Fights like this only legitimize the EU's DSA to me. UK users would not be beholden to Apple for E2EE if their clients had legitimate alternatives to the first-party iCloud service. There would be no world where Apple could even threaten to disable it.
Break the walled garden down, and all of the sudden it doesn't matter what Apple's stance on E2EE is. But Apple wouldn't want that, since then you might realize they aren't the sole arbiters of online privacy.
> There would be no world where Apple could even threaten to disable it.
They did not "threaten to disable it" and apple's stance on E2EE is not the issue here, UK's stance is. UK essentially made icloud E2EE by demanding apple to make a global backdoor into it, and essentially thus forced them to disable it. It is not disabled anywhere else in the world.
Essentially the UK (and other states) want somehow to have their pie and eat it too, but that's just not possible.
The torches and pitchforks that are soon to follow? You might get away with that in oppressive “some countries”, but I just can’t imagine it ending well in someplace like the UK.
I'd hope so, but you never know what you can get people to tolerate "for the children". This is, after all, the same UK population that voted these halfwits into power.
You're doing them a favour calling them halfwits, if most of the current crop of British politicians were light bulbs they wouldn't be bright enough the light the cupboard under my stairs.
That is the BEST trick politicians ever play on voters. They prefer to be called "stupid" while the end up their political careers millionaires, and getting hire in large-ehvil-corps doing FA for 6-7 digits per year.
I believe one of the filthiest snakes out there is Boris Johnson; yes the lunatic with the silly hair, who can recite HOMER in ANCIENT GREEK. And people still think he is 'stupid'? And all he does is 'mistakes'???? He is the filthiest of all snakes - except from his true masters (who is not the people).
So.. yeah. If they end up broke and in jail, they are stupid. If they end up working for 7 digits, and you cannot afford a home.. well..
This conclusion reframed my views of certain politicians, popularly assumed to be blithering idiots.
You don’t get there by being incompetent, you get there by being amazing at manipulation, cunning and whatever the positive coded synonyms of those words are.
Butchering common phrases on live TV, or spouting verifiable falsehoods are all part of the game. I feel stupid myself for not playing it as well.
I think someone can be very good at those and also very stupid when it comes to, say, encryption and societal side effects thereof. In fact I think it's quite common. Intelligence is multi-dimensional.
An intelligent person can understand what is encryption if they really want to. A member of a parliament that is trying to revoke all encryption, everywhere, does it because his/her masters demand so, not because they care.
Also, a good politician hates 'encryption' because they can't read your messages, read your mind, so you are dangerous because you can have independent thought which they cannot identify in order to manipulate.
Facebook/Cambridge Analytica is an amazing example for this.
"Boris Johnson, people always ask me the same question, they say, 'Is Boris a very very clever man pretending to be an idiot?' And I always say, 'No.'"
If it's indeed like you say, that sounds like a monopoly that should be addressed, not protected and allowed to do as it pleases.
Sure, it's orthogonal to the EE backdoor issue, but Apple or any other company, having a monopoly of a nations youths means of communication is still an issue.
Apple's not much of a monopoly in the UK. iMessage isn't anywhere near as popular here as the cross platform WhatsApp. Kids can choose between iPhone and Android, they aren't forced.
We in the UK just want the same products that are available everywhere else, including encryption.
I is smart!!! I escaped the 'corner of the market'
I used to have a simple Nokia back in the day. Then I switched to Compaq, then to HTC (Windows Mobile). Then back to Nokia 7110. Then to iPhone 3GS, then 4, 5, 6, then I stopped using iPhones and switched to Android.
But to be fair I'm 'in/into tech' since I was 9-10yo. I will jump from one tech to another when I think that this new tech will give me what I need at reasonable cost and at minimal privacy cost.
I remember loving syncing my Nokias with Outlook, then my iPhone, now my Android. There are always solutions out there and it is always easy to jump ship (at least for me). But I never used OneDrive or iCloud or Google Drive to begin with. So, for those who take the lazy approach, yes they will eat whatever is served and be thankful to their 'masters'.
For those who spend the time to think it through, there is no 'corner an entire market'.
The market hasn’t been “cornered” any more than breakfast has been “cornered” by eggs and bacon, but I dig the irony, here.
How do you plan to address this supposed monopoly? Force all children born in February and March to use Android only? Demand that people respond better to Samsung’s marketing? I’m a bit curious how you de-“monopolize” something consumers are choosing over numerous, plentiful competition.
Given you’re clearly a much better reader, can you explain how Apple’s, apparently, anti-competitive app ecosystem (from your links) is remotely similar to your assertion that merely being a more popular device with consumers is monopolistic? I mean, you did read those links right? You didn’t just google “apple monopoly” and then paste the results?
Starmer has a spine? He's a warmongering careerist shill, hateful of his own people, who never did anything remotely worthy of the Labour party pre-Blair legacy...
One of the least spine-owing politicians in the world
When your politician is using the same terminology and phraseology as George W. Bush, I'd say there's probably some war mongering going on.
trivial edit: that was the most recent Starmer clip, from a week or two ago. I was on my phone and i only really remembered the coalition of the willing quote. I don't know much else about Starmer, sorry!
What exactly in that short clip is so controversial?
I listened to the full speech when it was broadcast live recently. Everything he said made complete sense. Of course Europe needs to stand up and defend its territory from russian invaders. You can't possibly believe that bolstering defence in Europe is tantamount to warmongering, surely?!
Some people just think war = bad. That’s fine. Maybe we can run an experiment where the pacifists get their own country and set their defense and foreign policy and see how long Pacifistlandia remains a sovereign country.
I suppose Winston Churchill was a warmonger in some ways, too, but thank goodness he was.
So peace is bad, oppression through mask mandates is good, but let's not hold politicians to their own actual rules if they're in a position of influence?
That's what triggers you? That? People dying and your going to nitpick a comparison to the mental mass delusion of 2020-2024 when it magically got declared over...
Peace through Ukraine’s surrender is very obviously bad, and it’s no peace at all. It’s disappointing that this needs to be explained on HN of all places.
How about Ukraines unelected negotiations to join NATO?
What about the "Fatherland" party?
What about the corruption?
What about the money owed to Russia pre the war?
Please stop throwing around random facts or internet stuff to justify rhetoric. Peace is peace. If you want it to last both have to compromise.
This war didn't just start because someone woke up and decided let's start a new empire. Painting it as such is just part of a problem looking for a solution.
Also notice how at any point I am not saying an invasion is justified or correct. But the situation is that both sides are in a state of war and that peace is better for everyone. Everyone.
In all honesty cost for rebuilding _civilian_ infrastructure offset by a complete settling of all debts, ideally with an acknowledgement that the fighting was ultimately triggered by them regardless of the factors. Not that it was illegal, best let history decide that, but to put on paper they are the provocateur would be reasonable in that regard.
Not sure I believe the press either side over civilian exodus vs evacuations so I'll leave that to the negotiations.
And as a nice bonus a demilitarised zone and a framework for settling future disputes involving a 3rd party(parties).
With regards to land, imo that's unfortunately best either traded for goods or leave it as is. I'm not sure the original population needed for a sensible mandate in terms of political change exists anymore so any cries from the population either way have been let down by their leaders.
As for us no NATO, elections, settling of debts and disarmament probably backed by the reshaping of borders because what else does Ukraine have other than mineral wealth. And probably some agreement to build a gas framework that actually works or an agreement to dismantle the pipelines through this territory.
As for EU protections Russia never used to object to that but the name calling may have changed their minds.
Edit:
Name-calling tends to happen once someone had struck close to an unfortunate truth. At that point it's no longer a discussion or even an argument, it has descended into anarchy.
As it stands Russia's concerns were multi-faceted. 1) The un-elected negotiations toward ascension into NATO brought on by a Western backed convicted corrupt oligarch. 2) Said group was referring to itself as "Fatherland", last time we saw such rhetoric we ended up paying the price for several years. 3) There was no significant attempt after the revolutions to curtail talks of this nature and the political status-quo probably stood to benefit to pleading ignorant. 4) The debts from the gas pipeline are not insignificant, it's the reason Germany kept the peace broadly.
Russia was wrong to invade. This could have been settled otherwise, but would have taken a lot longer and would have been costly, i.e. economic warfare or trade disputes. Ultimately the nordic states changing their affiliation from neutral to pro-NATO has weakened Russia's hand so in that regard this invasion has already cost them face, as well as political and strategic manoeuvrability in this region.
If elections were such a foregone conclusion nobody would mind this statement, the reality is we expect change as a result, much as Chruchil never became de-facto king.
Want something from someone after spending months insulting them, don't be surprised when trust has gone which is the start of negotiations and ultimately the bedrock peace is built on. An example of that was recently demonstrated in the whitehouse where someone could have recently said, "yes and thankyou" and received all the help they could have wanted, but due to some biblical almost aesopian level of pride this never happened so no the reality on the ground changes. There's a reason for the saying of the pen is mightier than the sword.
Appeasement would be the further surrender of lands, the admission of guilt through actions that concerned and weren't approved of. The admission of guilt bearing the cost of rebuilding. The acknowledgement that certain other super-powers tried to extend their reach too far, and the surrender of land based not on ethnic breakdown but on capital gain. That is appeasement and thankfully is not something either side has seriously expected out of peace negations (yet, either side could say/do something stupid tomorrow I suppose).
If you meant disarmament of Russia, the aggressor, maybe you could be taken seriously. Disarmament of Ukraine, who has the clearest need for arms (by your own admission of Russia being the aggressor), is a sick joke. It would guarantee any "peace" so achieved is a lie.
No, just removing weapons doesn't foster peace. That is earned through working together and having socioeconomic shared interests, which ironically the people not the politicians have.
And at no point is unilateral disarmament sensible, that is capitulation. But arming one side to the teeth and walking away after peace just leads to more violence. It's the basis of so many sci-fi stories and clearly what has happened in recent post WW2 history. It's a bad idea.
Edit: also just ploughing in weapons wouldn't give peace or this conversation would be mute and people wouldn't be dying. Clearly a balance needs to be achieved.
Counter armoured vehicle weapons for Ukraine is sensible and clearly worked in the opening hours without giving them ambition of hitting Russia in advance.
No, of course military aid to Ukraine is only the barest pre-requisite to negotiations that might possibly lead to lasting peace. This can only be achieved if future Russian aggression is strongly deterred.
Do you really think Ukraine is going to attack Russia? They have no motive, they (along with the rest of Europe) were happy to do business with Russia until Russia's various aggressions (starting in 2014, mind you) soured them. No matter what happens they're not going to be in a state for aggression after this war, even if they have the appetite. Most of the arms we send them are being consumed. Even Russia will take a while to rebuild.
The aggressions started after Ukraine made moves (supported openly by unelected politically connected groups on _both_ sides) to join NATO after failing to do much to really make any attempt to deal with the corruptions around the gas supplies and arguable thefts. This with high level Washington persons involved.
This is like saying Russia's number 2 decided to visit Mexico after a political landslide and that America would be happy about that. Last time anything similar happened we got the bay of pigs...
Ideally a large demilitarised zone (which would obviously mean into Russian territories) would help people feel easier. That's unlikely to happen, but is the closest we'd get to something sensible. It's not about appeasement, but any peace is likely to involve land concessions. If not, the peace is American bought with huge interest terms which is closer to what we had crippling the kaiser and we all know how that ended...
Now, given that highly likely scenario its a bad idea to leave Ukraine with large amounts of Western mid range armorments. They won't be looking to take St Petersburg, but in the sort term future they may look to reunite post soviet territories which will just put us back to square 1.
The aggressions started after Ukraine made moves (supported openly by unelected politically connected groups on _both_ sides) to join NATO after failing to do much to really make any attempt to deal with the corruptions around the gas supplies and arguable thefts.
NATO had nothing to do with it. The idea of joining NATO had long been dead and buried by 2014. At the time, Ukraine had a pro-Russian president who would never have taken a step toward NATO. Instead, Ukraine was in the final stages of signing an association agreement with the EU, which would have opened up European markets and employment opportunities for Ukrainians. Russia applied immense pressure (including trade embargo and threats to cut energy supply) on Ukraine's pro-Russian president to abandon the treaty. He succumbed to the pressure, but faced massive domestic protests, which did not subside no matter how much violence was applied. This culminated in police snipers killing over 100 people and the president fleeing to Russia, where he remains hiding to this day.
Trying to portray a trade agreement with the EU as an existential threat to Russia was a tough sell, so Russians invented the entire NATO narrative.
I'm not talking about trade with the EU I'm taking about actions taken by the "fatherland" party combined with visits by US secretary of state who was vocal about the party leader being arrested, who Russia wanted imprisoned, who was imprisoned by the Ukrainian people after a trial for corruption (in effect having stolen money from Russia)...
This same political party which fails to make it into a significant position of power at home but still engages openly with foreign diplomatic entities close to or in the whitehouse included. Nothing conspiratorial, just 100% fact. Again this does not justify any military action, this is just the scene as things were before the war.
This is akin to the reform party in the UK negotiating with China or the liberal party in the USA negotiating with the EU. It could, should and would be shutdown by the ruling party unless it benefited them in some way.
Again imagine if a nation went through a revolution on the doorstep of America then Russia was to move to support this revolution unilaterally through arming them and supporting them. Regardless of subtitles this is the optics as seen by Russia. We know Ukraine was armed because otherwise there would be tanks in Kiev. Again this doesn't justify any military action, but the fact this happened behind the scenes and wasn't transparent concerns people.
Everybody knows there's Russian assets in Georgia now, this could be benign military aid and rest or could be nuclear first strike assets. Given the lack of transparency we have to assume the latter, that is how risk assessment works.
> The aggressions started after Ukraine made moves (supported openly by unelected politically connected groups on _both_ sides) to join NATO after failing to do much to really make any attempt to deal with the corruptions around the gas supplies and arguable thefts.
Have you not made clear that you don't consider this a justification for invasion? Then why do you keep bringing it up? That's why you sound like a Russian shill, because those are Russian talking points. They only serve to distract from the main dynamic of the situation. The rest of us recognize that those are an entirely lower tier of concerns relative to the global incentives for wars of conquest.
Note that Ukraine started with an unusually large stockpile of Soviet arms, with which they completely failed to invade Russia. I repeat: most of the arms being sent to Ukraine are consumed. That includes the vehicles. Even in the best case scenario they'll be lucky to break even, much less end up with a huge stockpile. As things were going during the war even before Trump's freeze, they were barely staying ahead of attrition.
Also note: your Ukrainian invasion scenario presupposes that there will be some complicated/stupid re-arrangement of borders. No kidding, that would cause problems. Maybe you're starting to get an inkling why a lot of us don't consider that acceptable? (In my view, the only sensible arrangement is a return to the 2014 borders, whereupon the Ukrainian side of the border turns into miles of minefields. You can consider that a DMZ or territorial concession if you like. Certainly neither side will be using it productively.)
I find it funny that you're proposing a demilitarized zone that extends into Russian territory. They won't accept that in a million years, unless you kick their asses on the battlefield even harder than I'm proposing. As in, they might actually break out the nukes first... Wait, what's this?
> With regards to land, imo that's unfortunately best either traded for goods or leave it as is.
