Apple Says It Will Exit The UK Market If Government Passes Update To Investigatory Powers Act::Apple fought the law and – contrary to the song lyrics – it won. Years later, Apple decided it would get ahead of the law enforcement curve by attempting to engage in client-side scanning of iPhone users’ content. That worked out less well for Apple, which (at least momentarily) decided making governments happy was more…
I mean, this kind of snooping just makes you want to exit the UK in general…
British people support Brexit (British Exit from European Union)
I also support Brexit (Exiting Britain)
We are not the same
Exbrit
Come on UK, don’t be a China.
I’m from the UK, agree with you a thousand times over
Except imessage and facetime are end-to-end encrypted in China.
That’s going to last exactly as long as legislation. Apple was told to and then pushed out an update to set airdrop to automatically turn off after a few minutes, only for users in hong Kong because airdrop was used as a primary means of organizing and sending info on protests.
Yeah I don’t know about that, it rolled out globally a month later.
They will likely remove FaceTime and iMessage, not exit the market entirely. But on a worldwide scale the UK is a small market. China and EU are far more important to Apple.
Finally the iconic red phonebooths can shine again and big ben will be the primary source of the time in London. Oy, it’s seven bong.
it would be so funny if in a couple of years you can buy and Iphone in Russia, but not in the UK.
While they should absolutely do that, instead of breaking E2EE, I’m afraid that this just an attempt at scaring legislators into not passing the law, and that apple will cave the second it is actually enacted.
I mean the tech exists to add a layer of encryption to any communication method. It might need to be applied manually or require a custom app to do it automatically, but public/private key encryption is public knowledge at this point.
Nobody is going to apply encryption manually.
Criminals would. Laws like this disarm citizens but those who are willing to put extra effort to cover their tracks are less affected.
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These techsters are showing their whole ass these days.
The only claim they’ve got to being in any way necessary to our society is the illusion that people need to be on their platforms/devices. Their gambit here indicates that they have been eating way too much of their own dogfood. Humans got along just fine without so much as a pocket watch for millenia, we can handle losing Apple.
edit: I know nothing about the law this is responding to and I don’t really care to bother understanding it; this is Brexit UK and there is nobody at the wheel, everyone is aware of this, so I’m sure the bill is just as toxic and ultimately self-destructive as their reaction to it.
Meta and Google are ceding the territory of serving news here in Canada based on a similar protest, and I am SO here for it.
You’re getting things completely mixed up.
Meta threatens to leave when they’re not allowed to gobble up all the users private data.
Apple threatens to close their services because they can no longer guarantee the privacy of their users, from anybody, if the government forces them to build in back door to snoop on citizens.
See also Apple–FBI encryption dispute.
Government all over the world are trying to outlaw end-to-end encryption and Apple is taking a stand here, because encryption backdoors means an end to legal privacy.
And you probably thinking “well, if you haven’t done anything wrong, you’ve nothing to hide and nothing to fear”, right?
Well, who’s to say what’s wrong? I personally don’t think homosexuality or atheism is wrong, but they’re capital offences in some countries.
Ah yes, the E2E band, I’d forgotten they were doing that.
No, I’m against that one fully. But, I also think that the hacker community will take steps, and if it comes right down to it, I trust the tech workers of the world to say enough is enough at some point. There are a statistically small number of us who actually know how to make machine go and they will eventually alienate enough of us that we go full John Galt on their ass. I guarantee it!
Totally different kind of laws. The Canada law makes the tech companies pay for news that get from other sources. I’m not sure I agree with that link tax, but I see the reasoning. The UK law outlaws end to end encryption, which is anti consumer in my view.
I don’t actually agree with my government, I’m just amused that that - a tax - was all it took to make them cede the territory. We found the news just fine before FB and google, we will find it again without them. It’s a net win for us, IMO.
Not so much the E2E, that is a disaster - I just see the question of corporate capitulation to authoritarianism as a question of “when” rather than “if” so I don’t much care what shithead politicians do, the more obnoxious the better at this point, and I have zero faith that a corporation will lead the fight that saves us from their fuckery.
Lol, no they won’t.
You didn’t read the article, and fell for the headline. It’s a security law, removing iMessage is enough to leave the encrypted messages market. They’re still gonna sell phones.
Yeah, it’s a super coconut clickbait-y title. For anyone else, here’s the relevant bit:
Because of that, Apple’s comment submission lets the UK government know that if it moves ahead with these changes, UK customers will no longer have access to FaceTime or iMessage.
Honestly I think protestors/political parties could point this out and get a tonne of support because so many Normie’s would kick up more of a fuss over this than brexit. Sigh.
That’s existing customers. Millions of devices suddenly with no way to send even SMS messages, since those also pass through Apple iMessage servers.
There won’t be many alternatives either. Signal and WhatsApp have said they are leaving as well.
Google will probably be forced to shut down RCS functionality for it’s UK based android users as well.
Uk is as important, as a market currently, as Nigeria… UK is currently literally a bunch of clowns.
