain that actually supplies them. From now on though any kind of audit in China is going to be almost impossible. They've started arresting researchers who perform due diligence reports for revealing 'state secrets'.
    • ExoticPearTree 3y ago
      I don't think it has anything to do with the market size, which after the Brexit fiasco and the pandemic has shrunk considerably, but it has the most to do with the UK labelling itself as a democracy while behaving like a dictatorship when it comes to surveillance and other "think of the children" laws. I would say Apple is pointing out the hypocrisy.
  • ghusto 3y ago
    > a company that has the power to shift policy in favor of human rights Well you're _technically_ right; they do indeed have that power. However, it sounds like you're suggesting they are using that power _to_ shift policy in favor of human rights (emphasis is of importance). Whilst I can't prove that their intention has nothing to do with human rights, it's only in the same way that I can't prove the last U.S. invasion of Iraq wasn't about protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction. It is patently obvious to me that this is a business decision fuelled by the drive to keep profits up, that just happens to coincide with happily with a PR friendly action. It's great that they're doing this, but it's just a coincidence that it aligns with what we want.
    • germinalphrase 3y ago
      iMessage and FaceTime are large parts of the Apple Ecosystem lock-in. What obvious profit motive (separate from PR) would removing them provide?
      • ghusto 3y ago
        It doesn't have to deal with compliance issues, which are not only getting more complicated, but also increasing in number. "Sorry guv, I don't have the keys for that, so I'm not responsible for what went on as I couldn't have known". Though the biggest money maker is the idea itself. Many believe that Apple is "on their side", and these kinds of plays re-enforce that. The moment it's more profitable to sell you out than "stand up for privacy", they'll do it.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
    • pphysch 3y ago
      > but it's just a coincidence that it aligns with what we want. I agree with your comment, but I think it is naïve to assume that Apple does PR by happenstance. Effective marketing/messaging is the bedrock of their business strategy. So yes they probably did this primarily for raw profit/power reasons, but the positive PR is a close secondary.
  • croes 3y ago
    Yeah sure, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-privacy-censorship.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-pr...
  • seydor 3y ago
    An $3T company can literally buy governmnets
  • bmitc 3y ago
    They also have the power to redefine what a text message is. They don't care about people like you think they do. They're a company who makes decisions to make money.
  • RektBoy 3y ago
    Ridiculous stuff like this is why I'm cringing everytime any apple fanboi appears. Are you dense? Apple and all other major companies are cooperating with FBI/NSA/CIA all the freakin' time. These things they throw up is actually smart play from these global police agencies, so sheeps like you feel safe. (Android is the same thing)
  • baruchel 3y ago
    From a security point of view, there is no difference between being able to access your data and actually doing it. You may picture such or such company as better than another one (and maybe it is, though I strongly doubt it) if you want, but behaving yourself as if that company really cares about your privacy is extremely naive. I would rather suggest firmly believing whatever company you chose is spying you (be it true or not), and adjusting what you can accordingly (settings, apps, usage, etc.).
  • jonplackett 3y ago
    Tell that to china
  • runjake 3y ago
    I used to think like this about Google, back in the "Don't Be Evil" days. I end up living day by day, knowing that nothing is permanent. Right now, I'm with Apple, acutely aware that someday, this will change -- probably when some snake finally manages to slip through similar legislation in the US and it becomes profitably unattractive for Apple to maintain it's privacy stance. Apple's privacy stance is a marketing thing, after all.
  • lesuorac 3y ago
    Pretty sure it's just section 75 that Apple / Meta take offense to. (1) OFCOM may require a provider of a regulated service to pay a fee in respect of a charging year which is a fee-paying year. (2) Where OFCOM require a provider of a regulated service to pay a fee in respect of a charging year, the fee is to be equal to the amount produced by a computation— (a) made by reference to— (i) the provider’s qualifying worldwide revenue for the qualifying period relating to that charging year, and (ii) any other factors that OFCOM consider appropriate, and (b) made in the manner that OFCOM consider appropriate. https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/51870/documents/3679 https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/51870/documents/367...
  • justapassenger 3y ago
    You must love Meta then, who refused to compromise to enter China (and boy, they tried). While Apple happily shares data with Chinese government to make billions.
    • ehsankia 3y ago
      Similarly, Bing is happy to run in China while Google pulled out of there.
    • scarface_74 3y ago
      You mean how Facebook wouldn’t “compromise” when it was outright banned?
      • lawn 3y ago
        If they would have compromised they wouldn't have been banned. So, yes?
        • scarface_74 3y ago
          https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-facebook-banned-china.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042915/why-f... China never asked them to compromise. They were banned in 2009.
          • lawn 3y ago
            And you know for a fact that they never communicated with Facebook and just banned them out of the blue? Or is this just speculation (fitting considering the source)?
            • scarface_74 3y ago
              Seeing that every non Chinese social media company was banned and that Zuckerberg later tried to get back into China > In 2018, Facebook attempted to set up a $30 million subsidiary in Hangzhou to incubate startups and give advice to local businesses. Permission to run the startup was quickly withdrawn Do you really think that Facebook is out of China for any moral reason?
  • amelius 3y ago
    Corporations > Democracy What could go wrong?
  • amelius 3y ago
    > Stuff like this is why I'm an Apple fanboy. A fanboy without iMessage and FaceTime ...
    • ExoticPearTree 3y ago
      I don't think the OP lives in the UK :)
  • cmitsakis 3y ago
    The fact that there are companies that have the power to shift public policy is the problem. Because they use that power for their interests that don't align with our interests.
  • sneak 3y ago
    Headline: Exclusive: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained - sources https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... Even with the new iCloud e2ee, which is not on by default, if you enable it, Apple and FBI/DHS/et al can still read all your messages (unless each and everyone you iMessage with also enables it), because iCloud still escrows iMessage sync keys in non-e2ee iCloud Backups, breaking the e2ee in iMessage. For 99.99%+ of iMessages, they ARE NOT E2EE and can be read at any time by Apple and provided to the state without a warrant. This is by design. HT202303 explains this, because for some reason Apple doesn't like to publicly lie. This article is brand marketing, nothing more. It worked on you. Apple has the ability to ship private devices. They don't because they choose not to fight city hall.