I guess you actually don't have a consistent position, because "as is", with half of four different Ukrainian oblasts under Russian control, is nowhere near a DMZ in Russia. Even if you call it an aspirational vs good enough goal, the policies implied by those proposals are irreconcilable. One of them is capitulation, one of them is tantamount to WWIII.
> That's why you sound like a Russian shill, because those are Russian talking points
Reason and justification are different. If you don't understand this please steer clear of upper management or politics in your career for everyone sake. Bay of pigs was not justified yet nobody is freaking about that incident they wave a banner and start chest thumping "because we're the good guys"... If Russia wanted to march on Kiev and damn civilian casualties they could have done so on the first few weeks. Clearly Russia is not interested in this and clearly the West until recently hasn't been interested in reducing the death toll so we keep throwing people at the guns to make a point of who is stronger and who can outlast which isn't David and Goliath, it's a significant fraction of the Ukrainian people Vs a fraction of Russia's standing army.
Again this isn't insulting those in a position of fighting. They probably have a "ours is to do or die" situation. But given that a lot of Western weapons are now ending up in the world's black markets and corruption again and again from the top, this is being faught less strategically by either side and more a case of who can feed the meat grinder the most bodies.
> Maybe you're starting to get an inkling why a lot of us don't consider that acceptable?
And again nobody is promoting that. Nobody is yet. Nobody is saying that is for the better. Nobody is saying this is amazing.
People are saying there were large highly polarised pro Russian regions within Ukraine before this war started and deciding to make them subservient to Kiev without an acknowledgement of their political right to self determination is a problem. Again this isn't a justification it's an unfortunate fact. But demanding a "restore everything to what it was and go away", is just saying "I refuse to listen to you I'm going to do my thing", which is where a lot of the political strife comes from. Demanding the borders be exactly as you want them is fine, but what does that mean? What do they want and how do you get to get to a point where both are satisfied if not happy? American and Russian investment in the region and profits split between everyone? It's a sensible goal. If people present this calmly hell it might even happen, but chest thumping will make sure it doesn't.
Regardless of how we got here now. This is the situation. It needs to be fixed and the fix saves lives.
Yes Ukraine denuclearized. And before that we had Vlad the impaler running the region and before that...
There is history and there are direct contributing factors to an incident. I'm not bringing up ancient historical points I'm bringing up factors relating to individuals who were in positions of influence and power when the war started. That unfortunately has a direct bearing on the situation. I'm sure if Dr Christmas was working in her region we'd be discussing her background in arms reduction at the time but that is settled. (Yes bad 007 reference)
My point is that if we want to go back far enough who drew up borders, when, how and we're there sensible are basically the reasons for most global conflicts currently being faught. And most are a result of a collapsing empire giving someone who was a friend just a little bit more support, power, weaponry and land then they should have received in fairness. Eventually countries in this situation collapse as was almost happening in Ukraine in 2020, saying Russia bad for supporting people to wanted to leave Ukraine is the same as saying Hillary was misguided for visiting or we should arrest the Spanish politicians who wanted the same recently for their region. No matter how it's cut it's oppression of a popular option by a state. And for sake of clarity, yes we all know Russia could give a masterclass on disappearing and killing political dissidents. In that regard, yes, current Russian political people bad. But that doesn't mean they will go away because you don't like them. It means you have to understand them, engage with them and try to find common ground whilst hoping the situation internally changes naturally like Gorbochev coming to power. Saying Russian plants, simps and CIA assets is often an extension of either sides true political influence abroad, and something to be feared, but trump is no more a KGB agent than Putin is an MI5 asset gone rouge. Great, even compelling fiction, but not real.
Ok on this point at agree the war only lasted more than about a week because of Western intervention. We're ignoring the socioeconomic divides that existed within the country and we're supporting the side we like strongly. Why before the war were Ukraine troops being trained in Western countries? This again looks like a prelude to something or another Castro like insurgency on Russian borders.
Yes Russia engaged in a trade war over trade. Omg. So does the UK, India, China, now America... This is a million miles away from a shooting war in terms of justification and frankly may contribute to bad blood, but is just trade. Given that this kept leading to Ukraine flip flopping rather of picking sides rather than finding a way to work with both shows how the country is being abused by both sides to their own ends at the cost of the Ukrainian people ultimately as with all conflicts sadly.
Actually there's precedent for DMZ within territories within the region and moving back military assets from a flash point is sensible global politics. If this isn't obvious again then cest la vie. Again beating the "Russia will never do this unless we fight them" is stupid, it's a clear line in the sand that shows you understand their upper hand and strategic and military might which doesn't compromise because they likely gained territory. However deciding that we're going to engage in a proxy war just fight Russia is just admitting we want to send more people to die.
I hate to bring it up but for those feeling passionately enough, there has been very little Western govt effort to stop individuals to go and join the war effort with Kiev if you believe this is a manpower or technical challenge to be overcome. The sad reality is tanks in Kiev and political arrests by day 4 or 5 of the war would have probably been less bloody in the short and medium term and we'll never know if Russia was looking to hold the country or simply bring about change because we're not Russia.
Yes again, for the umpteenth time Russia is clearly the aggressor. Nobody is denying this unless they're trolling you. But people thumping their chests thinking this is a cold war starting again. Get a break. This is an isolated incident with complex history not the "the first domino to fall". With that regard it needs to be treated like it is. Not a battlefield that needs a surrender by one side. But a conflict that can be stopped by hearing where the differences now lie.
If you want to view the world as black or white America is a country founded on the slaughter of indigenous peoples by a group who demonstrably wrongly claim religious oppression who have taken land and assets from indigenous and local people's around the world and refuse to give them back. Hawaii being an excellent example, but then we have Iraq and our original "coalition of the willing" who openly declared an illegitimate war, but people now shrug that off as "well can't change that now". Direct USA involvement alone as well as the impact of EU states in several middle Eastern countries is worse than a week defined conflict with all defined goals. The coalition of the willing have us death, oppression and then a return to a hungry starving people.
Both are bad. Both could be resolved better. But true global politics is closer to giants in the playground so we should be trying to get them to stop standing on anthills.
I don't believe those are even the real reasons, but that's not my point: talking about them at all does Russia's propaganda work for them.
> If Russia wanted to march on Kiev and damn civilian casualties they could have done so on the first few weeks.
Are you kidding me? Russia literally did send tanks and airborne troops to Kyiv in the first days of the war. They've been targeting civilians with missiles. What planet are you on?
Labelling something a "talking point" is dangerous and only suits to dilute context employing a fallacy in an argument unfortunately.
Ok let's remove rhetoric.
There is a disagreement which has turned into a shooting match or armed conflict. People are dying and there's destruction going on.
We want to resolve this.
That involves people sitting down and not shouting or name calling but talking.
Resolution involves compromise, compromise brings peace.
This is ignoring the fact that one player is much bigger than the other, who is right or wrong, but simply trying to move forwards.
Unfortunately the point that the tanks were knocked out by Ukraine within the opening hours on Ukrainian soil is a "Russian talking point". Kiev was clearly armed with Western anti tank weapony beyond their means and arguably beyond their financial ability to pay for (arguably).
A Western talking point is that Russia is much bigger, a known bully and could have worked to resolve this. Yes they could. But the other party involved was sitting there claiming they're a bully and are "just going to attack no matter what"... It's sad but the response is really calculable at that point.
Russia did not send it's high class latest tanks for the same reason we aren't seeing the latest and greatest American vehicles holding the line in a shooting war, that is a different level of aggression that would have different consequences. That is closer to a blitzkrieg and so was likely not the point of the engagement. (From the perspective of a military analyst position).
Russia has hit civilians with missiles yes. Again you're taking what I have said and extending it to make claims I am not making. Please stop this it gets old.
Israel hits civilian targets, not casualties, _targets_, and the world sits in silence this is a concerning reality.
The fighting in Ukraine is over Ukrainian soil so yes most of the casualties are Ukranian. This is not saying this is justified or correct again, this is not saying they should be Russian, this is saying water is wet and the survival rate of CV19 for non at risk groups was >99%>> these are all, uncomfortable for some, facts.
Again Russia could hit much harder and be more deadly. I hope for all that is sensible they don't, but they're capability compared to Ukraine is a different league. Like it or dislike it they are obviously showing restraint of a kind by not carpet bombing the whole country and moving the Russian border to Poland.
Again, does this make what they've done correct, or nice or good or defensible. No.
Again understanding a position is not defending it it's understanding context that helps understand the problem which helps conversations and candidly helps peace.
No, facts are facts. Interpretation is what's the problem. And unless you look at all facts this will be biased due to lying to yourself. Also known as being in a bubble online.
Truth is a 3 edged sword.
But frankly if you're going to insist on facts not being facts I'll just bid you good day and go back to gardening.
Are you russian by any chance? Or just deeply, irredeemably brainwashed?
> Not that it was illegal
Yes it was.
> Not sure I believe the press either side over civilian exodus vs evacuations
Straying into conspiracy territory again, unsurprisingly.
> And as a nice bonus a demilitarised zone
Ah, you mean a DMZ in Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod, and so on, down the internationally recognised border? Somehow, I don't think you do.
> With regards to land, imo that's unfortunately best either traded for goods or leave it as is
Surprise, surprise. You want to give the terrorists everything they want.
> no NATO
That's not for you or russia to determine. And this was never about NATO anyway, given that NATO has been on russia's immediate land border for decades already. The narrative about NATO is yet more kremlin bullshit that you not only believe, but propagate here.
> elections
The Ukrainian opposition parties don't want this, so why do you? Zelensky's approval rating is through the roof. Ukrainians trust Zelensky. He is a true hero.
> As for EU protections Russia never used to object to that but the name calling may have changed their minds.
Oh really? The EU are now the bad guys for saying mean things? Oh goodness, poor russia. My heart truly bleeds. Yes, I can now understand why they've killed hundreds of thousands of people, tortured people, raped people, stolen children, levelled entire cities, displaced millions. Yes, yes. How dare we say mean things.
---
Honestly, I find you disgusting. This discussion is over.
My original and edited comment stands. You can resort to name-calling that's your prerogative, or you can engage like an adult seeing a solution to a problem.
I'm not insulting you by saying that, but you're clearly very emotionally invested and might benefit from distance if claiming to have a solution to a problem.
The most literal whataboutism. Classic. Peace that teaches other aggressors that they can keep their gains is incredibly dangerous. Peace that's only waiting for the aggressor to build up their military again is not good enough. It won't last. It's just war on pause.
> This war didn't just start because someone woke up and decided let's start a new empire.
You're almost right! The Russian empire is very old. They just want it back.
Lol, you know nothing about my politics. There are a lot of "crowds" who agree on Ukraine, because the facts are very clear. Particularly, Russia's failure to ever negotiate in good faith.
Maybe instead of editing in random calls to invade moscow, which I'm well aware is historically a bad plan, you should edit that second sentence to read like actual English. Not that its content seems relevant anyway, but maybe I'd change my mind if I could make head or tail of it. No one needs to march to Moscow except Moscow. Sheesh.
Edit: oh, you did fix it. I was right about it being irrelevant though.
No and I don't care to know about your politics. You seem so keen to tell me mine.
I'd be very weary of the "wisdom of crowds" fallacy. That is some very wet sand to build a house or argument on. And actually shows how relevant the previous comment of mine is. The attitude towards the war is the same as attitudes around CV19 very unhealthy in terms of discourse and built on emotion not fact. Emotion is important but doesn't put bread on the table.
Also, omg a typo... I warn you avoid irc if that offends your sensibilities "m8".
Indeed, the various people who understand what Russia is about are a consequence of the truth, not a proof of it. I only mentioned it to point out how laughable it was to lump me in with weird burka-wearing activists just because I support aid for Ukraine.
Because unfortunately it's become rather polarised in the same way COVID did, with exactly the same lives drawn within the mentality of people in Europe. The group is defined by it's majority because that is how a group is defined, anything else starts to get Orwellian unfortunately.
Unfortunately for me the position I hold is also held by corrupt autocrats, technocrats, bible thumpers, trolls and idiots who simply believe the opposite of the govt simply because they always think they're being 100% lied to 24/7...
The truth as always as somewhere in the middle. As is hopefully a lasting peace.
I'll admit I can be wrong and maybe I get quick to reply after being called an idiot by fools online. Hell I might even be wrong now. Ultimately doesn't effect me rightly or wrongly. And it doesn't mean I wish ill for someone who disagrees with me, especially if they took the time to form an educated opinion.
I'd never deny Russia is in the wrong. And with a fair world Russia would pay a heavier toll for a war they started. But there is a large crowd who are practically calling for an invasion of Russia simply because Russia bad and Ukrainians walk on water.
There is a reason so many bad action movies ended up in Eastern Europe on their final fight or explosion scenes and that is always because of the rampant corruption and political problems in the area. Unfortunately this is a case of art imitating life. (Obviously with exaggerated "artistic" licence)
You could just as well argue that changing direction or admitting you got things wrong requires more spine than blindly sticking to the same direction even in light of new information.
Whether that applies to Starmer is a matter of opinion I suppose
Lol. If trump said jump it wouldn't be how high it'd be straight in front of a bullet for this lot.
It's pretending to claim we have a position other than pandering to both the EU and Trump whilst not actually taking responsibility to do anything (other than act as a banker)
I mean, sure, the US also elected some people who oppose the wannabe fascist dictator in chief, but we did elect the wannabe fascist dictator. There are a lot of forces, but the vector sum is distinctly fuckwitted.
I don't know how UK electorate feels about this, global backdoor feels like much more unreasonable ask than domestic backdoor. Really takes particular hubris to ask for it in the first place.
There’s not really a difference. Once you’ve got the ability to selectively disable encryption and you’ve folded to one regime, you’re gonna fold to them all.
Apples stance on E2EE is off by default. UK stance is no E2EE at all.
If Apple wasn't a walled garden neither opinions would matter since the user could just decide for themselves without Apple or the government having power over it.
I dislike how removing a optional feature is being equated to a backdoor since unlike this situation it would effect everyone without there knowledge. If no E2EE is a backdoor then Apple by default is backdoored (which it is but people here like to pretend otherwise).
> without Apple or the government having power over it
As we are talking about E2EE for cloud storage, governments have very much control over it as in banning the use certain software by law and applying it through ISPs and other means. Not saying I wouldn't prefer a scenario where there was indeed some degree of such choice, but that would not change anything if a government decides it does not want E2EE.
> Apples stance on E2EE is off by default
True E2EE in the context of cloud storage has also certain downsides that one should acknowledge, notably if you lose access to your keys your data is effectively gone. When we talk about a large userbase that includes people who do not have a good understanding of this fact (prob most people) and this choice is not made by themselves in a more conscious manner, this could be a headache for a company (and customer service). Go to subreddits of E2EE encrypted services and notice how often people come up with having forgotten their passwords thus effectively their keys and their data (and that's an audience making a more conscious choice) and not actually understanding that forgetting password + losing any recovery keys = loss of data and that proton cannot give them access back (if they could, there could not be much privacy there). I am not saying that E2EE is bad, but that it is not necessarily the best choice for everybody, and thus I have no issue with apple's opt-in approach.
