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UK Parliamentary Bill Would Require Backdoors in Electronic Devices
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So ARM will stop doing business with Apple if they don't sell their iPhone in the UK? Also, when a company is worth half a trillion, one man is well, just one man. As important as he is, no one is irreplaceable.
Last I checked the stocks has more than doubled since Jobs died, that is with recent struggles and constant Wall Street haters priced in. I am happy with my Apple Watch, iPad Pro, and my Retina Macbook (all post Jobs products that probably had no input from him).
I dont fear my country being able to spy on my iPhone with reason, you americans bleat on about freedom but you dont do much with it.
Attitudes like this are why nothing will ever get fixed. Partisan politics like that is not even part of the problem--it is the problem.
I would invite you to look at the staunchest defenders of backdoors and domestic surveillance in the USA. You'll find a broad range of political viewpoints. The two worst Presidentilal administrations in terms backdoors have been led by Bill Clinton and Obama, with Bush only very slightly better than those two and most of the current Republicans exactly the same as them. Big government and surveillance is truly common ground between both sides, unless you look at the Libertarians or a handful of those on the left.
Todays governments aren't in the business of making their countries safer. It they were they would'n kill their own citizens in staged terror attacks.
They are in the business of turning ordinary people into slaves.
Double speak a'la Google:
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This is something Jacqui Smith (a member of the Labour Party, Britain's putatively left-wing party) tried to pass back in 2009 when she was home secretary. So I hope people remember that it's not a case of Tories being evil, it's rather that all parties of the centre are rotten from the core on out.
The petty jihadists of Londonistan are chomping at the bit.
And has Parliament back-doored teh Queen yet?
Who's going to buy a device that has this back door? The entire world would need to enforce this law otherwise people will buy devices on the black market. This creates suspicion around anyone that does this and widens the focus on terrorism rather than narrows it.
Obligatory "how can you Britons let your government do this," because only the American government does this, not other countries
The moment a backdoor is made, every iPhone will be backed up to a government hard drive from now until forever.
You know the police saying, "You have the right to remain silent, everything you say will be used against you".
Well the government is basically saying, "You have no right for privacy, and your whole digital life will be recorded and used against you".
Who determines the definition of "correctly"? You? Me? The elected officials that we vote for? Yeah, it's the last one; we vote for people to make these decisions and codify them in law so that we don't have thousands, or millions, of differing opinions and definitions of what "correctly" (in this case) means. Apple, Google, et al. are paying "correctly".
I have no idea what this means
That implies that you pay more taxes than you have to. Be honest: do you really?
You believe incorrectly. True, I didn't answer with a straight "yes" or "no", but by your logic "do you like cheese?" can't rightfully be answered with "only a little"
In my answer the implication is that I don't funnel my taxes through Ireland, due to the usage of the words "if . . . [then] I would". Now, to avoid more inane nitpicking "no, I do not funnel me profits, income, or taxes through Ireland. I do, however, avoid paying more tax than I need to through other loopholes, programs, and shelters. I do also benefit from social programs, and I attend publicly-funded-but-free-to-me events and institutions. Some people find this to be immoral, some think I'm not paying 'my fair share'. Oh well."Edit to add omitted word
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Those clamoring for these almighty 'backdoor keys' seem to be oblivious to the fact criminals and terrorists will instantly cease using hackable means of communication once law enforcement and security agencies get unfettered access to cellphone data delivered to them 'at gunpoint' by the Apples and Googles of the world.
The real criminals will either employ one of a myriad of other encryption algorithms already out there, or find other means of communicating their evil intentions, leaving all the rest of us none the safer, while at the same time these so called backdoors will be robbing all of us of yet another large chunk of our privacy in the process. Additionally, we can't be so blind as to have the illusion that once access-upon-demand by authorities has been mandated, such technology will remain safely locked away.
Consider the prospect of the following possibilities if these 'backdoor access' laws become a reality: All of our most private data will instantly become vulnerable.....Our private communications, all our privately stored data, incl. banking info, or perhaps details about our political inclinations, sexual preferences, employment history, marital woes, calendars perhaps with appointments alluding to health problems (perhaps even mental health), etc, etc, hacked into by not only US authorities but literally anyone in the world?
I'm inclined to think that, as evil as it is, terrorism is but a smokescreen used by those in power to get more powers to control the population at large by being able to snoop on private conversations and obtain any other info they might incidentally gather, thus furthering their goal of ultimate control. A scary prospect indeed!
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They will just use Intel or others instead..problem solved! Wait..so now Ive takes credits for the iPhone not Steve? if Steve was still alive we would had a bigger battery on our iPhones and a better product than the iPhone!
H2SO4: First, let me say that I'm a US citizen, not UK, and as a result I'm not as adequately versed on the UK laws as I might be otherwise. I'll also add that I do not wish to engage in a full-scale argument with you on this topic. With that said...
I've seen you post several times in several threads here on MR making essentially this same point (whether really on topic to each thread or not, but that's a separate point). Each time I see it I balk a bit, and so I'd like to suggest a few thoughts for your consideration.
