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Twitter Poll: ‘Do you think Apple would be right to withdraw from the market a “strong privacy” product that contains a Government backdoor?’
Of course ‘right’ is open to interpretation, but that’s part of the point.
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Useful Phrase for anyone, today, discussing the UK/Apple/Encryption thing: “Comity of Nations”
Via Graham Smith* is this definition which basically means “states must balance whether they can pass laws or regulations which impact citizens of other jursdictions”, or to quote an actual dictionary: comity of nations noun phrase 1 : the courtesy and friendship of nations marked especially by mutual recognition of executive, legislative, and judicial acts
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Apple in 2016 | A Message to Our Customers | “…government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers…”
A follower on Twitter reminded me of the message that Apple published in February 2016; the nature of British surveillance requests will probably prevent them sharing similar to the UK today, but the sentiment should be the same: The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of
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HOT TIP: PUSH BACK HARD AGAINST CRYPTOWAR AMATEURS WHO ATTEMPT TO PAINT APPLE WITHDRAWAL AS CAPITULATION
I respect Tim as a corporate professional but the attached is not a good take; given the nature of technical capability notices it is necessary for Apple or anyone to remove themselves from toxic markets.
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Apple pulls data protection tool after UK government security row | BBC News
It’s Friday, and therefore the perfect time to discuss the consequences of the British Government demanding to surveil all the internet’s content: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgj54eq4vejo If you would like to track links to this developing story, see: https://alecmuffett.com/article/112185
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Spot the speculative circumvention of text censorship & blocking, and consider how this will enable online harms as well as online helps
Speech is a great freedom, and it will be adapted to communicate even in the most limiting of circumstances. The actual issue is one of intent. Most online safety legislation unwisely ignores this challenge.
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How to write a calculator app. Correctly. | Chad Nauseam Home
This is a very cute read, and quite educational from a software engineering and recreational mathematics perspective: https://chadnauseam.com/coding/random/calculator-app
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Mastodon will add quote posts, even though some users don’t want them | The Verge
Remember, kids: Quote-Tweets served no purpose on Twitter other than abuse… or maybe not. Perhaps people who go around demanding “safety by design” might like to reconsider the usability impact. https://www.theverge.com/news/613376/mastodon-quote-posts-update
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“The ICO […] say they don’t expect you to implement age assurance measures which […] pose a significant & disproportionate economic impact on businesses” | @pwaring@fosstodon.org
The ICO has published some interesting information on Age assurance, which references the Online Safety Act. The Introduction in particular makes it clear that age assurance comes with potential problems, including: 1. Disproportionate intrusiveness (e.g. processing special category data) 2. Inaccuracy 3. Discrimination (e.g. groups who don’t have access to ID) So not only do
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Secret U.K. spy order imperils press freedom
And it’s not just U.K. journalists who need to be concerned. As others have pointed out, once the U.K. claims this power, it will be a hop, skip, and a jump to other countries — including authoritarian ones or ones on their way there — demanding similar powers. It’s not hard to imagine what Russia,
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UK accused of political ‘foreign cyberattack’ on US after serving secret snooping order on Apple | Computer Weekly | Wyden-Biggs-Gabbard letter published
In a letter to the recently appointed US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, Senator Ron Wyden of Colorada and Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona bluntly ask the administration to kick the UK out of the 65-year-old UK-USA signals intelligence sharing agreement, commonly known as “Five Eyes” if they do not now withdraw the
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Apple Faces Potential App Store Antitrust Probe in China | MacRumors
10 points for anybody who can guess where this is going: Chinese regulators are said to be particularly focused on whether Apple’s fees for local developers are unreasonably high. They’re also examining if the company’s prohibition of third-party app stores and payment methods stifles competition and negatively impacts Chinese consumers. https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/05/apple-potential-antitrust-probe-china/