>governments have very much control over it as in banning the use certain software by law and applying it through ISPs and other means.
They ofc can however it would take a new even more tyrannical law that applies to each citizen which would impact all encrption software not just apple. The Cryptowars have also shown that such laws are not only technical unenforcable but also economical disadvantageous.
> new even more tyrannical law that applies to each citizen which would impact all encrption software not just apple.
The current law does impact all encryption, not just Apple. It gives the government the right to force any provider to backdoor their encryption, and gags those providers in the process. There's nothing in the law that restricts it to Apple, or to cloud providers, or to large companies, or to it being blanket applied to all providers of encryption operating in the UK.
The only reason why we're talking about it with regards to Apple, is because Apple is the first confirmed case of a provider being instructed to backdoor their crypto, and we only know about it because the order leaked, and Apple coincidently took public action that unambiguously confirmed the leaked info.
Apple’s stance is not all E2EE is off by default… Instead there are a set of things which are E2EE when you are using Standard Data Protection and a wider set of things become E2EE when you opt-in to Advanced Data Protection.
What’s changing is the UK government is apparently serving a Technical Capability Notice compelling Apple to provide access to their customers data, and the only reasonable way for Apple to comply is to remove ADP as an option in the United Kingdom.
You can have a service beyond the reach of UK law enforcement. Somehow piracy on the clearnet never really stopped with it being illegal in most countries.
You're suggesting that Apple, a giant publicly traded company with known people that can be summoned to court and assets located in places that can be seized, should ignore lawful orders from a country they are operating in?
Can I ask you how you think that would play out?
>Somehow piracy on the clearnet never really stopped with it being illegal in most countries.
I'm sure you can spot the difference between a small group of people running a piracy site and a multinational company selling physical devices in physical stores.
> Any sufficiently popular alternative would be subject to the same issue: you can't backdoor encryption without making it insecure.
I'm just saying this is not true because you can have a company without any legal presence, thus susceptibility to law enforcement, in the UK. The legal issue will be shifted onto the user, but it's hard to go after millions of users compared to one big company.
The parallel with piracy is that they also tend to be operated from beyond the jurisdiction of countries enforcing the copyright.
That's mostly because of them using Musk's other business as leverage. A good company created explicitly to operate like this has no such vulnerability. The UK can try to stop them by trying to block the IPs or whatever, and the company is in turn free to try to circumvent it. The only issue is they may be banned from App store, which is a self-inflicted problem caused by Apple.
They simply blocked the whole of X in the whole of Brazil. They made it a crime to circumvent the block, so of course you could still access it with a VPN, as long as you didn't log into any account tied to your presence in Brazil, making it useless for politicians and the like. They didn't need to "use another business as leverage."
> you can't backdoor encryption without making it insecure.
That’s not really true is it? If I have a building where every room has its own key, but there is also a “master key” that can open all doors; then it’s not “insecure”. You want to be pretty bl—dy careful with that master key, sure, but the idea isn’t crazy.
Physical analogies don't really work in this situation because of the scale, and the payout.
A physical master key for a building has a few hundred thousand/a few million people that could potentially access it. The payout is low (i.e. the motivation is low on average)
An encryption backdoor to phones has a few billion people that could potentially access it. From anywhere in the world. The payout is huge (access to all iPhones).
Multiple entire governments would dedicate tens of millions of dollars and thousands of people to gain access to a ubiquitous backdoor on something like a phone. The same just isn't true with your building analogy -- they are completely different.
More to the point, a master key is a management tool for infrastructure maintenance. Its relationship to security is that I can securely keep all the monkeys organized in my monkey hut. The master key exists in a world where you can throw a brick through a window.
Security *around* the master key is entirely about pinning liability to one human being at a time. Security through hot potato.
It doesn’t have to be one key for all, one key for a bucket, per user if needs be. Can’t these master keys be in offline HSM’s? I get your argument, but it doesn’t seem an impossible problem to solve.
So the UK government would buy one HSM for every UK citizen and store their backdoor access key on there?
And put the HSMs where? In a big room? Protected by a door, with one key?
Or maybe each of the 650 elected politicians gets to hold 10 HSMs, each holding 10,000 keys? That way, by distributing trust, we can be completely sure that politicians are always snooping on about 10% of everyone's mails, instead of worrying about whether it's 100% or 0% at any particular moment.
It's (perhaps not?) well known that locks that are master keyed are inherently less secure than locks that aren't
It requires roughly half the picking effort.
in a lock you have multiple sets of pins. the key pushes pins, and if it pushes all the pins so that the top of the pin is at the boundary of the lock (the shear line), the lock turns.
There is a spring that pushes a connected pin down, which is what actually prevents the lock from turning. These are called driver pins. there is a separate pin(s) that the key actually interfaces with. The key pushes the pins until the driver pin moves past the shear line, when all driver pins and key pins are not interfering with the shear line, you can rotate/whatever the key and it is unlocked.
A master-keyed lock has additional discs inside the keyway, usually below the normal pins (closest to the key.) The discs are added based on the amount of extra movement needed to accept both the non-master, and the master key. So a master keyed lock has two, separate shearing points, the top of the regular pin, and the top of the master disc. This means there are at least two set-points for picking to get the driver pin out of the way - where the driver pin is flush with the shear line (as it would be with a regular, non-master key,) and where the normal pin's lower face is flush with the shear line (as it would be when a master key is inserted).
That master key sounds like a high value target, if it can open so many doors. Are you sure the one who guards that key is storing it securely enough and not just in a keyring together with other "important" keys he sometimes carries around needlessly? Are you sure he can't be coerced into "borrowing" it to someone, or handing it over to the police without first letting a lawyer check the warrants?
Have you considered that the locks need to have a weaker security if a key must exist which can open all the doors in the building?
The last part is probe to discussion, though. You need to make the lock weaker, yes, but maybe just a little bit and you maybe need 4.5 days to open it vs. the 5 days when there is no master key. It is a matter of math (mechanics in that case) and risk assessment.
The ability to steal the master key by virtue of it being a physical object is SEVERAL orders of magnitude lower than a "virtual master key" that is potentially vulnerable to the entire online community.
If you consolidate security into a singular "skeleton key" - you 100% weaken your security.
I'm all for the DSA as well, but this argument doesn't hold water. Any sufficiently large cloud provider alternative (ie. Google, Microsoft, etc) would likely be the target of similar government instructions. In fact, I bet they already are - they just can't talk about it.
And of course, it's already possible to disable iCloud backups and use a smaller provider or host your own alternatives. I already do, through Nextcloud, etc. It's not as fully integrated of course, but you bet that if it was, then the largest alternatives would be targeted all the same.
If Apple were to add new APIs, it might be possible to use personal cloud storage (NAS, Decentralized Web Nodes, etc.) with the same UX as iCloud with E2EE.
> it might be possible to use personal cloud storage [...] with E2EE
Which would quickly become illegal if UKGOV is set on getting access to people's iOS backups / cloud storage / etc. Hell, it's already a legal requirement to hand over your keys if UKGOV demands them[0].
[0] "Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 part III (RIPA 3) gives the UK power to authorities to compel the disclosure of encryption keys or decryption of encrypted data by way of a Section 49 Notice." https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investig...
Scale matters. Police don't have the time to go through everyone's computers. It is much easier to scan everyone's conversations, notes, or photos. Cloud storage invites this kind of mass surveillance by being high-value targets with little capacity to resist.
Ah, so in the UK or China this could go through a proxy that steals all the keys.
Half the computer crimes in the UK involve illegal access to the PNC (police national computer), how exactly do we think this would go.
For all the checks you put on people who can access this stuff the temptation is too big - just look at the intelligence analysts using systems to stalk Exs etc.
For any system like this to exist you must ask yourself if you would be happy with the worst person you know having a job where they have access to it.
You can always have an company without legal presence in the UK to do the operations, beyond the reach of the UK government. If you are allowed to run your own software on your devices, you can always encrypt before sending. Apple and to a lesser extent Google got themselves in this position of being able to spy by building their walled gardens.
The UK demands a backdoor in the backups, so having an alternative backup app isn't the solution here. All the alternatives would just get forced into also adding backdoors, or everyone working for the companies that provide alternatives find themselves unable to ever enter the UK again.
That said, I do wish there were more backup solutions for mobile platforms. Android has an API for this, but it's only available to software signed with manufacturer keys. LineageOS and various other custom ROMs use this to allow Seedvault backups, but as a stock Android user I can only pick between Google backups and no backups.
On the other hand, these backups do contain material you don't necessarily want random apps to have access to. Seeing how powerful stalkerware/"parental control" already is on Android, I recognise that there are dangers that the general population might not realise. Adding additional warnings and messages about backups (even when the backups are made using manufacturer software) would probably strike a balance, though.
Both Apple and Android (stock) are candidates for anti-monopoly regulations regarding the limited, vendor locked backup API.
Enforcing choice of the backup solution would solve the problem of rogue countries like the UK meddling with privacy and security.
Like the browser choice, backup provider choice can end up being enforced, likely by the EU as they have a good history of breaking up vendor lock-ins.
Possibly an information/lobby campaign can be started and endorsed by some major online storage providers?
I agree, though with Android an argument can be had that Samsung and other manufacturers can offer alternatives if they want to (they have their own stores and their own platform keys).
I don't think there's a large lobby for the backup app industry but a lawsuit against Apple/Google/Samsung should be easily won here.
No android backup software I've seen is remotely good enough though: as in "indeop my phone in a shredder, and replace it with another identical model but thanks to the backup it relaunches exactly as it was"
Like a bunch of stuff will backup data, yet it's just about impossible to autonomously and confidently ensure I can restore my home screen and other app configuration data.
OP here. I am sympathetic, really I am, but the challenge then is a diversity of solutions tends to lack really good high quality security systems integration, meaning that data leaks differently. It's hard to have a high integrity solution which is an open standard and implemented equally well by all players.
One of the hardest problems you can face is getting a community of disparate developers to do the right thing at scale; sometimes the easiest solution for that is a monolithic integrated blob.
I agree, that's why I applaud smart regulation. Apple is a disparate business too, you have no way to bring them to the table for doing "the right thing" unless there's some threat of repercussions.
It's really easy for Apple to back themselves into a vulnerable corner with the "ecosystem" mentality drawn out to it's logical extremes. I'd argue it's our democratic duty to stop businesses from endangering their customers like that, but that really depends on how you feel about consumer protections.
How is an exploration of broad spectrum legislative attacks on all forms of encryption regardless of hosting and corporate ownership and data communication moot?
The UK has to formally ask for a backdoor, the United States has the leverage to coerce Apple into implimenting one while demanding that it remain a secret. We don't know if the US has implemented equivalent iCloud backdoors yet, it might be under wraps like the push notification bug.
Maybe that doesn't concern you though, and that's fine. Apple is always looking for customers that don't care that much about their devices.
Is there any particular reason you ignored Apple's admission of extralegal surveillance that they were demanded to hide by the US government?
If you want to turn this into a relativist pissing contest, be my guest. I think it's a moot point, since the United States is complicit in an even more heinous form of surveillance. Don't moralize to me when America refuses to lead by example, this is the precedent that we set.
For a start the vector is very different. And I don't doubt there are unknown other attacks. But I'm discussing attacks we know about because they put them in policy papers and legislation.
The UK is the one saying that they have the right to request backdoor access to any E2EE services.
This could extend to any app available in the UK market, or in preventing the phone makers from allowing software to run that is not approved by the UK.
A truly open software ecosystem would make this harder to enforce, but it wouldn't stop them from trying.
So the question in my mind is: is the UK Government attempting to cover-up its previous advocacy of ADP, by censoring this old document?
In a word, yes.
I'd be fascinated to know who in the hive mind decided to do it though; I can't see someone too senior coming up with an http redirect as the answer. I guess the scrub order came down the chain and an automaton jumped into action.
Interestingly, the well respected head of the Home Office announced departure around the same time as this story breaking.
There are always lots of juicy things going on in the big government departments, so connections could be made at almost any time. But the timing and quick departure does seems notable.
There is absolutely no reason why the public at large can't know that some three letter agency is legally forcing a company to provide information with a national security letter. The public knowing that this is happening doesn't divulge any useful information to anyone. The fact that free speech is in fact being trounced in the US is really freaking gross to me.
I don't disagree that it can change behavior, but surely many or most of these nefarious actors must already assume that uploading illegal materials to Apple or Google, whether they claim E2EE or not, is a risk? See for example Apple's ditched efforts to scan and flag CSAM material on-device.
My assumption has been that the real bad guys use their own infrastructure attached to anonymous access methods like Tor, or using anonymous file sharing accounts that can't be tied to an iPhone's serial number. Maybe that's not true?
Offering transparency in these areas may help to understand whether the government is really doing this to arrest criminals, or just to have unfettered access to everyone's data.
Literally any bad actor with half a brain cell assumes every large american tech company has been served a NSL. Disallowing them from disclosing they received one seems pretty pointless and only done to prevent bad optics and public opinion
It's not naive. I can definitely see value in a two-tier warrant system. The first (and normal one), just like a physical warrant: you know you're being searched. The second, and it is much harder to get: a covert warrant, more like a wiretap.
The oversight body is the legislature. The judiciary has no ability to provide oversight. The judiciary cannot act on it's own. It cannot conduct investigations. It can only act on cases and motions within those cases. The two ideas you've presented do not have anything to do with eachother.
The good news: The US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is fully aware of the request and has responded to a letter from Congress about it. She has stated that in her opinion, while this plays out, it would actually be possibly illegal for the UK to make this request, let alone Apple to comply with it, under the US CLOUD Act. If this is true, Apple will have no choice but to leave the UK than comply, and the UK will find themselves in a no-win situation for this demand.
Edit: This is in addition (for better or worse, I’m just the messenger) to Trump personally calling the EU’s rules for tech unfair, JD Vance giving a speech accusing the UK and Europe at large of violating free speech, the UK’s prime minister being personally teased by Vance at their meeting about free speech (overshadowed by Zelensky’s meeting later the same day), and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr stating the EU Digital Services Act is incompatible with American free speech values. In my opinion, this turned out to be the dumbest possible time for the UK to attempt such a move, even if it wasn’t foreseeable when the demand was issued.
That's great news, now Ron Wyden won't have to feel so lonely when congress ignores his demands to end illegal surveillance of American citizens. It'll be like a hunky-dory, bipartisan "anti-surveillance surveillance club" or something!
Interesting that these five eyes nations are backing out of intelligence sharing with the US, and also removing the advice to use Apple encryption. Does this mean the US is able to get that encrypted data in plaintext already, and was previously sharing such with these governments? Now they won't have that and need (want) to see the communications move to platforms they have readily access to.
One part of the UK government is trying to force Apple to introduce back doors in cloud data encryption. The back doors are intended for UK government access to user data. This undermines the whole feature. Meanwhile, other parts of the UK government have been encouraging at-risk people to use the same feature, including to hide information from hostile foreign governments. The UK government as a whole has apparently realized that this is embarrassing and taken down the advice.