    • obituary_latte 3y ago
      Thanks for the reply. So am I misunderstanding their data security overview page?[0] >For additional privacy and security, 14 data categories — including Health and passwords in iCloud Keychain — are end-to-end encrypted. Apple doesn't have the encryption keys for these categories, and we can't help you recover this data if you lose access to your account. The table below includes a list of data categories that are always protected by end-to-end encryption. The table includes Messages in iCloud with the caveat that the key is stored in iCloud backups if enabled, but the e2e key is still private, no? [0]https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
      • sneak 3y ago
        iCloud Backups are enabled by default, and the Messages in iCloud key is in the non-e2ee iCloud Backup. That means the iMessages being synced are encrypted to an endpoint key which is held by both the endpoint and the middle transit service (iCloud/iCloud Backup). That's end-to-middle-and-end encrypted, i.e. not end to end encrypted. Even if you turn on iCloud Backup e2ee (it's an option now) then your iMessages to everyone who hasn't (99.9%+ of people) aren't e2ee because the other end of the conversation is backing up their endpoint sync key.
  • vecinu 3y ago
    I have seen some arguments that they don't care about your privacy and it's all right there in the privacy policy if you're willing to read it. A video on the subject [1] [1] https://youtu.be/r38Epj6ldKU https://youtu.be/r38Epj6ldKU
  • Gordonjcp 3y ago
    If you think they're really going to do that and not hand over keys, I can give you a great price on this bridge I'm keen to move.
• bnt 3y ago
  Good, more companies need to fight back crazy UK demands. Blocking MS<>Activision deal, because they think they are a global superpower.
  • hyperhopper 3y ago
    The MS Activision deal should be blocked, it's awful for the people
  • nani8ot 3y ago
    Blocking the MS-ABK deal isn't about being a global superpower, but about MS and ABK doing business in UK. It's the same with EU, Netherlands, Japan and US.
  • InsomniacL 3y ago
    Why shouldn't the deal be blocked? Whatever services MS want from Activision they can purchase on an ongoing basis without blocking others like Sony just to block the competition. Who wants Call of Duty to go xbox only like Halo? Microsoft is a platform provider, the content creators that use their platform should be free to publish to any platform. Otherwise Microsoft bump the prices and say take it or leave it but you can't get it anywhere else.
    • theironhammer 3y ago
      Because patches to military software could be "delayed". What operating system does military hardware run on?
• petercammeraat 3y ago
  Privacy is a fundamental human right!
  • f6v 3y ago
    Not in a society.
    • barnabee 3y ago
      Not only is privacy a fundamental right within a society but it is fundamentally necessary to the advancement, and thus long term survival, of any society.
      • defrost 3y ago
        To be honest that sounds like both an idealised slogan and a sophism empty of logic. Can you expand upon how the advancements in western society since (say) WWII have been neccesarily dependant upon privacy?
        • JumpCrisscross 3y ago
          > how the advancements in western society since (say) WWII have been neccesarily dependant upon privacy? Alan Turing. Hell, Tim Cook, a gay man who grew up in Alabama. Neither would have survived childhood with their personalities intact had their governments had the access No. 10 Downing demands. Privacy preserves society’s margins. The margins, by definition, are where change—growth—is nurtured.
          • defrost 3y ago
            To be clear, I'm in favour of privacy. However your examples don't demonstrate how the many advances in western society depend upon privacy nor do they prove that it would not have advanced without privacy. Alan Turing, for example, was open about his sexuality (an issue that bit him when a robbery took place long after his work at Bletchley). Even had he been somehow taken out of the picture pre WWII it remains true that Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski would still have cracked the Enigma cipher, built the prototype Bombe's and passed that knowledge to the likes of Tommy Flowers and William Thomas Tutte. Turing proved a result applicable to the third part of Hilbert's second problem, the Entscheidungsproblem. He was very nearly beaten to that as a first by Kurt Gödel who provided an answer to the first two parts of Hilbert's second while indicating an approach to the third part. Turing was beaten to the goal by Alonzo Church who demonstrated the halting problem for lambda calculus is not effectively calculable. Later, in 1939 J. Barkley Rosser highlighted the essential equivalence of "effective method" defined by Gödel, Church, and Turing. So, uhh, yes - it would be nice to see some notion of proof come to in to play here.
• graypegg 3y ago
  I do like how Apple has backed themselves into a consumer-protecting hole here. I’m sure they would love to have access to that much conversational data themselves, of which no other company has access to. If Siri ever improves too significantly I’ll get nervous.
  • cguess 3y ago
    The difference is that they make money on hardware and the app stores, not on advertising (they have a small ad product but it's probably closer to a rounding error).
    • detourdog 3y ago
      Like all the PC companies of the 70's. When Apple was launched software was mostly free.
    • noisem4ker 3y ago
      Since Apple does not disclose how much money they make from advertising specifically, conflating it into their "services" business, we have to guess a bit: "In 2021, Apple generated 3.7 billion U.S. dollars with its global advertising business." [1] "Apple’s services business, which includes advertising and subscription revenues, grew 24% year over year last quarter to a record $19.5 billion" "It’s likely that a large share of this category’s growth comes from advertising" [2] "Apple ad business could reach $6B by 2025, with $4.1B from Search Ads" [3] For reference, 2023 Q2 revenue from "services" amounted to 20.9B USD, while hardware product sales amounted to 73.9B USD. [4] We're thus talking about ~4%, not exactly a rounding error. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1330127/apple-ad-revenue-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1330127/apple-ad-revenue... [2] https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/apple-ad-revenues-skyrocket-amid-its-privacy-changes https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/apple-ad-revenue... [3] https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/15/apple-ad-business-could-reach-6b-by-2025-with-41b-from-search-ads https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/15/apple-ad-business... [4] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY23_Q2_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY23_Q2_Consolidated_Fin...
  • 3y ago
• cj 3y ago
  > Apple previously withdrew plans for its own CSAM-scanning feature for iCloud Photos, following pushback from customers and human rights groups. Apple’s solution was more privacy-preserving than what is now proposed by the UK government. Preface: I don't have an opinion on one side or the other. Question: what were the arguments lobbied against apple that caused them to withdraw? Also, is CSAM the motivating factor for UK or do they want backdoor for more general national security surveillance (or whatever you want to call it)?
  • can16358p 3y ago
    Of course it's just about surveillance. CSAM is just an excuse that is a sensitive topic so it's easier to justify which masks their actual intentions.
