• Apple Threatens to Pull FaceTime and iMessage in the UK

    From badgolferman@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 24 11:01:23 2023
    Apple says it will pull services including FaceTime and iMessage in the
    UK if plans to amend surveillance legislation that would require tech
    companies to make major security and privacy changes go ahead (via BBC
    News).

    The UK government is planning to update the Investigatory Powers Act
    (IPA), which came into effect in 2016. The Act of Parliament allows the
    British Home Office to force technology companies to disable security
    features like end-to-end encryption without telling the public. The IPA
    also enables storage of internet browsing records and authorises the
    bulk collection of personal data in the UK. Due to the secrecy
    surrounding these demands, little is known about how many have been
    issued and complied with.

    Currently, this process involves independent oversight via a review
    process and tech companies can appeal before having to comply. Under
    the proposed update to the IPA, disabling security features without
    informing the public would have to be immediate.

    The UK government started an eight-week consultation process on the
    proposed amendments to the IPA open to professional bodies, interest
    groups, academia, and the wider public. Apple has submitted a
    nine-page-long document condemning many of the changes.

    The company opposes the requirement to inform the Home Office of any
    changes to product security features before they are released, the
    requirement for non-UK-based companies to comply with changes that
    would affect their product globally, and having to take action
    immediately if a request to disable or block a feature is received from
    the Home Office without review or an appeals process.

    Apple also highlighted that some requested feature changes would
    require a software update, so could not be implemented without public knowledge. The proposals "constitute a serious and direct threat to
    data security and information privacy" that would affect people outside
    the UK, Apple claims.

    The company added that it would not make changes to security features specifically for one country that would weaken a product for all users, suggesting that services like ‌FaceTime‌ and iMessage will simply be removed in the UK if the amendments proceed.

    Apple, WhatsApp, and Signal also oppose a clause in the UK's proposed
    Online Safety Bill that would allow its communications regulator to
    require companies to install technology to scan for CSAM in encrypted
    messaging apps and other services. Signal has threatened to leave the
    UK over the matter.

    https://www.macrumors.com/2023/07/20/apple-threatens-to-pull-facetime-and-imessage-uk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?J=c3=b6rg_Lorenz?=@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 24 13:39:43 2023
    Am 24.07.23 um 13:01 schrieb badgolferman:
    allows the
    British Home Office to force technology companies to disable security features like end-to-end encryption without telling the public.

    Stasi and Gestapo-methods.
    Apple is right.

    --
    Faber est suae quisque fortunae

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Wilf@21:1/5 to badgolferman on Mon Jul 24 13:54:39 2023
    On 24/07/2023 at 12:01, badgolferman wrote:
    Apple says it will pull services including FaceTime and iMessage in the
    UK if plans to amend surveillance legislation that would require tech companies to make major security and privacy changes go ahead (via BBC
    News).

    The UK government is planning to update the Investigatory Powers Act
    (IPA), which came into effect in 2016. The Act of Parliament allows the British Home Office to force technology companies to disable security features like end-to-end encryption without telling the public. The IPA
    also enables storage of internet browsing records and authorises the
    bulk collection of personal data in the UK. Due to the secrecy
    surrounding these demands, little is known about how many have been
    issued and complied with.

    Currently, this process involves independent oversight via a review
    process and tech companies can appeal before having to comply. Under
    the proposed update to the IPA, disabling security features without
    informing the public would have to be immediate.

    The UK government started an eight-week consultation process on the
    proposed amendments to the IPA open to professional bodies, interest
    groups, academia, and the wider public. Apple has submitted a
    nine-page-long document condemning many of the changes.

    The company opposes the requirement to inform the Home Office of any
    changes to product security features before they are released, the requirement for non-UK-based companies to comply with changes that
    would affect their product globally, and having to take action
    immediately if a request to disable or block a feature is received from
    the Home Office without review or an appeals process.

    Apple also highlighted that some requested feature changes would
    require a software update, so could not be implemented without public knowledge. The proposals "constitute a serious and direct threat to
    data security and information privacy" that would affect people outside
    the UK, Apple claims.

    The company added that it would not make changes to security features specifically for one country that would weaken a product for all users, suggesting that services like ‌FaceTime‌ and iMessage will simply be removed in the UK if the amendments proceed.