Surely Apple's lawyers can use this information in court - the fact that the government itself is relying on, and recommending, citizens and (presumably) intelligence assets to use Apple's encryption technology abroad makes it VERY clear that outlawing said technology will systematically weaken ALL UK information infrastructure and make it 110% easier for foreign powers to exploit and sabotage the UK as whole.
edit: removed political quip since, as evidenced by sub-comments, it too easily derails from the primary discussion point, excuse-moi.
If you think Reform are likely to be in favour of anything other than the most authoritarian implantation of whatever law enforcement suggests they want, I don’t think you’ve been paying attention to who Reform are.
Well, the rumor is that Apple has secretly appealed the order (which is officially secret) to whatever secret tribunal reviews such secret orders to create secret features giving secret government investigations access to various people's secrets. The Court of the Star Chamber, I think it's called.
Which is at least Apple doing something vaguely like fighting. But, yeah, UK citizens might want to think hard about doing something about the situation themselves. For one thing, Apple will probably lose. And the US government isn't going to have Apple's back against the UK, either.
It was not removed out of embarrassment, it's just wrong advice. The government can't tell people use this feature, because the feature no longer exists for them to use.
Uk Govt wanted Apple to give them backdoor keys to all accounts. Not even just UK accounts, all accounts. Apple said no and said they will remove encryption from iCloud for UK users. Apple then sued UK govt to try and get the whole thing stopped so that they dont need to remove the encryption from UK. But some parts of the govt were telling other parts to use some of the encryption features.
As I understand it (which might be incorrect), they don't want to tell people "use Apple encryption" anymore and e silently removed that advice from their websites. Probably due to the fact that they didn't get their Backdoor access to user data, so now they want people to just now encrypt stuff
Why bother? They can just visit Cloudflare HQ, who already proxy 19.3%[1] of the internet. AFAICT, all https traffic proxied by them is accessible to them in plaintext. Of course, Cloudflare are disallowed by law from letting us know if the UK government were surveilling all of their proxied traffic.[2]
It surprises me I don't hear more about this in tech circles to be honest because it's something that concerns me greatly.
I like Cloudflare as a product, but it seems to me they've effectively made privacy from state actors online impossible.
Of course, if you cared enough you don't have to use services that use Cloudflare or other reverse proxy services, but most of the web is behind a reverse proxy these days making that difficult.
It's also understandable why services opt to use a Cloudflare proxy, what with the growing threat that is DDoS attacks from large botnets.
I feel we should build an extension to HTTPS to allow Cloudflare / other reverse proxy services to proxy web requests without circumventing the SSL guarantees between the user and the host. It should be trivially possible.
That said, the cynical side of me worries that it works this way by design.
I'm always curious about the digital rights erosion. The frog boiling in a pot is a pretty apt metaphor. At what point do we throw are hands up and just assume all channels of communication are compromised to the point its public.
Most people were born there and have nowhere to go.
The problem is, that it's spreading... EU already wants "AI" to read our private messages, US and it's patriot act was not much better (+ everything within wikileaks), etc.
After decades of being surveilled by the US government and US corporations, the information sold to the highest bidder, the lowest bidder and then given away for free - it is refreshing that my country has taken an interest in me.
"Confirmation. So the question in my mind is: is the UK Government attempting to cover-up its previous advocacy of ADP, by censoring this old document? Or does it instead want the UK legal profession to avoid use of ADP and to what end?"
No, they just changed their advice/webpage. They aren't trying to "cover-up" anything. They just changed their stance in the face of current requests and laws. It's not a conspiracy.
True. I'm meaning more "take a one month government-sponsored class to learn about safe methods of protest, the relevant regulations on sound amplification, and what words are deemed too profane for putting on a sign, in order to obtain your Protester ID Card."
I've always wondered, what happens if there's no organizers and a bunch of people just sorta independently agree to show up together somewhere and tell all their friends by word of mouth? Is the first person who tweeted "Let's all go protest!" held accountable as the organizer, or what?
Having seen the other extremes, eg Westboro attacking mourning families, I'll take the UK's interpretation of freedom. It includes the idea that other people have a right to go about their business without busybodies with no standing getting in the way.
Edit: I also wouldn't claim the UK always gets it right, but sometimes balancing those ideas —rights to speech, privacy, and to exist unimpeded— isn't simple. Nasty artefacts like super-injunctions feel stifling, people arrested for online speech sometimes a little too far, but I'd still take it over many alternatives.
The reason for that is because you can fuck off with the persistent harassment of those who come to get abortions, including by "praying", that is, hanging around near the clinic trying to guilt-trip pregnant women. You're completely free to fuck the fuck off away from the area and bow your head disapprovingly. You're also free to think whatever you like inside the designated safe zone so long as you're not being demonstrative about it. Anyone who's deliberately come near to the clinic in order to visibly pray is picketing it. Having a grievance about this as if it was thought policing is dishonest.
If it were a fish and chips stand there'd be no problem with picketing, praying, or most other nonviolent, non-threatening demonstrations that didn't get in somebody's way. You could make it your full-time job to protest every fish and chip stand in the country without issue. It _is_ thought policing, since the only crime is protesting the "wrong" thing.
Maybe it's still fine to ban that sort of protest, but let's call it what it is.
Harassment, yes. To get an equivalent situation, you need to eat a fish supper to avoid monumentally unpleasant life changes, and the looney fringe of the dominant religion, in cahoots with some of your friends and relatives, wants to call you a murderer for eating that fish supper. Then they don't limit themselves to publishing their views, they hang around the fish and chips stand acting sad and concerned. This is not a constructive discussion or public debate, it's coercion.
Pretty sure that the US, UK and Europe fixed that back in the 90s, during the anti-globalization protests.
Ever since the Democratic Party established in 2004 that you could designate "Free Speech Zones" where the constitution would be in effect, and literally put bars around them, it was an inevitability that people living in US vassals that have never had strong speech protections would lose it all. The US sets the standard for a written absolute free speech right, but makes bad speech its biggest enemy and covertly finances censors overseas to lobby against free speech protections.
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Random person on internet:
> Has anyone heard about the protester pen set up at the Democratic convention?
> It's constructed with mesh, chain link & razor wire to contain any DNC protesters - not after they've been rounded up by police for unlawful activity - but to house them while they are protesting!
> "U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock called the barbed-wire pen "an affront to free expression'' and "irrefutably sad'' but necessary because of protesters' antics in New York and Los Angeles."
> Demonstrators who want to be within sight and sound of the delegates entering and leaving the Democratic National Convention at the Fleet Center in Boston this coming week will be forced to protest in a special "demonstration zone" adjacent to the terminal where buses carrying the delegates will arrive. The zone is large enough only for 1000 persons to safely congregate and is bounded by two chain link fences separated by concrete highway barriers. The outermost fence is covered with black mesh that is designed to repel liquids. Much of the area is under an abandoned elevated train line. The zone is covered by another black net which is topped by razor wire. There will be no sanitary facilities in the zone and tables and chairs will not be permitted. There is no way for the demonstrators to pass written materials to the convention delegates.
Says someone from a country where the act of crossing the road is outlawed.
But seriously, get some new material. Tiresome fake accents mocking another country is just childish, especially when it has nothing to do with the article in question.
Different kinds of freedom. In London you can legally jaywalk naked while drinking a beer in front of a cop and know that even if you really pissed the cop off, you'd never get shot for it.
It's oddly specific mockery, like Ozzy is England's international representative. I don't know, maybe he is. But I doubt Birmingham even inspired the meme, this is probably a caricature of Dick Van Dyke more than anyone.
To be fair, Brits seem to think New Yorkers go "oi" and they don't really either.
I've made a (shortened) copy of your comment and pinned it to the top of the thread. I hope that's ok with you! I just thought it's only fair for you to get the karma.
That's not correct. It's for people who think they might be targets of surveillance operations, like journalists and activists.
> Lockdown Mode is an optional, extreme protection that’s designed for the very few individuals who, because of who they are or what they do, might be personally targeted by some of the most sophisticated digital threats.
I assumed from the headline this was about GDPR Article 32. Instead, I got tricked into reading about Apple fighting for their right to sell me another adapter to add back the features they removed for security.
Edit: It appears my comment was moved from a duplicate discussion titled "UK quietly scrubs encryption advice from government websites" which linked to TechCrunch.
My comment was a joke connecting wiretapping (from the Investigatory Powers Act) with Apple's proprietary adapters. The parallel I was drawing: just as the UK suggests requiring licenses for encryption, Apple already charges $99/year to develop devices you own. A wire "tap" is an adapter (a tap) in the communication line. You can add one yourself at the end of the chain, but the UK also fights with Apple about their USB-C standardization, so it was also referencing the larger regulatory battle.
Clearly, you didn't understand enough to respond to the joke, and it's against HN guidelines to suggest I didn't read the article. However, this topic is derailed due to The Online Safety Act. As I said, the headline was well crafted.
There is too much deflection from the true purpose for these regulations.
The main thing here is that if a Govt approaches a party to gain access to their encrypted data the party can stall them, destroy the data, claim amnesia or point the Govt in the direction of their lawyers. If the Govt approaches Apple or some other company, the companies don't have to inform the targets and can probably compel the companies not to inform the targets.
With encryption there is even no hard evidence that the data sought exists.
This is the main reason for the laws. Their purpose is to gain access to encrypted information without their target's knowledge.
Though I doubt it's the main driving force of the government, a common theme in news articles about suicides and murders is family members being upset that Apple won't give iPhone backups or unlock codes to loved ones. Grieving family members often portray Apple as uncaring and unwilling to unlock devices with a simple software update.
There are plenty of people with good intentions calling for backdoors like this. I believe a good government will know the implications and ignore the pleas, but it seems there aren't that many good governments left.
https://archive.is/YZF6r
Fights like this only legitimize the EU's DSA to me. UK users would not be beholden to Apple for E2EE if their clients had legitimate alternatives to the first-party iCloud service. There would be no world where Apple could even threaten to disable it.
Break the walled garden down, and all of the sudden it doesn't matter what Apple's stance on E2EE is. But Apple wouldn't want that, since then you might realize they aren't the sole arbiters of online privacy.
> There would be no world where Apple could even threaten to disable it.
They did not "threaten to disable it" and apple's stance on E2EE is not the issue here, UK's stance is. UK essentially made icloud E2EE by demanding apple to make a global backdoor into it, and essentially thus forced them to disable it. It is not disabled anywhere else in the world.
Essentially the UK (and other states) want somehow to have their pie and eat it too, but that's just not possible.
If UK is already doing this, then what's them from banning all new iPhones? Some countries do.
then what's them from banning all new iPhones?
The torches and pitchforks that are soon to follow? You might get away with that in oppressive “some countries”, but I just can’t imagine it ending well in someplace like the UK.
I'd hope so, but you never know what you can get people to tolerate "for the children". This is, after all, the same UK population that voted these halfwits into power.
>these halfwits
You're doing them a favour calling them halfwits, if most of the current crop of British politicians were light bulbs they wouldn't be bright enough the light the cupboard under my stairs.
That is the BEST trick politicians ever play on voters. They prefer to be called "stupid" while the end up their political careers millionaires, and getting hire in large-ehvil-corps doing FA for 6-7 digits per year.
I believe one of the filthiest snakes out there is Boris Johnson; yes the lunatic with the silly hair, who can recite HOMER in ANCIENT GREEK. And people still think he is 'stupid'? And all he does is 'mistakes'???? He is the filthiest of all snakes - except from his true masters (who is not the people).
So.. yeah. If they end up broke and in jail, they are stupid. If they end up working for 7 digits, and you cannot afford a home.. well..
This is also known as obfuscating stupidity.
If you remember the television show, Columbo, starring Peter Falk, he's the Ur example I go to.
This conclusion reframed my views of certain politicians, popularly assumed to be blithering idiots.
You don’t get there by being incompetent, you get there by being amazing at manipulation, cunning and whatever the positive coded synonyms of those words are.
Butchering common phrases on live TV, or spouting verifiable falsehoods are all part of the game. I feel stupid myself for not playing it as well.
> amazing at manipulation, cunning and [etc]
I think someone can be very good at those and also very stupid when it comes to, say, encryption and societal side effects thereof. In fact I think it's quite common. Intelligence is multi-dimensional.
An intelligent person can understand what is encryption if they really want to. A member of a parliament that is trying to revoke all encryption, everywhere, does it because his/her masters demand so, not because they care.
Also, a good politician hates 'encryption' because they can't read your messages, read your mind, so you are dangerous because you can have independent thought which they cannot identify in order to manipulate.
Facebook/Cambridge Analytica is an amazing example for this.
"Boris Johnson, people always ask me the same question, they say, 'Is Boris a very very clever man pretending to be an idiot?' And I always say, 'No.'"
The children themselves would be in the streets protesting if you banned iPhones in the UK.
My kid just brought this up today- it’s absolutely a concern for their age group.
If it's indeed like you say, that sounds like a monopoly that should be addressed, not protected and allowed to do as it pleases.
Sure, it's orthogonal to the EE backdoor issue, but Apple or any other company, having a monopoly of a nations youths means of communication is still an issue.
Apple's not much of a monopoly in the UK. iMessage isn't anywhere near as popular here as the cross platform WhatsApp. Kids can choose between iPhone and Android, they aren't forced.
We in the UK just want the same products that are available everywhere else, including encryption.
It's a monopoly to make a product that most children want over the competition? What would the solution even be here? Force iphones to be shittier?
Yes when you corner an entire market, regardless how you got there, it's still called a monopoly.
Read a book before trying to be a smartass.
I is smart!!! I escaped the 'corner of the market'
I used to have a simple Nokia back in the day. Then I switched to Compaq, then to HTC (Windows Mobile). Then back to Nokia 7110. Then to iPhone 3GS, then 4, 5, 6, then I stopped using iPhones and switched to Android.
But to be fair I'm 'in/into tech' since I was 9-10yo. I will jump from one tech to another when I think that this new tech will give me what I need at reasonable cost and at minimal privacy cost.
I remember loving syncing my Nokias with Outlook, then my iPhone, now my Android. There are always solutions out there and it is always easy to jump ship (at least for me). But I never used OneDrive or iCloud or Google Drive to begin with. So, for those who take the lazy approach, yes they will eat whatever is served and be thankful to their 'masters'.
For those who spend the time to think it through, there is no 'corner an entire market'.
The market hasn’t been “cornered” any more than breakfast has been “cornered” by eggs and bacon, but I dig the irony, here.
How do you plan to address this supposed monopoly? Force all children born in February and March to use Android only? Demand that people respond better to Samsung’s marketing? I’m a bit curious how you de-“monopolize” something consumers are choosing over numerous, plentiful competition.
After you learn to read, read these, then look in the mirror:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/technology/apple-doj-laws...
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-apple...
Given you’re clearly a much better reader, can you explain how Apple’s, apparently, anti-competitive app ecosystem (from your links) is remotely similar to your assertion that merely being a more popular device with consumers is monopolistic? I mean, you did read those links right? You didn’t just google “apple monopoly” and then paste the results?
Surely the government is the bigger monopoly.
Hello Elon
Naturally we have to protect them from themselves. /s
We also voted Starmer into power, who is one of the few leaders of the free world with a spine.
It's not that black and white.
Starmer has a spine? He's a warmongering careerist shill, hateful of his own people, who never did anything remotely worthy of the Labour party pre-Blair legacy...
