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UK government seeks to break encryption on Apple's iCloud...

If Apple continues to offer encrypted iCloud then we can infer that the encryption has been secretly compromised. If Apple withdraws the service from Brits then we will at least know that the rest of the world will stay safe.


Link Here 11th February 2025
Full story: UK Government vs Encryption...Government seeks to restrict peoples use of encryption
The Washington Post reports:

Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud.

The British government's undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users.

Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the U.K., the people said. Yet that concession would not fulfill the U.K. demand for backdoor access to the service in other countries, including the United States.

The Home Office has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide access under the sweeping U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies when needed to collect evidence'

Apple can appeal the U.K. capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government's needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal. Apple would also be barred from warning its users that its most advanced encryption no longer provided full security.

Meredith Whittaker, president of the nonprofit encrypted messenger Signal, said:

Using Technical Capability Notices to weaken encryption around the globe is a shocking move that will position the UK as a tech pariah, rather than a tech leader. If implemented, the directive will create a dangerous cybersecurity vulnerability in the nervous system of our global economy.

An article from computerweekly.com provides some interesting details about the secret technical panel which hears appeals about unviable technical capability notices. It is called the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) and is charged with reviewing secret legal orders given to internet communications companies to arrange surveillance of their users, and to copy their emails and files, or to monitor their calls and videos.

Enquiries by Computer Weekly this week revealed, astonishingly, that the Home Office had failed to renew the contracts for TAB members so maybe there is a little disarray there.

 

 

Offsite Article: How to keep your private online conversations private...


Link Here 11th February 2025
Consider using Signal and Tor. By Clare Duffy

See article from edition.cnn.com

 

 

This is a tolerant country...BUT...

A British court prosecutes a man for blasphemy


Link Here5th February 2025
Campaigners have warned Sharia law is being brought to the streets of Britain following the case of a man who burned a Quran at the memorial to the Manchester Arena bombing victims.

The man admitted a racially aggravated public order offence after he was filmed tearing pages from the Islamic religious book and setting them alight on Saturday. He had publicised the event online beforehand, and it was streamed on social media. He was filmed tearing pages from the Quran and setting them alight whilst holding an Israeli flag.

The case has since been criticised by free speech campaigners, however, who have warned it could also leave Frost at risk of retaliation. Stephen Evans, chief executive of the National Secular Society, told The Telegraph:

[The case] brings us perilously close to reinstating blasphemy laws.

The man's name, date of birth and the borough where he lives were all disgracefully published by Greater Manchester Police on X in a post announcing he had been charged.

In a letter to the force, Lord Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union raised concerns about the defendant's safety as a consequence. He claimed that the case should never have been a police matter, adding the decision to name the man 'may well have placed him in great jeopardy.

District Judge Margaret McCormack asked for a pre-sentence report and adjourned sentencing. She told the man:

The Quran is a sacred book to Muslims and treating it as you did is going to cause extreme distress. This is a tolerant country ...BUT... we just do not tolerate this behaviour.

She bailed Frost on condition he does not post anything further on social media and will pass sentence on April 29.

 

 

Offsite Article: Islamic blasphemy laws have come to Britain...


Link Here4th February 2025
Full story: Public Order Act...Enabling police censorship
By arresting a man for burning the Koran, the authorities are doing the bidding of Islamist reactionaries. By Fraser Myers

See article from spiked-online.com


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