They started out saying this for US too. Back in the day.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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? the feature is still available in the US
They've assisted US law enforcement with phone access. An Apple whistleblower leaked that Liz Truss texted Anthony Blinken "it's done" 1 minute after nordstream pipeline explosion. US congressional pressure on tech has definitely put a shift away from "don't be evil" to "national security champions".
They are legally obligated to deny any cooperation with US government. I don't have proof that they provide access.
Smells like B.S. Got any proof?
Apple has a history of being the good guys when it comes to issues of encryption. As a rule, they want to keep your privacy (and theirs). But they also want to continue operating in many countries, and when something like this happens, they may fight it in court, but if they lose, they won't pull out of the region, they'll find a way to comply.
In other words, this is a problem with national governments. They need to stop asking app and os developers to do unethical things, there's enough pressure for them to do that already.
And who knows maybe it also shuffles these developers down a slippery slope... Maybe developers figure "if we must spy on users, we've already lost their trust, we might as well make a profit from it". And that leads us to the relationship we have with technology today, our tech is untrustworthy, we feel the oppression of the surveillance state and we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Uhhhh no, breaking encryption is exactly what they're doing.
Explain please.
...they're removing encryption from iCloud
Providing something that is broken is very different from not providing it at all.
Right but...they did provide it. And now they're not. You wouldn't call removing that encryption "breaking"?
No, because if you know its not encrypted you behave differently than when you think it is.
What does your behavior have to do with whether or not the encryption is broken?
Social media doesn't do nuance.
No encryption was broken.
Broken would imply that Apple has the ability to decrypt stored user data using advanced data protection. This is not the case.
Selling you a box to put your stuff in and selling someone else a locked box to put their stuff in doesn't mean Apple broke into your box. It means your big brother won't let you have locks.
Broken would imply that Apple has the ability to decrypt stored user data using advanced data protection.
...is that not what they're doing?
No.
They disabled the ability for new users to use ADP.
If you use ADP, only you have the encryption keys. The UK wants Apple to keep a copy of the decryption keys.
There is nothing that can be done to data that is already protected by ADP. At worst Apple can delete it, or turn over encrypted data but there is nothing that is likely to exist in the next 100 years that can break the encryption (even hypothetical quantum computers).
As an interesting side note, if you use Windows and use Bitlocker to encrypt your hard drives while logged into a Microsoft account then Microsoft backs up your recovery key "for your convenience". They've produced these recovery keys for subpoenas.
That is what the UK wants Apple to do.
They disabled the ability for new users to use ADP.
So existing users can continue using ADP?
Yes, for the moment.
"Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature,"
It'll eventually be completely removed, but they seem to have some time to be in compliance and so they'll give their customers time to move before it's all deleted.
Lemmy is not encrypted, my comments are public, your comments are public, we both know that. Anyone with a raspberry pi or an old netbook can scrape them.
If I use an encrypted service and all of a sudden everything that I thought was encrypted was decrypted by the service provider without my consent? That's breaking encryption.
If on the other hand I use an encrypted service and they tell me that they can no longer offer the service, my data will be destroyed after X days, and I need to find another way of storing my encrypted data because of privacy invading government policies? That is not breaking encryption.
tell me that they can no longer offer the service, my data will be destroyed after X days, and I need to find another way of storing my encrypted data
Oh that makes much more sense.
No.
Users that do not decrypt their storage lose their storage permanently.
Users that decrypt their storage get to continue to use it, but it isn't not encrypted.
No encryption is broken.
Users are swapping convenience for privacy. (Or privacy for convenience? Whichever way that is).
Broken implies it is unusable or useless. As in "Apples encryption is unusable".
This is not the case. It's not broken. Users are given the option to remove the encryption to be able to continue to use the storage.
Essentially: https://xkcd.com/538/
I always see that one and think "goddamn they'd kill me because I'd never remember the password after the drugs hit, and the more they hit me the less I'll be able to focus and remember"
Not as it is conventionally used.
If you break a lock, that’s different from unlocking it and removing it.
That's not what breaking means...
i think @[email protected] is saying break encryption has a meaning and the journalist does not understand that meaning
Apple stopped providing encrypted storage, but they didnt unencrypt the existing storage for governments to see.
Ah. That was indeed the way I read it but I could have misunderstood.