One of the least spine-owing politicians in the world
Amen
In what way is he warmongering?
You can go to bingit.io and search for anything you want and click the little gear and sort by clips
I'm not evangelizing the show itself, but the clip search function is very useful.
https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1740955500.049_starmerafterse...
When your politician is using the same terminology and phraseology as George W. Bush, I'd say there's probably some war mongering going on.
trivial edit: that was the most recent Starmer clip, from a week or two ago. I was on my phone and i only really remembered the coalition of the willing quote. I don't know much else about Starmer, sorry!
What exactly in that short clip is so controversial?
I listened to the full speech when it was broadcast live recently. Everything he said made complete sense. Of course Europe needs to stand up and defend its territory from russian invaders. You can't possibly believe that bolstering defence in Europe is tantamount to warmongering, surely?!
Some people just think war = bad. That’s fine. Maybe we can run an experiment where the pacifists get their own country and set their defense and foreign policy and see how long Pacifistlandia remains a sovereign country.
I suppose Winston Churchill was a warmonger in some ways, too, but thank goodness he was.
Wasn't he the original lapdog lawyer who hounded Assange even after the Swedish authorities were happy to drop the case?
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/starmer-the-...
The only spine he has is pleasing his sponsors, not for having his own thoughts.
You're equating a legal case involving one man 15 years ago with the greatest threat to global security in a generation.
This is ridiculous.
Not at all, they are using things someone did in the past (and took a while to do) to make a character judgement.
So peace is bad, oppression through mask mandates is good, but let's not hold politicians to their own actual rules if they're in a position of influence?
In what sense of the word are sensible public health measures "oppression"?
That's what triggers you? That? People dying and your going to nitpick a comparison to the mental mass delusion of 2020-2024 when it magically got declared over...
Peace through Ukraine’s surrender is very obviously bad, and it’s no peace at all. It’s disappointing that this needs to be explained on HN of all places.
Did anyone say surrender?
Yes. This is part of russia's constitution. Why don't you know this?
https://ukraineworld.org/en/articles/analysis/what-russia-wa...
How about Ukraines unelected negotiations to join NATO? What about the "Fatherland" party? What about the corruption? What about the money owed to Russia pre the war?
Please stop throwing around random facts or internet stuff to justify rhetoric. Peace is peace. If you want it to last both have to compromise.
This war didn't just start because someone woke up and decided let's start a new empire. Painting it as such is just part of a problem looking for a solution.
Also notice how at any point I am not saying an invasion is justified or correct. But the situation is that both sides are in a state of war and that peace is better for everyone. Everyone.
> If you want it to last both have to compromise.
What compromises do you believe russia should make?
In all honesty cost for rebuilding _civilian_ infrastructure offset by a complete settling of all debts, ideally with an acknowledgement that the fighting was ultimately triggered by them regardless of the factors. Not that it was illegal, best let history decide that, but to put on paper they are the provocateur would be reasonable in that regard. Not sure I believe the press either side over civilian exodus vs evacuations so I'll leave that to the negotiations. And as a nice bonus a demilitarised zone and a framework for settling future disputes involving a 3rd party(parties). With regards to land, imo that's unfortunately best either traded for goods or leave it as is. I'm not sure the original population needed for a sensible mandate in terms of political change exists anymore so any cries from the population either way have been let down by their leaders.
As for us no NATO, elections, settling of debts and disarmament probably backed by the reshaping of borders because what else does Ukraine have other than mineral wealth. And probably some agreement to build a gas framework that actually works or an agreement to dismantle the pipelines through this territory. As for EU protections Russia never used to object to that but the name calling may have changed their minds.
Edit: Name-calling tends to happen once someone had struck close to an unfortunate truth. At that point it's no longer a discussion or even an argument, it has descended into anarchy.
As it stands Russia's concerns were multi-faceted. 1) The un-elected negotiations toward ascension into NATO brought on by a Western backed convicted corrupt oligarch. 2) Said group was referring to itself as "Fatherland", last time we saw such rhetoric we ended up paying the price for several years. 3) There was no significant attempt after the revolutions to curtail talks of this nature and the political status-quo probably stood to benefit to pleading ignorant. 4) The debts from the gas pipeline are not insignificant, it's the reason Germany kept the peace broadly.
Russia was wrong to invade. This could have been settled otherwise, but would have taken a lot longer and would have been costly, i.e. economic warfare or trade disputes. Ultimately the nordic states changing their affiliation from neutral to pro-NATO has weakened Russia's hand so in that regard this invasion has already cost them face, as well as political and strategic manoeuvrability in this region.
If elections were such a foregone conclusion nobody would mind this statement, the reality is we expect change as a result, much as Chruchil never became de-facto king.
Want something from someone after spending months insulting them, don't be surprised when trust has gone which is the start of negotiations and ultimately the bedrock peace is built on. An example of that was recently demonstrated in the whitehouse where someone could have recently said, "yes and thankyou" and received all the help they could have wanted, but due to some biblical almost aesopian level of pride this never happened so no the reality on the ground changes. There's a reason for the saying of the pen is mightier than the sword.
Appeasement would be the further surrender of lands, the admission of guilt through actions that concerned and weren't approved of. The admission of guilt bearing the cost of rebuilding. The acknowledgement that certain other super-powers tried to extend their reach too far, and the surrender of land based not on ethnic breakdown but on capital gain. That is appeasement and thankfully is not something either side has seriously expected out of peace negations (yet, either side could say/do something stupid tomorrow I suppose).
If you meant disarmament of Russia, the aggressor, maybe you could be taken seriously. Disarmament of Ukraine, who has the clearest need for arms (by your own admission of Russia being the aggressor), is a sick joke. It would guarantee any "peace" so achieved is a lie.
No, just removing weapons doesn't foster peace. That is earned through working together and having socioeconomic shared interests, which ironically the people not the politicians have.
And at no point is unilateral disarmament sensible, that is capitulation. But arming one side to the teeth and walking away after peace just leads to more violence. It's the basis of so many sci-fi stories and clearly what has happened in recent post WW2 history. It's a bad idea.
Edit: also just ploughing in weapons wouldn't give peace or this conversation would be mute and people wouldn't be dying. Clearly a balance needs to be achieved. Counter armoured vehicle weapons for Ukraine is sensible and clearly worked in the opening hours without giving them ambition of hitting Russia in advance.
No, of course military aid to Ukraine is only the barest pre-requisite to negotiations that might possibly lead to lasting peace. This can only be achieved if future Russian aggression is strongly deterred.
Do you really think Ukraine is going to attack Russia? They have no motive, they (along with the rest of Europe) were happy to do business with Russia until Russia's various aggressions (starting in 2014, mind you) soured them. No matter what happens they're not going to be in a state for aggression after this war, even if they have the appetite. Most of the arms we send them are being consumed. Even Russia will take a while to rebuild.
The aggressions started after Ukraine made moves (supported openly by unelected politically connected groups on _both_ sides) to join NATO after failing to do much to really make any attempt to deal with the corruptions around the gas supplies and arguable thefts. This with high level Washington persons involved.
This is like saying Russia's number 2 decided to visit Mexico after a political landslide and that America would be happy about that. Last time anything similar happened we got the bay of pigs...
Ideally a large demilitarised zone (which would obviously mean into Russian territories) would help people feel easier. That's unlikely to happen, but is the closest we'd get to something sensible. It's not about appeasement, but any peace is likely to involve land concessions. If not, the peace is American bought with huge interest terms which is closer to what we had crippling the kaiser and we all know how that ended...
Now, given that highly likely scenario its a bad idea to leave Ukraine with large amounts of Western mid range armorments. They won't be looking to take St Petersburg, but in the sort term future they may look to reunite post soviet territories which will just put us back to square 1.
Trying to portray a trade agreement with the EU as an existential threat to Russia was a tough sell, so Russians invented the entire NATO narrative.
I'm not talking about trade with the EU I'm taking about actions taken by the "fatherland" party combined with visits by US secretary of state who was vocal about the party leader being arrested, who Russia wanted imprisoned, who was imprisoned by the Ukrainian people after a trial for corruption (in effect having stolen money from Russia)...
This same political party which fails to make it into a significant position of power at home but still engages openly with foreign diplomatic entities close to or in the whitehouse included. Nothing conspiratorial, just 100% fact. Again this does not justify any military action, this is just the scene as things were before the war.
This is akin to the reform party in the UK negotiating with China or the liberal party in the USA negotiating with the EU. It could, should and would be shutdown by the ruling party unless it benefited them in some way.
Again imagine if a nation went through a revolution on the doorstep of America then Russia was to move to support this revolution unilaterally through arming them and supporting them. Regardless of subtitles this is the optics as seen by Russia. We know Ukraine was armed because otherwise there would be tanks in Kiev. Again this doesn't justify any military action, but the fact this happened behind the scenes and wasn't transparent concerns people.
Everybody knows there's Russian assets in Georgia now, this could be benign military aid and rest or could be nuclear first strike assets. Given the lack of transparency we have to assume the latter, that is how risk assessment works.
> The aggressions started after Ukraine made moves (supported openly by unelected politically connected groups on _both_ sides) to join NATO after failing to do much to really make any attempt to deal with the corruptions around the gas supplies and arguable thefts.
Have you not made clear that you don't consider this a justification for invasion? Then why do you keep bringing it up? That's why you sound like a Russian shill, because those are Russian talking points. They only serve to distract from the main dynamic of the situation. The rest of us recognize that those are an entirely lower tier of concerns relative to the global incentives for wars of conquest.
Note that Ukraine started with an unusually large stockpile of Soviet arms, with which they completely failed to invade Russia. I repeat: most of the arms being sent to Ukraine are consumed. That includes the vehicles. Even in the best case scenario they'll be lucky to break even, much less end up with a huge stockpile. As things were going during the war even before Trump's freeze, they were barely staying ahead of attrition.
Also note: your Ukrainian invasion scenario presupposes that there will be some complicated/stupid re-arrangement of borders. No kidding, that would cause problems. Maybe you're starting to get an inkling why a lot of us don't consider that acceptable? (In my view, the only sensible arrangement is a return to the 2014 borders, whereupon the Ukrainian side of the border turns into miles of minefields. You can consider that a DMZ or territorial concession if you like. Certainly neither side will be using it productively.)
I find it funny that you're proposing a demilitarized zone that extends into Russian territory. They won't accept that in a million years, unless you kick their asses on the battlefield even harder than I'm proposing. As in, they might actually break out the nukes first... Wait, what's this?
> With regards to land, imo that's unfortunately best either traded for goods or leave it as is.
I guess you actually don't have a consistent position, because "as is", with half of four different Ukrainian oblasts under Russian control, is nowhere near a DMZ in Russia. Even if you call it an aspirational vs good enough goal, the policies implied by those proposals are irreconcilable. One of them is capitulation, one of them is tantamount to WWIII.
> That's why you sound like a Russian shill, because those are Russian talking points
Reason and justification are different. If you don't understand this please steer clear of upper management or politics in your career for everyone sake. Bay of pigs was not justified yet nobody is freaking about that incident they wave a banner and start chest thumping "because we're the good guys"... If Russia wanted to march on Kiev and damn civilian casualties they could have done so on the first few weeks. Clearly Russia is not interested in this and clearly the West until recently hasn't been interested in reducing the death toll so we keep throwing people at the guns to make a point of who is stronger and who can outlast which isn't David and Goliath, it's a significant fraction of the Ukrainian people Vs a fraction of Russia's standing army.
Again this isn't insulting those in a position of fighting. They probably have a "ours is to do or die" situation. But given that a lot of Western weapons are now ending up in the world's black markets and corruption again and again from the top, this is being faught less strategically by either side and more a case of who can feed the meat grinder the most bodies.
> Maybe you're starting to get an inkling why a lot of us don't consider that acceptable?
And again nobody is promoting that. Nobody is yet. Nobody is saying that is for the better. Nobody is saying this is amazing.
People are saying there were large highly polarised pro Russian regions within Ukraine before this war started and deciding to make them subservient to Kiev without an acknowledgement of their political right to self determination is a problem. Again this isn't a justification it's an unfortunate fact. But demanding a "restore everything to what it was and go away", is just saying "I refuse to listen to you I'm going to do my thing", which is where a lot of the political strife comes from. Demanding the borders be exactly as you want them is fine, but what does that mean? What do they want and how do you get to get to a point where both are satisfied if not happy? American and Russian investment in the region and profits split between everyone? It's a sensible goal. If people present this calmly hell it might even happen, but chest thumping will make sure it doesn't.
Regardless of how we got here now. This is the situation. It needs to be fixed and the fix saves lives.
Yes Ukraine denuclearized. And before that we had Vlad the impaler running the region and before that...
There is history and there are direct contributing factors to an incident. I'm not bringing up ancient historical points I'm bringing up factors relating to individuals who were in positions of influence and power when the war started. That unfortunately has a direct bearing on the situation. I'm sure if Dr Christmas was working in her region we'd be discussing her background in arms reduction at the time but that is settled. (Yes bad 007 reference)
My point is that if we want to go back far enough who drew up borders, when, how and we're there sensible are basically the reasons for most global conflicts currently being faught. And most are a result of a collapsing empire giving someone who was a friend just a little bit more support, power, weaponry and land then they should have received in fairness. Eventually countries in this situation collapse as was almost happening in Ukraine in 2020, saying Russia bad for supporting people to wanted to leave Ukraine is the same as saying Hillary was misguided for visiting or we should arrest the Spanish politicians who wanted the same recently for their region. No matter how it's cut it's oppression of a popular option by a state. And for sake of clarity, yes we all know Russia could give a masterclass on disappearing and killing political dissidents. In that regard, yes, current Russian political people bad. But that doesn't mean they will go away because you don't like them. It means you have to understand them, engage with them and try to find common ground whilst hoping the situation internally changes naturally like Gorbochev coming to power. Saying Russian plants, simps and CIA assets is often an extension of either sides true political influence abroad, and something to be feared, but trump is no more a KGB agent than Putin is an MI5 asset gone rouge. Great, even compelling fiction, but not real.
Ok on this point at agree the war only lasted more than about a week because of Western intervention. We're ignoring the socioeconomic divides that existed within the country and we're supporting the side we like strongly. Why before the war were Ukraine troops being trained in Western countries? This again looks like a prelude to something or another Castro like insurgency on Russian borders.
Yes Russia engaged in a trade war over trade. Omg. So does the UK, India, China, now America... This is a million miles away from a shooting war in terms of justification and frankly may contribute to bad blood, but is just trade. Given that this kept leading to Ukraine flip flopping rather of picking sides rather than finding a way to work with both shows how the country is being abused by both sides to their own ends at the cost of the Ukrainian people ultimately as with all conflicts sadly.
Actually there's precedent for DMZ within territories within the region and moving back military assets from a flash point is sensible global politics. If this isn't obvious again then cest la vie. Again beating the "Russia will never do this unless we fight them" is stupid, it's a clear line in the sand that shows you understand their upper hand and strategic and military might which doesn't compromise because they likely gained territory. However deciding that we're going to engage in a proxy war just fight Russia is just admitting we want to send more people to die.