    Apple, WhatsApp, and Signal also oppose a clause in the UK's proposed
    Online Safety Bill that would allow its communications regulator to
    require companies to install technology to scan for CSAM in encrypted messaging apps and other services. Signal has threatened to leave the
    UK over the matter.

    https://www.macrumors.com/2023/07/20/apple-threatens-to-pull-facetime-and-imessage-uk/

    I'm in the UK and I agree with Apple. It'll be a darn nuisance, and
    worse, if Apple, Whatsapp and others refuse to operate in the UK, but
    IMO they are right to oppose this oppressive legislation. Our
    government is getting above its currently very low station.

    --
    Wilf

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From =?UTF-8?Q?J=c3=b6rg_Lorenz?=@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 24 15:18:23 2023
    Am 24.07.23 um 14:54 schrieb Wilf:
    I'm in the UK and I agree with Apple. It'll be a darn nuisance, and
    worse, if Apple, Whatsapp and others refuse to operate in the UK, but
    IMO they are right to oppose this oppressive legislation. Our
    government is getting above its currently very low station.

    What does freedom and democracy mean in the UK these days?


    --
    Alea iacta est

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Wilf@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 24 15:01:34 2023
    On 24/07/2023 at 14:18, Jörg Lorenz wrote:
    Am 24.07.23 um 14:54 schrieb Wilf:
    I'm in the UK and I agree with Apple. It'll be a darn nuisance, and
    worse, if Apple, Whatsapp and others refuse to operate in the UK, but
    IMO they are right to oppose this oppressive legislation. Our
    government is getting above its currently very low station.

    What does freedom and democracy mean in the UK these days?



    Well the UK and the USA have their own separate ways of trying to
    destroy democracy.

    --
    Wilf

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Wilf@21:1/5 to Alan Browne on Mon Jul 24 16:04:06 2023
    On 24/07/2023 at 15:34, Alan Browne wrote:
    On 2023-07-24 10:01, Wilf wrote:
    On 24/07/2023 at 14:18, Jörg Lorenz wrote:
    Am 24.07.23 um 14:54 schrieb Wilf:
    I'm in the UK and I agree with Apple.  It'll be a darn nuisance, and
    worse, if Apple, Whatsapp and others refuse to operate in the UK, but
    IMO they are right to oppose this oppressive legislation.    Our
    government is getting above its currently very low station.

    What does freedom and democracy mean in the UK these days?



    Well the UK and the USA have their own separate ways of trying to
    destroy democracy.

    Israel seems to be well ahead. Parliament just voted to reduce the
    Supreme Court's ability to overturn government actions that violate the law.

    Effort led of course by (indicted and charged) right wing PM NuttyYahoo
    who is a butt buddy of indicted and charged (more to come) former acting president Donald Trump.

    Donald Trump would /love/ to keep the Supreme Court out of his hair as
    it, conservative or not, doesn't seem to cooperate with his Big Lie over
    the 2020 elections.


    Yes, you're right about that. I know some people there who have been
    roused out of political slumber to protest strongly against this assault
    upon their democracy.

    --
    Wilf

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Bob Campbell@21:1/5 to badgolferman on Mon Jul 24 15:09:48 2023
    badgolferman <[email protected]> wrote:
    Apple says it will pull services including FaceTime and iMessage in the
    UK if plans to amend surveillance legislation that would require tech companies to make major security and privacy changes go ahead (via BBC
    News).

    Good for Apple. Its about time they stood up to meddling by petty
    bureaucrats.

    Frankly, I would like to see Apple and Samsung and others give a big F.U.
    to the E.U. for their ridiculous demands. No, you can NOT tell us how to design our products.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Alan Browne@21:1/5 to Wilf on Mon Jul 24 10:34:35 2023
    On 2023-07-24 10:01, Wilf wrote:
    On 24/07/2023 at 14:18, Jörg Lorenz wrote:
    Am 24.07.23 um 14:54 schrieb Wilf:
    I'm in the UK and I agree with Apple.  It'll be a darn nuisance, and
    worse, if Apple, Whatsapp and others refuse to operate in the UK, but
    IMO they are right to oppose this oppressive legislation.    Our
    government is getting above its currently very low station.

    What does freedom and democracy mean in the UK these days?



