UK Effort To Keep Apple Encryption Fight Secret Is Blocked (msn.com) 28
A court has blocked a British government attempt to keep secret a legal case over its demand to access Apple user data. From a report: The UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a special court that handles cases related to government surveillance, said the authorities' efforts were a "fundamental interference with the principle of open justice" in a ruling issued on Monday. The development comes after it emerged in January that the British government had served Apple with a demand to circumvent encryption that the company uses to secure user data stored in its cloud services.
Apple challenged the request, while taking the unprecedented step of removing its advanced data protection feature for its British users. The government had sought to keep details about the demand -- and Apple's challenge of it -- from being publicly disclosed. Apple has regularly clashed with governments over encryption features that can make it difficult for law enforcement to access devices produced by the company. The world's most valuable company last year criticized UK surveillance powers as "unprecedented overreach" by the government.
Apple challenged the request, while taking the unprecedented step of removing its advanced data protection feature for its British users. The government had sought to keep details about the demand -- and Apple's challenge of it -- from being publicly disclosed. Apple has regularly clashed with governments over encryption features that can make it difficult for law enforcement to access devices produced by the company. The world's most valuable company last year criticized UK surveillance powers as "unprecedented overreach" by the government.
"Clashed with governments over encryption"? (Score:1)
Oh, but not China's government! They pick their fights via cost/benefit ratios like any other business.
Delta (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, but not China's government!
What's the mechanism for fighting the constitutionality of a law in Chinese courts?
I'll give you a hint before you go looking, there isn't much of one.
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Court (Score:3)
Apple has defeated the FBI's requests to decrypt phones multiple times in court, so at least there's that
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well... Apple basically called them up on the bench to swear under oath that they NEEDED Apple to decrypt the data because they couldn't get it without Apple's help. Instead of testifying, they very quietly dropped the case and walked away.
things that make you go hmmmmmmmmm
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Apple has defeated the FBI's requests to decrypt phones multiple times in court, so at least there's that
I remember one request that was utterly stupid. Killer had three phones, two Android and one iPhone. He completely destroyed the two Android phones. The iPhone was owned by the school where he worked and was under control of the school's IT. After a long fight the FBI managed to find someone who could unlock the iPhone.
What did they find? Nothing of any interest. Which was obvious. Because you wouldn't put any crime plans on a phone controlled by your school, and if you did, you would destroy it like the
Re:Delta (Score:4, Insightful)
Step 1 is to ask the question
Step 2 is to disappear
Step 3 is to re-appear at a later date, not asking the question anymore
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They have no chance whatsoever of prevailing with China. The UK isn't - yet - willing to admit out loud that they're a fascist police state, so Apple might be able to manipulate them into being sensible.
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They have no chance whatsoever of prevailing with China. The UK isn't - yet - willing to admit out loud that they're a fascist police state, so Apple might be able to manipulate them into being sensible.
It's not that. It's just police thinking it would be so great to read any criminals data. They don't think about how awful it would be if criminals could read decent citizens' data because with Apple's setup the first is a problem they can see and that affects them, while the second is a problem they can't see and that doesn't affect them because _right now_ Apple prevents it from happening.
The USA has a bit of a history now with _former_ NSA and FBI leaders speaking out strongly against making phones of
Headline could use punctuation (Score:3)
Have to read TFS to understand.
Re:Headline could use punctuation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Headline could use punctuation (Score:5, Funny)
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Welcome to Orwell's 1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
“A case where a borough council used RIPA to conduct surveillance on a family amid concerns that the mother had lied on a school admissions form
“Notorious incidents include the surreptitious planting of a microchip [localgover...wyer.co.uk] within a resident’s bin, purportedly in order to show that the resident was putting the bin out on the wrong days, and the use of secret cameras to identify unlawful dog fouling.”
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Fascism is as fascism does (Score:5, Insightful)
A country not wanting to be transparent about this is evil.
Sheesh, the world is turning fascist at a concerning rate.
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If you lie to the government, you get into big trouble, but if the government lies to you, it's all good? We teach people
UK thinks they can regulate US companies (Score:4, Insightful)
https://x.com/cricketwyvern/st... [x.com]
I think they're in for a surprise.
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Oh, countries absolutely can "regulate" businesses in other countries. In the "nicer" countries, they simply tell you that you can either obey the laws they have on their books, or pack up and leave and cease to do business with their entire population.
If the "market" your country provides the company is big enough, that alone can be enough to make you follow their rules, at least as far as people currently in their country are concerned. Lately the UK's been getting a little punchy though, expecting thei
shoe's on the other foot (Score:2)
Isn't it ironic how the UK wants Apple to follow their laws, while at the same time they're trying to enforce them to an extreme that breaks their own laws?
Looks like the shoe's on the other foot now. I don't agree with everything Apple does, but I'll cheer them on as they refuse to go quietly and instead shine a light into a dark corner that's harboring some nasty cockroaches the govt doesn't want their citizens to see..
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Isn't it ironic how the UK wants Apple to follow their laws, while at the same time they're trying to enforce them to an extreme that breaks their own laws?
The UK didn't just want Apple to follow UK law - Apple absolutely follows their laws concerning encryption and decryption.
The law says that if Apple stores end-to-end encrypted user data then Apple has to add functionality to give the data to the government. Which means effectively lying about end-to-end encryption. Apple follows UK law simply by not providing end-to-end encrypted iCloud storage anymore.
Since customers would be reasonably annoyed about removal of a feature, Apple wants the government