Security

In an effort to out trump Trump, the UK government has forced Apple’s hand: it pulls iCloud encryption in the UK

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There are days when I sympathise with the Klingon mantra: “today is a good day to die”.

Across the Atlantic, the lingering effects of the Trump administration continue to reverberate, with citizens confronting service reductions and leadership that confuses authoritarian regimes with democratic governments. Meanwhile, Britain’s policymakers demonstrate technological naivety through security proposals like mandated encryption backdoors – measures cybersecurity experts universally condemn as disastrous vulnerabilities. This pattern of myopic governance suggests institutions worldwide are failing to address 21st-century challenges with necessary nuance.

Today Apple has annouced it is to remove the Advanced Data Protection system for UK users. ADP is used to encrypt iCloud data and keep it safe. This is generally a good idea, though if you do this, you can’t access many Apple iCloud services via the web. So will it affect everyone? Possible not – but that’s not the point. Apple have done this in order to comply with a secret order to put a backdoor in its ADP encryption so that the UK government can access anybody’s iCloud data. And to repeat: anybody’s iCloud data – regardless of whatever citizenship they may be, and be located anywhere in the world.

This government policy is likely to affect other services such as WhatsApp and anything else that uses end-to-end encryption. It seems that the government doesn’t realise this kind of technology is also keeping its secrets in check, and should (and indeed will happen, because it inevitably does) the backdoor or encryption key is compromised – everybody is utterly fucked. Fucked. With a capital F. I cannot stress how important this issue is.

Of course the good guys using encryption also means that the bad guys are also using it. Goes without saying. But the argument that by weakening or breaking/disabling encryption entirely in order to protect a country and its citizens is the most pathetic, uneducated, misinformed, stupid and lazy excuse I’ve ever come across in my career.

Needless to say this is going to trigger a letter to my local MP. I’m in fighting fuckwits mood at the moment, so now is as good a time to do so. The age of stupidity continues unabound! What next?

DURR, I wonder what happens if I gently keep tapping this unexploded WWII bomb with this 5 pound lump hamm.. <EXPLODES>

We’re truly living in the age of stupid..

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Last night I was standing outside the office minding my own business and some bloke comes up to me and asks, “are you a bum?”. As you can imagine, I was somewhat taken back by this, and I asked him why? Is he going to give me a fiver? A free sandwich and a cup of coffee? Beat me to death? His response was that I was hanging around looking like a bum, possibly looking for other “bums”. I just told him that he was a bloody fool and to go [censor] himself. He wasn’t exactly looking like a million dollars himself.

Clearly a nearby Surrey village is missing their idiot, and I had the good mind to take a photo of the chap which I’ve incorporated into this lovely image of him playing in the muddy puddle next to the Village Idiot sign. So if you see this guy hanging the bike racks in the Guildford area, don’t forget to patronise him as he seemingly likes to do others.

In other news, it’s been revealed that the UK government has ordered Apple to incorporate a backdoor into iCloud accounts worldwide so that the government can get at people who are hiding illegal and naughty things because it’s too hard for the security services to crack the encryption. The same encryption which keeps everybody’s data safe – including that of the government.

Never have I read such utter nonsense about a government apart from all the ridiculous things that Trump is currently doing. These are not security experts. These are government officials who do not have a bloody clue about technology and security, and if I were a gambling man, I reckon none of them have ever completed cybersecurity training. That’s the UK government for you!