29 ms·

Apple's Best Option: Decentralize iCloud

109 points by ingve 2y ago

zero0529 2y ago
Why so extreme, I believe they only will have to stop providing their premium iCloud service to the UK as this is the one that have E2E encryption and thus would be affected?
- WhyNotHugo 2y ago
  As long as the company operates as a legal entity in the country, the government can force it to comply with its mandates. It doesn't matter if the specific service is offered in the UK or not.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Same applies to USA and clouds hosted in Europe. Only real move way is to start creating local corporate structures. Maybe even entirely separate companies. And have the infra in those areas. So UK customers are served from UK servers by UK company. USA customers from USA servers by USA company. And EU customers from EU servers by EU company. Repeat for enough. Maybe if some of these agree to play fully nice with legislation and privacy there could be some cross work. But seeing how even EU is moving, I am doubtful.
- mozball 2y ago
  According to WaPo, the secret order demands blanket access to cloud data from any user anywhere in the world : http://archive.today/79dA3 http://archive.today/79dA3
  - nickslaughter02 2y ago
    > from any user anywhere in the world Is that even legal? At the very least, doesn't it break some EU privacy laws?
    - swiftcoder 2y ago
      Post-Brexit, I imagine that's a feature of the request, not a bug, at least from the UK's standpoint
    - stephen_g 2y ago
      Why would the UK Government care about that? They’re not bound by the EU’s laws. They’re trying to force Apple to secretly break the EU and other countries’ laws, and don’t care as long as they get what they want…
      - nickslaughter02 2y ago
        Wouldn't that warrant a reaction from the EU then? I haven't seen any.
asterisk9 2y ago
Their best option, and the option they will surely take, is to refuse the request
- okhobb 2y ago
  How does this play out? They pay a fine? Tim Cook is extradited? Something in between?
  - zb1plus 2y ago
    lol no way trump would let the UK extradite a US CEO.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Although I agree — and also left the UK in part* because this law was clearly going to blow up like this — I would add that the US and China are about equal now, so look at what gets done to Chinese tech firms that don't play nice. * the other part being Brexit, whose saga still isn't over given the Reform party opinion poll rating and them wanting to also leave the European Convention on Human Rights which has bad things to say about government surveillance
    - jonathantf2 2y ago
      Trump didn't let the UK extradite someone who killed a teenager in a hit-and-run, never mind a big tech CEO.
    - Hamuko 2y ago
      Tim Apple also made sure to pay Trump a cool $1 million for protect- I mean the inauguration committee. How much has the UK given Trump, a man who views the world in terms of transactions?
    - philistine 2y ago
      The Five-Eyes agreement allows the UK and US to share any intelligence material immediately. This is 100% orchestrated with American intelligence agencies to allow them to get American data. When push comes to shove, the US government will probably side with the UK.
WhyNotHugo 2y ago
I agree that decentralising is without any doubt the best option. The best option for consumers. But it's not the best option for Apple: they want to remain tightly and firmly in control. But removing Apple entirely from the "cloud" integration would be the best bet. E.g.: take a path similar to IMAP and CalDAV, where any third party provider can be used.
zaptrem 2y ago
Decentralize iCloud doesn’t solve the problem because the majority of users (myself included) would want to keep using their hosted/“official” version due to the Apple subscription bundles we’re already paying for (the blog mentions this) and wanting the smoothest/most fully featured version. If the UK mandates some sort of encryption backdoor then that will follow anywhere the protocol is used (in the UK, that is. Apple would certainly use a non-backdoored version everywhere else it’s legal).
- xbmcuser 2y ago
  Apple already gives access to China for Chinese citizens so they will do the same for UK citizens. Though looking at how the tech bros are getting chummy with the current US government that has fascist tendencies they might get the US government to force UK hand but will they as I think the US government would like to do the same as what UK is doing has been trying for years. Now with supreme courts judges in their pockets, firing of any opposition from government departments at least trying to. Gutting all regulation and consumer protection bodies who will go after the tech robber barons and stop them from doing anything they want.
  - elashri 2y ago
    Please read the UK case again. UK is requesting apple to give them access to any user's data worldwide not only UK users or data within UK jurisdiction. Sorry to be the one to say that but China is better here.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - xbmcuser 2y ago
      Apple cant as GPDR makes it impossible for them to give european data no matter how much UK asks
      - elashri 2y ago
jamesy0ung 2y ago
I mostly use iCloud for photo sync. It would be nice if there was some sort of API or something that third party applications could use to upload and download photos automatically in the background, like iCloud Photos does.
- redrove 2y ago
  I use PhotoSync [0] to backup to my own self-hosted S3 on my NAS, it works pretty well. [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photosync-transfer-photos/id415850124 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photosync-transfer-photos/id41...
- simbas 2y ago
  I use icloudpd https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_downloader https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do... No uploading new photos, though.
- chrismatheson 2y ago
  can this be handled by a "shortcut" ? more config I know, but there are essentially CRON triggers that could be used to upload new photos to some external system maybe?
- Angostura 2y ago
  You mean like WhatsApp does on iOS?
- nicolas_17 2y ago
  Doesn't the Google Photos app do that?
emilsedgh 2y ago
The biggest downside of Option 2 is stated as: > Perhaps more importantly, this is also a strategically worrisome direction to go in, because it plays into the narrative that Big Tech is more powerful than sovereign nations. I don't buy it. I think it can be a fantastic win for them. Announce a leave date unless the government backs down and advertise it heavily on TV and everywhere: Your government wants us to spy on you. We are not going to comply. Call your parliament members to <blah>. This would make them champions of privacy and every other government will know how deep their commitment is.
- commandersaki 2y ago
  This is what I'm hoping for as well.
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  Hoping for this and hopefully it will drip over to the EU as they keep trying this as well. Companies need to make a stand, although most won't.
- jacooper 2y ago
  Isn't it a criminal offense if they acknowledge the request? It was leaked to wsj, Apple refused to say anything about it.
