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Apple Pulls Encrypted iCloud Security Feature in UK Amid Government Backdoor Demands
(www.macrumors.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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The solution is to stop putting your data on other people's computers. You can't control other people's computers. Apple does not care about you any more than any other trillion dollar corpo. Take back control.
The very funny thing Apple could do in response to this is allow people to self-host iCloud data storage. They do make privacy a huge part of their advertising after all. The chances of this happening are astronomically low though.
I’m going to play devils advocate for Apple here because unfortunately I do know exactly what would happen if they were to do that. If they release any official tool or even ability to do that, and somebody gets all their data stolen because their home backup solution was not secured properly, all the headlines will read something like “Apples iCloud backup system hacked, user has all data stolen”, and 98.5% of the general public will assume that includes apples actual cloud ICloud backup system, will NOT understand that the user himself is at fault, and their reputation will tank.
Hm, yeah, didn't think about shitrags' willingness to write misleading headlines to generate outrage/clicks.
They could make it completely detached from iCloud instead and allow using some generic API like WebDAV, so it can be used with Nextcloud for example. Plus potential DAV extensions or a new protocol and iOS API (or extend File Provider) if it needs anything specialized (it most likely does).
Like back when they sold Time Capsules as a home backup solution? I could sort of see that happening. You can already backup the phones to a Macintosh. I don’t think that would stop the UK government demanding a backdoor to the product, though.
Nothing they can backdoor when the data (and encryption) is out of their control, is there?
The law requires things to have a backdoor (or non encryption I guess). So it's either sell in that market, or don't and have security.
Or don't use someone's encryption if you don't have the private encryption key. Encrypt it yourself. But still then, it is only a matter of time when the encryption of your data is cracked. Could take years but if it is data someone really wants, one day it can be decrypten.
Hence, if the data is not on someone else's computer in the first place, it is not a matter of time.