UK Effort to Keep Apple Encryption Fight Secret Is Blocked

Users want their secrets to be secret.

Apple wants its users' secrets to be secret.

The UK wants the fact it wants Apple to reveal anyone's secrets to be secret.

There must be a healthy middle ground between mass untouchable criminal communication networks on the one hand, and full panopticon 24x7 for every civilian on the other. Or I don't know, maybe there isn't. But at least the debate should be public.

The math doesn’t math when it comes to encryption. It’s Pandora’s box. Once backdoors are created encryption may as well not even be enabled.

Well - maybe. But take for example how Microsoft is doing bitlocker encryption on every Win11 system - by default, without prompting the user, your system drive gets encrypted automatically and the encryption key gets saved to your microsoft account.

Yes I hate that they do that without prompting, but in theory that solution offers that balance that OP talks about - if there are no backdoors in Bitlocker(let's assume that there aren't), then your encrypted data is perfectly secure. But if a judge issues a warrant for your data, then Microsoft can provide them with a key to unlock your device.

To me, that's an acceptable compromise - it means that someone stealing my laptop won't get my data, but if a warrant is produced then bitlocker drives can be unlocked for a criminal investigation.

Couldn't Apple create a solution where all your communication is end to end encrypted with a key that they just have a copy of? No backdoors necessary.

> Couldn't Apple create a solution where all your communication is end to end encrypted with a key that they just have a copy of? No backdoors necessary.

But that is a backdoor!

Especially, it's a backdoor that's inside a foreign country and subject to their intelligence services! It might be valid for a hypothetical autochthonous UKphone, but having a system where the US can secretly crack all UK comms is .. not ideal.

Given the tendency of UK ministers to use Whatsapp for private government communications, should we allow the US to have a backdoor into all of that via Meta? (in practice, they tend to leak to newspapers themselves, but it's the principle)

>>But that is a backdoor!

...is it? That's a weird definition if I've ever heard one - backdoor to me is a normally hidden functionality that can be triggered if you know the secret, so for example adding a secret universal key that unlocks every drive - that would be a backdoor. And that's a dangerous one, because if it leaks out then all criminals of the world can now decrypt your drives.

With the way MS does it, Bitlocker could be the most secure encryption on the planet, unbreakable by any quantum computer, and yet if they have a copy of the key then the law enforcement can obtain it if needed - that's not a backdoor, not any more than giving your parents copy of your house key is an exploit on your home security.

>>but having a system where the US can secretly crack all UK comms is .. not ideal.

No, of course not, I agree with you there.

>>Given the tendency of UK ministers to use Whatsapp for private government communications, should we allow the US to have a backdoor into all of that via Meta?

Well, they shouldn't be using WhatsApp in the first place, given that they don't control the underlying technology. A backdoor might already exist and they wouldn't even know about it.

Giving your parents a house key _is_ an exploit on your home security.

There's now an additional two people with access, with the risk of the key being stolen from them, them losing it etc.