  • alephnerd 3y ago
    > Also, is CSAM the motivating factor for UK or do they want backdoor for more general national security surveillance Baroness Beeban Kidron has been lobbying for stringent anti-CSAM measures in tech for years [0]. She's lead a major pressure campaign in the US, Canada, and the UK for years [1]. Her charity 5Rights and WeProtect both have been able to back Labour and the Tories so she's able to lobby across the aisles. It doesn't hurt that the publishing company her parents founded (Pluto Press) has a strong niche in the political space. The Molly Russell suicide also played a role [2], which she leveraged to highlight the need for restrictive anti-CSAM measures, especially as it became a top tabloid story in the UK. [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeban_Kidron https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeban_Kidron [1] - https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/14/british-baroness-online-safety-laws-00101854 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/14/british-baroness-on... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/01/business/instagram-suicide-ruling-britain.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/01/business/instagram-suicid...
    • tacticalturtle 3y ago
      I know I’m from a different culture - but I don’t understand how the UK still has the House of Lords in 2023. It just doesn’t seem aligned with the principles of a republic or democracy to have unelected lifetime members who are able to draft legislation.
• chasil 3y ago
  They should beta test on everyone in the House of Commons. Today.
  • meepmorp 3y ago
    They all use WhatsApp
    • maxloh 3y ago
      What is WhatsApp's perspective on this matter?
    • bdavbdav 3y ago
      Not for calls / VC - the quality is trash compared to FaceTime
  • IshKebab 3y ago
    Nobody in the UK uses iMessage. Not sure about Facetime but it's definitely not anything anyone relies on. This is a meaningless threat.
    • bdavbdav 3y ago
      There aren’t many other widely used easily accessible services with as good video call quality as FaceTime in the UK. WhatsApp VC is trash.
      • IshKebab 3y ago
        I agree WhatsApp VC is rubbish. Google Meet is way better. I don't know about Facetime but it probably is way better too. But that's not especially relevant - people still mainly use WhatsApp for video calls despite the bad quality because everyone is already using WhatsApp.
    • midoridensha 3y ago
      Does anyone outside the US use iMessage?
• xwdv 3y ago
  Why does UK do this to themselves? Insisting on companies to take part in human rights violations is pure evil.
  • xeromal 3y ago
    "fOr The chiLDrEN"
  • theironhammer 3y ago
    Because the UK is now a third world country.
• edandersen 3y ago
  Are iMessage and Facetime disabled in China?
  • tinza123 3y ago
    No they are not. I talk to my family often on Facetime
  • jessepasley 3y ago
    No. iMessage and Facetime use end-to-end encryption in China, probably among only a few apps allowed to do so.
    • brucethemoose2 3y ago
      Thats really weird, kinda like how Steam existed for so long in China.
      • gruez 3y ago
        Steam has e2e?
        • brucethemoose2 3y ago
          No, but it was a massive unregulated catalog of games. It would be like hosting American Netflix in China.
        • actionfromafar 3y ago
          It has horrible slanderous counter-revolutionary and despicably immoral anti-chinese content.
    • tsunamifury 3y ago
      Keys are managed by the government.
      • gjsman-1000 3y ago
• bb101 3y ago
  The current conservative government is on its last legs before being banished for at least a decade. It appears they already have their eyes on the lucrative private sector and are willing to vandalise the UK with little thought to public protest.
  • laputan_machine 3y ago
    Labour are even more in favour of this than the tories are. Lib Dems, too. No mainstream party in the UK values your privacy.
    • bb101 3y ago
      I can't help but think the other parties would put forward better policies that don't alienate the electorate nor swathes of international business. Some would say the current conservative cabinet are the low-grade remnants of the recent party turmoil, and their policies demonstrate this. Unfortunately for us, they really have nothing to lose over the next year.
    • maakjaii 3y ago
      Agreed, Sir Keith Starmer honestly seems like a relic from the Cold War
      • stephen_g 3y ago
        He’s from the same Labour right faction of those as conservative as any Tory, just pretending to do conservatism in a nicer way. Just like Blair, who ended up doing more of Thather’s plan to chip away at privatising bits of the NHS (through PFIs on hundreds of hospitals) than Thatcher managed. Not to mention the Iraq war…
        • r00fus 3y ago
          Correct - NewLab, just like the DLC (a subgroup of the Democrats) over in the US.
    • 3y ago
• 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
  i simply prefer not to believe anything that any government or any trillion dollar company says about encryption and privacy. Apple: > "We have never heard of PRISM", "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers" https://web.archive.org/web/20130609061546/https://www.cultofmac.com/230358/everything-you-need-to-know-about-apple-and-prism/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130609061546/https://www.culto... ..some things are just not discussed on public forums.
  • gjsman-1000 3y ago
    That could be true? IIRC, PRISM was less about direct access, and more about abusing every potential method of gaining information. For example, imagine a Login page that said, "Password incorrect," versus "User does not exist." If you have "User does not exist," you could use that to figure out whether a given email address has an account with a service. That could be useful information to PRISM when looking for a target to subpoena or monitor. (This is also why it's now best practice to just say "Login incorrect" or something vague that doesn't say whether the username, or the password, was wrong.) Though, I could be wrong, I'd love more info.
    • realusername 3y ago
      > That could be true? IIRC, PRISM was less about direct access, and more about abusing every potential method of gaining information. Direct access to the data was mentioned in the Guardian and other newspapers
      • KerrAvon 3y ago
        Newspapers often get details wrong.
        • peoplefromibiza 3y ago
          And mega-corporations often lie.
        • 3y ago
• chakintosh 3y ago
  Easy decision considering Apple gains little to no money from them.
  • wrboyce 3y ago
    What? How did you arrive at this conclusion?! Apple enjoy a good market share in the UK. Over 50% of the market according to my cursory search.
    • chakintosh 3y ago
      I'm talking about iMessage and FaceTime as apps not the entire business. Apple is threatening disabling those apps not their presence in the UK.
• RobotToaster 3y ago
  They should just publicly publish all the messages from politicians' accounts. If they want to see our messages we should be able to see theirs, fair is fair.
