3 ms·
The question is this: is the law good in principle? Meaning is the law good regardless of what Apple decides to do? Or is it only good if it forces Apple to br
by nonethewiser 3y ago
The question is this: is the law good in principle?
Meaning is the law good regardless of what Apple decides to do? Or is it only good if it forces Apple to break encryption?
I think the answer is obvious. Its not a principled law. Its just a threat. They wouldn’t rather lose access to facetime and iMessages than have access to them but encrypted. Thats just crippling themselves.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ben_w 3y agoHard to tell about the principles of the law itself. I don't hold any of the British government departments in high regard, so I will assume malicious power-seeking on their part regardless of anything else. But for the principal of forced decryption? Most non-criminal organisations don't know how to secure their communications properly, so while organised criminals that hire decent IT can trivially secure their communications, I don't expect criminals to be generally capable of keeping out of sight of the authorities. Non-professional criminals will probably all get scooped up easily by a surveillance dragnet. And the only way past the competent criminals is old-fashioned intel gathering. But the British government can't actually act on dragnet-scale information anyway: They've been cutting back on police, court buildings, magistrates, public lawyers, prison buildings, prison staff, and parole boards. Even if they hadn't, surveys of drug use alone suggest they'd be criminalising a double-digit percentage of the population they can't afford to put through the police let alone the courts. Given what the UK counts as "extreme" porn, I'd guess that's also a double-digit percentage of the population.