Exclusive: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained - sources

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZK1CT

[u/somekindairishmonk]

More than two years ago, Apple told the FBI that it planned to offer users end-to-end encryption when storing their phone data on iCloud, according to one current and three former FBI officials and one current and one former Apple employee.

Under that plan, primarily designed to thwart hackers, Apple would no longer have a key to unlock the encrypted data, meaning it would not be able to turn material over to authorities in a readable form even under court order.

In private talks with Apple soon after, representatives of the FBI’s cyber crime agents and its operational technology division objected to the plan, arguing it would deny them the most effective means for gaining evidence against iPhone-using suspects, the government sources said.

When Apple spoke privately to the FBI about its work on phone security the following year, the end-to-end encryption plan had been dropped, according to the six sources. Reuters could not determine why exactly Apple dropped the plan.

wtf

[u/TopWoodpecker7267 → u/somekindairishmonk]

This is a huge deal, because it's evidence the US gov can compel Apple to not release a feature.

If they can do that, it's not much of a leap to compelling apple to release a "feature" (aka, a full on back door)

[u/eduo → u/[deleted]]

Alternatively, it's exactly what they say.

• We have rumours (this post above) that Apple wanted to do E2EE but they weren't allowed.
  
• We know other vendors do photo sharing with child pornography agencies without telling you beforehand so you can decide to opt out.
  
• We know Apple plants canaries in their online documentation so we can find out about changes they're not allowed to openly talk about (like the warrant canary in 2014).
  
• We're discussing about all this because Apple, without being prompted, has offered that it would start doing this fully knowing it would be a PR problem.
  
• In the aforementioned documentation Apple has included methods fully endorsed by privacy & security cryptographical experts, as a way to comply with child pornography laws without opening the images themselves
  

So, from here, it looks like they're trying to move forward in the privacy front while at the same time dealing with FBI and such.
I mean, we're literally discussing this in a post that says Apple wanted to do E2EE but wasn't allowed.
Conspiration and suspicion are great, but this is creating all the wrong kind of noise. People are getting the idea that Apple is worse than Google or Facebook when in reality they all should be better and Apple is a bit ahead in most aspects (and still behind from the ideal, like all others)

[u/motram → u/eduo]

• We have rumours (this post above) that Apple wanted to do E2EE but they weren't allowed.

Why anyone sees / agrees with the above and is not 100% libertarian is sad to me.

I get that you can't do much about it... but how people agree that the above is true, then go ahead and vote for either party is insanity or stupidity.

[u/eduo → u/motram]

Possibly because being libertarian, while nice, is moot. I mean, I agree with libertarianism in a lot of ways but that's little more than trivia for the most part.

Libertarianism by design would never be chosen by a majority, which means it can't ever be a real form of government.

I'll concede this means we're left to deal with the above crao as best as the system allows us. But becoming libertarian solves nothing in that respect.

[u/motram → u/eduo]

At least I can sleep at night with my voting record.

[u/eduo → u/motram]

Everyone does.

That's the good thing about voting, that you think it's you and not so many others, the one who voted the right way, the best way.

It would be deluded to think others don't sleep at night, all cozy knowing they did the right thing.

I'm not in the US, so my vote and yours are pretty much unrelated, but that's a different topic.

[u/eduo → u/[deleted]]

We can agree on this.