Could Apple Pull iCloud Services From the UK Market?

[flexwithmarius]

The biggest problems with backdoors are people and trust.

In very limited circumstances they’re good for getting data off a crook’s device for legal purposes under supervised and controlled conditions.

The problem is, people are people and will want unlimited and unending access that gets progressively more invasive.

So no, we can’t have them.

 

[transpo1]

China has okay-ish metros around the country
Of course cant compete with London and Nea yorki metros
but hey China is anti-DEMOCRATIC , WHILE PEOPLE WERE DYING IN CAPITOL
Chinaa is the problem with metro like something from the future 21000

Should I even respond to this? 😄 Dictatorships are known to have very nice metros but very nice metros are not limited to dictatorships 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[bsolar]

Do I permit my government to check all my data on all my digital devices PURELY and ONLY for safety for society? YES

If you give permission to the government to access your data, there is no issue. The question is whether the government should have the power to check all of your data without your permission.

Governments tend to claim they require special powers to protect their citizens or to combat a threat. The problem is, once they obtain those special powers they can abuse them and history is rife with examples.

 

[picpicmac]

Reality check: each and every one of you lives in a society.

That society constrains you, defines boundaries for you.

The bold will try to challenge those boundaries, but in the end no man is an island (an author once penned.)

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

I'd be fine using Google drive but

1) most apps don't use it anymore

2) these *******s recently prevent apps from accessing drive without paying an expensive yearly subscription which ruins 90% of the apps reliance on drive

 

[transpo1]

No, not the definition of "fascism".

It is, however, a move towards a more authoritarian approach by the UK wrt user data.

Apple will make news (on this issue) regardless of what they decide to do.

Included in the definition is “an authoritarian…system of government” so yes: fascism.

 

[arian71]

Should I even respond to this? 😄 Dictatorships are known to have very nice metros but very nice metros are not limited to dictatorships 🤷🏻‍♂️

haha typical response , so while we at the China, what is actually UK doing now against Apple, is that democracy ?

 

[bsolar]

If Apple does E to E encryption right, then they cannot provide access to either. That would be fine with me.

The point of the UK is that Apple should provide UK authorities a way to circumvent encryption. This basically means Apple would be unable to provide proper end-to-end encryption as by design it would not be possible to be circumvented..

 

[Daalseth]

And WHEN the rest of the 5-eyes demand this, along with China? What do you think Apple will do then?

 

[cjsuk]

They're both seeking access through legal means. One is through a warrant while the other is through the UK Investigatory Powers Act.

Judges rarely deny warrant requests.

Summary data on requests for delayed-notice search warrants and extensions for fiscal year 2022 appear in Table 1. A total of 18,229 warrant requests were reported. Of these warrant requests, 18,157 were granted


That's a 99.61% approval rate.

Two things to add to this:

1. A friend is a barrister and she outlined that the judiciary are criminally incompetent in technology related cases.

2. Once it's in the cloud it's available forever. There is no guarantee it is ever deleted. Laws and regimes change, as people find out. The next thing you know you are persecuted and the evidence is already there.

 

[bsolar]

Included in the definition is “an authoritarian…system of government” so yes: fascism.

Fascism is an authoritarian system of government, but not all authoritarian system of governments are fascist.

Said that, fascism is a very broad concept and there is not full agreement on which elements define it.

 

[LeeW]

Privacy is only important to Apple when it does not impact the bottom line. They will cave, 100%.

 

[spacemanspifff]

Why would proper criminals and bad actors be storing their incriminating data on iCloud? I would think the majority of MPs have iPhones and wouldn’t want anybody from the newspapers to be able to get into their dodgy data (again). I’m in the UK, so I’m hoping this request goes the same way as the un-encrypting of iMessage, i.e. nothing happens. This kind of invasion of privacy should be put to the public vote. Sharpen your pitchforks and ready the torches! 😂

 

[Ctrlos]

Let’s get real here: Apple can’t do anything because data is end to end encrypted. It couldn’t decode it if they wanted to.

What will happen is this: The right wing press: Mail, Sun, Express etc will pick this up to run tomorrow calling it a massive infringement of civil liberties (which it is) They’d find a way to criticise Labour even if Keir Starmer himself flew into space and punched away an apocalyptic asteroid. (“Prime Minister abandons post in national crisis”!)

No. 10 will issue an apology by the end of the weekend after the PR disaster it will end up as and pull the request.

Foreign readers should understand that had the Tories made the same request whilst in power the same newspapers would be calling for Apple’s head for blocking access to criminals data. That’s how the media works here in the UK.

 

[ThisIsMike]

“the British government has secretly demanded that Apple give it blanket access to all encrypted user content uploaded to iCloud.”

Kind of ironic isn’t it? Is to much to wish that they had communicated this secret demand via an encrypted message stored in iCloud?

I mean, I get that’s NOT what happened, but I wish it had.

 

[BC2009]

The only way to combat this is to force public outcry from UK citizens and thereby trigger polticians losing reelection or (better) being recalled.

Apple needs to pull services entirely in response. "Backdoors for the good guys" are fantasies by idiot politicians. Any backdoor they create would be exploitable by foreign governments as well.

This is a very high stakes game of chicken. Let's see how Parliament reacts when constituents are royally angry with them for losing their iCloud services.

 

[Timo_Existencia]

The DMA is the least of anyone's concerns given the context of this discussion

Government overreach is government overreach. I'm fascinated to see many voices here that think it was silly of those of us opposed to the DMA to claim that security would be compromised with the DMA. And then to be so up in arms over this.

The DMA is government manufacturing a wholly new standard (gatekeeper) that they have sold to the masses as anti-trust regulation (monopoly) allowing said government to dictate how Apple operates at a core level...including compromising security decisions that many of us have chosen specifically.

This carve-out you're trying to make in which you grant the EU unprecedented power to dictate how Apple operates is part of the same playbook being used by the UK here.

 

[antiprotest]

I think the solution is to buy the UK.

Or, at least buy the individuals proposing this.

 

[Mega ST]

Let's be realistic: There will be backdoors everywhere. Even today. Everything else is an illusion.

 

[Fred Zed]

Straight up Fascism in the UK.

Indeed. When USA sneezes UK catches a cold.

 

[Realityck]

According to The Washington Post, the British government has secretly demanded that Apple give it blanket access to all encrypted user content uploaded to iCloud. The spying order reportedly came by way of a "technical capability notice," a document sent to Apple ordering it to provide access under the sweeping UK Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) of 2016.

That’s scary as heck, it’s the same back door request ignoring existing privacy policies they think makes too much work for them accessing any device.

 

[Plutonius]

Doesn't Apple already give access to China ?

 

[Fred Zed]

So folks that don’t have ADP enabled currently have their iCloud data open to the authorities already, UK or USA?

 

[bsolar]

Government overreach is government overreach. I'm fascinated to see many voices here that think it was silly of those of us opposed to the DMA to claim that security would be compromised with the DMA. And then to be so up in arms over this.

That's because it can be argued that security is actually not compromised with the DMA. The DMA mainly provides for alternative options for those who choose them, but Apple's options are still there and still basically as secure as before.

The same cannot be said for UK's requirement to break end-to-end encryption, which would unarguably make communications and data less secure.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Let’s get real here: Apple can’t do anything because data is end to end encrypted.

That's what the UK may force them to end in order to comply with:

"the British government has secretly demanded that Apple give it blanket access to all encrypted user content uploaded to iCloud."

What did you think this was about?