    Well the UK and the USA have their own separate ways of trying to
    destroy democracy.

    Israel seems to be well ahead. Parliament just voted to reduce the
    Supreme Court's ability to overturn government actions that violate the law.

    Effort led of course by (indicted and charged) right wing PM NuttyYahoo
    who is a butt buddy of indicted and charged (more to come) former acting president Donald Trump.

    Donald Trump would /love/ to keep the Supreme Court out of his hair as
    it, conservative or not, doesn't seem to cooperate with his Big Lie over
    the 2020 elections.

    --
    “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."
    -Ronald Coase

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Alan Browne@21:1/5 to Bob Campbell on Mon Jul 24 11:35:55 2023
    On 2023-07-24 11:09, Bob Campbell wrote:
    badgolferman <[email protected]> wrote:
    Apple says it will pull services including FaceTime and iMessage in the
    UK if plans to amend surveillance legislation that would require tech
    companies to make major security and privacy changes go ahead (via BBC
    News).

    Good for Apple. Its about time they stood up to meddling by petty bureaucrats.

    Frankly, I would like to see Apple and Samsung and others give a big F.U.
    to the E.U. for their ridiculous demands. No, you can NOT tell us how to design our products.

    The reality, with the cable and battery silliness anyway, is that yes,
    they can, unless you're willing to:

    - give up a large, wealthy market (Europe: ~56M iPhones in 2022)[1].
    - split your product line by market.

    The first being silly - too much money to be made.
    The second being silly - costly to split products by market where avoidable.

    So even a 26% market share (Apple in Europe over the last 9 quarters)
    will make Apple comply. Their compliance to the battery thing will be
    very close to what exists now because batteries are already replaceable
    in iPhones, though it's challenging for many people.

    They just need to make it a little less challenging and then fight it
    out in court. That court fight would be on the order of 5 - 7 years
    from now.

    (They could argue that their present program "meets" the need, but that
    is silly - much better to go through a 3rd party shop or do it yourself
    if you're capable).

    [1] Note that Europe and EU are not the same thing for the purpose of
    the rules, so these numbers are just for a sense of scale.

    --
    “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."
    -Ronald Coase

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Alan Browne@21:1/5 to Woozy Song on Mon Jul 24 17:49:32 2023
    On 2023-07-24 17:20, Woozy Song wrote:
    Bob Campbell wrote:

    Apple says it will pull services including FaceTime and iMessage in the
    UK if plans to amend surveillance legislation that would require tech
    companies to make major security and privacy changes go ahead (via BBC
    News).

    Good for Apple. Its about time they stood up to meddling by petty
    bureaucrats.

    Frankly, I would like to see Apple and Samsung and others give a big F.U.
    to the E.U. for their ridiculous demands. No, you can NOT tell us how to
    design our products.

    I suspect, given the government has never been denied the information they seek, that this is simply posturing on the part of both Apple and the UK.

    Given there is no record of even a single iPhone which the government
    didn't always get full and complete access to already, it seems a waste of

    Getting access to a phone and its contents is not intercepting messages
    between two phones.

    government energy to force yet another open door when the thing is already wide open for all intents and purposes.

    In cases where the government got access to an iphone's contents, it
    cost them 10's of thousands of dollars per event.

    --
    “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."
    -Ronald Coase

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Woozy Song@21:1/5 to Bob Campbell on Tue Jul 25 05:20:18 2023
    Bob Campbell wrote:

    Apple says it will pull services including FaceTime and iMessage in the
    UK if plans to amend surveillance legislation that would require tech
    companies to make major security and privacy changes go ahead (via BBC
    News).

    Good for Apple. Its about time they stood up to meddling by petty bureaucrats.

    Frankly, I would like to see Apple and Samsung and others give a big F.U.
    to the E.U. for their ridiculous demands. No, you can NOT tell us how to design our products.

    I suspect, given the government has never been denied the information they seek, that this is simply posturing on the part of both Apple and the UK.

    Given there is no record of even a single iPhone which the government
    didn't always get full and complete access to already, it seems a waste of government energy to force yet another open door when the thing is already
    wide open for all intents and purposes.

