Comment on Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row

<- View Parent
davesmith@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

I saw it called “end to end encrypted icloud backup” in the news. I guess it is that, in that it is encrypted at rest on apple’s servers, then between those servers and the end-user’s device. But that is a bit different to what signal does. Signal doesn’t store anything at rest on any servers they own as far as the experts I rely on for information on this (and who signal allow to audit them) say.

It seems to be the case that as long as apple offer any products at all to the UK market, the UK government have the right to ask, in secret, for apple to provide encryption backdoors into their products for all of apple’s customers whatever the nationality. It seems likely that the UK will share this information with five eyes countries’, allowing those countries to circumvent their own legal processes.

It isn’t clear if that has happened or is going to happen but it seems likely that they will, if they can get away with it without it becoming public knowledge. Which has pissed off, for instance, US information security professionals who like iphones whose data now can’t be considered secure.

It might be the case that apple has had to withdraw this particular product from the UK for public relations purposes because somebody whitleblew. But as long as apple wants to sell products in the UK it seems the snoopers charter allows the snoopers to request backdoor access to their products globally.

The Chinese have done the same. People here call them totalitarian for doing so.

source
Sort:hotnewtop