  - tankenmate 2y ago
    Yes, the request itself is required to be kept secret in a similar way to National Security Letters (NSL) in the US (when used under the Patriot Act disclosure provisions).
- tankenmate 2y ago
  Although an outside chance, one possible outcome is a shareholder suit.
- int_19h 2y ago
  This assumes that most Britons oppose their government having such powers. Which maybe they do in abstract, but when the government reframes this as, "Apple prevents us from catching child abusers", I don't think Apple would win that match.
zeitg3ist 2y ago
Isn't the "advanced data protection" option already making it impossible for Apple to comply in cases where this is enabled? Of course this is not a perfect solution as it has to be explicitly enabled (and it has some usability drawbacks), but imagine that people who care about this stuff have this enabled already.
- commandersaki 2y ago
  This article spawned because the UK is purportedly issuing a secret order under the Investigative Powers act for Apple to implement a backdoor encompassing Advanced Data Protection. Because these are secret orders it is illegal for Apple to disclose the fact they received any and what the content of the order is.
  - toxik 2y ago
    It is interesting to note that the UK is asking for this superuser privilege while also infamously silencing a literal epidemic of child sexual abuse for fear of its optics (i.e., Rotherham). It’s a difficult sell for me that the police need this to do their job when they wouldn’t do it with full knowledge of these horrible crimes being committed against literal children.
    - zimpenfish 2y ago
      > infamously silencing a literal epidemic of child sexual abuse for fear of its optics (i.e., Rotherham). When you say "silencing", what do you mean? There was an inquiry in 2013[0] and various media outlets have been reporting on this for years. [0] https://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/279/independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham https://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/279/independent-...
      - toxik 2y ago
        You do realize it is called a scandal _because of_ the lack of response? > Failure to address the abuse has been linked to factors such as fear of racism allegations due to the perpetrators' ethnicity; sexist attitudes towards the mostly working-class victims; lack of a child-centred focus; a desire to protect the town's reputation; and lack of training and resources.[25][26][10] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo... Pretty incredible mental gymnastics going on here.
mediumsmart 2y ago
Someone enlighten me - what impact does this have - iCloud as in the iCloud my phone is backed up to? with that door they can clone my phone onto another iPhone etc? Huge pain to run macOS and iOS without iCloud but if they want to do that, fine - so be it.
- commandersaki 2y ago
  If the UK gets their way (this is the case where Apple complies) they presumably will have backdoor access to iCloud encrypted data, which will no longer be end to end encrypted. Because it's a secret order and illegal to disclose I don't think customers will be forewarned or notified, we will probably only find out if Apple complied by success subpoenas of data.
Zealotux 2y ago
Apple already did the right thing almost ten years ago against an arguably more powerful entity https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/ https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/
- KoolKat23 2y ago
  I suspect in the current climate their response may be different, they may bend the knee.
  - j16sdiz 2y ago
    Unlike The San Bernardino Case in 2016, Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) does not allow any public entity, apple or not, to publicly discuss that.
    - WillAdams 2y ago
      Need to make a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary an automatic part of the user agreement/license status.
Refusing23 2y ago
But whats the best option for the endusers? i personally dont care whats best for apple.
- flanked-evergl 2y ago
  Write to your representative to sanction the UK.
elashri 2y ago
I think it would be suicidal for Apple to comply with that. It would open it to requests for many other countries demanding the same. Now this will create problems because now countries will start requiring Apple not to disclose their citizens information to any other party. Now you have two opposing requirements that will lead to Apple products to be banned in many countries if not all. I think Apple have much to lose by complying with UK that just withdraw and make UK users put pressure on their government. And it is not classical west vs east. I think this is on much more fundamental concept of sovereignty. Many countries on both sides of ideological spectrum invest a lot on hacking and zero days exploits to obtain information on specific targets. UK is too lazy and demanding this privacy violation and internationally illegal action (just guessing) to be routine request. edit: Fix typos
- mr90210 2y ago
  > Now this will create problems because now countries will start requiring Apple no to disclose their citizens information to any other party. This is an excellent take and I couldn’t agree more with it.
- fauigerzigerk 2y ago
  It's not entirely clear to me what it really is that UK authorities have ordered Apple to do. If this is just about iCloud advanced protection as some sources say then I don't see how it would be suicidal for Apple to comply by disabling this optional and off by default feature for UK users. But other sources claim that the order goes a lot further and doesn't just affect UK users. Does it include E2EE for Apple's password manager for instance? Does it include E2EE for iMessage? Does it include 3rd party E2EE apps in the App Store?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
gamedever 2y ago
Apple's biggest income growth is services like iCloud. There is no way they are going to give up that money spigot. Decentralization would mean losing out on that sweet sweet service profit. Especially as other companies undercut them
- walthamstow 2y ago
  I was out to dinner with a table of normies, my wife's friends, last year. Ten people, I asked who pays monthly for iCloud, nine hands go up. It easy to see why. When you first open your new iPhone it backs up to iCloud, you get 5GB free and the first backup takes ~4.5GB. Now it will remind you endlessly that your iCloud is nearly full. It's only £0.99 a month to make them shut up...
  - lloeki 2y ago
    > you get 5GB free and the first backup takes ~4.5GB Not my OOTB experience at all; an iCloud backup of a new, nearly empty phone is vanishingly small. That said, shoot a bunch of 48Mpx pics + 4K vids and you're going to fill those 5GB quite quickly.
    - walthamstow 2y ago
      Hmm good point. I did open a new iPhone last month and that was my experience but looking at it now I think the big factor was 3GB of WhatsApp data I imported from Android!
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    1 western monetary unit a month is still a LOT cheaper than getting the next level storage upgrade. Rven the 200GB package (2.99€?) is only 36€ a year and should last most normal _families_ when shared.