  • nextmove 3y ago
    Strange that you got downvoted for stating that people should have power to hold politicians accountable. Look at the top comment and see how illogical it is: > I'm happy to pay a premium and be locked into their walled garden for some things if it means supporting a company that has the power to shift policy in favor of human rights (privacy in this case). Morons like this actually believe taking away human rights and privacy will make them safer. News flash, the danger are people in power that can't be held accountable. Lastly, be skeptical of anything Apple says as they work together with governments to take away your privacy. Psychopaths will say anything to get you to trust them.
• wonderwonder 3y ago
  This is a scam by the UK government, they don't care about child abuse, they are going to look into all sorts of communications to leverage people. If they cared about child abuse they would have shut down the open child prostitution rings running rampant. They openly let it continue because they are afraid of being branded racist since the gangs running them are minorities. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telford_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telford_child_sexual_exploit...
  • actionfromafar 3y ago
    The Wikipedia article doesn’t exactly support your claim.
    • wonderwonder 3y ago
      Fair enough, how about this one https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/1-000-children-groomed-but-unease-about-race-meant-telford-sexual-exploitation-ignored-inquiry-finds-12650725 https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/1-000-ch...,
      • actionfromafar 3y ago
        I agree with your broader message, UK really wants to dragnet data.
      • JKCalhoun 3y ago
        The article seems to implicate the West Mercia Police. You extend that to the entire UK government.
    • jimbob45 3y ago
      The police didn't investigate child sex crimes because the perpetrators were non-white and the police didn't want to be seen as racist. What about that is incorrect?
      • 3y ago
• m3kw9 3y ago
  iMessage is pretty pointless with backdoors
  • kstrauser 3y ago
    Which backdoors does it have?
    • LoganDark 3y ago
      this is a backdoor that they're refusing to put into it, because it would make iMessage pointless
      • kstrauser 3y ago
        Huh, interesting. I interpreted OP as "Messages is pointless today, as it already has backdoors". I hadn't even considered your reading of it until you pointed it out.
• mihaaly 3y ago
  I wonder why the UK legislators not preparing a new regulation mandating every keys to every door and safe having a bypass mechanism for government officials. Behind every door and every locked place there could be child pornography and illicit materials hidden!! Every house, every hotel safe are suspects! Criminal oversight, criminal oversight! (and if they think their reasoning for backdoors into online chat and conversation is mandated by this supid reasoning of theirs then it must be valid for all entrance doors of every home and buidlding and every locked spaces as well! Getting easy access to material without assistance or knowledge of the people involved.)
  • Eighth 3y ago
    Anecdotally, I've heard the argument made that police can knock in doors for raids, and they should have the same power over technology.
    • Rebelgecko 3y ago
      Dunno how I feel about that metaphor. To me the current situation isn't just saying "police have the power to kick in doors". It's more like "citizens are banned from building houses with doors that make it hard for police to enter".
      • Spivak 3y ago
        I think if you could build such a thing they would be banned on the same grounds.
        • appletrotter 3y ago
          It already exists. You can have a door with a steel core. It's not illegal. https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/zcvwno/steel_reinforced_door_battering_ram/ https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/zcvwno/steel_rein...
          • gene91 3y ago
• whartung 3y ago
  Will Apple still support SMS? Will users be notified that they’re “suddenly” dropped down to a less secure channel or will the simply have to pay attention to the text color and actually know what they mean?
  • colechristensen 3y ago
    I assume just green text boxes instead of blue ones.
    • ryandrake 3y ago
      They could also add support for RCS if they didn't feel like punishing their non-iMessage iPhone users by falling back to SMS.
  • marcellus23 3y ago
    The Messages app doesn't just rely on text color, it also shows the text "iMessage" or "Text Message" whenever the mode of conversation shifts.
• huntertwo 3y ago
  Why do the British still think they have power to do dumb stuff like this? Their economy is floundering, their consumer market is small, and their government is a joke.
  • fredley 3y ago
    In a word, populists. This is part of a stance of being 'tough on crime'. Whether or not the bill succeeds or fails isn't really important, what's important is that they can trumpet how tough on crime they are. If it fails it's not their fault, it's the opposition and how they care more about criminals' rights than your/childrens' safety etc. etc. As to why the public themselves go for it, the media landscape in the UK is in a pretty bad way at the moment. An enormous amount of power is still wielded by the traditional press - specifically the power to set the national conversation.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    70M is small, but not that small. Larger than any US state, larger than most countries in the EU. It's also anglophone, which to anglophone companies (Apple still is, to a significant degree), means that its 70M are worth a bit more than the absolute number suggests.
  • IshKebab 3y ago
    The UK is still the 6th biggest market in the world. Enough potential profit that most companies will be happy to follow slightly ridiculous laws. The only reason Apple are saying this is because it's good PR and nobody in the UK uses iMessage anyway, so they won't lose any money. Wake me up when WhatsApp say the same...
    • CameronNemo 3y ago
      Does this not count? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/09/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption-online-safety-bill https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/09/whatsapp-...
• InsomniacL 3y ago
  I'm not against breaking e2ee when the right protections are in place. 1, Court signed order 2, Public Disclosure during prosecution or within X time of the court order being signed (including when no wrongdoing found) 3, Some sort of test to ensure it's not misused (imminent threat to life, serious crime like murder/child kidnap or something) The idea that a judge can order a cavity search to find information leading to the location of a suspected murdered/dying child but not to read a message between the suspected murders phones seems ludicrous. It appears at least in some of the US/UK, a judge can order you to give information including your phone password and if you don't, you become a criminal for that. I'm just suggesting the question should be around where do we draw the line on privacy vs protection and what safeguards do we put in place. I.E on a scale of speeding ticket to terrorist attack.
  • kstrauser 3y ago
    E2EE is a true/false label. Either it is, or it ain’t. It is not mathematically possible to selectively break E2EE. If it’s broken, it’s not E2EE.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • hot_gril 3y ago
      There are stronger and weaker forms of it, though. Apple holds the keys to the identity (public key) exchange in iMessage. You're still trusting Apple not to mitm your conversations, but at least they wouldn't be able to do this retroactively. Other E2EE messaging apps at least have a way to verify each others' pubkeys, but it's not required and very few people do it.
      • kstrauser 3y ago
        Apple previously announced their "iMessage Contact Key Verification" (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-advances-user-security-with-powerful-new-data-protections/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/12/apple-advances-user-s...). Rumors are that it's coming in iOS 16.6 which may drop any time now.