I understand your frustration in your perception that Apple is not paying its fair share of taxes. The same can be said from a US perspective as well. I don't summarily agree with this point of view, but I do understand where it comes from and I'm at least somewhat sympathetic with it.
However, the laws of the UK (and virtually every other nation on the planet) are a complex and convoluted set of compromises between various interests. So while your point that Apple is not abiding to the spirit of the law has some merit, it fails to acknowledge that the "spirit of the law" that you're referring to is the spirit of only part of the law.
- The spirit of the law also recognizes the need to allow trade from organizations/companies that do not "live" on the soil of the nation.
- The spirit of the law also recognizes that the nation exists in a worldwide competitive market - for jobs, resources (including, but far from limited to, labor), revenue sources and so on.
- The spirit of the law also recognizes that in order to compete in this global market sometimes special incentives must be allowed in order to bring jobs, opportunities, products (that are desired/"demanded" by its populace), etc., into the nation at all.
- The spirit of the law also recognizes that other nations have similar claims of being able to tax sales (and other taxable transactions) performed by multinational and global organizations/companies - that these claims are not unique to the one nation - and that some form of "sharing" must be allowed to take place between/among these claimants.
You repeatedly cite the fact that Apple has no storefront in Ireland as support for your point of view. I do not understand how that is relevant. Imagine a company whose only product is intellectual property, say software. This company may have exactly zero storefronts worldwide. It may employ people whose work is to further develop the intellectual property, and it may employ people in other disciplines such as book-keeping, or law. Now, place this particular company in Ireland. Is their tax burden in some way different from another company that does happen to have storefronts? It might be one thing (though I doubt this too) if Apple's Irish operations were only a paper company and didn't employ anyone there, but that's simply not the case. That group sells stuff throughout Europe, and pays taxes according to the laws and agreements it "lives" under, which embody the political spirit of the nation it's formed in.
Now I concede that the winds of change are always blowing and that the spirit (and letter) of the law can change over time. I also concede that due to the incredible complexity and convolution of the laws (including not just the nation's laws, but also the laws, treaties and other agreements to which the nation is just one party of many) that agreements/contracts are made sometimes that upon further review turn out to be invalid. I even concede that sometimes such invalid agreements are made with willful knowledge by the participants that they are invalid, but they make them anyway in the hope of not getting caught.
You seem to have already decided (and maybe you haven't, but this is how it comes off to me) that Apple is in that lattermost category, and I do not feel that is a fair assertion. It may prove to be, and I tip my hat to you if you are directly involved in the process of discovering and revealing it if it turns out to be. But to throw accusations around simply because you don't like the fact that Apple's lawyers (like so many others) are doing what their shareholders expect them to by finding ways to pay the least amount in taxes globally that they legally can just isn't constructive, IMO. And to call Tim Cook a liar as a result of that distaste is inappropriate.
Those are my thoughts. I *know* I'm missing things. So I invite you (and others, of course) to edify me. But remember, I'm writing this not specifically to defend Apple but to just keep things straight up, and I'm trying to do this in a respectful manner - so I would appreciate the same in return. I'm genuinely looking to learn something here...
{A couple small edits for grammar}
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If Steve was never born all of those products you just mentioned.. wouldn't exist!
Yeah in Scotland we've got the attractive alternative of bankrupting the country while painting our faces blue and screaming "freedom" - no thanks!There is another alternative in Scotland.
As a conservative voter, this is pretty much the only policy I take extreme exception to and will do all I can to communicate my feelings to the party.
Steve Jobs, JFK, Vlad the Impaler the list goes on..however I'm 100% sure that Johnny Ive doesn't belong in that 1000-list of people
Im not afraid of my government the way you americans are
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actually if you knew anything about business it would be a big deal
of all the one. UK does it first...
No privacy can ever have two sides and see how it will help anything *but* privacy.. and it looks like the more u use a phone to store everything, the more privacy aware you become... Such a shame the world thinks like that.. but that's what u get.... Of course it looks bad if u only think if from the privacy point of view..
We have to abide by law to hand over our Macs.why should iPhone by any different ? just because we store more stuff on them ?
No privacy can ever have two sides and see how it will help anything *but* privacy.. and it looks like the more u use a phone to store everything, the more privacy aware you become... Such a shame the world thinks like that.. but that's what u get.... Of course it looks bad if u only think if from the privacy point of view..
We have to abide by law to hand over our Macs.why should iPhone by any different ? just because we store more stuff on them ?
First, does no one else find it awfully coincidental that it's coming hard and fast from every "democracy" all at once?
And second, even if you passed all of this, couldn't Apple just simply encrypt EVERY app? I mean, ok, governments. You can see the OS all you want. Unfortunately for you, all you get to know are what Accessibility Settings someone has.
Third, here's where I'd like SOMEONE in a government SOMEWHERE to say, "I'll go first, and use an unencrypted phone."
And second, even if you passed all of this, couldn't Apple just simply encrypt EVERY app? I mean, ok, governments. You can see the OS all you want. Unfortunately for you, all you get to know are what Accessibility Settings someone has.
Third, here's where I'd like SOMEONE in a government SOMEWHERE to say, "I'll go first, and use an unencrypted phone."