UK Network Operators Target iCloud Private Relay in Complaint to Regulator
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
And are they seriously arguing they could build a viable competitor to mobile browsers if only they have access to all our browsing data? Personally I was leaving it off until it was out of beta, but this just convinced me to turn it on
While this complaint is definitely them throwing every single dart at the board, the note that Private Relay reduces the government’s ability to monitor internet use is at least legitimate.
I personally have never used Apple's private relay, but I have encrypted all my traffic since Snooper's Charter. The fact that the industry bodies are complaining about it -- effectively complaining that they can't spy and snoop on their users, often for commercial gain -- makes me think it is effective.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/poi3.250
My generation is the tail end of people who actually grew up using computers versus the "mobile"-ized internet for everything, and I was basically the "umm can you darkweb for me pretty please" guy for all my friends. Easy profit. Arbitrage their laziness for my ability to use a computer.
It does favour Apple in the market, though, because Apple can still see all the traffic, which is what the CMA in interested in. What is needed is for the mobile companies to offer the same protections that Apple offers, so all will benefit.
[1]: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/iCloud_Private_Relay_Over...
This could be achieved both via legal means (in e.g. their terms of service to prohibit use of any VPNs or similar software) as well as on a technical level. As per [1]:
> The fastest and most reliable way to do this is to return a negative answer from the network’s DNS resolver, preventing DNS resolution for the mask.icloud.com and mask-h2.icloud.com hostnames necessary for Private Relay traffic.
These ISPs surely operate some DNS resolvers - just make them return NXDOMAIN results. This doesn’t require consent or collaboration from Apple.
[1] https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/iCloud_Private_Relay_Over...
Apple is bigger and more important than the ISP and likely much more trusted by the consumer.
The national security element is probably valid, but preemptive action is taken against people here in the UK (prejudiced by science or just a form of scientific reinforcement) to mess around with people from an early age.
Govt's, Religions and industry leading entities dont want their positions in society messed around with.
But so now, what’s left on offer if I exclude those associated within the Mobile UK group?
Thanks but I like my carriers to be dumb pipes
Here’s what I mean: rather than technology sewing a ski mask onto my head so that nobody can see me online, I’d rather have technology inform me about the nature of the site or network I’m using so I can make the choice of what my posture should be. I want to trust the services I use because they’re respectable and have earned my trust. If everyone is wearing a mask then how can I trust anyone? I’m not super excited about an internet where we trust nobody.
A concrete example: TLS 1.3. What if I want to trust a 3rd party to help me keep an eye on my traffic at a network level? Can’t now because sites can always know if there’s a MITM and of course they assume that’s always bad and unintended. (Perhaps they’re actually more interested in retaining proprietary access to their traffic.) Instead why can’t TLS allow me to configure a cipher-suite that allows me to e.g. run my own proxy for <insert reason>?
Same for browsers. Shouldn’t the browser be asking me which pieces of information and which APIs I want to allow a site to access (with sensible defaults, of course) rather than locking all the useful stuff behind “secure contexts”? It’s really hard to not see some of this privacy paranoia as conveniently enabling a lot of subversive platform control…
* Apple breaking mac addresses for privacy
* IPv6 privacy extensions (we can’t give everyone a stable address because tracking). We have stable physical addresses… why is the answer to privacy problems “whelp I guess we cant have a nice global internet after-all? I will concede privacy extensions at least don’t clobber your ability to have a stable address since you still do. I’d just like to see user level control over which address to use for what instead of a blanket all browsing happens with your anonymous address.
* Strong PKI/identity: cant give everyone client certs because they have a stable ID somebody might use to track you. IDK how about you give me an option when I connect to a site “do you want to connect as <handle> or connect anonymously”?
These privacy violations really feel like a social problem that we’ve failed to wrangle so we reach for a technology solution at all costs.
* Configurable TLS - I’m pretty sure all non-mobile browsers and Android let you configure the trust chain if you want to MiTM yourself (if I recall correctly with Apple you have to jailbreak). That’s a bit more complicated since most will engage in certificate pinning but that was developed due to a specific type of security attack so I don’t know what the answer there is.
MACs are randomized as part of the new wifi standard because people could literally follow you around physically from a distance (or even fully remotely). This isn’t an Apple thing.
These aren’t hypothetical. These are defenses that are developed in response to active misbehavior on the part of parties unrelated between the two parties that are trying to establish a trusted relationship. Some times it’s fine without but the times when it’s not tends to be a bigger problem that’s exploited at scale.
Re mac addresses: I’m not saying there aren’t valid reasons for people to want these changes. I’m asking the user be allowed to configure their privacy posture at the protocol level rather than assuming all users want i finite anonymity. Maybe you care about someone following your phone around in public but maybe at home you want to enable secure neighbor discovery and give your stationary devices strong link-level identity…
My point is it’s complicated and “privacy at all costs” is not a one-size-fits-all silver bullet solution.
I never argued these problems aren't real and only hypothetical. I’m asking to be given the ability at the protocol level to make informed decisions as to where I fall on the privacy vs security axis rather than be wholly subject to protocols that assume I always want maximum privacy.
No it doesn't. I have no idea what technology you think this is (maybe HPKP?), but installing a local root CA absolutely continues to work in all browsers with TLS 1.3.
re mac address == strong link level identity, it was never that and using it in that sense isn't accomplishing much. MAC addresses are trivial to spoof. If you want identity, then use proper cryptographic mechanisms to establish that (e.g. mTLS).
What we've seen as a profession is that that level of flexibility makes things harder to configure correctly leading to various security vulnerabilities. Or the optionality being user facing makes it not user friendly and makes it easy to socially engineer attacks. It sucks but in practice we've not found a way to optimize along several axes simultaneously. Don't forget that all your optional features is stuff someone has to build, implement, test & maintain. The only way out I think is to demonstrate a way forward that manages to attain the goals you seek without sacrificing the technical privacy measure. The technical privacy measures have been put in place as a result of real-world lessons learned, not hypothetical things.
This approach might work for the average HN user, but what about your aunt? Is it reasonable for her to know the "nature of the site or network" she's using, or what her "posture should be"?
>A concrete example: TLS 1.3. What if I want to trust a 3rd party to help me keep an eye on my traffic at a network level?
1. Are you talking about SNI? AFAIK encrypted SNI requires cooperation from DNS, so if you really wanted to you could disable it at the DNS level.
2. for every user who has some sort of network security appliance that works like you described, there's probably 100 that don't.
>Same for browsers. Shouldn’t the browser be asking me which pieces of information and which APIs I want to allow a site to access (with sensible defaults, of course) rather than locking all the useful stuff behind “secure contexts”?
my impression from the barcode detection api[1] is that policies like this are "fuck http" rather than "improve security".
Re TLS: I’m referring to the encrypted server cert. It breaks inspection middle-boxes since they can no longer dynamically generate a response certificate on the fly. I’d just like the ability to say “hey I actually run and trust my middleware, TLS please run in proxy mode” even though I also agree with the new TLS behavior as a good default in general.