[madeofpalk]

It seems apparent to me that Apple leaked this information to US press in an attempt to get the UK to back off. Wouldn't Apple also try to subvert the attempt for US intelligence to get a backdoor? Or do we think Apple has less of a leg to stand on with US and would be more likely to roll over?

[autoexec]

> Or do we think Apple has less of a leg to stand on with US and would be more likely to roll over?

Apple has no leg to stand on at all. When the NSA comes to your door and demands access to everything you have you don't get to say no. There is no court you can appeal to, and they'll take whatever they want and order you to keep your mouth shut about it. They'll walk right into your headquarters and data centers, force you to move your employees so they can set up an office for themselves on your property, insert their equipment into your network directly and take everything just like they did with AT&T decades ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

Your only options are to comply or shut down (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit) and I'm not even sure the US government would allow "shut down" as an option in some cases. It seems likely that they'd keep a massive target like Apple running even if the owners of the company wanted to cease operations, but lets be honest, Apple makes a lot of people very very rich so they'd never walk away from that. They'll keep making their money and just try to convince themselves that the US are the "good guys" and so it must be okay.

[lotsofpulp]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...

Obviously, Apple is going to comply with US federal law, given that their headquarters and employees are there, as well as their most profitable market. But when possible, they have shown themselves willing to fight against intrusion.

[ethersteeds]

Two things,

First, that's notably the FBI and not NSA. As gp says, NSA has greater powers with less legal oversight on national security grounds.

Second, a cynic might argue that Apple put up a noisy, principled fight that one time precisely to create the perception that you have here. It could be the FBI learned data requests to Apple are a dead end!

Or the two came to a mutually beneficial understanding: "don't come in the front door waving a court order for the cameras and we'll see what we can do when our reputation isn't on the line, see? And maybe if we help out, that antitrust investigation isn't necessary after all!"

[lotsofpulp]

FISA courts and patriot act came way before iPhone, how is Apple going to fight a law that is already on the books?

A proposed law, or bill, like the one in the OP’s article, can be fought against.

[jki275]

You've never heard of courts? The world does not work the way you think it does at all.

[jajko]

I can't imagine all cloud providers weren't leaned on heavily to provide this access long time ago. Its a treasure trove too juicy to be ignored. Pro quid pro of course.

Anything else is highly illogical or outright stupid, imagine CIA or NSA having meeting on this decade and a half ago and deciding 'well if they won't give us full access when we asked nicely I guess that's it, we have to respect the law and their wish'. LOL. They don't respect basic human rights at all if you don't hold US passport, and even then the list of cases breaking laws and constitution is endless.

Apple is good with their PR, but why do folks accept their every word literally and not as part of marketing spin to sell more services is beyond me. Rest of the market is not even trying to spin it that way which is actually more respectable behavior.

[TechDebtDevin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...

[mdhb]

You are out of your mind if you think files in iCloud are somehow outside the reach of US intel.

It’s been publicly used in a bunch of prosecutions at this point.

[madeofpalk]

We all know Apple (and everyone else) gives data to law enforcement all over the world https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/

You're including end-to-end encrypted content in that as well, like from Advanced Data Protection?

> If you choose to enable Advanced Data Protection, the majority of your iCloud data – including iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes and more – is protected using end-to-end encryption. No one else can access your end-to-end encrypted data, not even Apple, and this data remains secure even in the case of a data breach in the cloud.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/108756

I have no opinion on whether US intel has a backdoor into this e2e encryption or not. It seems like the sort of thing where people non-chalantly state that it must happen, but of course no one ever has actual proof or a source.

[monooso]

We're specifically talking about files encrypted E2E using ADP. Can you point to any such files being used in prosecutions?

[yreg]

> It’s been publicly used in a bunch of prosecutions at this point

Can you give an example then? It would be major hacker news news if supposedly E2EE iCloud data were used in a prosecution.

[jachee]

Got any sources to back that up?

[talldayo]

I mean, you're right. People think "end to end" encryption helps them, but they forget that Apple controls both the server and client more than the user does.