Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Threatens to Pull FaceTime and iMessage in the UK Over Proposed Surveillance Law Changes
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That George Orwell and his darned prescient books! The guy knew humanity far too well. Too bad some seem to have taken them as training manuals instead of the warnings he intended.
Brexit did not bring a stronger NHS or any other benefit. Instead, the British get mass surveillance, 1984 style.
Goes to show how the concepts of democracy and referenda only work when people casting votes actually know what they doing.
Many times they are unfortunately not knowledgeable enough to spot they are being swindles by straight liars and populists.
All these millions of years of evolution and progress and or collective species is still dumb as ever…
Goes to show how the concepts of democracy and referenda only work when people casting votes actually know what they doing.
Many times they are unfortunately not knowledgeable enough to spot they are being swindles by straight liars and populists.
All these millions of years of evolution and progress and or collective species is still dumb as ever…
If living with Covid taught us anything, it's that the "average" person is very stupid indeed.
The thing with the UK is, their police investigations into numerous terrorists attacks (London bombing, Manchester bombing for starters) and the numerous investigations into child trafficking and into sexual exploitations of children have shown that the criminals involved have used mobile messaging systems that use end to end encryption. They also use various social media applications that have end to end encryption so they can communicate with other criminals and to send each other child sex videos and pictures and due to the prolific use of end to end encryption devices and applications which has thwarted police investigations, the UK has been asking companies involved in providing such devices and applications to up their game to prevent such activity from occurring, especially when it comes to the protection of children but the companies have not stepped up. All they do is make excuses about privacy rights and freedom of speech and other rights as a way to prevent them from doing what the UK government is asking them to do.
The UK is one of the countries in the world that has very strong child protection laws and these laws are now being applied to the digital world where they are coming up against huge resistance from companies not wanting to police their own systems.
People not familiar with the situation in the UK need to understand a very important fact. The UK government warned companies that they must up their game when it comes to policing their systems and if they do not, the UK government will do it for them and if memory serves me right this has been going on for about 5 to 6 years now so yes, the companies concerned have had ample time to get house in order and they haven't because according the the UK government child porn and it's distribution has been increasing and not enough has been done by the companies who devices and systems being used to distribute the vile stuff. Like everything in this world, to protect the innocent and vulnerable, the majority become affected by the controls put in to protect the innocent and vulnerable.
So the question to all those complaining about the UK government, remember this. They gave the companies concerned ample time to get their house in order and they haven't. So just how much time should the companies be given to put adequate and effective systems in place to prevent terrorists from communicating with one another and prevent the distribution of child porn? Another 2-3 years or never?
The UK is one of the countries in the world that has very strong child protection laws and these laws are now being applied to the digital world where they are coming up against huge resistance from companies not wanting to police their own systems.
People not familiar with the situation in the UK need to understand a very important fact. The UK government warned companies that they must up their game when it comes to policing their systems and if they do not, the UK government will do it for them and if memory serves me right this has been going on for about 5 to 6 years now so yes, the companies concerned have had ample time to get house in order and they haven't because according the the UK government child porn and it's distribution has been increasing and not enough has been done by the companies who devices and systems being used to distribute the vile stuff. Like everything in this world, to protect the innocent and vulnerable, the majority become affected by the controls put in to protect the innocent and vulnerable.
So the question to all those complaining about the UK government, remember this. They gave the companies concerned ample time to get their house in order and they haven't. So just how much time should the companies be given to put adequate and effective systems in place to prevent terrorists from communicating with one another and prevent the distribution of child porn? Another 2-3 years or never?
Nope - because everyone I've met uses it professionally and personally, and when you read the news or watch it on tv there's continual references to WhatsApp groups (for example amongst MPs). I couldn't really give a toss about Zuckerberg.
As ever - if the answer you get isn't the one you wanted - blame the electorate. If only everyone could be as bright and immune to influence as yourself!
The UK is still a huge market for Apple products even if our economy is failing because of Brexit. I’m sure I’ve read that we have one of the highest amount of Apple users outside of the USA.
