Hacker News Reader

Comment by reboot81 | Hacker News Reader

Apple obeys the law. Policians set the law. You vote for politicians.

So nu, it makes no sense to blame Apple here.

Unlike most writing about politics, the article isn't arguing that 'those are the bad people over there'. The article describes a current aspect of reality and how it came about, and suggests a way of responding to that reality.

The right way to respond to this reality would be to stop UK government from being insane by electing a more sane government. Stopping using iphones is going to help only for a short term - once encryption is de-legalized, they will come for everybody who they deem worth coming for, sooner or later. If it'll require introducing licenses to run encryption software and mandating key escrow, they'd do that. Yes, you still would be able to sneak in encrypting software on USB drive hidden in your... let's say, pocket. But the mere fact of using it would make you a criminal then. That's the natural progression of where it is going, unfortunately.

That isn't a reasonable response because governments can't be changed in a whim and aren't controlled by a single person, two good things.

UK government had been consistently working in this direction for decades. It's not "on a whim", it's a known and consistent policy, and yet there's no substantial resistance and pushback. The only reasonable conclusion is that the majority of the population is OK with what's going on.

> But I will say that the shutdown of ADP is Apple being on the right side of the geopolitical fight, as inconvenient as that may be to you and me.

I don't think there's any blaming of Apple going on here. This is about dealing with the practical realities of the circumstances for people in the UK.

England has been speedrunning the dystopian surveillance police state for a while now, through numerous governments. Voting is pointless.

Same (but different) in Denmark where politicians vote to give themselves more money[1], snoop on everything[2], violate our constitution unpunished[3], delete evidence of corruption[4], open the borders[5], etc. etc. etc. I used to care - a lot - I really did. But I'm done.

[1]https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/ny-aftale-politikeres-loen... [2]https://www.justitsministeriet.dk/pressemeddelelse/i-dag-tra... [3]https://www.information.dk/indland/2020/12/jurister-ja-grund... [4]https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/politisk-flertal-presser-m... [5]https://integrationsbarometer.dk/tal-og-analyser/INTEGRATION...

Might come across as pedantic, but its important, "the UK" not "England". Confusing the two can upset people, especially those from the rest of the UK.

Personally I do not think its just the UK and Denmark, its pretty much everywhere.

I specified England because I don't know what's going on in the rest of the Kingdom. Might be just as bad, I dunno.

The surveillance laws are all UK wide AFAIK. Some policy with regard to policing is devolved so there might be some small differences in how they are applied, but it is essentially just as bad.

>I dunno

That came across in your first comment.

Might come across as pedantic, but it's important, "Kingdom of Denmark" not "Denmark". Confusing the two can upset people, especially those from the rest of the the Kingdom of Denmark.

Also, picking on non-native English speakers for using a name that is identical to the very old, commonly accepted name for the entire UK in their own language is beyond pedantic.

In general, if voting had the power to change much, it would be illegal. Rulers allow voting to change a few things, but never the things that benefit themselves.

it keeps people divided and against each other, rather than united against the rulers

It must be nice to live somewhere that has politicians that represent the will of the people enough to have a take like this. Where I live, your vote only counts if you have enough money.

You're asking for a monkey's paw.

The current ruling party in the US has given its voters exactly what they think they wanted, and it's a fucking disaster.

Because no matter who they vote for, they get this. The previous ruling party hasn't had a real primary since 2008 (and didn't even go through the motions in 2024.) H. Clinton makes a fairly good case that even that one was fixed (because they knew the best horse to bet on.)

No matter who you vote for you get Hillary Clinton's governance, though. She's become very complimentary about Trump's foreign policy.

What specifically are you referring to here?

My day-to-day life has never been impacted by who is in the White House. Where is the disaster?

I saw this all the time to people. What happens in the white house doesn't affect people nearly as much as what happens locally, but its a 'disaster'?