• Night_Thastus 3y ago
  There's a lot of good reasons to hate Apple, but when they're right they're right, and I definitely appreciate that they're willing to stand up for something like this, even if it is in their best interest.
  • hospitalJail 3y ago
    This is marketing. PRISM in the US is proof they don't really care. China and Russia also have data collection on iphones.
    • hot_gril 3y ago
      I think Apple truly cares about iMessage in particular maintaining E2EE. iCloud backup, for those who use it, is a different story.
      • jdiez17 3y ago
        E2EE iCloud backup is generally available since January this year. I have been using it since then with 0 issues. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
        • hot_gril 3y ago
          Yeah but I'm not sure if that's going to be available in China.
          • Gigachad 3y ago
            Should they withhold the feature entirely because they can't deliver it to China?
            • hot_gril 3y ago
              No, why would they do that?
• honeybadger1 3y ago
  Good
• jacooper 3y ago
  The same company who showed all governments that mass local photo scanning is possible, now wants to counter security legislation? The damage done by apple with their previous plans for CSAM scanning is huge, and apple will be partially responsible for all the upcoming anti privacy / encryption laws.
• LoganDark 3y ago
  "it would", not "it will". this submission's title is misleading and should be corrected to match the article
• yankput 3y ago
  Hm, I wonder what they do in China. In China they are running their own infrastructure on servers owned by party-affiliated businesses. I wonder how strong their encryption is over there? China blocks many services with strong encryption but it doesn’t block iMessage.
  • draw_down 3y ago
    [dead]
  • hot_gril 3y ago
    Seems nobody uses iMessage in China. The stats I can find don't even list it. Maybe they're ok with leaving it as a way for visitors to talk to people at home.
    • nonethewiser 3y ago
      So the CCP is just content to leave this encrypted form of communication controlled by an American company while simultaneously locking down every other avenue of electronic communication? Because “no one uses it?” If no one uses it why not block it then? I mean, I hope so. Im not convinced though.
      • hot_gril 3y ago
        People do use it, just not Chinese nationals, so blocking it would only inconvenience visitors. Or because Apple has some special kind of leverage. Can only speculate.
        • nonethewiser 3y ago
          But they can. Easily. And many people have iphones. Just doesn't seem likely that the CCP would be fine with it.
    • qwezxcrty 3y ago
      Chinese do use iMessage, although not necessarily deliberately. SMS is very commonly used in China and when a iPhone user want to message to another, the default is to use iMessage instead of SMS. So I did have tens of native Chinese contacts, including my computer illiterate parents, using iMessage back when I was in China and using an iPhone. Also, SMS cost a fee in China for the most popular mobile subscriptions, while iMessage is almost free. So it is a good question why CCP didn't block iMessage, despite we know that SMS is heavily censored and monitored (see 金盾工程).
• paxys 3y ago
  The same Apple that lets the CCP operate its entire App Store in China? It's easy to criticize a government when you know there will be no retaliation. To judge a company's true stance on such issues see how they behave when there's a prospect of real financial loss.
  • zarzavat 3y ago
    The UK and China are not comparable. China is the worlds most populous country (for now). The UK has a population of under 70m. China is a totalitarian regime where even an imperfect freedom is preferable to no freedom at all. The UK is a democratic country which should be upholding the right to privacy. If Apple weakens crypto for the UK, it affects people in other countries as well. iMessage is not exactly popular in the UK, so it is disproportionately used for transatlantic communication compared to WhatsApp. If Apple complies with the law, they are violating the privacy of users in the US as well.
    • YetAnotherNick 3y ago
      What are you trying to say with the message? Are you saying if UK government turns bad tomorrow, it is fine for Apple to remove encryption there? But now it is not fine as UK is not bad? Why does Apple even care about how bad the government is? Either they care about user privacy over money, or they value money over privacy. It is fine if they value any of those as I frankly believe it's not Apple's job to moral police governments. > If Apple complies with the law, they are violating the privacy of users in the US as well. As is the case now with US-China communication?
    • bpicolo 3y ago
      Just an interesting note I learned recently - it’s estimated that India’s population overtook China’s this year (within the last couple of months)
    • ninth_ant 3y ago
      > The UK and China are not comparable. China is the worlds most populous country (for now). The UK has a population of under 70m. You say they are not comparable, and then compare them in a way that backs up the point you're trying to argue against. It _is_ two-faced of Apple to give China a pass here, undoubtably in large part due to the massive loss of sales were they not to comply and be removed by the Chinese regime. > China is a totalitarian regime where even an imperfect freedom is preferable to no freedom at all. If the Chinese gov't has the keys to unlock "private" conversations, how is this "imperfect freedom" in any way different from WeChat or other state-sanctioned messaging systems? > The UK is a democratic country which should be upholding the right to privacy. I mean sure, but Chinese people should have the same rights of privacy as anyone else. It's not suddenly less-bad because their government is totalitarian. > If Apple weakens crypto for the UK, it affects people in other countries as well. iMessage is not exactly popular in the UK, so it is disproportionately used for transatlantic communication compared to WhatsApp. If Apple complies with the law, they are violating the privacy of users in the US as well. How is this any different than what Apple currently does when an iMessage user outside China messages someone inside China? My understanding is that it acts precisely as you describe, but I could be wrong. And likewise, from what I understand iMessage is likewise unpopular in China so cross-country communications would potentially be a major source of iMessage activity as well? ( I don't see any statistics on this)
• stainablesteel 3y ago
  so the government that arrested people for jokes, knocks on people's doors over mean tweets, and politically ousts people for having the wrong opinion now wants to destroy privacy for the 84th time in 10 years wew, its just one big firework waiting to blow. glad i've got the spectator seats
• etempleton 3y ago
  The UK keeps trying to throw their weight around only to find out they aren’t that big. The CMA with Xbox and now this. They aren’t large enough for Apple and Microsoft to make massive changes just to accommodate a relatively small market.
  • ben_w 3y ago
    The UK has been discovering and forgetting that lesson repeatedly since at least the Suez crisis if not earlier.
  • acuozzo 3y ago
    > The UK keeps trying to throw their weight around only to find out they aren’t that big. Their (former) empire is a part of their cultural identity. It's going to take a few more generations to shed the expectations of what was. The days of two washed-up subjects of the crown taking Kafiristan all on their lonesome are dead and gone.
