Britain Drops Request That Apple Create a Back Door

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/technology/britain-apple-back-door.html

by elijahcarrel • 11 months ago

45 16 11 months ago

nytimes.com

elijahcarrel• 11 months ago

https://archive.is/nVSVp

geoffpado• 11 months ago

…for now.

viwiten677• 11 months ago

I agree, I wonder what they will then be doing. unless through the 5eyes they have a different agreement..

thrown-0825• 11 months ago

UK no longer has the leverage to have an impact on Apple.

DrScientist4• 11 months ago

Or perhaps GCHQ don't need Apple to access the data any more - indeed the whole demanding access might have been a smoke screen to make people think it's secure....

subscribed• 11 months ago

Apple is reasonably secure and has one of the two best mobile phone hardware designs from the security perspective.

Sure exploits exist (see Pegasus), but they're too precious and fragile to deploy a dragnet. And that was about the indiscriminate surveillance, not selected "targets".

fguerraz• 11 months ago

Also we definitely trust that the Brits just gave up, right? They had nothing in exchange, no guarantees to be able to access the data in other ways…

Also, the tweet is only about protecting American people. I personally still don’t feel very safe about it and keep my backups local, thanks.

graemep• 11 months ago

Also, the tweet is only about protecting American people. I personally still don’t feel very safe about it and keep my backups local, thanks.

Its a deal between the British and American governments, that only protects Americans from British spying. its very specific.

Nothing about the UK, or the rest of the world, or the details of the deal. Apple might have made a lot of concessions to either or both governments. It needs a lot of trust in both governments (something many people will lack) to trust this.

IT4MD• 11 months ago

The government will continue to use exploits to access devices of interest instead of the horrifically stupid idea of baked-in backdoors in encryption.

I feel safer already.. :|

tehwebguy• 11 months ago

Similar to the other post, the only proof offered for this is a tweet from Tulsi Gabbard. From the article:

Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment, nor did the British Home Office

ChrisArchitect• 11 months ago

Some later discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44950600

Britain Drops Request That Apple Create a Back Door

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