UK drops demand for backdoor into Apple encryption

228 iamdamian 83 8/19/2025, 11:58:34 AM theverge.com ↗

Comments (83)

hermannj314 · 3h ago
As a believer in equal protection under the law, it is never a win when a powerful company or government lobbies for a specific carve out for only it's customers or its country. Human rights like privacy don't belong to those who bought the right phone or were born on the right piece of soil.

This isn't a win, this is solidifying and reinforcing the idea that different laws should exist for different classes of people - those who can afford to make the government look the other way and those that can't.

Congratulations to Apple on lobbying for its own money. Very noble.

throwfaraway4 · 2h ago
>it is never a win when a powerful company or government lobbies for a specific carve out for only it's customers or its country.

This wasn't an "Apple only" law -- it would have affected all platforms with data on customers that live outside the UK.

>This isn't a win, this is solidifying and reinforcing the idea that different laws should exist for different classes of people - those who can afford to make the government look the other way and those that can't.

Corporations are not people. The people can afford to vote out politicians making laws that go against the will of the people.

bendigedig · 2h ago
> This wasn't an "Apple only" law -- it would have affected all platforms with data on customers that live outside the UK.

Yeah, the law still exists. Apple just successfully managed to refuse to comply with a request made under it.

lamontcg · 54m ago
Weird way to manage to do enough contortions to make this all Apple's fault.
chrismustcode · 3h ago
I agree it should be across the spectrum where people have the same rights to privacy.

> those who can afford to make the government look the other way and those that can't.

> Congratulations to Apple on lobbying for its own money. Very noble.

But what’s your implication here, that Apple shouldn’t have fought it?

consp · 2h ago
Probably that it should be a generalization and apple should have fought for that and not apply just to one particular operator.
hermannj314 · 2h ago
As far as I know, the blue/green mentality is a cultural issue for Apple. They would be fine if Android users had their data read by the government, because that injustice is a market differentiator for them they can then sell.

I'm not saying they shouldn't lobby for what they believe in, but Apple always stops short of making the world a better place and seems to care only if their walled garden is secure.

arccy · 2h ago
s/secure/profitable/
lenerdenator · 2h ago
Any port in a storm.
throw0101a · 2h ago
> Congratulations to Apple on lobbying for its own money. Very noble.

First they came for the Apple fanboys, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Apple fanboy.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came

If the UK had 'won' again Apple, do you not think that the Android ecosystem would be next? If the UK had 'won', do you not think that Turkey, India, China, etc, would not be lining up as well?

Melatonic · 35m ago
Doesn't the UK law already apply to all those others ?
catigula · 2h ago
Unfortunately the internet is just going to be these ChatGPT comments now, isn't it.
hermannj314 · 2h ago
I am a human being, but I have been training on ChatGPT conversations for a few years, is it starting to show?
ben_w · 2h ago
FWIW, I was using em-dash before it was actively the opposite of cool.
catigula · 1h ago
It's not just that, this construction:

> This isn't X, this is Y

is a huge ChatGPT signal.

dspillett · 31m ago
But surely it is only a ChatGPT signal because it was a strong signal in the training data. You need more than one strong signal with that sort of potential for false positives to make a reasonably accurate identification.
ben_w · 1h ago
If it is, it's one I've neither heard others mention before nor seen often enough myself to consider it a tell (but for the latter, I do use ChatGPT's customisation options).
accrual · 2h ago
Do we really think an account that's been here since 2009 and claims to be a software developer is using ChatGPT to write comments on Hacker News?
catigula · 1h ago
I think that people aren't farming out work to ChatGPT as you've imagined, but moreso using it to "help them write" if they're poor writers.
hermannj314 · 1h ago
Dude, half my stuff on here is downvoted. I am not a good writer, but I do my best. My opinions and thoughts are my own and I am not using ChatGPT to make hot takes on hacker news, but I do use ChatGPT and have conversations with it.

Sometimes when I talk to British people, I start to do an accent a little bit. I think I just chameleon my tone to recent conversations, but I can't convince you otherwise.

Unrelatedly, there is a upended tortoise outside my house struggling in the heat. I am not sure why I refuse to help him, can you tell me why?

c420 · 1h ago
The classic Chatgpt "upended tortoise" tangent. This guy, I swear
Melatonic · 34m ago
You're Harrison Ford - we knew it !
DaiPlusPlus · 2h ago
I checked; their post has good ol' fashioned hyphens, no em-dashes, so it's less likely to be slop.
catigula · 1h ago
Stated above, not just em-dash, but the following:

> This isn't X, this is Y

This is ChatGPT's favorite rhetorical flourish without exception.

purerandomness · 1h ago
ChatGPT wouldn't have set the apostrophe incorrectly in "it's customers".
flumpcakes · 3h ago
Good news for UK people.

