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Oh, say maybe the UK having a law that lets it demand that a cloud provider actively modify its systems to defeat any cryptography, or other technical measures,
by Hizonner 2y ago
Oh, say maybe the UK having a law that lets it demand that a cloud provider actively modify its systems to defeat any cryptography, or other technical measures, if those measures prevent any data the UK may choose to demand from being delivered in an easily readable format?
And say applying that to any data the provider may be holding for anybody in the world, regardless of whether that person is in the UK, has ever been in the UK, or is actually implicated in any crime involving the UK?
Without requiring any explanation of the reason? Or even allowing the fact of the demand to be disclosed to anybody, including, say, the US Government?
And actually issuing such crypto-neutering orders to companies operating in, say, the US?
So that the UK can get data about US citizens in ways the US itself isn't legally allowed to do?
That kind of bypassing?
At that point, maybe Apple ends up having to choose between operating in the UK and operating in the US. Or if not the US, other countries that might be seized with attacks of sanity.
- roenxi 2y agoThe company in question has some hard choices to make about whether they want to keep operating in the UK. There is no principle here that companies have to be multinational giants; it might be better if they start operating locally. I'm generally extremely free market, but there is a good argument to ban Facebook/Google/AWS/& friends for national security reasons. They are almost certainly tools of the US intelligence apparatus. Looking at basic questions of capability and incentive there must be some massive scandals brewing this century over their ability to interfere in foreign elections.
- absolutelastone 2y agoWouldn't that hard choice be between not operating in that country (and losing a lot of money) versus selling out their customers? Is that a good position to put them in?
- jeroenhd 2y agoIt's the same question foreign companies wanting to serve the US, Russia, or China already have the answer. It's not a difficult position: the money almost always wins. For instance, Apple has modified its Chinese iMessage software so that all data is always stored on Chinese servers (though it's technically still end-to-end encrypted, they're the only permitted e2ee encrypted app, so I assume something shady is going on there). Apple also added RCS to their iPhones because China demanded support for it (RCS isn't e2ee of course). When big governments demand changes, even the least evil big tech companies are willing to bend the knee as long as their business model doesn't break.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- BobbyTables2 2y agoI wish those companies could be banned inside the US as well!