    • r00fus 3y ago
      I think it'll die in this generation itself. The UK with Brexit are starting to find out very quickly how insignificant their nation is and how easy it is to route around the oversized egos of their so-called leaders.
      • urbandw311er 3y ago
        British citizen here. I didn’t vote for Brexit. But would you mind perhaps not insulting my country?
        • jamil7 3y ago
          I can't tell if this is satire. There isn't anything insulting about saying a country is insignificant (my home country definitely is).
        • r00fus 3y ago
• lcfcjs 3y ago
  [dead]
• xbmcuser 3y ago
  Oh iMessage and FaceTime are not available in China I was not aware of that.
• ben_w 3y ago
  Makes me glad that I left the UK. I wonder what happens when all the Conservative Party MPs discover that this sort of legislation means even more of their internal party conversations — currently on WhatsApp but who knows what they'll use next — get leaked?
  • doublerabbit 3y ago
    Nothing. They know, they don't care. It's simple as that. Politicians will flail, but the inner-circle won't even shrug. The Conservative party is in a nose-dive which will continue to be until the next couple of generations kick the bucket. Those who are in the their 60's want the UK to be just like it was before EU. Those who are in their 40's, 50's accept that brexit was a eff'up, many are in denial that it was a bad decision. The motto is now "we must just get on with it" which is accepted upon them. They have the lifestyle, let the younger suffer. I'm 34.. no idea what am I suppose to do.
    • ben_w 3y ago
      I was 34 when I emigrated to get away from all that nonsense. It's not been easy, but it has been worth it.
• jamesk_au 3y ago
  Can anyone find a link to Apple’s nine-page submission document? All reports of this seem to refer back to the same BBC article, which purports to quote from Apple’s submission, but doesn’t link to it.
• balls187 3y ago
  Calling BS in CSAM as the reason. Clearly it’s their government wanting to have easier ability to spy on it’s citizens.
• qwezxcrty 3y ago
  I'm curious if Apple is complying with Chinese censorship with iMessage. As far as I know, at least it was usable in China without VPN in 2015.
  • hot_gril 3y ago
    They're complying, in that China has not required them to alter iMessage in China. It's still E2EE. But iCloud backups aren't, and each country's respective government has access to those.
• theironhammer 3y ago
  Doesn't the UK sound more and more like some third world dictatorship?
• submeta 3y ago
  An interesting narative, but there are alternative perspectives to consider as well. It's not necessarily a matter of whether or not the UK needs Apple to break their encryption. In fact, they may not need to do so at all. Companies like certain Israel-based firms specialize in selling a myriad of cyber tools, often at quite reasonable prices, that can potentially bypass the need for direct encryption breaking. It often feels like these public back-and-forths could be theatrical performances, designed to shape public perception more than anything else. State-level actors generally operate with a much wider set of tools and resources at their disposal than what is commonly understood. The fact that the UK is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance is also noteworthy here. This alliance allows for expansive information and resource sharing. The reach and depth of these resources can often surpass the need for individual corporate cooperation. It's essential to look beyond surface narratives and remember the complexity of global surveillance practices and cyber strategies. Yes, a company's commitment to privacy is admirable and crucial, but it's equally important to stay aware of the many other methods that state actors have at their disposal for obtaining information. Edit: Fixed typo
  • mynameisvlad 3y ago
    This isn’t about targeted attacks, though. This is about a blanket bill to monitor everyone’s communications. The tools you mention still generally require either physical access to the device, or are in some way targeted. You’ll likely never be able to stop these, but a blanket communication encryption ban both serves an entirely different purpose and can much more easily be stopped.
• lencastre 3y ago
  T’is the silly season.
• RandomWorker 3y ago
  I mean, remove it, and replace it with RCS-Rich Communication Services I hope? Generally this could be a good thing.
• aldousd666 3y ago
  Go apple!
• UnixSchizoid 3y ago
  As a heavy Linux and foss user, I use iOS because I know it’s secure and has more specialized builds for my device.
• vbo 3y ago
  I feel we've been collectively losing the battle to keep our conversations private. The anti-encryption laws are likely vocally opposed only by a minority, while the majority believes they had no privacy to begin with and governments can read your messages at a whim. And perhaps that's true to some extent. But since most people believe the battle is lost, moreso that this has always been the status quo, then any battle on the subject is lost before it has a chance to begin. We have capitulated on privacy, because it's a vague concept and we don't equate it with freedom, or perhaps our sense of being free is so ingrained in modern societies that we see no risk to it being lost lest something drastic and immediate takes it away, when in fact the very system designed to protect our freedoms (led by people that look like us, think like us and enjoy these freedoms as much as we do) is malfunctioning and slowly erodes rights that previous generations enjoyed. We're not collectively trying to harm our freedoms and yet here we are. And shortsightedness on the side of lawmakers is baffling. Nobody takes responsibility for vision, we just go along with implementing solutions without considering broader impact or history. If the government has all your correspondence and the government falls into the wrong hands, you're toast, assuming you do not align with the leadership. We're writing that possibility off, but someone gets to brag that they've written legislation to stop the bad guys -- and maybe they did, but the cost was our collective freedom.
  • b59831 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • nonethewiser 3y ago
      If the definition of free speech doesnt feel over inclusive then its not free speech.
    • eli 3y ago
      Cmon who is saying that? Plenty of people believe in limits to free speech but very very few would draw the line there.
    • wilg 3y ago
      Wait, do you think there are people who think “Let’s Go Brandon” is anything but a hilarious conservative self-own?
• mrlonglong 3y ago
  The UK govt are a total shitshow right now but we'll put that right at the next elections. Hang in there, chaps.
• TuringNYC 3y ago
  On every single message outside the walled garden, Apple should have a note on iMessage appear "Due to Regulations XYZ 2023, this message may not be secure and may be open to read by third parties"
• artk42 3y ago
  Back to SMS (c)
  • artk42 3y ago
    In the meantime, it might seem very counterintuitive, but it is very evolutional and GOOD regulation! It will force custodial monopolies companies like Meta and Apple, either go away OR provide programmability for users to incorporate their own encryption layers with possibility to control your own keys yourself.
• dainiusse 3y ago
  How does apple work in russia then?
