4 ms·

As a believer in equal protection under the law, it is never a win when a powerful company or government lobbies for a specific carve out for only it's customer

As a believer in equal protection under the law, it is never a win when a powerful company or government lobbies for a specific carve out for only it's customers or its country. Human rights like privacy don't belong to those who bought the right phone or were born on the right piece of soil. This isn't a win, this is solidifying and reinforcing the idea that different laws should exist for different classes of people - those who can afford to make the government look the other way and those that can't. Congratulations to Apple on lobbying for its own money. Very noble.

chrismustcode 1y ago
I agree it should be across the spectrum where people have the same rights to privacy. > those who can afford to make the government look the other way and those that can't. > Congratulations to Apple on lobbying for its own money. Very noble. But what’s your implication here, that Apple shouldn’t have fought it?
- hermannj314 1y ago
  As far as I know, the blue/green mentality is a cultural issue for Apple. They would be fine if Android users had their data read by the government, because that injustice is a market differentiator for them they can then sell. I'm not saying they shouldn't lobby for what they believe in, but Apple always stops short of making the world a better place and seems to care only if their walled garden is secure.
  - arccy 1y ago
    s/secure/profitable/
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    > Apple always stops short of making the world a better place and seems to care only if their walled garden is secure. succinctly summed up why I dislike Apple (despite using their products). If you value privacy (against third parties), E2EE, and the tight device coupling then Apple is literally the only choice unless you have the time, knowledge and desire to piecemeal together your own solutions and that really sucks. I have permanent cognitive dissonance because I won't give up the small quality of life features Apple gives me, but I also don't have the time nor skill to replicate their whole ecosystem with Linux, GrapheneOS, writing BLE scripts for watch unlock, fussing with KDE connect for universal clipboard, hosting my own nextcloud instance, etc. I wish there was another choice of mobile + accessories that was both privacy respecting and actively using open standards for the betterment of all, not just their own profits.
    - aspenmayer 1y ago
      > I wish there was another choice of mobile + accessories that was both privacy respecting and actively using open standards for the betterment of all, not just their own profits. That's the rub. If you look at Android handset financials, there's almost no money in making Android phones unless the company making them is Samsung, and only certain models sell. Where are all of these profits going to come from? I wonder if you'd get farther with a USB SIM adapter under desktop Linux in that regard. I think you'd be hard pressed to end up where you want to in anything more portable than a laptop, since phones themselves are designed to be glorified containers for your mobile ad ID. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_ID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_ID
- consp 1y ago
  Probably that it should be a generalization and apple should have fought for that and not apply just to one particular operator.
throwfaraway4 1y ago
>it is never a win when a powerful company or government lobbies for a specific carve out for only it's customers or its country. This wasn't an "Apple only" law -- it would have affected all platforms with data on customers that live outside the UK. >This isn't a win, this is solidifying and reinforcing the idea that different laws should exist for different classes of people - those who can afford to make the government look the other way and those that can't. Corporations are not people. The people can afford to vote out politicians making laws that go against the will of the people.
- bendigedig 1y ago
  > This wasn't an "Apple only" law -- it would have affected all platforms with data on customers that live outside the UK. Yeah, the law still exists. Apple just successfully managed to refuse to comply with a request made under it.
catigula 1y ago
Unfortunately the internet is just going to be these ChatGPT comments now, isn't it.
- DaiPlusPlus 1y ago
  I checked; their post has good ol' fashioned hyphens, no em-dashes, so it's less likely to be slop.
  - catigula 1y ago
    Stated above, not just em-dash, but the following: > This isn't X, this is Y This is ChatGPT's favorite rhetorical flourish without exception.
    - purerandomness 1y ago
      ChatGPT wouldn't have set the apostrophe incorrectly in "it's customers".
- hermannj314 1y ago
  I am a human being, but I have been training on ChatGPT conversations for a few years, is it starting to show?
  - ben_w 1y ago
    FWIW, I was using em-dash before it was actively the opposite of cool.
    - catigula 1y ago
      It's not just that, this construction: > This isn't X, this is Y is a huge ChatGPT signal.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        If it is, it's one I've neither heard others mention before nor seen often enough myself to consider it a tell (but for the latter, I do use ChatGPT's customisation options).
throw0101a 1y ago
> Congratulations to Apple on lobbying for its own money. Very noble. First they came for the Apple fanboys, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Apple fanboy. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came If the UK had 'won' again Apple, do you not think that the Android ecosystem would be next? If the UK had 'won', do you not think that Turkey, India, China, etc, would not be lining up as well?
- Melatonic 1y ago
  Doesn't the UK law already apply to all those others ?
lenerdenator 1y ago
Any port in a storm.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
lamontcg 1y ago
Weird way to manage to do enough contortions to make this all Apple's fault.
- bigyabai 1y ago
  It's Apple's fault. They abandoned principled security a long, long time ago if you were paying attention. Chinese iCloud users have no protection against state-authorized backdoors since Apple removed the hardware security modules[0] that protect user encryption keys (at the PRC's request). Apple doesn't care about protecting their users above and beyond the reach of the state, state surveillance is an inevitability. When you start down a slippery slope like this, you burn trust and make people demand transparency. It's impossible for me to say that I'm any more secure as an American user - no trusted third-parties actually audit Apple's American iCloud servers for such backdoors. Users trusting Apple for security are (unfortunately) fish in a barrel, same as ever. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/business/apple-china-data-center-cybersecurity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/business/apple-china-data...
- pydry 1y ago
  It's not their fault. They did the right thing, which luckily coincided with what is best for their bottom line this one time.
eviks 1y ago
This is an obvious win when fewer people are under the boot even if some people remain they're. It's not a universal win, for sure, but let not perfect be the cause to ignore the good.
jrflowers 1y ago
You have a good point. Privacy is a human right, but nobody should be able to fight for it. People or organizations trying to influence the governments that they live or operate under is wrong, as governments (all of them, globally) should simply do the right thing automatically, all the time. Sadly every time I’ve tried to explain this to people they always say “you are bleeding a lot” and “dude you just fell down so many stairs. I have never seen anyone fall down that many stairs” or “your head sustained the entire impact of your full bodyweight when you finally reached the bottom of those stairs, how are you even standing?” so I don’t think this is a conversation a lot of people are ready to have
stephen_g 1y ago
I find the snark in your comment very weird and misplaced... Consider what the alternative is - Apple isn't allowed to talk about this, so they would have just had to silently backdoor their encryption for all their users all around the world so the UK intelligence organisations could access anyone Apple user's data... Honestly probably nobody would have noticed that, and it would have been the path of least resistance to just comply. Some informed technical people might abandon Apple's platform, but the masses wouldn't have noticed... So how is this "Apple on lobbying for its own money"? Honestly that last line just comes across as unhinged... Trying to read your comment in the most generous light but it's not close to reality...
johnnyanmac 1y ago
>it is never a win when a powerful company or government lobbies for a specific carve out for only it's customers or its country. I don't think that is the case here. It's a "secret order" so it's never sure, but there aren't a lot of global tech companies who will comply to give a single government their worldwide data.

