It's about time Apple drew a line in the sand. I'm sick and tired of countries dictating how a product is designed especially when those countries have nothing worthwhile to offer. Yes, the UK and EU make some cellular devices but nothing compared to what Apple produces. The removal of end-to-end encryption is simply a ploy to allow governments to capture all kinds of personal information without even having a warrant. The UK wants to go back to the days of the telephone party line so they can snoop constantly.
The problem for Apple, at least in some eyes, including politicians, is Apple has found a way to adhere to a country's security laws even if it requires compromising user's privacy and individual security in order to do so. The demarcation line for Apple isn't yet clearly established, but there is one nonetheless, likely based on market size and type of government, and that's a fact.
"Apple stores customer data on Chinese government servers."
"Apple agreed to store the digital keys that unlock its Chinese customers' information in those (government) data centers. And Apple abandoned the encryption technology it uses in other data centers after China wouldn't allow it."
My guess is the UK probably teeters on that edge and perhaps where Apple makes a public proclamation that they are NOT big enough on their own. Or it could be that the UK has more exposure to public pressure than some other less open countries and Apple is counting on them to convince the UK to drop the plan.
In order to try to avoid future demands from others, Apple might make the UK the sacrificial lamb.
BTW- Even China allows end to end encryption with iMessage.
AFAIK, as of 2021 (?) they do not, at least in a practical sense. E2EE would mean the Chinese government cannot access typed or sent messages at all, which would be against Chinese security laws, the same reason other Apple E2EE services had to be disabled in China. It may be encrypted,but that does not mean the Chinese had not already established a means of seeing the typed messages on your phone prior to being sent.
The best I've been able to understand is that iPhone vendors in China install a new certificate in the enterprise enrollment chain-of-trust. This allows the Chinese government to use that certificate to bypass the Apple signed one for code execution on the device.
So they really don’t care that the data is encrypted on the way out of the phone, because they’ve already established access to it before it ever leaves the phone in the first place.
Now I may be wrong, but my understanding is that yes, in the practical sense, there is E2EE with iMessage in China. No one else can read the encrypted iMessage after it's sent from the sender device, while it's being sent and before it is un-encrypted on the receiver device. That is E2EE.
In the US, if the sender backups up his device to the iCloud, Apple re-encrypts the iMessages when they are stored in the iCloud. And Apple has access to the key. If the government get a court order, Apple can access those E2EE messages.
But in China, when iMessage users backs up their iMessages to the iCloud, they are store in the government servers and the government now has access to those messages without needing to get a court order.
The only place where E2EE messages can be kept where only the sender and receiver have access to them, is encrypted on their own devices that are protected by a passcode. Apple have no access to that passcode and not even a court order can force Apple to turn over something they don't have access to. Pretty sure an iPhone in China do not have a backdoor that can bypass the user passcode. But not sure. And for sure, the government can install their own spyware on any iPhones they want. But iMessage E2EE works the way it does in China as in the US. It's just that in China, it's much harder to keep the government from seeing that message, when it's un-ecrypted on the sender or receiver device, due to government spyware. But spyware like Pegasus can do this with any iPhone, anywhere in the World. And it's not Apple that installs the spyware on their China devices to compromise iMessage nor is there a government backdoor to the iMessage in China.
We're on the same page.
The area where I'd question how complicit Apple is concerns the encryption method itself. For some unstated reason, Apple needed to create a different method in China than the rest of the world.
Tim Cook would publicly say it is even stronger than what Apple uses anywhere else, but that statement makes no sense. Why would a lesser one be used everywhere outside of China? The only general agreement is that Apple has crafted one that specifically pleases the Chinese government. Since no one outside of Chinese authorities and Apple has been given access to study its security there's nothing beyond a PR statement to confirm it's "better".
Democracy is not about right or wrong - it’s what the majority vote for, no matter how stupid they may be.
You should read up on the paradox of tolerance and the tyranny of the majority. Democracies are fragile and are not a goal unto themselves. The goal is a free and open society, and a democracy that protects against tyranny and intolerance is the best tool to achieve and maintain that. If the democracy in the UK (and the US, for that matter) can't protect against intolerance and tyranny over minority groups then it is broken.
But, as far as Brexit is concerned, the politicians supporting it were obviously, wittingly or unwittingly, tools of Vladimir Putin, and the voters duped.
Just curious, does the UK allow the Post Office to open mail without a search warrant?
The necessity of obtaining a search warrant is one of the firewalls against privacy intrusion in the US. I assume that obtaining a search warrant requires a judge to agree that there is probable cause to conduct a search for specific items and information. As far as I know Apple currently complies with legal requests backed by search warrants for information that it maintains within its system. But Apple does not maintain the private secrets or keys needed to unlock encrypted information stored within its system.