What a completely selfish and myopic view of politics. Do you not watch the news? Also a very bad reading of history, thinking all those bad things like 1930s Germany can't happen here when enough people let it happen.

My peaceful, law abiding neighbors were taken away by ICE thugs in a totally unnecessary military style raid in my upper-middle-class suburb. Absolutely no due process. Their autistic, profoundly disabled child was left alone, scared and unable to understand what was happening. After over a month of detention, the neighbors were released. Turns out they weren’t so dangerous after all.

This, to me, is a fucking disaster.

Yes yes, it's only a problem if it affects you.

Utterly tedious.

Not Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Palestine, the actual German Holocaust, or anything else, that's for sure, right? My life was never impacted by any of those.

You have no opinion on single-payer versus obamacare funded-mandate versus unfunded-mandate versus free-for-all deny-pre-existing conditions health insurance?

You have no opinion on the removal of the legislature as a branch of government, and concentration of all that power into an office held by one man?

You have no opinion on the country turning into a 'papers please, comrade' state for anyone who looks brown?

Your life isn't impacted when flights are cancelled because ATC stops getting paid?

You don't, or don't know anyone working for the federal government? You don't know anyone on EBT? Anyone who has ever done schedule 1 drugs? Your life isn't impacted when billion-dollar frauds escape prison and restitution, setting an example and roadmap for others to follow? Or when tax rates and benefits get adjusted up or down? Or when a complete quack gets put in charge of the country's healthcare and infectious disease control?

You aren't at all affected by any decade-long wars that the country's entangled in? You don't use any foreign imports? Or domestic products that rely on foreign imports?

You don't derive any value from living in a country that mostly follows the rule of law?

You must be incredibly privileged to not be affected by any of this.

---

Society is a series of jenga towers. No particular brick is load-bearing.

I take it you consume BBC "content"?

Is the BBC the only news media organization reporting negatively on the current US administration?

The writer isn't blaming Apple.

The title certainly disagrees.

I does not in the slightest. Rather, It suggests it's time to start removing Apple entanglements from your digital life, for reasons that are described in the article.

See my sibling comment.

No, it doesn't.

If I get up in the morning and say "time to get out of the house" I am not blaming my house for anything; I am simply articulating that I want or need to be somewhere else, for whatever reason.

Eh, the whole "de-Brand" lingo comes from "de-Googling" which has unambiguously blamed Google for the act. The use of the same type of terminology automatically implies the same set of circumstances.

When you say "time to de-CocaCola" while all soda products are susceptible to a certain health hazard, you can't say "Obviously, CocaCola isn't being blamed here".

The analog of your example would be "time to get out of the cloud" for the article.

The issue is specific to Apple! IIUC they're the only mainstream cloud storage provider that provides E2EE, and I'm sure many of their customers chose them over their competitors for that reason.

> the whole "de-Brand" lingo comes from "de-Googling"

Which no doubt stems from more practical usage, like "de-worming". That does not imply that there is blame to go around. You are not blaming the worm — you just want rid of it because it is not something that is working for you.

Wrong or painfully naive. Politics has to deal with realities. If the net wasn't engineered to be resistant to censorship, we probably wouldn't even be talking accross borders right now.

Apple obeys the law. They operate in countries where you can not vote.

> But I will say that the shutdown of ADP is Apple being on the right side of the geopolitical fight, as inconvenient as that may be to you and me.

Author doesn’t. Not sure who you are disagreeing with.

Did you read the article? She doesn't blame Apple.

Sixth paragraph: "But I will say that the shutdown of ADP is Apple being on the right side of the geopolitical fight, as inconvenient as that may be to you and me."

it does if you're clickbaiting via ragebait, like she is?

I think it’s a stretch to say the author is blaming Apple in the title and she explicitly calls out in the very first section:

> But I will say that the shutdown of ADP is Apple being on the right side of the geopolitical fight, as inconvenient as that may be to you and me.

> Apple obeys the law

No, they don't:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45854441

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44529061

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45492410

Reply on news.ycombinator.com