chrismustcode 1y ago

I agree it should be across the spectrum where people have the same rights to privacy. > those who can afford to make the government look the other way and those that can't. > Congratulations to Apple on lobbying for its own money. Very noble. But what’s your implication here, that Apple shouldn’t have fought it?

hermannj314 1y ago
As far as I know, the blue/green mentality is a cultural issue for Apple. They would be fine if Android users had their data read by the government, because that injustice is a market differentiator for them they can then sell. I'm not saying they shouldn't lobby for what they believe in, but Apple always stops short of making the world a better place and seems to care only if their walled garden is secure.
- arccy 1y ago
  s/secure/profitable/
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  > Apple always stops short of making the world a better place and seems to care only if their walled garden is secure. succinctly summed up why I dislike Apple (despite using their products). If you value privacy (against third parties), E2EE, and the tight device coupling then Apple is literally the only choice unless you have the time, knowledge and desire to piecemeal together your own solutions and that really sucks. I have permanent cognitive dissonance because I won't give up the small quality of life features Apple gives me, but I also don't have the time nor skill to replicate their whole ecosystem with Linux, GrapheneOS, writing BLE scripts for watch unlock, fussing with KDE connect for universal clipboard, hosting my own nextcloud instance, etc. I wish there was another choice of mobile + accessories that was both privacy respecting and actively using open standards for the betterment of all, not just their own profits.
  - aspenmayer 1y ago
    > I wish there was another choice of mobile + accessories that was both privacy respecting and actively using open standards for the betterment of all, not just their own profits. That's the rub. If you look at Android handset financials, there's almost no money in making Android phones unless the company making them is Samsung, and only certain models sell. Where are all of these profits going to come from? I wonder if you'd get farther with a USB SIM adapter under desktop Linux in that regard. I think you'd be hard pressed to end up where you want to in anything more portable than a laptop, since phones themselves are designed to be glorified containers for your mobile ad ID. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_ID https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_ID
consp 1y ago
Probably that it should be a generalization and apple should have fought for that and not apply just to one particular operator.

