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As a citizen, I don’t understand what the UK government thinks they are getting here - other than the possibility of leaks of the nation’s most sensitive data.
by lrdd 2y ago
As a citizen, I don’t understand what the UK government thinks they are getting here - other than the possibility of leaks of the nation’s most sensitive data.
Also is it not possible to set up my Apple account outside of the UK while living here?
- world2vec 2y agoYou need a valid payment method from that country and then cancel all current subscriptions and change to that new country/region.
- chatmasta 2y agobtw, anyone know if this cancels Apple+ Support too? I’ve been resisting switching countries because I don’t want to lose that subscription since you can only subscribe within 60 days of device purchase.
- mr_toad 2y agoYou’ll probably want a method of downloading apps tied to the UK app store though - particularly banking apps.
- GJim 2y ago> other than the possibility of leaks of the nation’s most sensitive data Amusing when you consider the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC, a part of GCHQ), along with the Information Commissioners Office, both publish guidance recommending, and describing how to use, encryption to protect personal and sensitive data. Our government is almost schizophrenic in its attitude to encryption.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 2y agoThat's because GCHQ knows they can kill if you refuse to decrypt so they have no problem suggesting it to you.
- gjsman-1000 2y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong here, and maybe this is too charged for HN, but looking over at you guys from the US: The US has problems (don't get me wrong, look at our politics, enough said); but the UK seems to be speedrunning a collapse. The NHS having patients dying in hallways; Rotherham back in the popular mind; a bad economy even by EU standards; a massive talent exodus (as documented even on HN regarding hardware engineers); a military in the news for being too run down to even help Ukraine; and most relevant to this story - the government increasingly acting in every way like it is extremely paranoid of the citizens. Any personal thoughts?
- aSithLord 2y ago[dead]
- captain_coffee 2y agoYes - that is my impression as well as someone currently living in London. Literally ever single system that I have to interact with seems to be somewhere on the spectrum between barely functioning and complete disfunctionality, with almost very few exceptions that come to mind. By system in this context I mean every institution, service provider, company, business... everything. Couple that with low salaries across the board - including the "high paying tech jobs in London" with price increases that are out of control with no reason to believe this is ever going to stop you end up with a standard of living significantly lower than let's say for example the EU countries of Eastern Europe. Currently trying to figure out where to go next
- card_zero 2y agoWell Albanians apparently want to live in Norwich, leading to a bizarre anti-propaganda campaign with bleak black-and-white photography to convince them it's horrible. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c99n0x4r17mo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c99n0x4r17mo Probably your money would go futher in Albania, and they've got a cool flag, but the devil's in the details.
- captain_coffee 2y ago
- hkwerf 2y agoI suppose they don't believe certain facts engineers are telling them. With Brexit it was coined "Project Fear". Now they're being told that adding backdoors to an encrypted service almost completely erodes trust in the encryption and, as in the case with Apple here, in the vendor. However, I suppose it is very hard to find objective facts to back this. I'd guess this is why Apple chose to both completely disable encryption and inform users about the cause. Now we're probably just waiting for a law mandating encryption of cloud data. Let's see whether Apple will actually leave the UK market altogether or introduce a backdoor.
- palmotea 2y ago> Our government is almost schizophrenic in its attitude to encryption. Of course: it's not a monolithic entity. It's a composite of different parts that have different goals an interests.
- spwa4 2y agoAnd yet if I steal your money and refuse to give it back, or let you steal it back, you'll call that hypocritical. What does the size of an entity have to do with whether this is idiotic or not?
- pjc50 2y agoYou're not an entity, you're a person. Scale really does make a difference.
- spwa4 2y agoYou're making the argument that the UK government will stop using encryption itself once the information about this becoming illegal makes it through the government. It won't. The courts will refuse to force them to stop, and even if the courts attempt to force it, some government departments just won't listen, and be protected from the consequences. This is another case of "the law applies to you, but not to me".
- pjc50 2y agoThe law is that encrypted comms must be provided to the security services on request. This is not a problem for government agencies. It is not illegal per se.
- spwa4 2y agoI went digging a bit. No. You're wrong. You cannot substitute the law we're discussing with something else. If the law truly is that encrypted comms must be provided to the security services upon request, then Apple Encryption is not a problem. Security services simply should ask the owner of the icloud account ... So that's NOT what the law says. The law says that private sector entities cannot have effective encryption (so NOT government agencies). Why do I put it like that? Because it MUST be possible for the security services to get access to any data they can intercept in any way WITHOUT telling/alerting the participants. They must be able to ALTER those communications. Or to make it more practical: any software maker MUST be able to provide access to any data the security services physically intercept, encrypted hard drives, ssh capture ... anything. And no, there is no exception for open source software. ANYONE who puts this in software is criminally liable, as well as any firm (director/...) of any firm that has software doing this: // we're done with the key for this session, erase the key key := 0 Obviously this means any government agency that runs a https website is violating this law. Publish an IOS app? Violation! (you're using encryption that is designed not to let anyone, including you yourself, alter the app on the wire). Publish an android app? Same. Publish a fucking rpm package on yum? (the signing code obviously violates this law). A fucking garbage collector violates this law. BUT ... But there is one VERY specific limitation. Only the government gets to complain about this, and obviously, there is zero plans to enforce this equally. The government sure as hell is not planning to actually put in the effort to make the encryption they use compliant with this law. It's just to get at the contents of confiscated harddrives. It's just to force foreign companies to unlock phones that have been confiscated. Oh and there's stricter punishments if you tell anyone you're complying with this. This law can be used to arrest Linus Torvalds until he backdoors encrypted loop devices, and threaten him with decades prison if he tells anyone he's done that. And can I just say? If this law was put, properly explained, to the people of the UK, there's no way it would get 50% of the vote.
- wrs 2y agoIn the US, the NSA has always had both missions (protect our country’s data and expose every other country’s data). Since everyone uses the same technology nowadays, that’s a rather hard set of missions to reconcile, and sometimes it looks a little ridiculous. As of fairly recently, they have a special committee that decides how to resolve that conflict for discovered exploits.
- Macha 2y agoI mean, this is no different than one part of the government suggesting running laundry at night to reduce the environmental impact of energy use, while another suggests only running it while awake to reduce fire hazard. Governments and corporations rarely have complete internal alignment.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
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- feb012025 2y agoI don't know, they've definitely been cracking down on journalists over the past year. Could be an attempt to crack down harder / create a chilling effect
- vr46 2y agoYou need a non-UK card to use on your Apple Account to change its region.
- varispeed 2y agoIt's for Labour "data analysts" to go through people photos and search for nudes.
- mr_toad 2y ago> Also is it not possible to set up my Apple account outside of the UK while living here? The ability to turn on Advanced Data Protection does seem to be tied to your iCloud region (as of now I can still turn it on, and I’m in the UK but have an account from overseas).
- tick_tock_tick 2y agoThe UK is arresting people for posting memes. They want full control and that's it.
- imperial_march 2y ago[dead]
- retinaros 2y agofull control on everyone they deem as an opponent. in UK being dimmed and oponent is about posting the wrong meme or even standing in the wrong street at the wrong moment.