I am all for laws designed to protect children, and stop terrorism. But these 'back door' laws are nearly always very poorly thought out and offers new avenues for 'normal' people to come to harm.

throw0101a · 2h ago
> I am all for laws designed to protect children, and stop terrorism.

The usual suspects:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...

fmajid · 1h ago
The real target: journalists, activists and whistleblowers
flumpcakes · 1h ago
This isn't true on the whole in this context. How does the UK's OSA target journalists, activists and whistleblowers?

I think this conspiratorial view of these laws is doing more harm than good and ignores the entire issues that these laws are designed to address.

The problem is we create overly broad laws because:

- There is a problem with child predation / terrorism - There is a lack of understanding on how technology works - There is faith that the system works and won't ever be abused - There are too few people in community self policing these issues.

Addressing any one of these in a different way will negate the need for laws like the UK were trying to implement.

Creating broad gives the police more ability to enforce their spirit. I think that's generally a bad thing when the laws are to do with civil liberties. But maybe a good thing when dealing with, for example, domestic abuse.

amelius · 3h ago
Meanwhile, who believes that the US has no backdoors in these devices?
philistine · 2h ago
Cold logic dictates otherwise. The UK is part of Five Eyes: total data sharing between intelligence agencies. If that were the case, why would the UK need a law to get data it already has?
Someone · 2h ago
It wouldn’t need the law, but putting the proposal up and then, after the predictable backlash, retract it could be a ploy to make the criminals/us think they don’t have access to the data now.
0cf8612b2e1e · 1h ago
WW2, the Allies used all sorts of fake outs to lead the Germans to believe that the Enigma machine remained secure. Many people died for the sake of the secret.

Given the lengths the government has gone to monitor its citizens, I could believe the technology stack has already been compromised.

kneegerm · 2h ago
San Bernardino shootings smartypants
johnisgood · 3h ago
Hopefully no one, in services available globally (i.e. not US-specific), just to be sure.
sedivy94 · 3h ago
Why litigate it when you can buy it from the NSO / IDF?
sneak · 2h ago
It’s not really a secret; it’s by design and it’s public. iCloud is not end to end encrypted by default. Apple and the state can read the on-by-default iCloud Backup which contains your iMessage sync keys and all your historical iMessages and attachments. iCloud Photos, Contacts, and Mail are all similarly not e2ee and trivially readable by Apple, DHS/FBI, and anyone else under FAA702 (aka PRISM, aka the #1 most used US intel source) without a warrant.

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-apple-droppe...

Apple processes FAA702 orders on upwards of 80,000 Apple IDs per year per their own annual transparency report.

Snowden himself said that they see so many nudes that they got desensitized to it.

This clever setup allows them to claim iMessage is e2ee while still escrowing keys in effective plaintext to Apple in the iCloud Backup, rendering the e2ee totally ineffective.

I think “backdoor” is probably an appropriate term for it, but they have made no secret whatsoever of it.

It’s terrifying to think that the US federal government can read every iMessage in the entire world across a billion devices (except China, where the CCP can do the same) in effectively realtime. The power that that enables (if only in blackmail ability) is staggering.

staplers · 1h ago

  allows them to claim iMessage is e2ee while still escrowing keys in effective plaintext to Apple in the iCloud Backup
Does this also apply to their advanced data protection feature?
intrasight · 12m ago
My read is that it does not apply to ADP.

Also, what regular criminal, let alone terrorist, would leave iCloud backup turned on after all the hacks and leaks over the years. I assume that most in the HN community, like myself, have iCloud backup turned off.

ben_w · 1h ago
Mm.

Unfortunately, I'm highly confident that 90% of the intelligence community looks at us insisting that crypto standards be inviolable, and thinks we're all as infuriatingly naïve as a ChatGPT comment.

I don't know the true risks of terrorist organisations. I doubt I ever will, because the intelligence community wants to keep its methods secret in order to avoid mildly competent terrorists from avoiding stupid (from MI5/6's POV) mistakes. The counter-point is that such secrecy makes the intelligence organisations themselves a convenient unlit path for a power-hungry subgroup to take over a nation.

Regarding sexual abuse, the stats are much easier to find, and are much much worse than most people realise to the extent that most people either don't understand what those numbers mean or don't believe them: If you're an American, on your first day in high school, by your second class you have more than even odds of having met a pupil who had already been assaulted, most likely by someone close to the victim such as a relative.

I don't see how any level of smartphone surveillance will do anything to stop that. Or indeed, any surveillance that isn't continuous monitoring of every kid to make sure such acts don't find them.

kbelder · 50m ago
>If you're an American, on your first day in high school, by your second class you have more than even odds of having met a pupil who had already been assaulted, most likely by someone close to the victim such as a relative.

You're saying that the rate of sexual assault is.. a few percent?

Too high! I agree. But it's bad form to give convoluted examples in order to give the impression that the actual number is worse than it is.