- willis936 2y ago
  This ignores Apple's leverage. What do you think happens to the political party responsible for driving the most popular smartphone manufacturer out of the country?
flanked-evergl 2y ago
Funny how this happens in a country which has GDPR as part of their law. At least you get the popups, though, those really keep you safe. The US should sanction and embargo the UK for this, some illegitimate despotic regime that is in full economic and social collapse should not be able to access everyone's data.
sanitycheck 2y ago
Apple cares about profits, and only about users to the extent that it can profit from them. The touted security and privacy aspects of their service are useful for marketing, but they are not primarily why people buy Apple devices. They already operate in China, allowing the Chinese government to access all "Chinese" user data. Non-Chinese Apple accounts also work perfectly well in China, which leads me to believe that the extent of data sharing is greater than has been disclosed (or dissidents could just use a foreign phone to avoid surveillance). I strongly suspect the CIA/FBI/DHS has similar access. (Microsoft stuff also works fine in China, Google stuff does not. Draw your own conclusions.) I think it's somewhat likely they'll just backdoor it and not tell the public, they can see this is just the way the world is headed. If you want to message someone secretly, use an audited open source solution - don't rely on a megacorp to look out for your interests.
- officialchicken 2y ago
  > Google stuff does not. Draw your own conclusions. It wasn't security related, they didn't filter search results for Winnie the Pooh.
- threeseed 2y ago
  > Non-Chinese Apple accounts also work perfectly well in China, which leads me to believe that the extent of data sharing is greater than has been disclosed Yes because people just use VPNs to access overseas e.g. US iCloud servers. That has nothing to do with whether Apple is sharing data with Chinese authorities or not.
  - sanitycheck 2y ago
    Non-Chinese iCloud accounts seem to work fine in China without a VPN. (A VPN is needed for Google's services, though.)
    - BoredPositron 2y ago
      My iCloud account worked fine in Pyongyang.
tonyedgecombe 2y ago
I wonder if Google has received the same request. If not then why not?
mozball 2y ago
Apple's 1 billion+ users across the world should protest this ludicrous overreach of power since the UK is essentially declaring digital sovereignty over all of them. In the meantime maybe consider alternative cloud storage providers.
khana 2y ago
[dead]
mike_hearn 2y ago
I worked for years on decentralization projects so I wish this would happen, but I think in the current climate there is a much simpler and more direct option that Apple is far more likely to take. Perhaps the author's politics prevent him from seeing it: Cook will talk to Trump, Trump will announce crippling sanctions on the UK unless they leave tech firms alone, the UK will fold with some excuse designed to save face (perhaps pretending they never issued such an order at all) and everything will continue as before. This is by far the most likely outcome because it's consistent with everything we know about the new US administration: • Trump loves tariffs, he believes they actually make people richer. The previously prevailing WTO order that tried to push tariffs down is dead and buried. • He already forced allies like Canada, Columbia and Mexico to do what he wants by threatening to impose truly massive tariffs. They agreed to his demands within days. Trump is willing to break allied economies to get what he wants. • Elon Musk is Trump's most powerful and dynamic ally. He hates censorship demands, especially from European governments. He also hates the current British government, and via X has been exposing the American right to the off-the-charts levels of political censorship and oppression that's been happening under Labour (e.g. people getting longer jail sentences for Facebook posts about immigration than for violent crimes or child porn). The right are spoiling for a fight with Labour at the moment, this would be free red meat to their base. • The US right also holds Europe in contempt for its failure to produce a viable tech industry and are inclined to view its regulations as mere extortion by losers for crimes that the Americans did not commit. The last eight years appear to have turned Trump into a radical libertarian, a plot twist few saw coming. The Biden administration was ideologically aligned with the EU and UK on this, but they're gone and there is no built-in sympathy anymore. • The UK is run by a very weak and unpopular government. Starting from a few weeks ago Reform (Farage's party) now outpolls all the other parties. New governments after a long period of incumbency usually have a honeymoon period, but due to the weird way they won the election this one didn't. They also didn't campaign on picking a fight with Apple. There's no democratic mandate here and this isn't the will of the British people. If Labour push ahead with this, Reform will make lemonade. "Don't break my iPhone" is the easiest political campaign in history.
- zimpenfish 2y ago
  > people getting longer jail sentences for Facebook posts about immigration than for violent crimes or child porn Do you have a link for that? I read UK news pretty regularly and I've missed that one somewhere. > due to the weird way they won the election this one didn't What weird way? They got more votes than the Tories and a clear democratic mandate.
zarzavat 2y ago
Apple needs to take the nuclear option here. They don't have to actually go through with it, just the mere threat would be effective. Starmer is unpopular and desperate for political wins, he has little to lose by conceding, whereas Apple has a lot to lose by conceding.
newsclues 2y ago
What if they just sell a new Time Capsule appliance so anyone can setup their own local iCloud?
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Keep dreaming. Part of Apple’s market cap is based on growth in their recurring services revenue, and renting space from Apple for backing up the device people use for many hours everyday is a linchpin of being able to sell higher priced recurring services.
- zikduruqe 2y ago
  I have said this many times. Make a new Airport (with Wifi 7 since it is the latest), with some type of WireGuard/Tailscale-ish type VPN and with some type of storage that is in sync with iCloud. Call it Apple Cloud Edge or something. (One can dream)
dariosalvi78 2y ago
Apple should just keep being Apple and things should just keep getting worse, so that people may finally realise that if all smartphones are operated by a duopoly they may understand that's something has gone horribly wrong and it may be time to build a completely new ecosystem
ak_111 2y ago
Many are saying that Apple can't comply without breaking EU GDPR. Hence Apple has been put in the situation where they are forced to accept either operating in the UK market or the EU market. So my question is (am genuinely not being snarky) why would the UK gov put Apple in this situation? The current leader (Starmer) is a lawyer surely he must have been aware of the legal predicament this would put Apple in, what is the intention behind asking for something that you are fully aware there is absolutely no chance they can comply with?
