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Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor

"Someone in Apple did the leaking and I would back them all the way. Even with all the stuff known, this is still very bad and sad news." You mean you back the leaker to speak out again, or you back Apple to do the right thing and protect icloud?
 
Backing them leaking that this is happening. I don't see them needing to speak out again. We will see what the outcome is.

I also back Apple doing the right thing too. But I don't know what all their legal options are and if they can fight this in hidden court somewhere like in the FISA court.

I would expect Apple to protect iCloud users world wide and for them to give up UK users data. That is what they had to do in China and the USA, even though they are the only tech company to fight the orders.
 
patearrings said:
What is people's take on this now? There has been no further news.

Do we assume Apple is gagged and therefore can't say anything and if so, being as the inital order was given a month ago, do we now assume that iCloud is compromised and they have built in a back door?

Apple's silence on it is quite worrying. Even though they aren't allowed to report on the legal order, they could have announced they are pulling iCloud from the UK by now, or removing ADP from the UK etc. However, so far, nothing. The longer Apple is silent surely the greater the chance they have complied with the order?

I am surprised there isn't more anger about this online. This is the private data of 2 billion citizens of the world that will fall into the UK governments hands and then bad actors hands after that.

What are you guys planning to do about it. Are you all currently happy to keep using icloud "as you were".

Thanks for any opinions on it.
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I came here to say the same thing. I’m disturbed that Apple hasn’t responded to this yet. I think I may cancel my iCloud subscription, but I’m dragging my feet on it because it'll be a chore and result in a lot of lost convenience when I'm not sure if Apple will fight it or not yet. Some alternatives I'm considering:

  • Keeping iCloud subscription, not using any iCloud features except for Files, and using Cryptomator to end-to-end encrypt every file on my side, making a backdoor pointless.
  • Just staying off the cloud altogether. Regular local backups of my devices, files, and photos to my computer and external hard drives.
  • Switching to Proton. They're end-to-end encrypted, but have had a politics-related controversy lately that gives me pause.
  • Some sort of self-hosted solution. Network-attached storage? NextCloud? I don't know enough about the technical details around this yet, and I'm not sure that I want to go down that rabbit hole, but the idea of self-reliance and not having to trust anyone else sounds nice.
The backdoor really alarms me, because if all end-to-end encryption is broken, that means your data is a free for all for the U.K. and every government that works with the U.K. I would think that would include things like all my passwords in iCloud Keychain, all the notes in my Notes app, and all my personal messages with loved ones. That's no one's business.
 
xxray said:
I came here to say the same thing. I’m disturbed that Apple hasn’t responded to this yet. I think ... and all my personal messages with loved ones. That's no one's business.
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From what I know, it takes a lot longer and more work than that for Apple to make an actual backdoor into actual encryption with something they designed from the ground up to be the opposite. And there is also the point of fighting it being closed doors that take some time too.

This is not something that is done overnight in some hack job, no matter what the order states. Technical limitation abound. It could also bring down the whole system if not done correctly as well. And everyone would know that happened.

They might have given Apple so many months or a year to comply or an ASAP situation. We don't know yet.
 
So you think it's unlikely that Apple have already implemented a back door and we just don't know about it?

@xxray - What controversy has Proton had? The fact the owner might support Trump?

On Trump, i would have thought that americans losing their e2ee data to a request by a minnow nation like the UK would be something he would be furious about.
 
Ben Thompson from Stratechery wrote about this today and this was his take (behind a paywall, sorry):

First, I strongly suspect that these stories were a leak from Apple in order to engender pressure on the U.K. to back down. I suggest they do so. Second, if they don't, then Apple will withdraw encrypted storage from the U.K., and hopefully they say why; this could include withdrawing iMessage as well (although that won't be that big of a deal). This won't, of course, satisfy the U.K.'s worldwide demands; if the U.K. presses forward then I would expect Apple to exit the country.
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He goes onto say that if Apple gives in to the UK, it would be a strategic blunder of epic proportions and significantly undermine their users’ trust worldwide - which he estimates is worth more than Apple’s UK business.

Given Apple executives are known to read his newsletter, I was very glad to see his take.
 
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patearrings said:
So you think it's unlikely that Apple have already implemented a back door and we just don't know about it?
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That is correct. There is the USA backdoor, if you will, but that is a matter from back in... around 2010/2011 that everyone should already know about.
 
surferfb said:
Ben Thompson from Stratechery wrote about this today and this was his take (behind a paywall, sorry):



He goes onto say that if Apple gives in to the UK, it would be a strategic blunder of epic proportions and significantly undermine their users’ trust worldwide - which he estimates is worth more than Apple’s UK business.