Allowing a government agency or their proxy to universally access any user’s information without obtaining a search warrant backed by probable cause and signed off on by a legal authority seems like a very grave violation of citizens’ rights, at least in most democratic countries. That alone should be a major inhibitor to the implementation of universal scanning even before the encryption matter comes into play.
Are the UK citizens okay with their government deciding that they have blanket probable cause to assume everyone using Apple’s electronic communication systems have potentially committed a crime? That’s a pretty harsh and degrading assumption. You’d think citizens in a non authoritarian democratic society would find this kind of behavior totally unacceptable and fire the elected officials who are proposing the scheme.
If by .."........ within its system" ... you mean the Apple cloud, then it's yes they do. When you do an encrypted backup of your device to the iCloud, Apple will encrypt the important data using a password you create. But Apple has access to that password you used. So they have access to your data backed up in the iCloud. If Apple did not have access to your password, they would not be able to recover your data, if you forgot your password. But there is a "forgot your password" feature that you can use to recover your iCloud data, if you forgot your password.
Now when you do an encrypted backup to a local device like a Mac, if you forgot your password, you're screwed. There's no way to recover your data if you were the only one that knew the password.
Now what Apple do not have is the passcode to your iOS device. The important data in there are also encrypted using your passcode and the Apple Secure Enclave chip on the device, to create a key. There is no way to un-encrypt that data without the passcode and the original device. Every Secure Enclave chip is unique to every device. This is why if the user made a iCloud backup of the device, Apple can handover the most recent iCloud backup to law enforcement with a warrant, even if the user did an encrypted backup with a password. But Apple can not handle over the data still in the device that wasn't backed up or since its last back up because Apple do not have access to the passcode.
The main theme of my posts over the last decade was to call for Apple to remove products or services from countries with over-controlling laws. After ten years of waiting, my dreams have come true. Maybe Tim Cook has finally decided to put up a fight, or maybe he's been reading my posts. Or maybe I'm still dreaming.
I'm assuming they'd still work if you use a VPN to appear out of the country to Apple servers.
I expect Signal would still just work, I can't imagine they'd go to any actual effort to break it, they'd just not "officially" support UK users.
They would be removed from the UK version of the App Store and as they are mostly indexed by telephone number they would disable any account that used a UK phone number.
While you may be able to do some workarounds the loss of critical mass and the fact you'd only be able to communicate with existing international users makes it not worth it.
Sadly I expect the current government in the UK thinks that Apple/Meta and Signal are bluffing, they aren't they are deadly serious and the UK is a small enough market they can that walk away from it.
The UK is largest market in EMEA by quite a margin.
I was under the impression that France was a larger market for Apple. Are you certain that UK is larger? In any case Apple management has already shown their staunch support for user privacy by default.
This is another of those interesting conundrums. Do I care if I can’t use iMessage or FaceTime? Probably not as I can use an alternative. Should Apple remove its security. No. If governments gain access so can anyone else. Do we want security on our phones? Yes, absolutely, we do as we carry out transactions on our phones which require complete security. Am I concerned about governments seeing my data? Probably not as I have nothing to hide. Do I want someone else seeing it? No I don’t. I don’t want Google pop-ups asking me to log in and I don’t want advertising. I won’t log into anything which is a pop-up and I won’t buy anything.
Ever hear the ancient Arab tale "The Camel's Nose"?
One cold night, a camel asks his master if he can put his head in the tent for warmth. “By all means and welcome,” said the man; and the camel stretches his head into the tent. Soon after, the camel inquires if he may also bring his neck and front legs inside. Again, the master agrees.
Finally, the camel asks, “May I not stand wholly within?” With pity, the master beckons him into the warm tent. But when the camel comes forward it becomes clear that the tent is too small for them both. “I think,” the camel said, “that there is not room for both of us here. It will be best for you to stand outside, as you are the smaller; there will then be room enough for me.”
Apple is the master. The UK is the camel. You are the tent, and when the camel shits, it's going to land on you.
Why does the camel even bother asking? He could have easily trampled his owner anytime he wanted to.
Sadly the debate is being held by those who do not understand the subject matter.
One cannot simply build a back door and only give the key to the good guys. If you build in a weakness it can be exploited.
Hopefully the message from experts will get through and the bill will be amended.
This debate also lies in the US Congress who thinks Apple can do the same. There's no such thing as a backdoor that's only accessible to certain organizations. Once it's there, it's only a matter of time before someone from the outside figures out how to exploit it and use it to their advantage. The problem is that we have old geezers in Congress that don't even know how to turn the damn phone on let alone try and understand technology these days.
