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randomgeeza

macrumors 6502a
Aug 12, 2014
620
462
United Kingdom
I use Messages every day on my iPhone and iPad and never even noticed that lol.

I don't agree with the U.K. government on this and hope they drop the proposals. I'm not a criminal or a terrorist, I just don't trust politicians.

It's the politicians that are in fact the terrorists. I feel strongly about these proposals and foresee nothing but trouble ahead if they are pushed through.

Before too long, if you even think a bad thought, there'll be a knock at the door.
 

GFLPraxis

macrumors 604
Mar 17, 2004
7,152
460
Or even better, disable iMessage completely in the UK and force SMS only. Then make sure that the press lets UK citizens know why the change was made. No better way to change a politicians mind quickly than to anger all of there constituents at once.
And send out noticed to all users that they've done so because the UK has declared the service illegal. Watch the petitions storm in.
 

Reason077

macrumors 68040
Aug 14, 2007
3,657
3,737
I am shocked and outraged.

Who do Apple - as a foreign corporation - think they are, trying to dictate and influence UK laws?

We're British, and if we prefer to allow government agencies to have full, invasive access to our internet communications then they damn well shall have it!

Stop trying to tell us how we should run our country!
 

Shirasaki

macrumors P6
May 16, 2015
15,747
11,100
Politic is the most pathetic invention ever made by human species, yet this is currently the most powerful tool to control a large group of people with considerable effort.

I strongly agree with what Tim Cook says. Tools can be used by good guy can also be used by bad guy. See conventional knives. We can use it to peel an apple. We can also use it to take life from someone. This is dual.

And, don't they know that terrorists would just use their own stuff rather than publicly available one, and render this policy completely useless? They even can construct communication towers by themselves as long as they can and they want.

No, this is not an option to monitor terrorists. This is an option to let government have truly free access to everything.
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
9,572
6,083
I am shocked and outraged.

Who do Apple - as a foreign corporation - think they are, trying to dictate and influence UK laws?

We're British, and if we prefer to allow government agencies to have full, invasive access to our internet communications then they damn well shall have it!

Stop trying to tell us how we should run our country!

This is bigger than any one country. This impacts everyone who communicates with the U.K.

Should the UK pass this, I think Apple will choose to stop selling anything in the UK. Businesses will move all of their operations to be outside of the U.K. to ensure that their private communications remain secret.

Any back door is a back door. You can't make it just for the government - hackers will find their way in. Malicious agents within the government will help them.
 

Solomani

macrumors 601
Sep 25, 2012
4,785
10,477
Slapfish, North Carolina
Apple (and other tech companies) are going to lose this battle. All Western governments are heavily propagandizing the necessity of destroying ISIS and combatting terrorism. Day by day the majority of Americans are being convinced that the West must sacrifice everything — money, soldier lives, security, privacy — in order to defeat terrorists.

This will become Patriot Act version 2.0 and the Western governments do not care about your iPhones or your digital privacy or digital security.

The Western Governments will win this battle, and they will soon demonize Apple/FaceBook/Google as "accomplices" to Islamic terrorism if Apple/FB/Google refuse to cooperate with the Governments in the fight against the terrorists.

Once the demonizing narrative becomes accepted by the public — and there are tons of Apple-hating MacRumors posters alone that always buy into the "Apple is stubborn and evil, so of course the Government is right" rhetoric — then Tim Cook and the other CEOs will cave in. End of story. Oh and have a Merry Christmas! :p
 
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thasan

macrumors 65816
Oct 19, 2007
1,104
1,031
Germany
Of course she dealt with your visa application herself. Perhaps the officials did not think you should be allowed in the country because you did not demonstrate you could support yourself.

It is generally considered she has been the best home office minister for many years. I disagree with her on this particular issue but it does not make her an incompetent Home office minister.

As the minister in charge it is her job that her department runs efficiently. Do you know home office is one of the most poorly run offices? Do you know how many times the visa rules have been changed and yet has yielded zero results? And perhaps you didn't read my previous comment, I submitted the same document and explained the previous officer was wrong. Everything got sorted the second time. But again, imagine, in the middle of my PhD, I had a family emergency. Wouldn't be able to come back to uk. Ofcourse destroying one life doesn't seem anything compared to the big picture. But I was not the only one. It's a difficult issue but have you seen how many times she makes a policy to appease voters and then all unis and business orgs in uk oppose it? ...