I hate to bring it up but for those feeling passionately enough, there has been very little Western govt effort to stop individuals to go and join the war effort with Kiev if you believe this is a manpower or technical challenge to be overcome. The sad reality is tanks in Kiev and political arrests by day 4 or 5 of the war would have probably been less bloody in the short and medium term and we'll never know if Russia was looking to hold the country or simply bring about change because we're not Russia.
Yes again, for the umpteenth time Russia is clearly the aggressor. Nobody is denying this unless they're trolling you. But people thumping their chests thinking this is a cold war starting again. Get a break. This is an isolated incident with complex history not the "the first domino to fall". With that regard it needs to be treated like it is. Not a battlefield that needs a surrender by one side. But a conflict that can be stopped by hearing where the differences now lie.
If you want to view the world as black or white America is a country founded on the slaughter of indigenous peoples by a group who demonstrably wrongly claim religious oppression who have taken land and assets from indigenous and local people's around the world and refuse to give them back. Hawaii being an excellent example, but then we have Iraq and our original "coalition of the willing" who openly declared an illegitimate war, but people now shrug that off as "well can't change that now". Direct USA involvement alone as well as the impact of EU states in several middle Eastern countries is worse than a week defined conflict with all defined goals. The coalition of the willing have us death, oppression and then a return to a hungry starving people.
Both are bad. Both could be resolved better. But true global politics is closer to giants in the playground so we should be trying to get them to stop standing on anthills.
I don't believe those are even the real reasons, but that's not my point: talking about them at all does Russia's propaganda work for them.
> If Russia wanted to march on Kiev and damn civilian casualties they could have done so on the first few weeks.
Are you kidding me? Russia literally did send tanks and airborne troops to Kyiv in the first days of the war. They've been targeting civilians with missiles. What planet are you on?
Labelling something a "talking point" is dangerous and only suits to dilute context employing a fallacy in an argument unfortunately.
Ok let's remove rhetoric.
There is a disagreement which has turned into a shooting match or armed conflict. People are dying and there's destruction going on.
We want to resolve this.
That involves people sitting down and not shouting or name calling but talking. Resolution involves compromise, compromise brings peace.
This is ignoring the fact that one player is much bigger than the other, who is right or wrong, but simply trying to move forwards.
Unfortunately the point that the tanks were knocked out by Ukraine within the opening hours on Ukrainian soil is a "Russian talking point". Kiev was clearly armed with Western anti tank weapony beyond their means and arguably beyond their financial ability to pay for (arguably).
A Western talking point is that Russia is much bigger, a known bully and could have worked to resolve this. Yes they could. But the other party involved was sitting there claiming they're a bully and are "just going to attack no matter what"... It's sad but the response is really calculable at that point.
Russia did not send it's high class latest tanks for the same reason we aren't seeing the latest and greatest American vehicles holding the line in a shooting war, that is a different level of aggression that would have different consequences. That is closer to a blitzkrieg and so was likely not the point of the engagement. (From the perspective of a military analyst position).
Russia has hit civilians with missiles yes. Again you're taking what I have said and extending it to make claims I am not making. Please stop this it gets old.
Israel hits civilian targets, not casualties, _targets_, and the world sits in silence this is a concerning reality.
The fighting in Ukraine is over Ukrainian soil so yes most of the casualties are Ukranian. This is not saying this is justified or correct again, this is not saying they should be Russian, this is saying water is wet and the survival rate of CV19 for non at risk groups was >99%>> these are all, uncomfortable for some, facts.
Again Russia could hit much harder and be more deadly. I hope for all that is sensible they don't, but they're capability compared to Ukraine is a different league. Like it or dislike it they are obviously showing restraint of a kind by not carpet bombing the whole country and moving the Russian border to Poland.
Again, does this make what they've done correct, or nice or good or defensible. No.
Again understanding a position is not defending it it's understanding context that helps understand the problem which helps conversations and candidly helps peace.
Not a taking point. Peace.
You really are on a different planet.
A more respectful way might be to say "I see your point but I disagree". But ok if this unnerves you fine.
If that's what I meant, I would have said it. Your basic facts are hopelessly, often hilariously out of whack.
No, facts are facts. Interpretation is what's the problem. And unless you look at all facts this will be biased due to lying to yourself. Also known as being in a bubble online.
Truth is a 3 edged sword.
But frankly if you're going to insist on facts not being facts I'll just bid you good day and go back to gardening.
This is quite transparent appeasement.
Are you russian by any chance? Or just deeply, irredeemably brainwashed?
> Not that it was illegal
Yes it was.
> Not sure I believe the press either side over civilian exodus vs evacuations
Straying into conspiracy territory again, unsurprisingly.
> And as a nice bonus a demilitarised zone
Ah, you mean a DMZ in Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod, and so on, down the internationally recognised border? Somehow, I don't think you do.
> With regards to land, imo that's unfortunately best either traded for goods or leave it as is
Surprise, surprise. You want to give the terrorists everything they want.
> no NATO
That's not for you or russia to determine. And this was never about NATO anyway, given that NATO has been on russia's immediate land border for decades already. The narrative about NATO is yet more kremlin bullshit that you not only believe, but propagate here.
> elections
The Ukrainian opposition parties don't want this, so why do you? Zelensky's approval rating is through the roof. Ukrainians trust Zelensky. He is a true hero.
> As for EU protections Russia never used to object to that but the name calling may have changed their minds.
Oh really? The EU are now the bad guys for saying mean things? Oh goodness, poor russia. My heart truly bleeds. Yes, I can now understand why they've killed hundreds of thousands of people, tortured people, raped people, stolen children, levelled entire cities, displaced millions. Yes, yes. How dare we say mean things.
---
Honestly, I find you disgusting. This discussion is over.
My original and edited comment stands. You can resort to name-calling that's your prerogative, or you can engage like an adult seeing a solution to a problem. I'm not insulting you by saying that, but you're clearly very emotionally invested and might benefit from distance if claiming to have a solution to a problem.
The most literal whataboutism. Classic. Peace that teaches other aggressors that they can keep their gains is incredibly dangerous. Peace that's only waiting for the aggressor to build up their military again is not good enough. It won't last. It's just war on pause.
> This war didn't just start because someone woke up and decided let's start a new empire.
You're almost right! The Russian empire is very old. They just want it back.
[flagged]
Lol, you know nothing about my politics. There are a lot of "crowds" who agree on Ukraine, because the facts are very clear. Particularly, Russia's failure to ever negotiate in good faith.
Maybe instead of editing in random calls to invade moscow, which I'm well aware is historically a bad plan, you should edit that second sentence to read like actual English. Not that its content seems relevant anyway, but maybe I'd change my mind if I could make head or tail of it. No one needs to march to Moscow except Moscow. Sheesh.
Edit: oh, you did fix it. I was right about it being irrelevant though.
No and I don't care to know about your politics. You seem so keen to tell me mine.
I'd be very weary of the "wisdom of crowds" fallacy. That is some very wet sand to build a house or argument on. And actually shows how relevant the previous comment of mine is. The attitude towards the war is the same as attitudes around CV19 very unhealthy in terms of discourse and built on emotion not fact. Emotion is important but doesn't put bread on the table.
Also, omg a typo... I warn you avoid irc if that offends your sensibilities "m8".
Indeed, the various people who understand what Russia is about are a consequence of the truth, not a proof of it. I only mentioned it to point out how laughable it was to lump me in with weird burka-wearing activists just because I support aid for Ukraine.
Because unfortunately it's become rather polarised in the same way COVID did, with exactly the same lives drawn within the mentality of people in Europe. The group is defined by it's majority because that is how a group is defined, anything else starts to get Orwellian unfortunately.
Unfortunately for me the position I hold is also held by corrupt autocrats, technocrats, bible thumpers, trolls and idiots who simply believe the opposite of the govt simply because they always think they're being 100% lied to 24/7...
The truth as always as somewhere in the middle. As is hopefully a lasting peace.
I'll admit I can be wrong and maybe I get quick to reply after being called an idiot by fools online. Hell I might even be wrong now. Ultimately doesn't effect me rightly or wrongly. And it doesn't mean I wish ill for someone who disagrees with me, especially if they took the time to form an educated opinion.
I'd never deny Russia is in the wrong. And with a fair world Russia would pay a heavier toll for a war they started. But there is a large crowd who are practically calling for an invasion of Russia simply because Russia bad and Ukrainians walk on water.
There is a reason so many bad action movies ended up in Eastern Europe on their final fight or explosion scenes and that is always because of the rampant corruption and political problems in the area. Unfortunately this is a case of art imitating life. (Obviously with exaggerated "artistic" licence)
Well, it's not PoliticalScientistNews, regardless of our collective delusions.
Can I ask what it is that makes you believe he has a spine? His fawning over Trump didn't dispell this? Or his constant changes in direction?
You could just as well argue that changing direction or admitting you got things wrong requires more spine than blindly sticking to the same direction even in light of new information.
Whether that applies to Starmer is a matter of opinion I suppose
Well he hasn’t taken Trump’s direction on the war, has he?
Lol. If trump said jump it wouldn't be how high it'd be straight in front of a bullet for this lot.
It's pretending to claim we have a position other than pandering to both the EU and Trump whilst not actually taking responsibility to do anything (other than act as a banker)
I mean, sure, the US also elected some people who oppose the wannabe fascist dictator in chief, but we did elect the wannabe fascist dictator. There are a lot of forces, but the vector sum is distinctly fuckwitted.
In the UK people would at most grumble about it severely and then let it happen.
that is what the populous does best unfortunately
Bread and circuses is what stops them. Whoever would get the iPhone banned is guaranteed never to win another election. Like banning beer or football.
It would also be banning Macbooks, imagine what companies would have to say about that.
The reason Apple isn't calling their bluff is not that they're scared the UK will actually ban their products. It's for optical and political reasons.
I don't know how UK electorate feels about this, global backdoor feels like much more unreasonable ask than domestic backdoor. Really takes particular hubris to ask for it in the first place.
There’s not really a difference. Once you’ve got the ability to selectively disable encryption and you’ve folded to one regime, you’re gonna fold to them all.
Hold the population used iPhones. Wouldn’t be very popular.
Apples stance on E2EE is off by default. UK stance is no E2EE at all.
If Apple wasn't a walled garden neither opinions would matter since the user could just decide for themselves without Apple or the government having power over it.
I dislike how removing a optional feature is being equated to a backdoor since unlike this situation it would effect everyone without there knowledge. If no E2EE is a backdoor then Apple by default is backdoored (which it is but people here like to pretend otherwise).
> without Apple or the government having power over it
As we are talking about E2EE for cloud storage, governments have very much control over it as in banning the use certain software by law and applying it through ISPs and other means. Not saying I wouldn't prefer a scenario where there was indeed some degree of such choice, but that would not change anything if a government decides it does not want E2EE.
> Apples stance on E2EE is off by default
True E2EE in the context of cloud storage has also certain downsides that one should acknowledge, notably if you lose access to your keys your data is effectively gone. When we talk about a large userbase that includes people who do not have a good understanding of this fact (prob most people) and this choice is not made by themselves in a more conscious manner, this could be a headache for a company (and customer service). Go to subreddits of E2EE encrypted services and notice how often people come up with having forgotten their passwords thus effectively their keys and their data (and that's an audience making a more conscious choice) and not actually understanding that forgetting password + losing any recovery keys = loss of data and that proton cannot give them access back (if they could, there could not be much privacy there). I am not saying that E2EE is bad, but that it is not necessarily the best choice for everybody, and thus I have no issue with apple's opt-in approach.
>governments have very much control over it as in banning the use certain software by law and applying it through ISPs and other means.
They ofc can however it would take a new even more tyrannical law that applies to each citizen which would impact all encrption software not just apple. The Cryptowars have also shown that such laws are not only technical unenforcable but also economical disadvantageous.
> new even more tyrannical law that applies to each citizen which would impact all encrption software not just apple.
The current law does impact all encryption, not just Apple. It gives the government the right to force any provider to backdoor their encryption, and gags those providers in the process. There's nothing in the law that restricts it to Apple, or to cloud providers, or to large companies, or to it being blanket applied to all providers of encryption operating in the UK.
The only reason why we're talking about it with regards to Apple, is because Apple is the first confirmed case of a provider being instructed to backdoor their crypto, and we only know about it because the order leaked, and Apple coincidently took public action that unambiguously confirmed the leaked info.
>The current law does impact all encryption
>It gives the government the right to force any provider to backdoor their encryption
I could not find anything about individuals or developer only (service) provider. Ofc I wouldn't not put it past them to change that on a whim.
Apple’s stance is not all E2EE is off by default… Instead there are a set of things which are E2EE when you are using Standard Data Protection and a wider set of things become E2EE when you opt-in to Advanced Data Protection.
This is all clearly documented here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
What’s changing is the UK government is apparently serving a Technical Capability Notice compelling Apple to provide access to their customers data, and the only reasonable way for Apple to comply is to remove ADP as an option in the United Kingdom.
You are right but only half of the data is E2EE by default. Of that half only about half are actually serious private information.
>UK users would not be beholden to Apple for E2EE if their clients had legitimate alternatives to the first-party iCloud service.
Any sufficiently popular alternative would be subject to the same issue: you can't backdoor encryption without making it insecure.
>There would be no world where Apple could even threaten to disable it.
Your framing of this seems to blame Apple, and I don't understand why.
You can have a service beyond the reach of UK law enforcement. Somehow piracy on the clearnet never really stopped with it being illegal in most countries.
You're suggesting that Apple, a giant publicly traded company with known people that can be summoned to court and assets located in places that can be seized, should ignore lawful orders from a country they are operating in?
Can I ask you how you think that would play out?
>Somehow piracy on the clearnet never really stopped with it being illegal in most countries.
I'm sure you can spot the difference between a small group of people running a piracy site and a multinational company selling physical devices in physical stores.
> should ignore lawful orders from a country they are operating in?
By allowing users to install arbitrary software on their computers which is not directly controlled by them?
That certainly would be shocking and unheard of.
"Lawful" "order" is cute.
I'm not talking about Apple here.
This is what you said:
> Any sufficiently popular alternative would be subject to the same issue: you can't backdoor encryption without making it insecure.
I'm just saying this is not true because you can have a company without any legal presence, thus susceptibility to law enforcement, in the UK. The legal issue will be shifted onto the user, but it's hard to go after millions of users compared to one big company.
The parallel with piracy is that they also tend to be operated from beyond the jurisdiction of countries enforcing the copyright.
That didn't work out for X in Brazil. The government of a sovereign nation can just require you to have a presence to do business there.
That's mostly because of them using Musk's other business as leverage. A good company created explicitly to operate like this has no such vulnerability. The UK can try to stop them by trying to block the IPs or whatever, and the company is in turn free to try to circumvent it. The only issue is they may be banned from App store, which is a self-inflicted problem caused by Apple.
They simply blocked the whole of X in the whole of Brazil. They made it a crime to circumvent the block, so of course you could still access it with a VPN, as long as you didn't log into any account tied to your presence in Brazil, making it useless for politicians and the like. They didn't need to "use another business as leverage."
> you can have a company without any legal presence, thus susceptibility to law enforcement, in the UK
This is true, although you'd need to sideload to avoid things like "UK government bans this app from the UK app store".