- newdee 2y ago
  Starmer has a long history of authoritarian tendencies, he’s always sided with the police or establishment powers, even when there was public outcry over the circumstances. He’s going to bend to whichever powerful spooks are pushing for this. Most notable are the cases of Ian Tomlinson, Student Fees Protests and Jimmy Saville. Generally though, he’s been in favour or instructed his party not to oppose the introduction of greater police powers. Man is a snake.
hajimuz 2y ago
People care more about security won’t use iCloud at the first place. Providing a decentralized protocol probably doesn’t hurt the revenue, but increases the development cost.
- Angostura 2y ago
  > People care more about security won’t use iCloud at the first place iCloud provides an excellent balance of security and usability - for people who care about both
coffeedoughnuts 2y ago
Some people discussing how Trump/US could intervene to calm this situation - why would they? Presumably part of the US state would very much like access to this data, and with the security services of the US and the UK sharing lots of their intelligence (and with other five eyes nations) this would mean the UK becomes a one-stop-shop for gathering data on your own citizens without the need to trouble your own domestic legal system. The UK's demand for access to _all_ apple users, not just UK citizens (a la China) indicates to me that it's at least possible this action has the backing of the US (though, obviously, there is not evidence for this - it's just hypothetical)
entropyneur 2y ago
This is the American company that censored Radio Liberty in Russia (a country they've "left" because of the war) at the request of Russian authorities. Expecting them to take a stand against UK is insanity.
fujinghg 2y ago
The best option is to remove everything you have from any cloud at this point and stop bothering about the vendor’s policies entirely. I am in the process of doing that. What I use it for now may be an issue if a regime changes. As evident from the US situation. If someone wants your data they can come and get it, with a court order and due process, not a rubber stamp from whatever incompetent incumbent meanders into power and fucks stuff up. Then quietly via a side channel with no knowledge and effort. Notably without iCloud my iPad is basically useless. So it’s going on eBay tomorrow.
- rollcat 2y ago
  Well what are the reasonable alternatives? E2EE should normally solve these kinds of issues, but if the full source is not publicly accessible, and the vendor has the ability to silently push arbitrary updates, it's all only as good as their promise. Sync is good. Backup is a must. Neither is trivial or easily solved (unless exactly with services like iCloud). Syncthing is great for photos or music libraries, but I dare you to try syncing your source code trees, conflict detection exists but quickly falls apart at the boundaries. Yes git solves that, but you need somewhere to host your code. Tailscale solves remote access to your homelab (which could be as tiny as a RasPi hanging by a cable from the ISP router), but that's again a vendor you must trust. Headscale exists, you can also go for raw Wireguard, but the setup complexity keeps rising, features disappear, and you do need NAT traversal. Oh did I mention ISP spying yet? So which vendor do you trust with your backups? Good backup solution will offer E2EE; there's rsync.net, tarsnap, etc which are all excellent value for money and are important to consider (vs. homelab hosting) for diversifying geographically (natural disasters are getting more common), and peace of mind (last time a disk failed I just didn't bother replacing it; the next one that fails will have my backups lost). But then again, setup is more involved, and backing up your phone (which always will have very important data on it) is always complicated. Then of course the OS itself. You can trust your OS vendor or distribution with the builds, or use something like NixOS (let's just say you need to learn a DSL). There's also no reasonable solution for your phone, if you e.g. still want to access your bank. To what extent are you willing to trust different vendors? How do you assess the risk without deep technical knowledge? How do you implement these solutions without dedicating too much of your free time?
fauigerzigerk 2y ago
Isn't Option 3 (open up) basically the status quo? It's not called iCloud and iCloud does get some preferential treatment, but the APIs for 3rd party cloud storage and Files app integration already exist and are widely used. I just wonder why any government would ban E2EE in iCloud but permit the use of 3rd party E2EE apps. As soon as those 3rd party solutions gain any traction, the government can simply tell Apple to remove them from the App Store. At the end of the day all roads lead to the sideloading ban. That's what turns Apple into this convenient tool for authoritarian police states.
luke-stanley 2y ago
Option 4: Just move the UK data to China. If it's not end-to-end-encrypted then they get access anyway. No messing.
- luke-stanley 2y ago
  Moving the data to China is pretty much the same thing as backdooring the encryption, as we have seen. Really though, decentralised is the way to go: Apple should allow custom endpoints for iCloud that users can set. If the UK or China wants to block a regional endpoint, they can. Having user provided configurable iCloud servers might be a bit too empowering for Apple though, I suspect they would rather profit from their hosting services! But who knows, maybe they will be forced into empowering users?
_cenw 2y ago
Do not try to solve legal issues with technology. They're not the same scope. If the UK wants Apple to introduce a backdoor, the two options are to do it or not to do it. To not do it and invent some excuse leaning on technical details doesn't work. Apple has the keys to sign software for these devices at the end of the day. That includes software that betrays the user's trust. That previously data was incidentally stored unencrypted on servers is not relevant for the fact they're being compelled to make this data available - at least not with my understanding of UK law.
rodolphoarruda 2y ago
What is the motivation of UK's lawmakers to push this forward? Why are they doing this?
- pabs3 2y ago
  More data for their spy agencies to comb through? Blackmailing politicians around the world? Or maybe they are planning on nixing any future independence referendum for Australia/Canada/etc.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Kim_Bruning 2y ago
I wonder what the European Commission has to say about all this, since this makes it somewhat difficult for companies with offices in the UK to comply with continental privacy laws.
aranw 2y ago
Hopefully the first thing Apple do is refuse. The second I think needs to be some way to decentralise the system. Spreading Apple iCloud backups either with different providers or self-hosted will make it difficult to surveil anyone making it all pointless to try force Apple to add a backdoor
theyknowitsxmas 2y ago
They’ll take notes from Blackberry and give it to carriers like BIS.