    To that end, this is a non issue - much like the San Bernardino phone was. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/07/20/apple-threatens-to-pull-facetime-and-imessage-uk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From sms@21:1/5 to badgolferman on Mon Jul 24 16:12:51 2023
    On 7/24/2023 4:01 AM, badgolferman wrote:
    Apple says it will pull services including FaceTime and iMessage in the
    UK if plans to amend surveillance legislation that would require tech companies to make major security and privacy changes go ahead (via BBC
    News).

    <snip>

    Good for Apple. It would be a lot harder for the UK government to do
    anything about WhatsApp since it doesn't come integrated into the
    operating system.

    --
    “If you are not an expert on a subject, then your opinions about it
    really do matter less than the opinions of experts. It's not
    indoctrination nor elitism. It's just that you don't know as much as
    they do about the subject.”—Tin Foil Awards

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Alan@21:1/5 to Woozy Song on Mon Jul 24 17:57:05 2023
    On 2023-07-24 14:20, Woozy Song wrote:
    Bob Campbell wrote:

    Apple says it will pull services including FaceTime and iMessage in the
    UK if plans to amend surveillance legislation that would require tech
    companies to make major security and privacy changes go ahead (via BBC
    News).

    Good for Apple. Its about time they stood up to meddling by petty
    bureaucrats.

    Frankly, I would like to see Apple and Samsung and others give a big F.U.
    to the E.U. for their ridiculous demands. No, you can NOT tell us how to
    design our products.

    I suspect, given the government has never been denied the information they seek, that this is simply posturing on the part of both Apple and the UK.

    Oh, look! Another completely unsubstantiated claim...

    ..by Arlen.


    Given there is no record of even a single iPhone which the government
    didn't always get full and complete access to already, it seems a waste of government energy to force yet another open door when the thing is already wide open for all intents and purposes.

    To that end, this is a non issue - much like the San Bernardino phone was. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/07/20/apple-threatens-to-pull-facetime-and-imessage-uk/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Woozy Song@21:1/5 to Alan Browne on Tue Jul 25 14:02:51 2023
    Alan Browne wrote:

    Given there is no record of even a single iPhone which the government
    didn't always get full and complete access to already, it seems a waste of

    Getting access to a phone and its contents is not intercepting messages between two phones.

    The hackers have stopped accepting iPhone zero-click exploits.
    Because they have more than they can ever hope for already.

    government energy to force yet another open door when the thing is already >> wide open for all intents and purposes.

    In cases where the government got access to an iphone's contents, it
    cost them 10's of thousands of dollars per event.

    The many zero-click iPhone exploits already provide full & complete access. Both the government and Apple are posturing like they did in Comey's day.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From =?UTF-8?Q?J=c3=b6rg_Lorenz?=@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jul 25 10:46:20 2023
    Am 24.07.23 um 16:01 schrieb Wilf:
    On 24/07/2023 at 14:18, Jörg Lorenz wrote:
    Am 24.07.23 um 14:54 schrieb Wilf:
    I'm in the UK and I agree with Apple. It'll be a darn nuisance, and
    worse, if Apple, Whatsapp and others refuse to operate in the UK, but
    IMO they are right to oppose this oppressive legislation. Our
    government is getting above its currently very low station.

    What does freedom and democracy mean in the UK these days?



    Well the UK and the USA have their own separate ways of trying to
    destroy democracy.

    Right. It is sad to observe that from the outside for both countries.

    --
    Faber est suae quisque fortunae

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Alan Browne@21:1/5 to Woozy Song on Tue Jul 25 08:38:28 2023
    On 2023-07-25 02:02, Woozy Song wrote:
    Alan Browne wrote:

    Given there is no record of even a single iPhone which the government
    didn't always get full and complete access to already, it seems a waste of >>
    Getting access to a phone and its contents is not intercepting messages
    between two phones.

    The hackers have stopped accepting iPhone zero-click exploits.
    Because they have more than they can ever hope for already.

    Sure. And every zero-day gives complete access to a phone too. (pro
    tip: they don't).

    government energy to force yet another open door when the thing is already >>> wide open for all intents and purposes.

    In cases where the government got access to an iphone's contents, it
    cost them 10's of thousands of dollars per event.

    The many zero-click iPhone exploits already provide full & complete access. Both the government and Apple are posturing like they did in Comey's day.

    See above.


    --
    “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything."
    -Ronald Coase

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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