Or worse, “UK government requires the App Store version to be backdoored”.
If you're a company with offices, personnel, and assets in the UK, well your "service" may be beyond the reach, but the rest isn't.
> you can't backdoor encryption without making it insecure.
That’s not really true is it? If I have a building where every room has its own key, but there is also a “master key” that can open all doors; then it’s not “insecure”. You want to be pretty bl—dy careful with that master key, sure, but the idea isn’t crazy.
It is absolutely a crazy idea.
Physical analogies don't really work in this situation because of the scale, and the payout.
A physical master key for a building has a few hundred thousand/a few million people that could potentially access it. The payout is low (i.e. the motivation is low on average)
An encryption backdoor to phones has a few billion people that could potentially access it. From anywhere in the world. The payout is huge (access to all iPhones).
Multiple entire governments would dedicate tens of millions of dollars and thousands of people to gain access to a ubiquitous backdoor on something like a phone. The same just isn't true with your building analogy -- they are completely different.
More to the point, a master key is a management tool for infrastructure maintenance. Its relationship to security is that I can securely keep all the monkeys organized in my monkey hut. The master key exists in a world where you can throw a brick through a window.
Security *around* the master key is entirely about pinning liability to one human being at a time. Security through hot potato.
It doesn’t have to be one key for all, one key for a bucket, per user if needs be. Can’t these master keys be in offline HSM’s? I get your argument, but it doesn’t seem an impossible problem to solve.
So the UK government would buy one HSM for every UK citizen and store their backdoor access key on there?
And put the HSMs where? In a big room? Protected by a door, with one key?
Or maybe each of the 650 elected politicians gets to hold 10 HSMs, each holding 10,000 keys? That way, by distributing trust, we can be completely sure that politicians are always snooping on about 10% of everyone's mails, instead of worrying about whether it's 100% or 0% at any particular moment.
Even the most secure masterkey can just be stolen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EternalBlue
It's (perhaps not?) well known that locks that are master keyed are inherently less secure than locks that aren't
It requires roughly half the picking effort.
in a lock you have multiple sets of pins. the key pushes pins, and if it pushes all the pins so that the top of the pin is at the boundary of the lock (the shear line), the lock turns.
There is a spring that pushes a connected pin down, which is what actually prevents the lock from turning. These are called driver pins. there is a separate pin(s) that the key actually interfaces with. The key pushes the pins until the driver pin moves past the shear line, when all driver pins and key pins are not interfering with the shear line, you can rotate/whatever the key and it is unlocked.
A master-keyed lock has additional discs inside the keyway, usually below the normal pins (closest to the key.) The discs are added based on the amount of extra movement needed to accept both the non-master, and the master key. So a master keyed lock has two, separate shearing points, the top of the regular pin, and the top of the master disc. This means there are at least two set-points for picking to get the driver pin out of the way - where the driver pin is flush with the shear line (as it would be with a regular, non-master key,) and where the normal pin's lower face is flush with the shear line (as it would be when a master key is inserted).
That master key sounds like a high value target, if it can open so many doors. Are you sure the one who guards that key is storing it securely enough and not just in a keyring together with other "important" keys he sometimes carries around needlessly? Are you sure he can't be coerced into "borrowing" it to someone, or handing it over to the police without first letting a lawyer check the warrants?
Have you considered that the locks need to have a weaker security if a key must exist which can open all the doors in the building?
This is a very good answer.
The last part is probe to discussion, though. You need to make the lock weaker, yes, but maybe just a little bit and you maybe need 4.5 days to open it vs. the 5 days when there is no master key. It is a matter of math (mechanics in that case) and risk assessment.
The ability to steal the master key by virtue of it being a physical object is SEVERAL orders of magnitude lower than a "virtual master key" that is potentially vulnerable to the entire online community.
If you consolidate security into a singular "skeleton key" - you 100% weaken your security.
I'm all for the DSA as well, but this argument doesn't hold water. Any sufficiently large cloud provider alternative (ie. Google, Microsoft, etc) would likely be the target of similar government instructions. In fact, I bet they already are - they just can't talk about it.
And of course, it's already possible to disable iCloud backups and use a smaller provider or host your own alternatives. I already do, through Nextcloud, etc. It's not as fully integrated of course, but you bet that if it was, then the largest alternatives would be targeted all the same.
If Apple were to add new APIs, it might be possible to use personal cloud storage (NAS, Decentralized Web Nodes, etc.) with the same UX as iCloud with E2EE.
> it might be possible to use personal cloud storage [...] with E2EE
Which would quickly become illegal if UKGOV is set on getting access to people's iOS backups / cloud storage / etc. Hell, it's already a legal requirement to hand over your keys if UKGOV demands them[0].
[0] "Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 part III (RIPA 3) gives the UK power to authorities to compel the disclosure of encryption keys or decryption of encrypted data by way of a Section 49 Notice." https://wiki.openrightsgroup.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investig...
Scale matters. Police don't have the time to go through everyone's computers. It is much easier to scan everyone's conversations, notes, or photos. Cloud storage invites this kind of mass surveillance by being high-value targets with little capacity to resist.
I would be less pissed with this if the UK actually kept the data to the UK.
You'd be fine with _domestic surveillance_ as long as it's kept within country? The average jurisprudence of a UK citizen is mind blowing to me.
I'm not british. I would be fine under their government. Not too thrilled but fine
Parent said "less pissed", not "fine"
I don't negotiate with terrorists.
Ah, so in the UK or China this could go through a proxy that steals all the keys.
Half the computer crimes in the UK involve illegal access to the PNC (police national computer), how exactly do we think this would go.
For all the checks you put on people who can access this stuff the temptation is too big - just look at the intelligence analysts using systems to stalk Exs etc.
For any system like this to exist you must ask yourself if you would be happy with the worst person you know having a job where they have access to it.
Bit more complicated than that. iCloud isn't passive storage. A fair bit of the logic exists on the server.
You can always have an company without legal presence in the UK to do the operations, beyond the reach of the UK government. If you are allowed to run your own software on your devices, you can always encrypt before sending. Apple and to a lesser extent Google got themselves in this position of being able to spy by building their walled gardens.
The UK demands a backdoor in the backups, so having an alternative backup app isn't the solution here. All the alternatives would just get forced into also adding backdoors, or everyone working for the companies that provide alternatives find themselves unable to ever enter the UK again.
That said, I do wish there were more backup solutions for mobile platforms. Android has an API for this, but it's only available to software signed with manufacturer keys. LineageOS and various other custom ROMs use this to allow Seedvault backups, but as a stock Android user I can only pick between Google backups and no backups.
On the other hand, these backups do contain material you don't necessarily want random apps to have access to. Seeing how powerful stalkerware/"parental control" already is on Android, I recognise that there are dangers that the general population might not realise. Adding additional warnings and messages about backups (even when the backups are made using manufacturer software) would probably strike a balance, though.
Both Apple and Android (stock) are candidates for anti-monopoly regulations regarding the limited, vendor locked backup API.
Enforcing choice of the backup solution would solve the problem of rogue countries like the UK meddling with privacy and security.
Like the browser choice, backup provider choice can end up being enforced, likely by the EU as they have a good history of breaking up vendor lock-ins.
Possibly an information/lobby campaign can be started and endorsed by some major online storage providers?
I agree, though with Android an argument can be had that Samsung and other manufacturers can offer alternatives if they want to (they have their own stores and their own platform keys).
I don't think there's a large lobby for the backup app industry but a lawsuit against Apple/Google/Samsung should be easily won here.
No android backup software I've seen is remotely good enough though: as in "indeop my phone in a shredder, and replace it with another identical model but thanks to the backup it relaunches exactly as it was"
Like a bunch of stuff will backup data, yet it's just about impossible to autonomously and confidently ensure I can restore my home screen and other app configuration data.
OP here. I am sympathetic, really I am, but the challenge then is a diversity of solutions tends to lack really good high quality security systems integration, meaning that data leaks differently. It's hard to have a high integrity solution which is an open standard and implemented equally well by all players.
I would rather that Apple invests in solving hard problems. Spending that money on legal representation only kicks the can down the road.
One of the hardest problems you can face is getting a community of disparate developers to do the right thing at scale; sometimes the easiest solution for that is a monolithic integrated blob.
I agree, that's why I applaud smart regulation. Apple is a disparate business too, you have no way to bring them to the table for doing "the right thing" unless there's some threat of repercussions.
It's really easy for Apple to back themselves into a vulnerable corner with the "ecosystem" mentality drawn out to it's logical extremes. I'd argue it's our democratic duty to stop businesses from endangering their customers like that, but that really depends on how you feel about consumer protections.
The EU and the EUC are not your friend when it comes to privacy
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/high-level-group-...
Nor is the jurisdiction Apple is headquartered in: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
It feels like a moot point, to me.
How is an exploration of broad spectrum legislative attacks on all forms of encryption regardless of hosting and corporate ownership and data communication moot?
The UK has to formally ask for a backdoor, the United States has the leverage to coerce Apple into implimenting one while demanding that it remain a secret. We don't know if the US has implemented equivalent iCloud backdoors yet, it might be under wraps like the push notification bug.
Maybe that doesn't concern you though, and that's fine. Apple is always looking for customers that don't care that much about their devices.
I genuinely have no idea what you are talking about.
Is there a particular reason you don't want to discuss the EU working group which is what I posted in response to your comment.
I didn't even dive in to how your original comment doesn't make sense to me. How do you think the DSA would help or change anything regarding either.
Is there any particular reason you ignored Apple's admission of extralegal surveillance that they were demanded to hide by the US government?
If you want to turn this into a relativist pissing contest, be my guest. I think it's a moot point, since the United States is complicit in an even more heinous form of surveillance. Don't moralize to me when America refuses to lead by example, this is the precedent that we set.
I've no idea who we is.
For a start the vector is very different. And I don't doubt there are unknown other attacks. But I'm discussing attacks we know about because they put them in policy papers and legislation.
Absurd discussion
I don’t know if you are expressing a thoughtful commment or do not understand the issue
Another iCloud provider will also need to comply with the UK stance. Can you clarify what you are going within that context
The UK is the one saying that they have the right to request backdoor access to any E2EE services.
This could extend to any app available in the UK market, or in preventing the phone makers from allowing software to run that is not approved by the UK.
A truly open software ecosystem would make this harder to enforce, but it wouldn't stop them from trying.
So the question in my mind is: is the UK Government attempting to cover-up its previous advocacy of ADP, by censoring this old document?
In a word, yes.
I'd be fascinated to know who in the hive mind decided to do it though; I can't see someone too senior coming up with an http redirect as the answer. I guess the scrub order came down the chain and an automaton jumped into action.
Interestingly, the well respected head of the Home Office announced departure around the same time as this story breaking.
There are always lots of juicy things going on in the big government departments, so connections could be made at almost any time. But the timing and quick departure does seems notable.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/matthew-rycr...
Perhaps they know that ADP security is broken. That would justify both changing the recommendation and asking to read it.
ADP is no longer available in the UK. To keep the document up to date references to the thing that doesnt exist anymore were removed.
Man, you know you're the baddies when you have to have "secret courts."
... this is very silly. Sometimes the government needs to have secret stuff, and that needs an oversight body... and they need to see the secret stuff
There is absolutely no reason why the public at large can't know that some three letter agency is legally forcing a company to provide information with a national security letter. The public knowing that this is happening doesn't divulge any useful information to anyone. The fact that free speech is in fact being trounced in the US is really freaking gross to me.
That's a pretty naive take imo ; divulging such information leads to change in behaviour of nefarious actors.
I totally get the viewpoint, but there are other perspectives to consider
I don't disagree that it can change behavior, but surely many or most of these nefarious actors must already assume that uploading illegal materials to Apple or Google, whether they claim E2EE or not, is a risk? See for example Apple's ditched efforts to scan and flag CSAM material on-device.
My assumption has been that the real bad guys use their own infrastructure attached to anonymous access methods like Tor, or using anonymous file sharing accounts that can't be tied to an iPhone's serial number. Maybe that's not true?
Offering transparency in these areas may help to understand whether the government is really doing this to arrest criminals, or just to have unfettered access to everyone's data.
Literally any bad actor with half a brain cell assumes every large american tech company has been served a NSL. Disallowing them from disclosing they received one seems pretty pointless and only done to prevent bad optics and public opinion
It's not naive. I can definitely see value in a two-tier warrant system. The first (and normal one), just like a physical warrant: you know you're being searched. The second, and it is much harder to get: a covert warrant, more like a wiretap.
Specific details, sure.
Locations of military assets, passcodes, officials' personal details, etc.
But you cannot have a democracy without the people knowing what their government is doing.
The oversight body is the legislature. The judiciary has no ability to provide oversight. The judiciary cannot act on it's own. It cannot conduct investigations. It can only act on cases and motions within those cases. The two ideas you've presented do not have anything to do with eachother.
Regular courts already do that.
Didn't realize he was also talking about the US secret courts. Sorry.
Uh...[1] yeah. Secret courts are the worst! Those British and their secrets!
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
Like I said, you know you're the baddies when you have to use "secret courts."
A charge of hypocrisy necessarily implies you agree with the principle.
Not so. Hypocritical positions tell you an error exists, but not which of the two contradictory positions is the wrong one.
I don't. I was merely pointing out the hypocrisy, not understanding that he meant it as a blanket statement for both/all countries with secret courts.
I'm not American. But if my country had (or has) secret courts, I'd think they were evil too.
What hypocrisy were you pointing out?
FISA abuse has been broadly reported in recent years.
Both are bad obviously, what a weird place to try to whataboutism
Simply turning off ADP for UK users seems like it wouldn't satisfy the UK who likely wants the keys to people's data who live outside the UK as well.
So Apple either has to fight this in court, compromise security worldwide, disable iCloud worldwide or exit the UK market.
The same law can arguably be used to compel Apple to backdoor phones and devices themselves as well.
The good news: The US Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is fully aware of the request and has responded to a letter from Congress about it. She has stated that in her opinion, while this plays out, it would actually be possibly illegal for the UK to make this request, let alone Apple to comply with it, under the US CLOUD Act. If this is true, Apple will have no choice but to leave the UK than comply, and the UK will find themselves in a no-win situation for this demand.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-examining-whether-uks-...
Edit: This is in addition (for better or worse, I’m just the messenger) to Trump personally calling the EU’s rules for tech unfair, JD Vance giving a speech accusing the UK and Europe at large of violating free speech, the UK’s prime minister being personally teased by Vance at their meeting about free speech (overshadowed by Zelensky’s meeting later the same day), and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr stating the EU Digital Services Act is incompatible with American free speech values. In my opinion, this turned out to be the dumbest possible time for the UK to attempt such a move, even if it wasn’t foreseeable when the demand was issued.
That's great news, now Ron Wyden won't have to feel so lonely when congress ignores his demands to end illegal surveillance of American citizens. It'll be like a hunky-dory, bipartisan "anti-surveillance surveillance club" or something!
Interesting that these five eyes nations are backing out of intelligence sharing with the US, and also removing the advice to use Apple encryption. Does this mean the US is able to get that encrypted data in plaintext already, and was previously sharing such with these governments? Now they won't have that and need (want) to see the communications move to platforms they have readily access to.