109 points by ingve 2y ago

Why so extreme, I believe they only will have to stop providing their premium iCloud service to the UK as this is the one that have E2E encryption and thus would be affected?

WhyNotHugo 2y ago
As long as the company operates as a legal entity in the country, the government can force it to comply with its mandates. It doesn't matter if the specific service is offered in the UK or not.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Same applies to USA and clouds hosted in Europe. Only real move way is to start creating local corporate structures. Maybe even entirely separate companies. And have the infra in those areas. So UK customers are served from UK servers by UK company. USA customers from USA servers by USA company. And EU customers from EU servers by EU company. Repeat for enough. Maybe if some of these agree to play fully nice with legislation and privacy there could be some cross work. But seeing how even EU is moving, I am doubtful.
mozball 2y ago
According to WaPo, the secret order demands blanket access to cloud data from any user anywhere in the world : http://archive.today/79dA3 http://archive.today/79dA3
- nickslaughter02 2y ago
  > from any user anywhere in the world Is that even legal? At the very least, doesn't it break some EU privacy laws?
  - swiftcoder 2y ago
    Post-Brexit, I imagine that's a feature of the request, not a bug, at least from the UK's standpoint
  - stephen_g 2y ago
    Why would the UK Government care about that? They’re not bound by the EU’s laws. They’re trying to force Apple to secretly break the EU and other countries’ laws, and don’t care as long as they get what they want…
    - nickslaughter02 2y ago
      Wouldn't that warrant a reaction from the EU then? I haven't seen any.

asterisk9 2y ago

Their best option, and the option they will surely take, is to refuse the request

okhobb 2y ago
How does this play out? They pay a fine? Tim Cook is extradited? Something in between?
- zb1plus 2y ago
  lol no way trump would let the UK extradite a US CEO.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Although I agree — and also left the UK in part* because this law was clearly going to blow up like this — I would add that the US and China are about equal now, so look at what gets done to Chinese tech firms that don't play nice. * the other part being Brexit, whose saga still isn't over given the Reform party opinion poll rating and them wanting to also leave the European Convention on Human Rights which has bad things to say about government surveillance
  - jonathantf2 2y ago
    Trump didn't let the UK extradite someone who killed a teenager in a hit-and-run, never mind a big tech CEO.
  - Hamuko 2y ago
    Tim Apple also made sure to pay Trump a cool $1 million for protect- I mean the inauguration committee. How much has the UK given Trump, a man who views the world in terms of transactions?
  - philistine 2y ago
    The Five-Eyes agreement allows the UK and US to share any intelligence material immediately. This is 100% orchestrated with American intelligence agencies to allow them to get American data. When push comes to shove, the US government will probably side with the UK.

WhyNotHugo 2y ago

I agree that decentralising is without any doubt the best option. The best option for consumers. But it's not the best option for Apple: they want to remain tightly and firmly in control. But removing Apple entirely from the "cloud" integration would be the best bet. E.g.: take a path similar to IMAP and CalDAV, where any third party provider can be used.

zaptrem 2y ago

Decentralize iCloud doesn’t solve the problem because the majority of users (myself included) would want to keep using their hosted/“official” version due to the Apple subscription bundles we’re already paying for (the blog mentions this) and wanting the smoothest/most fully featured version. If the UK mandates some sort of encryption backdoor then that will follow anywhere the protocol is used (in the UK, that is. Apple would certainly use a non-backdoored version everywhere else it’s legal).

xbmcuser 2y ago
Apple already gives access to China for Chinese citizens so they will do the same for UK citizens. Though looking at how the tech bros are getting chummy with the current US government that has fascist tendencies they might get the US government to force UK hand but will they as I think the US government would like to do the same as what UK is doing has been trying for years. Now with supreme courts judges in their pockets, firing of any opposition from government departments at least trying to. Gutting all regulation and consumer protection bodies who will go after the tech robber barons and stop them from doing anything they want.
- elashri 2y ago
  Please read the UK case again. UK is requesting apple to give them access to any user's data worldwide not only UK users or data within UK jurisdiction. Sorry to be the one to say that but China is better here.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - xbmcuser 2y ago
    Apple cant as GPDR makes it impossible for them to give european data no matter how much UK asks
    - elashri 2y ago

jamesy0ung 2y ago

I mostly use iCloud for photo sync. It would be nice if there was some sort of API or something that third party applications could use to upload and download photos automatically in the background, like iCloud Photos does.

redrove 2y ago
I use PhotoSync [0] to backup to my own self-hosted S3 on my NAS, it works pretty well. [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photosync-transfer-photos/id415850124 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/photosync-transfer-photos/id41...
simbas 2y ago
I use icloudpd https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_downloader https://github.com/icloud-photos-downloader/icloud_photos_do... No uploading new photos, though.
chrismatheson 2y ago
can this be handled by a "shortcut" ? more config I know, but there are essentially CRON triggers that could be used to upload new photos to some external system maybe?
Angostura 2y ago
You mean like WhatsApp does on iOS?
nicolas_17 2y ago
Doesn't the Google Photos app do that?

emilsedgh 2y ago

The biggest downside of Option 2 is stated as: > Perhaps more importantly, this is also a strategically worrisome direction to go in, because it plays into the narrative that Big Tech is more powerful than sovereign nations. I don't buy it. I think it can be a fantastic win for them. Announce a leave date unless the government backs down and advertise it heavily on TV and everywhere: Your government wants us to spy on you. We are not going to comply. Call your parliament members to <blah>. This would make them champions of privacy and every other government will know how deep their commitment is.

