RIPA Request to Apple by UK

[visibleman]

I’m all for criticising Apple and the government where there is genuine criticism due, but let’s stop making things up please.

You’d also be naive to think notices have not been issued to Google, Microsoft and others who offer similar services and operate in the U.K.

You're right, this isn't just an Apple issue, it's just so happens the TCN by the government to Apple was leaked. As you say, other providers would have no doubt been asked the same although we don't know either way due to the IPA and nothing being leaked about other providers.

That isn’t what is happening though so it’s a silly straw man.

But unlawful/illegal access of data is a known thing - officers in (UK) Police forces have done it with the PCN; GCHQ has been found to have unlawfully accessed data, along with 'snooping' and 'bulk' interception; the NSA has done similar and was outlined in the Snowden files; providers have done the same, iirc, an Amazon employee accessed a users/companies data in AWS.

Apple (and no doubt others) can and always have handed over the encrypted data, they just can’t decrypt it for the police if they don’t have the key.

If they don't have the key sure but that is (typically) only the case where E2EE is deployed.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

You're right, this isn't just an Apple issue, it's just so happens the TCN by the government to Apple was leaked. As you say, other providers would have no doubt been asked the same although we don't know either way due to the IPA and nothing being leaked about other providers.

I’m sure more will be leaked in time but there are probably not that many services who actually operate here who the home office could enforce against.

But unlawful/illegal access of data is a known thing - officers in (UK) Police forces have done it with the PCN; GCHQ has been found to have unlawfully accessed data, along with 'snooping' and 'bulk' interception; the NSA has done similar and was outlined in the Snowden files; providers have done the same, iirc, an Amazon employee accessed a users/companies data in AWS.

Bulk interception isn’t what is happening here.

Apple (and others) isn’t giving unfettered access to data to the security services. None of these examples are applicable.

These are perfect examples of irrelevant strawman arguments which simply don’t apply to this issue.

Now will a tiny minority of police officers abuse their power and elaborate the basis for their warrant, sure I can believe that. Will a subset of that minority outright lie to get a warrant, probably and will a judge fail to question it and route this out on a subset of these? Almost certainly.

This is one of the key issues we should be focussing on in terms of the flaws in the government process, but it’s also a flaw which has existed since the beginning of time. But let’s not pretend the met police have direct access to Applies iCloud, because they don’t.

If they don't have the key sure but that is (typically) only the case where E2EE is deployed.

Which is likely that 99% of apple users never enabled because it’s opt in and Apple do not prompt you to enable it.

That’s likely part of the rationale for Apple not giving the middle finger to the U.K. government on this issue. It’s probably not the hill they want to die on given the vast majority of users didn’t know it existed and an even smaller subset of users cared about it.

We all know about it because we are nerds, most people don’t even know what end to end encryption even means.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not supporting the government’s legislation, it’s bad. But some of the hyperbole which surrounds this issue getting silly.