Usually I'm the person that comes up this stuff like this and I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't.
It does give you a little bit of pause, doesn't it?
Could someone that understands more than a third of what was written explain what's going on?
One part of the UK government is trying to force Apple to introduce back doors in cloud data encryption. The back doors are intended for UK government access to user data. This undermines the whole feature. Meanwhile, other parts of the UK government have been encouraging at-risk people to use the same feature, including to hide information from hostile foreign governments. The UK government as a whole has apparently realized that this is embarrassing and taken down the advice.
Surely Apple's lawyers can use this information in court - the fact that the government itself is relying on, and recommending, citizens and (presumably) intelligence assets to use Apple's encryption technology abroad makes it VERY clear that outlawing said technology will systematically weaken ALL UK information infrastructure and make it 110% easier for foreign powers to exploit and sabotage the UK as whole.
edit: removed political quip since, as evidenced by sub-comments, it too easily derails from the primary discussion point, excuse-moi.
> Do we really need Reform in power for common sense to flourish in the UK to any degree?!
No. You've mistaken demagoguery for common sense I'm afraid. That's one of their favourite tricks though, so you could be forgiven for the mistake.
Reminds me of this sketch from A bit of Fry and Laurie:
Hugh: And by demagoguery you mean ...?
Stephen: I mean demagoguery, I mean highly-charged oratory, persuasive whipping up rhetoric…
Transcript: https://abitoffryandlaurie.co.uk/sketches/language_conversat...
Video: https://youtu.be/3MWpHQQ-wQg
If you think Reform are likely to be in favour of anything other than the most authoritarian implantation of whatever law enforcement suggests they want, I don’t think you’ve been paying attention to who Reform are.
Apple is not planning to fight for the UK citizens over encryption.
It's a job for the democracy and voters.
Well, the rumor is that Apple has secretly appealed the order (which is officially secret) to whatever secret tribunal reviews such secret orders to create secret features giving secret government investigations access to various people's secrets. The Court of the Star Chamber, I think it's called.
Which is at least Apple doing something vaguely like fighting. But, yeah, UK citizens might want to think hard about doing something about the situation themselves. For one thing, Apple will probably lose. And the US government isn't going to have Apple's back against the UK, either.
Apple may be fighting for the UK citizens. We don't know, we're not allowed to know and Apple isn't allowed to tell us https://www.theverge.com/news/623977/apple-uk-encryption-ord...
It was not removed out of embarrassment, it's just wrong advice. The government can't tell people use this feature, because the feature no longer exists for them to use.
Notice which side wins out.
Uk Govt wanted Apple to give them backdoor keys to all accounts. Not even just UK accounts, all accounts. Apple said no and said they will remove encryption from iCloud for UK users. Apple then sued UK govt to try and get the whole thing stopped so that they dont need to remove the encryption from UK. But some parts of the govt were telling other parts to use some of the encryption features.
As I understand it (which might be incorrect), they don't want to tell people "use Apple encryption" anymore and e silently removed that advice from their websites. Probably due to the fact that they didn't get their Backdoor access to user data, so now they want people to just now encrypt stuff
The UK government should mandate http (not https) everywhere.
Why bother? They can just visit Cloudflare HQ, who already proxy 19.3%[1] of the internet. AFAICT, all https traffic proxied by them is accessible to them in plaintext. Of course, Cloudflare are disallowed by law from letting us know if the UK government were surveilling all of their proxied traffic.[2]
[1] according to this particular metric: https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cn-cloudflare [2] "the IPA makes it illegal for companies to disclose the existence of such government demands." https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/21/apple-pulls-encrypted-i...
IANAL
It surprises me I don't hear more about this in tech circles to be honest because it's something that concerns me greatly.
I like Cloudflare as a product, but it seems to me they've effectively made privacy from state actors online impossible.
Of course, if you cared enough you don't have to use services that use Cloudflare or other reverse proxy services, but most of the web is behind a reverse proxy these days making that difficult.
It's also understandable why services opt to use a Cloudflare proxy, what with the growing threat that is DDoS attacks from large botnets.
I feel we should build an extension to HTTPS to allow Cloudflare / other reverse proxy services to proxy web requests without circumventing the SSL guarantees between the user and the host. It should be trivially possible.
That said, the cynical side of me worries that it works this way by design.
We really live in the stupidest timeline
Related:
Apple takes UK to court over 'backdoor' order
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43270079
I'm always curious about the digital rights erosion. The frog boiling in a pot is a pretty apt metaphor. At what point do we throw are hands up and just assume all channels of communication are compromised to the point its public.
UK trying to ban math...
It’s maths.
There is still a picture of the front of the document available:
https://archive.ph/uXyEf
The UK border is completely porous and counter-terrorism services repeatedly fail to investigate reported threats.
This isn't about improving security.
Why would you want to live in the UK, especially under this government?
Unless you want to enjoy a full surveillance state close to China?
Even if you are running away from the US, you should just ignore the UK as a destination at this point.
Most people were born there and have nowhere to go.
The problem is, that it's spreading... EU already wants "AI" to read our private messages, US and it's patriot act was not much better (+ everything within wikileaks), etc.
After decades of being surveilled by the US government and US corporations, the information sold to the highest bidder, the lowest bidder and then given away for free - it is refreshing that my country has taken an interest in me.
"Confirmation. So the question in my mind is: is the UK Government attempting to cover-up its previous advocacy of ADP, by censoring this old document? Or does it instead want the UK legal profession to avoid use of ADP and to what end?"
No, they just changed their advice/webpage. They aren't trying to "cover-up" anything. They just changed their stance in the face of current requests and laws. It's not a conspiracy.
And they recommend Apple instead.
Doubt this is due to security concerns and moreso being instructed to do so for political reason.
Wankers! Sorry that's not constructive. But that's what they are.
Especially when government ministers regularly accidentally delete everything and get away with it...
Muppets!
(As an American, I love UK slang. It's both familiar and exotic at the same time.)
>I love UK slang
I recommend checking your preferred book source for Roger's Profanisaurus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%27s_Profanisaurus
Oy! You got a loicense for that encroiption?
Soon enough you're gonna need a license to protest.
To a degree this exists. For large protests you need to give notice and can even face jail time for failing to inform the police.
True. I'm meaning more "take a one month government-sponsored class to learn about safe methods of protest, the relevant regulations on sound amplification, and what words are deemed too profane for putting on a sign, in order to obtain your Protester ID Card."
Oh. Not again that german ideas!
You already need one, and they don't exist. That is, protesting is outright illegal. Actually, that's the case in most countries already.
I've always wondered, what happens if there's no organizers and a bunch of people just sorta independently agree to show up together somewhere and tell all their friends by word of mouth? Is the first person who tweeted "Let's all go protest!" held accountable as the organizer, or what?
In the UK they go to prison anyway. You will be arrested for praying in silence.
https://www.thefp.com/p/abortion-buffer-zones-united-kingdom...
https://aleteia.org/2023/03/09/pray-get-arrested-repeat-uk-w...
https://reason.com/2024/10/17/british-man-convicted-of-crimi...
Yes, pretty much.
It's already a criminal offense to protest inside your mind. [1]
[1]: https://reason.com/2024/10/17/british-man-convicted-of-crimi...
It's the where that matters, there.
Having seen the other extremes, eg Westboro attacking mourning families, I'll take the UK's interpretation of freedom. It includes the idea that other people have a right to go about their business without busybodies with no standing getting in the way.
Edit: I also wouldn't claim the UK always gets it right, but sometimes balancing those ideas —rights to speech, privacy, and to exist unimpeded— isn't simple. Nasty artefacts like super-injunctions feel stifling, people arrested for online speech sometimes a little too far, but I'd still take it over many alternatives.
The reason for that is because you can fuck off with the persistent harassment of those who come to get abortions, including by "praying", that is, hanging around near the clinic trying to guilt-trip pregnant women. You're completely free to fuck the fuck off away from the area and bow your head disapprovingly. You're also free to think whatever you like inside the designated safe zone so long as you're not being demonstrative about it. Anyone who's deliberately come near to the clinic in order to visibly pray is picketing it. Having a grievance about this as if it was thought policing is dishonest.
If it were a fish and chips stand there'd be no problem with picketing, praying, or most other nonviolent, non-threatening demonstrations that didn't get in somebody's way. You could make it your full-time job to protest every fish and chip stand in the country without issue. It _is_ thought policing, since the only crime is protesting the "wrong" thing.
Maybe it's still fine to ban that sort of protest, but let's call it what it is.
Harassment, yes. To get an equivalent situation, you need to eat a fish supper to avoid monumentally unpleasant life changes, and the looney fringe of the dominant religion, in cahoots with some of your friends and relatives, wants to call you a murderer for eating that fish supper. Then they don't limit themselves to publishing their views, they hang around the fish and chips stand acting sad and concerned. This is not a constructive discussion or public debate, it's coercion.
Pretty sure that the US, UK and Europe fixed that back in the 90s, during the anti-globalization protests.
Ever since the Democratic Party established in 2004 that you could designate "Free Speech Zones" where the constitution would be in effect, and literally put bars around them, it was an inevitability that people living in US vassals that have never had strong speech protections would lose it all. The US sets the standard for a written absolute free speech right, but makes bad speech its biggest enemy and covertly finances censors overseas to lobby against free speech protections.
-----
Random person on internet:
> Has anyone heard about the protester pen set up at the Democratic convention?
> It's constructed with mesh, chain link & razor wire to contain any DNC protesters - not after they've been rounded up by police for unlawful activity - but to house them while they are protesting!
> "U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock called the barbed-wire pen "an affront to free expression'' and "irrefutably sad'' but necessary because of protesters' antics in New York and Los Angeles."
> Story here. [http://news.bostonherald.com/dncConvention/view.bg?articleid...]
> And this is the Democratic convention.
> I've got a really bad feeling about this.
https://files.electro-music.com/forum/topic-2781-0.html
-----
truthout, Sunday 25 July 2004:
> Demonstrators who want to be within sight and sound of the delegates entering and leaving the Democratic National Convention at the Fleet Center in Boston this coming week will be forced to protest in a special "demonstration zone" adjacent to the terminal where buses carrying the delegates will arrive. The zone is large enough only for 1000 persons to safely congregate and is bounded by two chain link fences separated by concrete highway barriers. The outermost fence is covered with black mesh that is designed to repel liquids. Much of the area is under an abandoned elevated train line. The zone is covered by another black net which is topped by razor wire. There will be no sanitary facilities in the zone and tables and chairs will not be permitted. There is no way for the demonstrators to pass written materials to the convention delegates.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050625073603/http://www.trutho...
and a license to program a computer
Certainly m'lord, but it does look like gibberish.
Yes! I got it from the US government department which regulates encryption:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
I can use more than 56-bit DES :)
You know this is just making fun of the poor working class? It's offensive.
Says someone from a country where the act of crossing the road is outlawed.
But seriously, get some new material. Tiresome fake accents mocking another country is just childish, especially when it has nothing to do with the article in question.
If ya ain't doin' nuffin' illegal, ya got nuffin' to 'ide, mate.
Not everyone from the UK is English or indeed has a London accent...
Could you write your comment in a Scottish accent, please?
> Not everyone from the UK is English or indeed has a London accent...
That is true. Especially these days, even in London.
But England completely dominates the politics of the UK.
FWIIW this sounds English to me. They bought us the Magna Carta that made Kings subject to law, but they have never been free.
>but they have never been free.
Different kinds of freedom. In London you can legally jaywalk naked while drinking a beer in front of a cop and know that even if you really pissed the cop off, you'd never get shot for it.
can you be that socially inept that you can't understand it's a joke?
Is something that's just wrong the same as a joke?
Anyway London accents don't go "oi". This is a Birmingham accent. London accents go "ah".
I am honestly trying to figure out what you are arguing here. GGP didn't say something like "This is what everyone in England sounds like: ..."
Isn't that what a caricature is supposed to do?
Here we have a caricature which is irritating because it's off the mark. I demand better mockery.
Is Birmingham accent bad mockery?
It's oddly specific mockery, like Ozzy is England's international representative. I don't know, maybe he is. But I doubt Birmingham even inspired the meme, this is probably a caricature of Dick Van Dyke more than anyone.
To be fair, Brits seem to think New Yorkers go "oi" and they don't really either.
we know, enjoy the mockery
quite
[dead]
Did the site get hugged to death?
Yes. Here's the substance of the post:
https://archive.is/YZF6r
I've made a (shortened) copy of your comment and pinned it to the top of the thread. I hope that's ok with you! I just thought it's only fair for you to get the karma.
(If not, let me know and I'll undo.)
It was fine, but I inadvertently deleted it before I saw your comment. I saw it in my comment history and thought I double-posted!
Ha! I guess I'll make a new one. Sorry for the confusion...
Thank you
works fine for me
not working for me.
edit: it did load eventually after waiting for a minute or two
[flagged]
That's not correct. It's for people who think they might be targets of surveillance operations, like journalists and activists.
> Lockdown Mode is an optional, extreme protection that’s designed for the very few individuals who, because of who they are or what they do, might be personally targeted by some of the most sophisticated digital threats.
(from https://support.apple.com/en-us/105120)
This is mostly useful if you run it all the time, since you generally won't know when you will be targeted.
I assumed from the headline this was about GDPR Article 32. Instead, I got tricked into reading about Apple fighting for their right to sell me another adapter to add back the features they removed for security.
Edit: It appears my comment was moved from a duplicate discussion titled "UK quietly scrubs encryption advice from government websites" which linked to TechCrunch.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/06/uk-quietly-scrubs-encrypti...
> Apple fighting for their right to sell me another adapter
What adapter is that you read in the article about?
My comment was a joke connecting wiretapping (from the Investigatory Powers Act) with Apple's proprietary adapters. The parallel I was drawing: just as the UK suggests requiring licenses for encryption, Apple already charges $99/year to develop devices you own. A wire "tap" is an adapter (a tap) in the communication line. You can add one yourself at the end of the chain, but the UK also fights with Apple about their USB-C standardization, so it was also referencing the larger regulatory battle.
Clearly, you didn't understand enough to respond to the joke, and it's against HN guidelines to suggest I didn't read the article. However, this topic is derailed due to The Online Safety Act. As I said, the headline was well crafted.
The encryption dongle adaptor.
There is too much deflection from the true purpose for these regulations.
The main thing here is that if a Govt approaches a party to gain access to their encrypted data the party can stall them, destroy the data, claim amnesia or point the Govt in the direction of their lawyers. If the Govt approaches Apple or some other company, the companies don't have to inform the targets and can probably compel the companies not to inform the targets.
With encryption there is even no hard evidence that the data sought exists.
This is the main reason for the laws. Their purpose is to gain access to encrypted information without their target's knowledge.
Though I doubt it's the main driving force of the government, a common theme in news articles about suicides and murders is family members being upset that Apple won't give iPhone backups or unlock codes to loved ones. Grieving family members often portray Apple as uncaring and unwilling to unlock devices with a simple software update.
There are plenty of people with good intentions calling for backdoors like this. I believe a good government will know the implications and ignore the pleas, but it seems there aren't that many good governments left.