  • Andrew_nenakhov 3y ago
    It just ignores this part of local legislation, like everyone else. The government tries to pressure companies to provide encryption keys, but this is unfeasible as it doesn't have big enough leverage, especially now, when hostile international relations shield foreign companies from legal threats. So the only thing they can do is an internet block, but most users do have some kind of vpn installed already to circumvent such obstacles. It also weakens government negotiations position, because one you use the nuclear option, there is no more ways to threaten the company.
• Andrew_nenakhov 3y ago
  The goal of Mass surveillance is not to fight spies and pedophiles. The goal is to have a dossier on everyone.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    It doesn't really matter what the goal is, and you'll never conclusively be able to prove the goal anyway. What matters is the outcome, and indeed mass surveillance will lead to the dossier on everyone outcome, whether that was intended or not.
• ksaj 3y ago
  Every generation has its PGP / Clipper Chip / etc battle. Eventually we'll lose. But hopefully we're not ready to give up yet. I read today that the younger generation grew up with and is so used to surveillance they don't care. It's just a thing. But old codgers like me most definitely care.
• skdotdan 3y ago
  Aren’t iMessage and FaceTime irrelevant outside from the US? I don’t know a single non-American person who uses them.
  • philjohn 3y ago
    Nope. Plenty of people use iMessage in the UK, facetime as well.
• mrweasel 3y ago
  There was an interview with the CEO of Signal and some UK conservative politician[1]. It's a pretty infuriating interview, as both parties try to debate two complete separate issues. Meredith Whittaker of Signal, rightfully tries to debate the issues with breaking encryption and it's ramification, but the politician has that sorted. See they don't want to break the encryption, they want the apps to pick up the messages BEFORE encryption and side channel them to some government agency, at least that's my understanding. They want on device access to the message, which the app have, they just also want that information searched, indexed and filtered and sent to the police. It's sad that these politicians don't see the problem... Well either don't see or understand, or they full well understand and that's the point, they're just doing a poor job of explaining why. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E--bVV_eQR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E--bVV_eQR0
  • javajosh 3y ago
    Anyone wishing to control a network of computers must choose either the tube or the box. That is, either you break the tubes and intercept traffic between opaque boxes, or you break into the boxes and leave the tubes opaque. If you assume opaque boxes then by arguing for opaque tubes Meredith Whittaker is arguing for full abdication of control of the network. Politicians don't like that. Some don't like it because in good faith they see their role as that of a protector, a threat detector. Some don't like it because in bad faith they know this is giving up a significant chunk of power. (And in reality every political leader falls on a spectrum between these two). In practice, I think we'll waver between losing control of the box and gaining it back, as it sinks in that, truly, no backdoor can be reserved for some and not for others. I think the only viable solution is to break the tube: make it illegal to send encrypted messages over the wire. Period. Then we could keep the box inviolable, opaque, and secure. But it can no longer communicate secretly to others. In practice this will mean more "sneaker net" movement of illicit and/or secret data, and probably leaps and bounds in steganography. It would also end the internet as we know it, especially any and all e-commerce. But hey, that's a small price to pay for eliminating CSAM, right?
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
• pelasaco 3y ago
  Talk the talk, walk the walk. Lets see, talk is cheap. Specially if Europe follows the trend.
• jboydyhacker 3y ago
  Why not a similarly brave stance in China? In China Apple claims it "obeys all local laws" except in the UK it wants to be courageous? I guess it's a brave state unless the $$$ are good.
  • nonethewiser 3y ago
    Guess the UK market is just too weak to matter?
  • bostonsre 3y ago
    Yea, pretty interesting point.. seems like either the uk market isn't big enough for them to implement a solution or they don't care about the market and they care about people in the uk but they don't care about people in China.
    • detourdog 3y ago
      They may hold the UK to different cultural standards than china. China is tricky and I'm sure after Hong Kong Apple changed their calculus.
    • csydas 3y ago
      in advance I agree with a more cynical point as well, but I think we need to consider that there's equally plausible and more positive potential reasons - if there is success in the UK, relevant persons at Apple can make a more compelling argument to push back on China and other governments a lot more - perhaps apple is still pushing hard on china and using the UK as an example that they're willing to drop a long time strong market over the anti-encryption legislation I'm not saying either is the case, but there are benign or even positive reads on why apple is more aggressive with the UK
    • madeofpalk 3y ago
      It's not super interesting. Apple's reliance on China in many ways, and thus hypocrisy, is reasonably well known. "At least" companies can put up a fight in the UK (or US, see Apple in the San Bernardino case) and they have a reasonable chance they can lobby to block the efforts.
• lsh123 3y ago
  The interesting thing is that the government can have access to your conversations today. They just need to get judge order and search your phone (end-to-end encryption doesn't help if you don't delete messages). Same things as knocking on the door with a judge order. But the government doesn't want to deal with judges. They want unlimited access 24/7. That's the key difference and this is why this is bad for all the citizens.
• gumballindie 3y ago
  This is just tories fabricating an issue so they can come with a solution during their campaign. They’ll fix anything but their own corruption, excessive taxation and the dwindling quality of life. Perhaps they’ll increase taxes a bit more to, paradoxically for a conservative party, keep the socialists of the uk happy.
• supernova87a 3y ago
  How is it supposed to work, if the UK laws were implemented? Only phones activated in the UK or with UK set as the activating country have to follow the rule? Only if there's a SIM card? What about iPods or MacBooks? What if you bring a US phone to the UK, does it have to magically detect and suddenly allow backdoors? If you leave the UK with your UK phone, is it allowed to be encrypted then, or the UK wants the ability no matter where you go?
  • cmiles74 3y ago
    My understanding is that there will be a new authority, Ofcom, that will regulate the community of messaging application vendors. One of there powers will be to enforce the scanning of messages for CSAM or terrorism related content and Ofcom can force them to use an "accredited" service to scan for the illegal content. I suspect the scanning of this content will be handled solely by accredited services, these likely will have close communication with one or more government entities who supply information on what content is or is not illegal. At this point there isn't really end-to-end encryption anymore: every message will be submitted to one (or more) accredited services. Even if it's encrypted, each message now has the government's blessed service as a recipient. It's important to remember that we're talking about text messages as well as images, a system that compares only hashes will not be sufficient. The bit about terrorism related information is also worrisome as we know the list of what is and isn't terrorism related is a very political debate. https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/06/uk-osb-csam-scanning/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/06/uk-osb-csam-scanning/
• throwingtoofar 3y ago
  First they came for protests, now they want to tackle encryption. I don't think they like the ability of people to share unofficial information and organize themselves in huge numbers.[0] People were sharing anti-propaganda propaganda stickers on telegram too.[1] (2:40 the bus is covered in them, also saw a vid where an entire police car was covered in them.) [0]. https://onevsp.com/watch/gqymHfesRd5sWJj https://onevsp.com/watch/gqymHfesRd5sWJj [1]. https://onevsp.com/watch/3skDbBtB8sGwboa https://onevsp.com/watch/3skDbBtB8sGwboa
• mark_l_watson 3y ago
  I am proud of Apple for doing this. I give the same praise to Signal for making the same decision. Breaking encryption via backdoors is like a gift to organized crime. Privacy is also crucially important if you want to maintain free societies long term. Same comment for free speech for public discourse.