From the country that instituted Brexit against popular opinion and had an unelected leader that was only in office for a few weeks, who destroyed hundreds of billions of pounds from their economy.
Either you’re a revisionist or you simple don’t understand how referendums work.
The vote for Brexit was clear, the majority of the population of the United Kingdom voted for it to happen (17.4M to leave vs 16.1M to remain).
Yes, Scotland and, to a lesser degree Northern Ireland, voted to remain. However even nearly 40% of the Scots voted to leave which is a fact that the SNP never recognises as they pretend that all of Scotland voted to remain in the EU.
Was it the right decision? Well, I don’t think we will truly know that for at least another 10 years. None of the prophetic doom and gloom scenarios ever got close to materialising and the country was always going to be worse off during the initial divorce stage.
Either way the result of the decision is largely irrelevant, what is relevant is that a democratic vote was taken and was then acted upon (albeit poorly).
This is how democracy dies. The "democratic vote" was driven by anti-immigrant and racist factions with big megaphones stoking the fires of fear and loathing in the population to the extent that they vote against their own interests.
Democracy is not about right or wrong - it’s what the majority vote for, no matter how stupid they may be.
The first Common Market referendum and EEC membership referendum was in 1975 , to gauge support for the country's continued membership of the European Communities (EC)
So that time (1975) the people voted to stay in then in 2016 another lot of people voted out. I could argue the first lot were manipulated and deceived by fear mongering (the disaster that would occur if the UK left), but that would be unfair.
Unfortunately this is democracy, other systems have been tried with not really any better results.
This is NOT democracy. This is subversion of democracy in favor of extremism, nationalism and racism. And it's the the next stop on the road to authoritarianism. Which is the next stop on the road to tyranny. Which is the final stop before the end of the road: tyranny.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
Alexander Fraser Tytler
How I love conversing with educated and thoughtful people like you, irnchriz! Well put, wasn't it? In fact, it was Plato's stated belief (in The Republic) that democracy is the worst form of government, for the same reason: it always descends into tyranny. But then, his ideal goverment was by enlightened monarchy, ie: a philosopher king or archon, such as Solon of Athens, or emperor, like Marcus Aurelius later on in Rome. Unfortunately, as Lord Dalberg-Acton observed in the 19th century, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The Socratic philosophy boils down to monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, autocracy, tyranny, totalitarianism. Rinse and repeat. My observation leads me to believe that America is in the final stages of democracy, degraded by the rise of oligarchs in and around all branches of government, determined to impose their autocratic lust on the rest of us.
That’s why we desperately need a convention of states to strip the federal government of all the extra powers it has granted itself over the last century.
This stupid piece of legalisation is unworkable and has nothing to do with its content. It is about painting the opposition as supporters of child pornography as we go in to the election season.
Thank you. This electoral strategy is imported from the US, and together with anti-abortion politics, is taking root across Europe and beyond. The purpose is to arouse strong emotions in the electorate, while ensuring that they remain uninformed of the actual issues that impact their lives.
Comments
The area where I'd question how complicit Apple is concerns the encryption method itself. For some unstated reason, Apple needed to create a different method in China than the rest of the world.
Tim Cook would publicly say it is even stronger than what Apple uses anywhere else, but that statement makes no sense. Why would a lesser one be used everywhere outside of China? The only general agreement is that Apple has crafted one that specifically pleases the Chinese government. Since no one outside of Chinese authorities and Apple has been given access to study its security there's nothing beyond a PR statement to confirm it's "better".
But, as far as Brexit is concerned, the politicians supporting it were obviously, wittingly or unwittingly, tools of Vladimir Putin, and the voters duped.
If by .."........ within its system" ... you mean the Apple cloud, then it's yes they do. When you do an encrypted backup of your device to the iCloud, Apple will encrypt the important data using a password you create. But Apple has access to that password you used. So they have access to your data backed up in the iCloud. If Apple did not have access to your password, they would not be able to recover your data, if you forgot your password. But there is a "forgot your password" feature that you can use to recover your iCloud data, if you forgot your password.
Now when you do an encrypted backup to a local device like a Mac, if you forgot your password, you're screwed. There's no way to recover your data if you were the only one that knew the password.
Now what Apple do not have is the passcode to your iOS device. The important data in there are also encrypted using your passcode and the Apple Secure Enclave chip on the device, to create a key. There is no way to un-encrypt that data without the passcode and the original device. Every Secure Enclave chip is unique to every device. This is why if the user made a iCloud backup of the device, Apple can handover the most recent iCloud backup to law enforcement with a warrant, even if the user did an encrypted backup with a password. But Apple can not handle over the data still in the device that wasn't backed up or since its last back up because Apple do not have access to the passcode.