commandersaki 2y ago
This is what I'm hoping for as well.
anonzzzies 2y ago
Hoping for this and hopefully it will drip over to the EU as they keep trying this as well. Companies need to make a stand, although most won't.
jacooper 2y ago
Isn't it a criminal offense if they acknowledge the request? It was leaked to wsj, Apple refused to say anything about it.
- tankenmate 2y ago
  Yes, the request itself is required to be kept secret in a similar way to National Security Letters (NSL) in the US (when used under the Patriot Act disclosure provisions).
tankenmate 2y ago
Although an outside chance, one possible outcome is a shareholder suit.
int_19h 2y ago
This assumes that most Britons oppose their government having such powers. Which maybe they do in abstract, but when the government reframes this as, "Apple prevents us from catching child abusers", I don't think Apple would win that match.

zeitg3ist 2y ago

Isn't the "advanced data protection" option already making it impossible for Apple to comply in cases where this is enabled? Of course this is not a perfect solution as it has to be explicitly enabled (and it has some usability drawbacks), but imagine that people who care about this stuff have this enabled already.

commandersaki 2y ago
This article spawned because the UK is purportedly issuing a secret order under the Investigative Powers act for Apple to implement a backdoor encompassing Advanced Data Protection. Because these are secret orders it is illegal for Apple to disclose the fact they received any and what the content of the order is.
- toxik 2y ago
  It is interesting to note that the UK is asking for this superuser privilege while also infamously silencing a literal epidemic of child sexual abuse for fear of its optics (i.e., Rotherham). It’s a difficult sell for me that the police need this to do their job when they wouldn’t do it with full knowledge of these horrible crimes being committed against literal children.
  - zimpenfish 2y ago
    > infamously silencing a literal epidemic of child sexual abuse for fear of its optics (i.e., Rotherham). When you say "silencing", what do you mean? There was an inquiry in 2013[0] and various media outlets have been reporting on this for years. [0] https://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/279/independent-inquiry-into-child-sexual-exploitation-in-rotherham https://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/279/independent-...
    - toxik 2y ago
      You do realize it is called a scandal _because of_ the lack of response? > Failure to address the abuse has been linked to factors such as fear of racism allegations due to the perpetrators' ethnicity; sexist attitudes towards the mostly working-class victims; lack of a child-centred focus; a desire to protect the town's reputation; and lack of training and resources.[25][26][10] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo... Pretty incredible mental gymnastics going on here.

mediumsmart 2y ago

Someone enlighten me - what impact does this have - iCloud as in the iCloud my phone is backed up to? with that door they can clone my phone onto another iPhone etc? Huge pain to run macOS and iOS without iCloud but if they want to do that, fine - so be it.

commandersaki 2y ago
If the UK gets their way (this is the case where Apple complies) they presumably will have backdoor access to iCloud encrypted data, which will no longer be end to end encrypted. Because it's a secret order and illegal to disclose I don't think customers will be forewarned or notified, we will probably only find out if Apple complied by success subpoenas of data.

Zealotux 2y ago

Apple already did the right thing almost ten years ago against an arguably more powerful entity https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/ https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

KoolKat23 2y ago
I suspect in the current climate their response may be different, they may bend the knee.
- j16sdiz 2y ago
  Unlike The San Bernardino Case in 2016, Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) does not allow any public entity, apple or not, to publicly discuss that.
  - WillAdams 2y ago
    Need to make a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary an automatic part of the user agreement/license status.

Refusing23 2y ago

But whats the best option for the endusers? i personally dont care whats best for apple.

flanked-evergl 2y ago
Write to your representative to sanction the UK.

elashri 2y ago

I think it would be suicidal for Apple to comply with that. It would open it to requests for many other countries demanding the same. Now this will create problems because now countries will start requiring Apple not to disclose their citizens information to any other party. Now you have two opposing requirements that will lead to Apple products to be banned in many countries if not all. I think Apple have much to lose by complying with UK that just withdraw and make UK users put pressure on their government. And it is not classical west vs east. I think this is on much more fundamental concept of sovereignty. Many countries on both sides of ideological spectrum invest a lot on hacking and zero days exploits to obtain information on specific targets. UK is too lazy and demanding this privacy violation and internationally illegal action (just guessing) to be routine request. edit: Fix typos

mr90210 2y ago
> Now this will create problems because now countries will start requiring Apple no to disclose their citizens information to any other party. This is an excellent take and I couldn’t agree more with it.
fauigerzigerk 2y ago
It's not entirely clear to me what it really is that UK authorities have ordered Apple to do. If this is just about iCloud advanced protection as some sources say then I don't see how it would be suicidal for Apple to comply by disabling this optional and off by default feature for UK users. But other sources claim that the order goes a lot further and doesn't just affect UK users. Does it include E2EE for Apple's password manager for instance? Does it include E2EE for iMessage? Does it include 3rd party E2EE apps in the App Store?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

gamedever 2y ago

Apple's biggest income growth is services like iCloud. There is no way they are going to give up that money spigot. Decentralization would mean losing out on that sweet sweet service profit. Especially as other companies undercut them

walthamstow 2y ago
I was out to dinner with a table of normies, my wife's friends, last year. Ten people, I asked who pays monthly for iCloud, nine hands go up. It easy to see why. When you first open your new iPhone it backs up to iCloud, you get 5GB free and the first backup takes ~4.5GB. Now it will remind you endlessly that your iCloud is nearly full. It's only £0.99 a month to make them shut up...
- lloeki 2y ago
  > you get 5GB free and the first backup takes ~4.5GB Not my OOTB experience at all; an iCloud backup of a new, nearly empty phone is vanishingly small. That said, shoot a bunch of 48Mpx pics + 4K vids and you're going to fill those 5GB quite quickly.
  - walthamstow 2y ago
    Hmm good point. I did open a new iPhone last month and that was my experience but looking at it now I think the big factor was 3GB of WhatsApp data I imported from Android!
- theshrike79 2y ago
  1 western monetary unit a month is still a LOT cheaper than getting the next level storage upgrade. Rven the 200GB package (2.99€?) is only 36€ a year and should last most normal _families_ when shared.
willis936 2y ago
This ignores Apple's leverage. What do you think happens to the political party responsible for driving the most popular smartphone manufacturer out of the country?