But of course, this is not the topic of discussion in this thread. I just hope the laws are there to protect people but not to misuse. Even if uk govt doesn't, some governments will block apple or google and demand a similar Backdoor and will misuse it.
 
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H2SO4

macrumors 603
Nov 4, 2008
5,683
6,958
I like to look at it like this.
If someone doesn’t vote they have little right to moan. If they don’t pay the tax due, again, they have little right to moan. Pay what is right, (not what you can get away with), and we’ll take you seriously Cook.
 
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scottsjack

macrumors 68000
Aug 25, 2010
1,906
311
Arizona
Good work Tim. England is going in the direction of being a complete dictatorship a faster and faster pace. It's hard to believe that American law sprang from English law.

I am in favor of keeping full, backdoor-free encryption available for everyone. For sure it makes law enforcement a little tougher but so does the lack of government-monitored cameras and microphones in every American home.
 

scottsjack

macrumors 68000
Aug 25, 2010
1,906
311
Arizona
What's more the same Members of Parliament that we elect to represent our views are immune from the invasion of privacy.

The draft bill clearly omits them from being subject to the surveillance that they would have us under; it will write 'the Wilson doctrine' into law, preventing surveillance of their communications.

Not that America is all that well put together these days but the English need to start government all over, less repression, no political correctness, a written Bill of Rights, a new emphasis on mommy-state-free self reliance and the will to send dangerous foreigners (a.k.a. Muslims) back home
 

haydn!

macrumors 65816
Nov 10, 2008
1,273
1,844
UK
The English public don't really care about this type of thing.

The people who want to stay encrypted here will stay encrypted, because there's always a way and the law is unenforceable.

Most of the British public won't know or care unfortunately.

I think you under estimate the importance of free communication to people. If this came into effect, and the tech companies failed to comply you'd see services like Facebook, Facebook Messenged, Twitter, WhatsApp as well as iMessage all disappear.

That's a hell of a lot of users impacted, and you only have to see the way Facebook rally called Brazil to overturn their WhatsApp ban in just a matter of hours to see the UK government would have a lot of crap on their hands!
 

Jess13

Suspended
Nov 3, 2013
461
2,434
Err, RIPA keeps us safe Mr Cook. Its capabilities allow us to keep track of threats.

Not all of us have the privilege to be wet-behind-the-ears West Coast liberals.

Snowden.png

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/17/edward-snowden-brazil-spying-asylum
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/17/world/americas/snowden-nsa-brazil-letter/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...f1342a-6727-11e3-8b5b-a77187b716a3_story.html
 

robotica

macrumors 65816
Jul 10, 2007
1,256
1,412
Edinburgh
I'd really like to see Apple tackle this head on.

If they don't change the bill pull out of the U.K. and don't sell any products here.

Something of that scale would show them how completely bonkers what they are asking actually is.
 

inscrewtable

macrumors 68000
Oct 9, 2010
1,656
402
Surely any savvy crim who wants encryption is going to get it one way or the other so if Apple becomes pointless for them then they will find another solution. This will affect only the lowest level of petty crims.

Also if you vpn uses their own dns then there won't be a record of websites visited or will there.
 
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lowendlinux

macrumors 603
Sep 24, 2014
5,443
6,750
Germany
I'm not sure Apple should be weighing in on this, it looks like more of "America knows best" than genuine concern whether or not it's actually the case.
 

Gymgenius

Suspended
Jan 29, 2010
211
127
Apple is rightfully upset.

England ... birthplace of 1984.

They are but pretending to be upset.
They are merely sowing the seeds of the change they WILL make.

iMessage uses End to end encryption, unbreakable be even Apple themselves, at the moment, but Apple will do what is best for Apple, make no mistake about that.

If the UK government tell them to make the change or else (see their services banned in this country), it doesn't take a Harvard graduate to guess which option they will take. They could even be forced to make the change and not tell their customers.

Sad times for privacy.
 