throwfaraway4 1y ago

>it is never a win when a powerful company or government lobbies for a specific carve out for only it's customers or its country. This wasn't an "Apple only" law -- it would have affected all platforms with data on customers that live outside the UK. >This isn't a win, this is solidifying and reinforcing the idea that different laws should exist for different classes of people - those who can afford to make the government look the other way and those that can't. Corporations are not people. The people can afford to vote out politicians making laws that go against the will of the people.

bendigedig 1y ago
> This wasn't an "Apple only" law -- it would have affected all platforms with data on customers that live outside the UK. Yeah, the law still exists. Apple just successfully managed to refuse to comply with a request made under it.

catigula 1y ago

Unfortunately the internet is just going to be these ChatGPT comments now, isn't it.

DaiPlusPlus 1y ago
I checked; their post has good ol' fashioned hyphens, no em-dashes, so it's less likely to be slop.
- catigula 1y ago
  Stated above, not just em-dash, but the following: > This isn't X, this is Y This is ChatGPT's favorite rhetorical flourish without exception.
  - purerandomness 1y ago
    ChatGPT wouldn't have set the apostrophe incorrectly in "it's customers".
hermannj314 1y ago
I am a human being, but I have been training on ChatGPT conversations for a few years, is it starting to show?
- ben_w 1y ago
  FWIW, I was using em-dash before it was actively the opposite of cool.
  - catigula 1y ago
    It's not just that, this construction: > This isn't X, this is Y is a huge ChatGPT signal.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      If it is, it's one I've neither heard others mention before nor seen often enough myself to consider it a tell (but for the latter, I do use ChatGPT's customisation options).

throw0101a 1y ago

> Congratulations to Apple on lobbying for its own money. Very noble. First they came for the Apple fanboys, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Apple fanboy. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came If the UK had 'won' again Apple, do you not think that the Android ecosystem would be next? If the UK had 'won', do you not think that Turkey, India, China, etc, would not be lining up as well?

Melatonic 1y ago
Doesn't the UK law already apply to all those others ?

lenerdenator 1y ago

Any port in a storm.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

lamontcg 1y ago

Weird way to manage to do enough contortions to make this all Apple's fault.

bigyabai 1y ago
It's Apple's fault. They abandoned principled security a long, long time ago if you were paying attention. Chinese iCloud users have no protection against state-authorized backdoors since Apple removed the hardware security modules[0] that protect user encryption keys (at the PRC's request). Apple doesn't care about protecting their users above and beyond the reach of the state, state surveillance is an inevitability. When you start down a slippery slope like this, you burn trust and make people demand transparency. It's impossible for me to say that I'm any more secure as an American user - no trusted third-parties actually audit Apple's American iCloud servers for such backdoors. Users trusting Apple for security are (unfortunately) fish in a barrel, same as ever. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/business/apple-china-data-center-cybersecurity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/business/apple-china-data...
pydry 1y ago
It's not their fault. They did the right thing, which luckily coincided with what is best for their bottom line this one time.

eviks 1y ago

This is an obvious win when fewer people are under the boot even if some people remain they're. It's not a universal win, for sure, but let not perfect be the cause to ignore the good.

jrflowers 1y ago

You have a good point. Privacy is a human right, but nobody should be able to fight for it. People or organizations trying to influence the governments that they live or operate under is wrong, as governments (all of them, globally) should simply do the right thing automatically, all the time. Sadly every time I’ve tried to explain this to people they always say “you are bleeding a lot” and “dude you just fell down so many stairs. I have never seen anyone fall down that many stairs” or “your head sustained the entire impact of your full bodyweight when you finally reached the bottom of those stairs, how are you even standing?” so I don’t think this is a conversation a lot of people are ready to have

stephen_g 1y ago

I find the snark in your comment very weird and misplaced... Consider what the alternative is - Apple isn't allowed to talk about this, so they would have just had to silently backdoor their encryption for all their users all around the world so the UK intelligence organisations could access anyone Apple user's data... Honestly probably nobody would have noticed that, and it would have been the path of least resistance to just comply. Some informed technical people might abandon Apple's platform, but the masses wouldn't have noticed... So how is this "Apple on lobbying for its own money"? Honestly that last line just comes across as unhinged... Trying to read your comment in the most generous light but it's not close to reality...

johnnyanmac 1y ago

>it is never a win when a powerful company or government lobbies for a specific carve out for only it's customers or its country. I don't think that is the case here. It's a "secret order" so it's never sure, but there aren't a lot of global tech companies who will comply to give a single government their worldwide data.