Given Apple executives are known to read his newsletter, I was very glad to see his take.
Click to expand...
Thank you for this. And I agree with Ben.
 
xxray said:
I came here to say the same thing. I’m disturbed that Apple hasn’t responded to this yet. I think I may cancel my iCloud subscription, but I’m dragging my feet on it because it'll be a chore and result in a lot of lost convenience when I'm not sure if Apple will fight it or not yet. Some alternatives I'm considering:

  • Keeping iCloud subscription, not using any iCloud features except for Files, and using Cryptomator to end-to-end encrypt every file on my side, making a backdoor pointless.
  • Just staying off the cloud altogether. Regular local backups of my devices, files, and photos to my computer and external hard drives.
  • Switching to Proton. They're end-to-end encrypted, but have had a politics-related controversy lately that gives me pause.
  • Some sort of self-hosted solution. Network-attached storage? NextCloud? I don't know enough about the technical details around this yet, and I'm not sure that I want to go down that rabbit hole, but the idea of self-reliance and not having to trust anyone else sounds nice.
The backdoor really alarms me, because if all end-to-end encryption is broken, that means your data is a free for all for the U.K. and every government that works with the U.K. I would think that would include things like all my passwords in iCloud Keychain, all the notes in my Notes app, and all my personal messages with loved ones. That's no one's business.
Click to expand...
Regardless of UK’s grabby paws, I think information that you don’t want anyone you didn’t specifically give access to seeing - even the relatively mundane things like financial and medical records - should be encrypted separately.

I never understood people who just dumped it all into iCloud because “well it’s already encrypted”.
 
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SnowCrocodile said:
Regardless of UK’s grabby paws, I think information that you don’t want anyone you didn’t specifically give access to seeing - even the relatively mundane things like financial and medical records - should be encrypted separately.

I never understood people who just dumped it all into iCloud because “well it’s already encrypted”.
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Which is the stupidest part about this law. Do we really think terrorists are keeping the top secret plan unencrypted in iCloud? Or are we all giving up fundamental privacy so the government can catch the stupid terrorists.
 
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surferfb said:
Which is the stupidest part about this law. Do we really think terrorists are keeping the top secret plan unencrypted in iCloud? Or are we all giving up fundamental privacy so the government can catch the stupid terrorists.
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This has little to do with real seasoned terrorists. More like keeping the general population in check and finding a few prosecutable cases when somebody’s’ political career needs a boost.

I don’t trust the government too much.
 
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surferfb said:
Ben Thompson from Stratechery wrote about this today and this was his take (behind a paywall, sorry):



He goes onto say that if Apple gives in to the UK, it would be a strategic blunder of epic proportions and significantly undermine their users’ trust worldwide - which he estimates is worth more than Apple’s UK business.

Given Apple executives are known to read his newsletter, I was very glad to see his take.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much for this. This gives me some peace of mind. Does he say anywhere about what the procedure is or whether Apple will even say anything about it at all? Or how long it may be until they make some kind of press release?

Fonally, are you confident enough in Ben's take that you would keep your datain the icloud currently? I don't know much about him although just read his Bio which is very impressive.

Thanks once again for the useful info.
 
patearrings said:
Thank you so much for this. This gives me some peace of mind. Does he say anywhere about what the procedure is or whether Apple will even say anything about it at all? Or how long it may be until they make some kind of press release?
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Nope he doesn’t. To be clear, Ben isn’t a “journalist” per se, he’s an analyst. So he’s not getting this from inside sources or anything like that - just his take on what he thinks will happen. But he’s very astute and usually on the money when it comes to strategy stuff like this. And as I mentioned before, Apple executives are known to read his newsletter, so you can be sure it’s floating around the right people at Apple.

That said, given it’s my understanding that it’s illegal for Apple to acknowledge receipt of the order, my suspicion is we won’t get a press release. I suspect if nothing changes, that means it has been dropped; hopefully we get a follow-up story from “sources familiar” that it was dropped, but we might just have to trust Apple does the right thing. I highly expect leaks though - Apple has incentive to clear this up.

If the UK doesn’t back down I suspect we will see changes similar to what Ben outlined - I really have a hard time believing Apple would just roll over and say “sure thing, UK” - they’ve previously resisted attempts to weaken encryption from the American government, for example.

patearrings said:
Fonally, are you confident enough in Ben's take that you would keep your datain the icloud currently? I don't know much about him although just read his Bio which is very impressive.

Thanks once again for the useful info.
Click to expand...

I am not changing my setup right now (but would were this confirmed). Full disclosure, I already use the iCloud advanced data protection and feel confident that there isn’t an existing backdoor in that.
 
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Screenshot 2025-02-21 at 15.25.02.png

There we go. Apple has removed it as requested.............
 
Fred Zed said:
We’ll soon being going back to trusted pen paper and safes to store our valuable documents and such.
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Well, most countries use typewriters for sensitive documents and communication letters that they don't want caught up in the intelligence databases for that very reason. And they each have their favorite models too.
 
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