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Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

> Apple has a balance to strike between the issues of encryption, privacy, and law enforcement [...]

No, they do not. If Apple wants a reputation for privacy and respecting its customers, then it has to put them first. Don't apologize for them making this user-hostile choice.

We could be merely a generation away from the hell hole that is social credit. We can't afford to keep ceding ground on privacy. We have to engender a sense of importance and urgency.

I'll be very mad at the rest of you lot that choose convenience over privacy, rights, and autonomy if 2030 sees our freedoms and liberties eroded further.

Our collective choices matter, and that's why I'm calling you out.

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1. Yes, they have to. At least in the US any company has to cooperate with the law enforcement as you might know. The only choice to do business in the US or based on US governed soil is to comply with them.

2. Apple at least put some effort into this matter because otherwise there would not be so much media attention to breaking into iPhones. To get data from android on the other hand seems to be no problem at all.

3. We are already in hell but we do not yet see the flames surrounding us.

4. If collective choice matters so much we are all doomed and you know it. Try telling the Joneses about encryption etc. - they will still use WhastApp, Facebook and the likes because it is so convenient over a way of burden and hard work to get there or even live without all these "magical devices and services".

We do not have to cooperate with law enforcement. Encryption is still legal, even if law enforcement would prefer service providers not ever use it.

We have to comply with court orders. That’s it.

Please tell me why do organizations use canaries[0] then to tell people they where not forced to cooperate?

The funny thing is that I just read a bit of the linked Wikipedia article to find this: Companies and organizations who no longer have warrant canaries

  The following is a list of companies and organizations whose warrant canaries no longer appear in transparency reports:
  * Apple
  * Reddit
  * Silent Circle

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

on 1.: Are there actually US laws that could prevent Apple from offering end-to-end encryption for backups to their user?

That is something very different from cooperating with a specific investigation.

Why did Apple not fight this in court?

Could Apple keep the backups outside the EU, like Microsoft did for email in the Dublin case?

I do not think so and AFAIK only the export of strong encryption is prohibited by law in the US.

But it is not about prohibiting encryption but the possibility and/or necessity that Apple has another key to decrypt your data with.

It does not matter where they keep the data as long as the companies headquarters are on US soil.

One of my wild guesses could be Apple wants to mine the data. Blaming it on having to comply with court orders could be a useful limited hangout.

Re: 1

Google gives their customers the option for end-to-end encryption of uploaded data and I'm sure they have to play by the same rules as Apple.

"... they have to play by the same rules as Apple"

Now this does not exactly help me feeling more comfortably about this issue.

>I'll be very mad at the rest of you lot that choose convenience over privacy, rights, and autonomy if 2030 sees our freedoms and liberties eroded further.

> Our collective choices matter, and that's why I'm calling you out.

I'll be direct and say that your passion inspires me and your articulation of the issue is very close to my deep feelings about privacy, encryption, and law enforcement. Of course, human brains are complicated pieces of kit and the rational part of me tempers "my deep feelings" with the context I elaborated in the parent comment.

Still, I wanted to take the time to thank you for expressing this in precisely the way you did. Thank you.

I also want to take a moment to recommend an article by John Gruber (Daring Fireball), "Regarding Reuters’s Report That Apple Dropped Plan for Encrypting iCloud Backups" which critiques the basis of the Reuter's article. [0] (I'd have made it a post except for being a bit overactive this morning with submitting Daring Fireball-sourced links to HN.)

You might feel less disillusioned considering Gruber's points, many of which are excellent.

[0] https://daringfireball.net/2020/01/reuters_report_on_apple_d...

> We could be merely a generation away from the hell hole that is social credit.

I fear we have one foot there already. If you are so inclined, you can dig up a lot of dox on most people, all freely given to social media, or via scrapers like Spokeo.

I guess it's all still optional, kinda. And there is no centralized clearinghouse. But it is scary.

You are very wrong about no central clearinghouse. There are many.

Not to worry, you are free to post on Yandex, “down with Trump,” and you are free to post on Facebook, “down with Trump”.

Try the inverse and let me know how that works out

>If Apple wants a reputation for privacy and respecting its customers, then it has to put them first.

"or used as an excuse for new legislation against encryption."

By not making iCloud backups end-to-end encrypted, they likely did exactly that.

Although I'd find it funny if by doing so they caused a backlash from governments with new laws that ruined encryption for everybody. It'd be dystopian but also funny.

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