• darkclouds 3y ago
  I dont think they realise the hacking I've seen on computers is at the HW level. Take this PC, a fairly new dell, all patched with the bios et al, and certain websites (dailymail, youtube and reddit) with adverts deliver something that disables the dell mouse. Only option is to reboot the pc but I have to take the mouse out of the usb and plug it back otherwise the dell usb mouse still wont work after a reboot. So I love their hubris, but I dont think they see some of the hacking that goes on because its at the hw level.
• moistoreos 3y ago
  I am reminded of a conversation on Security Now where Steve Gibson recommended that each website that has traffic inside the UK to have a red banner at the top of the page to sentiment of something like, "The UK Government is forcibly watching traffic on this website." Watch how quickly that turns the conversation around. This argument lawmakers have here is entirely built upon the straw man. I understand the deep yearning to protect children but all this won't make the criminals stop using the tools that are currently legal. They will continue to use them. Making them "illegal" won't make them stop using them because they can still be acquired.
• grammers 3y ago
  UK is like US, but worse. It seems they only left the EU to push for maximum surveillance, and no one is going to stop them.
  • teamonkey 3y ago
    “But what can you do, eh?” should be the motto embossed in gold letters on the front of the blue passports.
  • justcurioustoo 3y ago
    The EU has their own plans with Chat Control, on par with the UK proposal.
• carabiner 3y ago
  Nothingburger because everyone in the UK and Europe uses Whatsapp.
• mensetmanusman 3y ago
  China is too big for Apple to respond this way.
• yodsanklai 3y ago
  One thing I don't get: how does a government think they can ban encryption? criminals can always encrypt their communication if they want to. How could they even be detected?
• guy98238710 3y ago
  Someone should bring up lawyer and doctor privilege as an argument. Phones are intimately personal devices that people take to their homes and use for a lot of very private stuff. Phones cannot fulfill their job as a personal device and be a police snitch at the same time just like lawyers cannot advise their clients and inform the police at the same time. There needs to be a personal computer privilege.
  • LightBug1 3y ago
    How about as simple as going for a walk with a friend and having a conversation ... without anyone listening in. That's how my phone should feel.
    • urbandw311er 3y ago
      But it’s never been that way in the UK. If you were suspected of planning a murder/bombing/atrocity/etc they could bug your phone even 50 years ago. And personally I’m quite glad about that!
      • guy98238710 3y ago
        Back then phones were as personal as a public phone booth. The way phones are used today resembles cybernetic enhancement more than tool use. That's where the concern for privacy comes from. There's a bell curve to technology adoption and some people have hard time processing this, but things are generally moving in the direction of increasing cyberization. Government messing with privacy can have two effects: (1) halting the cyberization by ruining public trust in the technology once for all or (2) planting seeds of an unimaginably totalitarian society before most people realize where this is going.
      • LightBug1 3y ago
        Weird that that's your default ... What if, you know, you're not planning a murder/bombing/atrocity/etc., like, erm, you know, normal people. I get it ... nothing to hide, nothing to worry about, right?
• LightBug1 3y ago
  Well done, Apple ... I live in the UK and am happy to make the sacrifice. The UK government can stick their agenda right up their big fat, corrupt, dystopian ...
• gtvwill 3y ago
  Lol fat lies, apple pumping propagandato try maintain an image within the market. They still operate in aus. Therefore they can legally be backdoor'ed, and almost certainly have been but are legally required to not notify their users or make note of it internally. Couple with some 5 eyes legislation and you got cross borders no warrant monitoring. This grandstanding by Apple is nothing more than propaganda for the plebs. Go read country laws. Apple toes the line like everyone else. Your a suckered if you think otherwise.
• dancemethis 3y ago
  Apple is ready to pay a bit to keep pretending they have encryption. Must mean the money they get in the back from their user data is much bigger.
• urbandw311er 3y ago
  Potentially going against the grain of HN opinion: It strikes me as odd that people are now suddenly condemning the UK gov for trying to maintain its ability to keep its people safe, particularly when spying is not an unusual or a new power per se. The UK government has had the means and the right to spy on its citizens for hundreds of years, via phone taps, espionage, bugs, steaming open letters and all sorts. It’s served us very well as a country and has also saved many lives - just look at the stats on thwarted terror offences using intercepts as evidence. We are a democracy and if enough people didn’t want the government to hold these powers there exists the means to achieve that via electing a new government. An American company is now threatening to stop selling some of its products in the UK if the government refuses to let it sell products that weaken their ability to police the nation. In the context of what’s important to the country perhaps we should choose security over the profits of Apple’s shareholders.
  • Gigachad 3y ago
    The problem is that for hundreds of years, the vast majority of your communication was in person, or it was not recorded. Now almost every thought you have is permanently recorded. I have no problem with actively suspected criminals having their current communications intercepted. What I have an issue with is having everyone's historical communications stored and open for taking
• 1letterunixname 3y ago
  Torys are intent on policing and micromanaging citizens by violating their private lives and their values to cherrypick who to judge, shame, and prosecute as part of a greater vision of self-righteous, "moral" "conservatism" in the spirit of Iran's morality police.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• deftturtle 3y ago
  what if instead of breaking encryption and violating privacy rights, we had governments enforce the death penalty for people that rape children? Why are we trying to violate the rest of society through our refusal to take out the trash?
• SergeAx 3y ago
  Is there a tech analysis of what exactly UK is trying to pull? "Ban encryption" sounds pretty vague. If me and my friend negotiate a cipher and writing each other encoded Post-notes - are we going to jail? Or should we provide a copy of cipher to nearest policeman?