flanked-evergl 2y ago

Funny how this happens in a country which has GDPR as part of their law. At least you get the popups, though, those really keep you safe. The US should sanction and embargo the UK for this, some illegitimate despotic regime that is in full economic and social collapse should not be able to access everyone's data.

sanitycheck 2y ago

Apple cares about profits, and only about users to the extent that it can profit from them. The touted security and privacy aspects of their service are useful for marketing, but they are not primarily why people buy Apple devices. They already operate in China, allowing the Chinese government to access all "Chinese" user data. Non-Chinese Apple accounts also work perfectly well in China, which leads me to believe that the extent of data sharing is greater than has been disclosed (or dissidents could just use a foreign phone to avoid surveillance). I strongly suspect the CIA/FBI/DHS has similar access. (Microsoft stuff also works fine in China, Google stuff does not. Draw your own conclusions.) I think it's somewhat likely they'll just backdoor it and not tell the public, they can see this is just the way the world is headed. If you want to message someone secretly, use an audited open source solution - don't rely on a megacorp to look out for your interests.

officialchicken 2y ago
> Google stuff does not. Draw your own conclusions. It wasn't security related, they didn't filter search results for Winnie the Pooh.
threeseed 2y ago
> Non-Chinese Apple accounts also work perfectly well in China, which leads me to believe that the extent of data sharing is greater than has been disclosed Yes because people just use VPNs to access overseas e.g. US iCloud servers. That has nothing to do with whether Apple is sharing data with Chinese authorities or not.
- sanitycheck 2y ago
  Non-Chinese iCloud accounts seem to work fine in China without a VPN. (A VPN is needed for Google's services, though.)
  - BoredPositron 2y ago
    My iCloud account worked fine in Pyongyang.

tonyedgecombe 2y ago

I wonder if Google has received the same request. If not then why not?

mozball 2y ago

Apple's 1 billion+ users across the world should protest this ludicrous overreach of power since the UK is essentially declaring digital sovereignty over all of them. In the meantime maybe consider alternative cloud storage providers.

khana 2y ago

[dead]

mike_hearn 2y ago

I worked for years on decentralization projects so I wish this would happen, but I think in the current climate there is a much simpler and more direct option that Apple is far more likely to take. Perhaps the author's politics prevent him from seeing it: Cook will talk to Trump, Trump will announce crippling sanctions on the UK unless they leave tech firms alone, the UK will fold with some excuse designed to save face (perhaps pretending they never issued such an order at all) and everything will continue as before. This is by far the most likely outcome because it's consistent with everything we know about the new US administration: • Trump loves tariffs, he believes they actually make people richer. The previously prevailing WTO order that tried to push tariffs down is dead and buried. • He already forced allies like Canada, Columbia and Mexico to do what he wants by threatening to impose truly massive tariffs. They agreed to his demands within days. Trump is willing to break allied economies to get what he wants. • Elon Musk is Trump's most powerful and dynamic ally. He hates censorship demands, especially from European governments. He also hates the current British government, and via X has been exposing the American right to the off-the-charts levels of political censorship and oppression that's been happening under Labour (e.g. people getting longer jail sentences for Facebook posts about immigration than for violent crimes or child porn). The right are spoiling for a fight with Labour at the moment, this would be free red meat to their base. • The US right also holds Europe in contempt for its failure to produce a viable tech industry and are inclined to view its regulations as mere extortion by losers for crimes that the Americans did not commit. The last eight years appear to have turned Trump into a radical libertarian, a plot twist few saw coming. The Biden administration was ideologically aligned with the EU and UK on this, but they're gone and there is no built-in sympathy anymore. • The UK is run by a very weak and unpopular government. Starting from a few weeks ago Reform (Farage's party) now outpolls all the other parties. New governments after a long period of incumbency usually have a honeymoon period, but due to the weird way they won the election this one didn't. They also didn't campaign on picking a fight with Apple. There's no democratic mandate here and this isn't the will of the British people. If Labour push ahead with this, Reform will make lemonade. "Don't break my iPhone" is the easiest political campaign in history.

zimpenfish 2y ago
> people getting longer jail sentences for Facebook posts about immigration than for violent crimes or child porn Do you have a link for that? I read UK news pretty regularly and I've missed that one somewhere. > due to the weird way they won the election this one didn't What weird way? They got more votes than the Tories and a clear democratic mandate.

zarzavat 2y ago

Apple needs to take the nuclear option here. They don't have to actually go through with it, just the mere threat would be effective. Starmer is unpopular and desperate for political wins, he has little to lose by conceding, whereas Apple has a lot to lose by conceding.

newsclues 2y ago

What if they just sell a new Time Capsule appliance so anyone can setup their own local iCloud?

lotsofpulp 2y ago
Keep dreaming. Part of Apple’s market cap is based on growth in their recurring services revenue, and renting space from Apple for backing up the device people use for many hours everyday is a linchpin of being able to sell higher priced recurring services.
zikduruqe 2y ago
I have said this many times. Make a new Airport (with Wifi 7 since it is the latest), with some type of WireGuard/Tailscale-ish type VPN and with some type of storage that is in sync with iCloud. Call it Apple Cloud Edge or something. (One can dream)

dariosalvi78 2y ago

Apple should just keep being Apple and things should just keep getting worse, so that people may finally realise that if all smartphones are operated by a duopoly they may understand that's something has gone horribly wrong and it may be time to build a completely new ecosystem

ak_111 2y ago

Many are saying that Apple can't comply without breaking EU GDPR. Hence Apple has been put in the situation where they are forced to accept either operating in the UK market or the EU market. So my question is (am genuinely not being snarky) why would the UK gov put Apple in this situation? The current leader (Starmer) is a lawyer surely he must have been aware of the legal predicament this would put Apple in, what is the intention behind asking for something that you are fully aware there is absolutely no chance they can comply with?

newdee 2y ago
Starmer has a long history of authoritarian tendencies, he’s always sided with the police or establishment powers, even when there was public outcry over the circumstances. He’s going to bend to whichever powerful spooks are pushing for this. Most notable are the cases of Ian Tomlinson, Student Fees Protests and Jimmy Saville. Generally though, he’s been in favour or instructed his party not to oppose the introduction of greater police powers. Man is a snake.

hajimuz 2y ago

People care more about security won’t use iCloud at the first place. Providing a decentralized protocol probably doesn’t hurt the revenue, but increases the development cost.

