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Apple Threatens to Pull FaceTime and iMessage in the UK Over Proposed Surveillance Law Changes
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Apple is not able to get into anyone's phone. That's the nature of the encryption-designed to be unbreakable by Apple. That's not refusing to cooperate-nor is it a refusal to cooperate when Apple continues to make its encryption impervious to being broken into.
This is why your country is such a disaster and is viewed as the sickman of Europe nowadays. Tory and pretend Tory (Labour) are indistinguishable so folk still vote Tory. You had a chance to break the cycle for good in 2019 but were happy to sip the kool aid that Boris and his cronies spouted. All which was proven to be lies yet you would still vote Tory. Who is the real problem here?
In this regard UK is not Europe. Apple products are way more popular there than on the continent - both iMessage and FaceTime are at least as popular as Whatsapp.
This is definitely true here in the UK in my experience. Whatapp is much more widely used even among iPhone users.
Doesn’t the UK have a bit of a history of making orders without representation? Just going back to their roots?
No level of transparency is ever enough, though. Someone could take great pains to lay everything out in great detail, digging up every morsel of information available… BUT, for someone who wants the data to confirm their scenario is occurring, they will always be free to say “YOU’RE STILL HIDING SOMETHING! You MUST be because this doesn’t prove my point at ALL!”
Good point. The big difference between the UK and China is that China’s fine with their citizens not being able to use iMessage to communicate with folks outside the country very well.
UK no 2A, no encryption soon, cameras everywhere. sounds dystopian.
I’ll take my “disaster” of a country over most if not all others frankly. Any day of the week.
Yes, but limited in the form of a Republic has been shown to be the most resilient. Then again, the man who claimed this was Cicero and he had his head cut off by Antonius
I wouldn't and didn't. I couldn't leave fast enough and feel embarrassed to come from there. I thought it was a disaster when I lived there but now the country committed suicide by leaving the EU. Thank goodness I qualify for an EU passport other ways.
The UK is a failing state, its not the public that needs surveillance, its the Government that needs to be watched !
You dont remember Thatcher the milk snatcher then ?
It hasnt appeared yet, Apple may well decide to dump the EU and let people buy their phones from the states via Amazon ! I think pulling iphone sales in any EU country because of the Govt there would be an electoral disaster for any establishment.
China spares no expense when it comes to surveillance. No “communist” countries do. They can afford to have a person watch every foreigner personally. I doubt these are high paying jobs. It’s for the glory of the state, comrade.
Monitoring FaceTime calls would be expensive to set up but not all that expensive to maintain. And again, expense is not an issue. They don’t call it the Great Firewall for nothing.
According to Microsoft, the Chinese stole very secret encryption keys and used them to break into US government and Microsoft servers. I think China could get the keys for FaceTime or whatever else they want.
They mandated a few years ago that all servers serving Chinese users must be in China. All of Apple’s encryption works so seamlessly because Apple manages a lot of keys. Well, Apple’s servers do. The ones in China, for the Chinese users. They don’t actually have to steal anything in this case.
There needs to be international consensus over this. The UK can’t do their own thing without conflicting with privacy laws in other countries. I doubt Apple could keep Messages and FaceTime in the UK if the government proceeds with this.
China just blocks services and sets up their own replacement. They would never ask for a back door to this type of service. Apple wouldn’t be able to comply anyway. E2EE only works when there is international consensus on regulations. You can’t have it work differently in different places without siloing it to a particular country.
Not even that. If Apple decided to pull put of the EU instead of complying with the new law, european mobile carriers would likely blacklist all of Apple’s iphones due to noncompliance with the new local laws, meaning that even if people bought the iphones from the US via amazon they wouldn’t be able to use them with European sim cards or esims.
It doesn’t have to work differently, China just has to have access to the private keys and control to distribute keys to users. They can automatically insert themselves into a conversation as a user by adding that key to the group conversation. This is already something that has been discussed outside the context of China. That’s what iMessage key verification is supposed to be about. If I understand it correctly, you can finally do direct key exchange so Apple doesn’t have to intermediate. I don’t know if it’s actually direct exchange or just verification though. Crucial difference.
But yes they do just usually block and emulate. You may recall that the iPhone was not available in China for several years. They eventually struck a deal. I wonder if anyone has ever gotten to read that document. Would be interesting reading.