Comment by somenameforme
15 days ago
There is so much utterly cynical LARPing in that article. Apple was one of the earliest members to join PRISM. [1] And given the nature of the 5-eyes surveillance [2], The British government almost certainly already has access to 'encrypted' accounts from Apple. The difference is that that access is probably not lawful, which means they need to engage in parallel construction as is already regularly done in the US [3] if/when using it in court cases. All this change would likely do is enable them to use the data directly.
I felt an obligation to excessively site stuff here, because I find it bemusing anybody in tech can take such articles or topics at face value.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction#By_the_U...
Not to mention, Apple has already sheepishly admit to implementing warrantless dragnet surveillance in the United States: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/06/apple-governments-surve...
If Apple can be compelled to keep shut about Push Notifications being bugged, who knows what else they're obligated to keep under the covers. Caveat emptor.
They overtly and actively lied about participation in PRISM, as did all companies involved (Google, Microsoft, YouTube, Facebook, etc) because they were legally obligated to lie about participation in it. It's all just so unbelievably fake and stupid. I suspect the main reason there's minimal to no anti-trust in big tech is because it's largely just become a branch of the US intelligence services.
In some way I find the Chinese system preferable in that they're completely transparent about spying and domineering the companies within the country. The only difference in the US is we actively lie about and engage in all this utterly ridiculous LARPing that makes anybody with half a head on their shoulder just despise every player involved.
About the time a country has secret courts and is forcing private entities to lie to others publicly, something has gone very wrong with the direction of the country.