Who says it's not that popular, I communicate with all my friends and family over iMessage and FaceTime. Please don't speak for everyone, most who message on an iPhone don't realise they are using iMessage.
Stop blaming brexit for everything that goes wrong. Many other European countries are struggling economically and they are still in the EU.
Not really, child abuse is not treated harshly and has been allowed to grow under the radar for a very long time. Several high profile cases have proven that.
EDIT: To back up my point, the sentencing in the UK of child murders or even child sex abusers in the UK is ‘incredibly” weak, 10 years, 8 years, 12 years, 20 years is the norm from I’ve seen, they should be thrown in jail for life, no argument. And they are released in half that time on licence don’t forget. Back out in the community. Child abusers have been released after weak sentencing and then caught near schools again and reported. I won't mention the certain charities and what devices they have been caught offering children, with no recourse apart from being ‘investigated’. So whilst you may have laws, they are not enforced properly at all.
having access to the evidence on FaceTime etc is worthless if the sentencing used to punish those caught with the data from them are weak and not serving the public interest.
Last edited:
There's no such thing as free speech in the Commonwealth. Heck, they arrested a man for quoting Winston Churchill.
IMO apple should pull the iphone out of the EU entirely, due to the USB-C requirement. Would create a huge black market for iphones in Europe, but at least apple would be standing up to big government regulation.
Tories will always revise the narrative when they're caught out. It's why people still vote for them despite what regular folk in the street see.
Another Tory trait is denying they're Tories. If you ask the population of England, nobody voted for Boris.
Totally understand and appreciate all of that. But if the UK gov passed a law tomorrow saying all cars should also be able to fly, you tech people figure it out, apple wouldn’t be able to comply with that either.
There is no way to make a good guys only back door. It’s impossible. They’re asking apple to make 1+1=3.
Well there needs to be something done because as the world becomes even more digital (even cash is starting to be fazed out in favor of digital payments), more and more criminals are finding ways to avoid being detected because they are using devices and apps that allow them to do that and it will only get worse as the world advances more digitally.
It always amazes me when people go off on the UK government about it's IPA bill but yet all the same people never put the same effort towards ISP's and the makers of web browsers. An ISP knows where you are based on your computers MAC address which is unique to every electronic device that has network capability (yes people can hide or spoof their MAC address if they want to if they have the right tools to do so), the ISP knows exactly the amount of times you log on and log off, the exact time and date. They know every single website you connected to, every bit of software you use and when you used it. They will know how long you stayed on a website, where you click on a website, which website you moved to, where you moved from, who your emailing, the content of every email you sent, they will know if you are using social media, who your are contacting and for how long. They know every thing you've downloaded, what you downloaded, where when, what time and how big the download is and the list goes on and on and on and they know all of this because of what is known as 'packet data' which get's sent down from the network device (desktop pc, laptop, tablet, mobile phone, smart watch, other smart devices) to the IPS's servers. The ISP has everything about you and a huge majority of it is not encrypted and yet no one complains about it. People have no privacy when it comes to their ISP but they are more than happy to complain when a government get's involved in privacy. ISP's know more about you and your life than your government does and it's not all encrypted either.
I didn't complain. I agree. It's a great goal to have. But so is living on Mars... and giving tech companies a runway of just 36 months to 'figure it out' won't make that happen any quicker either. I'm not saying it's a bad goal but as someone else said - they should ban all roads because criminals use them. This is that kind of thinking.
After the FBI apple fiasco.. the FBI accessed the data some other way and how they did it was unclear at first... turns out they paid a company for zero day exploits on iOS that wern't fixed at the time.. and what happened to the secret backdoor the FBI had made for themselves? It got hacked / leaked within months. The same thing would happen here with a manufactured back door only quicker.
What the UK Gov wants is impossible to implement and they're leaving apple no choice but to walk away.
It’s enough to convince me not to visit. I’ll take my tourist dollars elsewhere, which is sad because I want to see London!
It was a less worse option than the alternative in 2019.