Eraserhead

macrumors G4
Nov 3, 2005
10,434
12,250
UK
f the UK government tell them to make the change or else (see their services banned in this country), it doesn't take a Harvard graduate to guess which option they will take. They could even be forced to make the change and not tell their customers.

I think if it really comes to that they will leave. Cook has made such a big deal about privacy he could hardly do anything else without destroying his business.

The issue is that if Cook threatens to leave Cameron will cave as he doesn't want to be the prime minister who banned Apple devices.

The Western Governments will win this battle, and they will soon demonize Apple/FaceBook/Google as "accomplices" to Islamic terrorism if Apple/FB/Google refuse to cooperate with the Governments in the fight against the terrorists.

Islamic terrorism isn't actually a serious issue though.
 

Gymgenius

Suspended
Jan 29, 2010
211
127
I think if it really comes to that they will leave. Cook has made such a big deal about privacy he could hardly do anything else without destroying his business.

The issue is that if Cook threatens to leave Cameron will cave as he doesn't want to be the prime minister who banned Apple devices.

It will surely be an interesting battle to watch unfold.

Islamic terrorism isn't actually a serious issue though.

Very true.
 
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iZac

macrumors 68030
Apr 28, 2003
2,622
2,911
UK
They've not given the Chinese backdoor access though, they've just allowed them to audit their code, to ensure they're not passing information back to the US government, which is no where near the same. As far as I know, Apple would have to re-engineer iMessage to allow anyone backdoor access, the way it works now, Apple simply can't provide back door access to anyone, as it doesn't have the necessary encryption keys to allow it to do so.

Oh yeah, I'm not saying it's the same thing, just that Apple has to concede to the laws of countries it trades in. It's crap, and they can complain all they want, but if it passes, there isn't much they can do about it other than pulling out of that territory. The US system is actually much better in this regard in that they can throw lobbyists at the government to try and block it.
 
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sparkie1984

macrumors 68030
Dec 20, 2009
2,909
2,227
a small village near London
England ... 1984 realized.

I was born in 1984 :)

With all due respect to other politicians, Theresa May is the most incompetent, incapable and stupid minister. She is like a monkey with a machine gun, without having any clue about what she has been proposing. Spent billions of dollars and stupid legislations to make voters happy yet ineffective. My passport for visa application was with UKBA for 9 bloody months cause the officer didn't like my bank statements. And the phone contact number they officially provided in the letter was a fax number. And guess what, I resubmitted the documents and everything got sorted. All of this in the middle of a policy change and within that 9 months, she changed the visa policy for universities in uk three times. No wonder she doesn't have a clue about privacy and only proposing this to show that she cares! Hope all tech companies resist this. Otherwise pseudo democratic countries will use this to oppress citizens :(

Theresa May is a horrible piece of crap who's a disgrace to this country.

She hates the police and has gone after them with no mercy, there's not a serving copper who likes her. She's now turning to the fire brigade to destroy.

Almost as if she or someone she is with has shares in a private company that could "rescue" the bankrupt police.

The sooner she crawls back under her rock the better this country will be
 

CaTOAGU

macrumors 6502a
Jul 15, 2008
759
835
Manchester, UK
Oh yeah, I'm not saying it's the same thing, just that Apple has to concede to the laws of countries it trades in. It's crap, and they can complain all they want, but if it passes, there isn't much they can do about it other than pulling out of that territory. The US system is actually much better in this regard in that they can throw lobbyists at the government to try and block it.

I disagree, the Chinese law the article talks about explicitly demands access to encryption keys, "A tabled counter-terrorism law will force almost all foreign tech companies in the country to provide source code and encryption keys for inspection, and install backdoors to allow surveillance access." It then goes on to say that Apple has almost certainly not done that. I'm saying, that the way iMessage is engineered, they couldn't even if they wanted to. Given that they haven't offered and can't give the Chinese the encryption keys they are after, this is an example of Apple explicitly not following the current law of a sovereign nation. There is some wiggle room here however, as the article talks about a, "tabled law" and uses the future tense, so it's possible the law is still in the drafting stages.

Now it could be that in the end Apple caves and reconfigures iMessage in China, removing end-to-end encryption but there's no evidence in that article (that I saw) that they have done as of yet.
 
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