UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US

> How many of those 30 were for "online posts" (and of which nature - Lucy Connolly is a favourite example cited by the likes of Vance, but she was arrested for trying to stir up racial tension when there were already race riots going on)? Who can tell, because the article didn't seem to bother asking.

I googled Lucy Connolly out of curiosity. It indeed appears that she got 31 month of jail for a single tweet? You don't think this counts as "arrested for online posts"?

Ridiculous thing to say when any number north of 0 is too many. But go ahead, muddy an otherwise extraordinarily simple argument.

Fortunately in the UK it is illegal to lie on the internet...

It's mostly far-right shit-stirring because it's a much broader set of crimes than you are being led to believe. It's basically every possible crime "by communication":

"A spokeswoman for Leicestershire police said crimes under Section 127 and Section 1 include “any form of communication” such as phone calls, letters, emails and hoax calls to emergency services."

I expect it's mostly domestic abuse cases because what was once screamed through a closed door is now messaged online.

When a family member starts threatening others, an arrest is probably the necessary intervention to prevent actual violence. It's a similar story in cases like e.g. community racial tensions and gang violence. Once the threats are happening online, real violence is imminent and action warranted.

Per gpt: Estimates vary, but roughly 250,000–300,000 people were imprisoned for political reasons over the GDR’s 41-year existence—an average of ~6,000–7,000 annually.

Just wow. I wonder if we will study this in history textbooks about downfall of UK

East Germany fell in 1990 - I doubt there were even 12,000 people online in East Germany at that point in time.

> 12k a year?!? That is a staggering number.

(i think OP might be speedrunning a "what opinions, mfer?" goose meme thing. i bet the reason is "for posting right-wing nationalistic garbage likely to incite hatred", or similar)

Always good to peel away at least the surface layer ... and ideally more ...

https://archive.ph/xBtFI#selection-3249.145-3249.167

A spokeswoman for Leicestershire police said crimes under Section 127 and Section 1 include “any form of communication” such as phone calls, letters, emails and hoax calls to emergency services. “They may also be serious domestic abuse-related crimes. Our staff must assess all of the information to determine if the threshold to record a crime has been met. “Where a malicious communications offence is believed to have taken place, appropriate action will be taken. Our staff must consider whether the communication may be an expression which would be considered to be freedom of speech. While it may be unacceptable to be rude or offensive it is not unlawful — unless the communication is ‘grossly offensive’.

In Europe we don't value free speech as high as the US.

There is "forbidden speech" (around lying about Holocaust related topics and insulting people online) and I think it's a good thing in total. You spew out the worst of the worst on the internet you should be able to be held accountable

How do you expect to spy on US citizens if you don't get the five eyes to help out?

I think Trump has guaranteed that European countries have ended all real intelligence sharing pretty much unilaterally.

They are forcefully pushing for whatever the position of US companies is in conflicts between US companies and EU regulators.

The position of the US executive on encryption is well summarized by the Lavabit case.

It's possible that their advocacy is well thought out but not based on the stated reasons. Say, Apple is actually under the control of the NSA and there are hidden back doors in the form of exploitable weaknesses as per Crypto AG. Then preventing the introduction of public backdoors would preserve the value of the current setup where Apple is widely considered trustworthy with respect to their customers.

> In a combative speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, Vance argued that free speech and democracy were threatened by European elites.

> Trump has also been critical of the UK stance on encryption. The US president has likened the UK’s order to Apple to “something... that you hear about with China,” saying in February that he had told Starmer: “You can’t do this.”

> US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has also suggested the order would be an “egregious violation” of Americans’ privacy that risked breaching the two countries’ data agreement.

I think that’s exactly why I want encryption.

UK has a hx of pushing this - OP probably referring to efforts by the brits to put backdoors in comm standards like GSM and others back in the 80's and 90's

Hey, even the worst person in the world is owed their right to privacy. Determining if someone is doing evil with their right necessarily undermines privacy for everyone.

And also about who is really running the show in the UK.

because Vance and his colleagues are breaking federal law for the retention of government records and as long as they don’t invite anymore journalists into the group chat they will get away with it

He's proven himself to be more of an asshat than I'd hoped (see the Zelenskyy meeting), but he did come up in Silicon Valley venture capital. There's a lot about this administration that causes concern, but I'm glad to see him on the right side of encryption.

I'm a principal software engineer with a degree in history. You don't need a science degree to understand most of these issues sufficiently to legislate them. But you need humility and a willingness to learn. That, sadly, is lacking in too many governments and civil services.

Also, the people pushing for these measure (e.g., the U.K's equivalent of the NSA, GCHQ and most national-level police departments) understand these issues perfectly well.

The leader of the opposition studied computer engineering (before going on to law). Sadly she used the knowledge gained to hack the website of the deputy leader of Labour Party.

UK not quite as bad as the US age wise, but the real issue is the media who demand all sorts of illiberal things.

Rupert Murdoch is 94.

Larry Wllison is advocating the same invasion if privacy mechanisms or worse and he clearly understands the tech.

Policy makers change frequently and often radically. Federal lawmakers less so, but lawmakers are a small subset of policymakers, and not the ones who create international pressure; those are political appointees in the executive branch, and they change frequently.

I don't think it's that nefarious. I mean, for some of them it might be, but for MOST of them they see a "law & order" issue that will resonate with stupid people ("cops can't get access to terrorist data / child molester info / human trafficking communications!"), and they just run with it without regard to downstream effects.

AI and encryption are technically orthogonal. But they’ll use any guise to further their agenda.

Basically, there is no backdoor. The front door is wide open, the government just needs to ask. Or not even that -- just take whatever they need themselves.

Thanks, that makes sense.