Apple abruptly yanks privacy tool in UK, taking bold stance against snooping law.
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Apple pulls data protection tool instead of caving to UK demand for a backdoor
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Unfortunately the only reasonable response to an unreasonable law. Kudos to them for not quietly bowing to their demands.
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Unbelievable stupidity from the UK government.
Hard to imagine a more convincing way to demonstrate your incompetence than this.
Hard to imagine a more convincing way to demonstrate your incompetence than this.
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Kudos to Apple for taking a stand when it's easy.
What are they going to do when the American Presidente comes knocking?
What are they going to do when the American Presidente comes knocking?
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This is what I expected them to do, even if it hurts UK customers. Apple really had no other choice in the face of the boneheaded UK law.
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I keep hoping this fracking timeline won’t get any worse than it already is and then… Sigh!!!
It really is true that things can always get worse.
It really is true that things can always get worse.
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Agree that installing a ‘backdoor’ would be inviting disaster. I’m sure that this fact has been explained to the Powers That Be in the UK over and over again. One can only hope that governmental authorities elsewhere understand this better.
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This proves a point that all accounts without ADP (most of them) are subject to the same risks, not only by government but also by hackers. Without backup encryption, they have access to the whole device snapshot.
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infernal666
Ars Praefectus
You know the world is truly fucked when you agree with an amoral multinational corporation on an issue. ![:\](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/civis/data/assets/smilies/slash-1x.png "Slash :\")
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As a UK resident I fully support Apple here. More incompetence from the Labour government (and I speak as a Labour voter).
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Donate to his PAC or buy his meme coin. It's relatively inexpensive compared to their business revenues.
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Dr_EluSivE
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Seems like a great time for someone knowledgeable about the subject to write a how-to article about personal on prem NAS's and rolling your own encrypted backup. Seems like some Brit's could make use of such instructions.
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I presume UK government will still complain that law is not followed because "what about all the other users" part. So the real question will be, would Apple decide to abandon whole UK market if (or perhaps when) this happens
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I keep hoping this fracking timeline won’t get any worse than it already is and then… Sigh!!!
It really is true that things can always get worse.
We have just experienced a decades-long golden age characterized by the longest period of peace between world powers, rapid globalization that lifted billions out of poverty, numerous technological innovations that made life less difficult, and increasing life expectancy. Believe it or not, we have just lived through the best time in human history by virtually every metric. Unfortunately, not everyone had the opportunity to participate, and those same individuals will be the most adversely affected as we regress.
From this peak, things can worsen significantly, unimaginatively worse, and it appears that there is a group of powerful individuals aiming to pull us back to 1850 in almost every way. It's a long way down. People are about to receive a painful education as we lose everything we took for granted.
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In fairness, the same nonsense has come from all the main parties about installing backdoors in things. They are all equally clueless on this stuff. This is just the first time that it's got this far.
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Worth pointing out for those not familiar with the matter: the law in question is the UK Investigatory Powers Act (2016). It's a law that was passed under the previous Conservative government, but with support from all the major parties in the UK, including Labour.
It basically comes from none of our MPs understanding how encryption works, and that it's not possible to backdoor maths for the purposes of "national security". We need more technically minded people in politics, although that's hardly likely to happen.
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Labor under Keir Starmer has been a thorough disappointment. After the shit-show of the former Conservative goverment(s), there were hopes that Starmer would right the ship. Instead he has cozied up to Trump like no other in Europe except Orban, suspended MPs opposing the two child benefit cap(which will increase child poverty), hypocritically accepted gifts from party donors(including expensive clothes for his wife), etc. The demand to disable encryption is the opposite of what I'd expect from a former human rights lawyer.
Edit: I know this edit is not the norm, but I'd like to hear from those downvoting my comment. Post a counter take. I am curious.
Edit: I know this edit is not the norm, but I'd like to hear from those downvoting my comment. Post a counter take. I am curious.
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What's really upsetting (well, one of many things that are really upsetting) about this is that the UK law will largely impact only law-abiding citizens. Those who were going to use E2E encryption for nefarious purposes will continue to do so. They just won't be using Apple's services.
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Right now you can backup your idevice in encrypted form either in iCloud or on your Mac. iPhone backups on your Mac are normal data that will be backed up with Time Machine, and can be encrypted in Time Machine like any other data, and nobody including apple has any access.
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PatientZero
Ars Centurion
Whatever they do, you'll never find out about it until years later, when the "Senate Investigation" comes out.
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PatientZero
Ars Centurion
You don't understand how it's a better solution... compared to what? Do you think Apple can win out against the UK government? In a matter of what the UK claims is national security?
Apple's choices were to either A) build a backdoor into encryption, or B) disable the encryption. There is no third option. They chose the better one of two.
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Apple had to turn off end-to-end encryption. The only difference is that they had to turn it off and lie to their customers. So Apple says “we won’t be lying to our customers, and the customers can complain to their government”.
So other countries can force Apple as well, but their voters will know.
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I hopes Kier gets a kick reading all the apology messages I get from United Utilities about how crappy their water supply service is. I personally find them riveting
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iCloud is still end-to-end encrypted, it's just a question of where the "end" is. Without ADP, iCloud data is encrypted but Apple has the key. This is useful for people who aren't good at managing their own keys and want Apple to restore their data when they lose the keys. When you enable ADP, you're telling Apple you want to manage your own keys and you don't want them to keep a copy.
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He's also continued with the previous administration's demonisation of migrants (whether economic or asylum seekers) and their characterisation of disabled people as shiftless lazy burdens on society who don't deserve all the benefits they get.
He's basically a tory in a red tie. What a freaking disappointment from someone who was once a human-rights lawyer.
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nothing to do with parties. every party barring the odd mps are in favour.
the question becomes, does this apply to everyone who enters uk? and how many visitors will not turn up because of this?
do certain (foreign/international) businesses have it on mandatorily for their work phones and decide they'll simple pull the plug on doing business here?
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