Angostura 2y ago
> People care more about security won’t use iCloud at the first place iCloud provides an excellent balance of security and usability - for people who care about both

coffeedoughnuts 2y ago

Some people discussing how Trump/US could intervene to calm this situation - why would they? Presumably part of the US state would very much like access to this data, and with the security services of the US and the UK sharing lots of their intelligence (and with other five eyes nations) this would mean the UK becomes a one-stop-shop for gathering data on your own citizens without the need to trouble your own domestic legal system. The UK's demand for access to _all_ apple users, not just UK citizens (a la China) indicates to me that it's at least possible this action has the backing of the US (though, obviously, there is not evidence for this - it's just hypothetical)

entropyneur 2y ago

This is the American company that censored Radio Liberty in Russia (a country they've "left" because of the war) at the request of Russian authorities. Expecting them to take a stand against UK is insanity.

fujinghg 2y ago

The best option is to remove everything you have from any cloud at this point and stop bothering about the vendor’s policies entirely. I am in the process of doing that. What I use it for now may be an issue if a regime changes. As evident from the US situation. If someone wants your data they can come and get it, with a court order and due process, not a rubber stamp from whatever incompetent incumbent meanders into power and fucks stuff up. Then quietly via a side channel with no knowledge and effort. Notably without iCloud my iPad is basically useless. So it’s going on eBay tomorrow.

rollcat 2y ago
Well what are the reasonable alternatives? E2EE should normally solve these kinds of issues, but if the full source is not publicly accessible, and the vendor has the ability to silently push arbitrary updates, it's all only as good as their promise. Sync is good. Backup is a must. Neither is trivial or easily solved (unless exactly with services like iCloud). Syncthing is great for photos or music libraries, but I dare you to try syncing your source code trees, conflict detection exists but quickly falls apart at the boundaries. Yes git solves that, but you need somewhere to host your code. Tailscale solves remote access to your homelab (which could be as tiny as a RasPi hanging by a cable from the ISP router), but that's again a vendor you must trust. Headscale exists, you can also go for raw Wireguard, but the setup complexity keeps rising, features disappear, and you do need NAT traversal. Oh did I mention ISP spying yet? So which vendor do you trust with your backups? Good backup solution will offer E2EE; there's rsync.net, tarsnap, etc which are all excellent value for money and are important to consider (vs. homelab hosting) for diversifying geographically (natural disasters are getting more common), and peace of mind (last time a disk failed I just didn't bother replacing it; the next one that fails will have my backups lost). But then again, setup is more involved, and backing up your phone (which always will have very important data on it) is always complicated. Then of course the OS itself. You can trust your OS vendor or distribution with the builds, or use something like NixOS (let's just say you need to learn a DSL). There's also no reasonable solution for your phone, if you e.g. still want to access your bank. To what extent are you willing to trust different vendors? How do you assess the risk without deep technical knowledge? How do you implement these solutions without dedicating too much of your free time?

fauigerzigerk 2y ago

Isn't Option 3 (open up) basically the status quo? It's not called iCloud and iCloud does get some preferential treatment, but the APIs for 3rd party cloud storage and Files app integration already exist and are widely used. I just wonder why any government would ban E2EE in iCloud but permit the use of 3rd party E2EE apps. As soon as those 3rd party solutions gain any traction, the government can simply tell Apple to remove them from the App Store. At the end of the day all roads lead to the sideloading ban. That's what turns Apple into this convenient tool for authoritarian police states.

luke-stanley 2y ago

Option 4: Just move the UK data to China. If it's not end-to-end-encrypted then they get access anyway. No messing.

luke-stanley 2y ago
Moving the data to China is pretty much the same thing as backdooring the encryption, as we have seen. Really though, decentralised is the way to go: Apple should allow custom endpoints for iCloud that users can set. If the UK or China wants to block a regional endpoint, they can. Having user provided configurable iCloud servers might be a bit too empowering for Apple though, I suspect they would rather profit from their hosting services! But who knows, maybe they will be forced into empowering users?

_cenw 2y ago

Do not try to solve legal issues with technology. They're not the same scope. If the UK wants Apple to introduce a backdoor, the two options are to do it or not to do it. To not do it and invent some excuse leaning on technical details doesn't work. Apple has the keys to sign software for these devices at the end of the day. That includes software that betrays the user's trust. That previously data was incidentally stored unencrypted on servers is not relevant for the fact they're being compelled to make this data available - at least not with my understanding of UK law.

rodolphoarruda 2y ago

What is the motivation of UK's lawmakers to push this forward? Why are they doing this?

pabs3 2y ago
More data for their spy agencies to comb through? Blackmailing politicians around the world? Or maybe they are planning on nixing any future independence referendum for Australia/Canada/etc.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Kim_Bruning 2y ago

I wonder what the European Commission has to say about all this, since this makes it somewhat difficult for companies with offices in the UK to comply with continental privacy laws.

aranw 2y ago

Hopefully the first thing Apple do is refuse. The second I think needs to be some way to decentralise the system. Spreading Apple iCloud backups either with different providers or self-hosted will make it difficult to surveil anyone making it all pointless to try force Apple to add a backdoor

theyknowitsxmas 2y ago

They’ll take notes from Blackberry and give it to carriers like BIS.