Refreeze5224 · 1h ago
> Unfortunately, I'm highly confident that 90% of the intelligence community looks at us insisting that crypto standards be inviolable, and thinks we're all as infuriatingly naïve as a ChatGPT comment

Until they can prove this is the case, and not just fear mongering to justify their massive budgets, overreach and assaults on civil liberties, I am happy to continue being considered naïve by them.

chaostheory · 3h ago
Back doors just make the device or platform less secure.
ACCount37 · 2h ago
I am very much against laws designed to protect children and stop terrorism.

By now, "think of the children" is a tired cliche of anti-freedom laws. If "protecting children" requires sacrificing freedom for everyone, then children should not be protected.

Every time I come across another anti-freedom law wrapped in an excuse of "think of the children", I question whether the worshippers of Moloch had the right idea after all.

flumpcakes · 1h ago
> I am very much against laws designed to protect children and stop terrorism.

This can't be true. You're against a law that says a convicted child rapist cannot work in schools? You're against a law that says people can't take bombs onto planes?

I think you're being dishonest in your statements, or do not care about anyone else in society.

Retr0id · 4h ago
It's great that they're dropping it, but concerning that it was only because of pushback from US politicians.

Also important to note:

> With the order now reportedly removed, it’s unclear if Apple will restore access to its ADP service in the UK.

ExoticPearTree · 4h ago
For sure they didn't drop it out of the goodness of their heart.
Retr0id · 3h ago
There was once an idea that elected politicians should champion the interests of their constituents.
ExoticPearTree · 33m ago
> There was once an idea that elected politicians should champion the interests of their constituents.

I think that idea died a very long time ago.

201984 · 2h ago
Somehow I don't think this was in the constituents' interests in the first place.
stronglikedan · 3h ago
> only because of pushback from US politicians

Like it or hate it, that's still the way of the world.

stephen_g · 3h ago
The other concerning thing is that it took the otherwise awful Trump administration to push back, while the Biden administration was reportedly going to look the other way (and have been accused of knowing about it but hiding it from Congress) [1].

1. https://daringfireball.net/linked/2025/02/26/wapo-biden-just...

meesles · 2h ago
See this is the kind of lying I expect from politicians - misleading people about their policy decisions. Not the constant challenging of recorded fact.
hardlianotion · 3h ago
Just rejoice that in this one case, the spinelessness of our elected representatives has some, perhaps temporary, upside.
terminalshort · 3h ago
How is this an example of spinelessness?
logicchains · 3h ago
Maybe they mean the spinelessness of UK representatives?
abullinan · 3h ago
Some people always assume everything is about their country.
hardlianotion · 2h ago
Yep
varispeed · 3h ago
The backdoors might still go ahead. What if backing down is just for show? In the end they don't have to let public know, but this information serves a purpose - potential suspects might now think it is okay to use now and fall right into the trap.
BCM43 · 36m ago
“As a result, the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties.”

Back doors to end-to-end encryption are considered bad now? Someone should tell the FBI. https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-investigate/lawful-access/lawful-...

tehwebguy · 3h ago
Title should say "reportedly drops" or "according to US official." No proof is offered other than a tweet from Tulsi Gabbard.
lotsofpulp · 1h ago
I wouldn’t have even bothered to click on the comments if that was in the title. Thanks for illuminating the lack of credible source.
pacifika · 1h ago
> Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users.

Still there.

Melatonic · 32m ago
Yeah if this is true - bit sketchy
indymike · 1h ago
First rule of backdoors: the intended user may not be the only user.
Canada · 3h ago
They will try again
neom · 3h ago
Don't many governments themselves use Apple, especially the Americans? I always found this a weird demand if they do.
KerrAvon · 2h ago
Governments generally use special procedures for securing secret information, which makes this a non-issue for government use, assuming government employees follow the procedures, which apparently the Trump administration doesn’t.
grahar64 · 3h ago
Or did they get what they want?
oscord · 3h ago
Which means they got it.
rusk · 3h ago
Or the MOD told them they’ve had it all this time and don’t draw any more attention to it
Astro-Domine · 2h ago
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
rtkwe · 44m ago
For now... they've tried and dropped this a half dozen times over the years.
oliwarner · 1h ago
... says the most "truthy" US government since records began.

I don't want to be overly cynical but I'm resigned to never truly know details of national security. I have opinions but nobody is listening to them.

alfiedotwtf · 1h ago
See you all around in a few months when they try the exact same thing :head slap:
rdm_blackhole · 3h ago
Small reprieve. Let's hope that Apple pushes back on Chat Control as well.
crinkly · 3h ago
So when can I have ADP back?

Bet that's not happening...

HeckFeck · 2h ago
We'll get ADB back before we get ADP back.
strangescript · 2h ago
more important things to yell about now like global id and age verification and doing everything in their power to hamstring AI development
globalnode · 3h ago
but what about the children! /s
a5c11 · 2h ago
Don't worry, politicians will take care of them.
orangejuice45 · 2h ago
another reason to award the Nobel Prize to DJT if it was ever necessary