The government is suggesting that it might ban some Apple security updates. Under the latest plans, tech companies would need to notify the British government before rolling out a security fix but might be refused permission if it blocks a vulnerability that’s being exploited by security services.
Governance of the internet is not something individual nations should be able to do. It’s international and their restrictions would the. Be applied to companies who don’t operate in their country and eventually may conflict with laws in other countries forcing people to choose between countries they don’t care about wrapping people and companies who are just trying to provide a service into political wars. It’s just not good for anyone. Let NATO do it or only limit your own country’s companies/datacenters.
Signal already said that they’re willing to leave the UK if the UK goes ahead with their E2EE backdoor law. I can see more companies doing the same if the government keeps insisting that every foreign company complies with their bullshit.
The thing is, with modern web technologies, this really ISN’T something the U.K. can actually do. There is nothing preventing me from connecting through Tor or a VPN and hitting a web endpoint that offers encrypted messaging. The whole thing is SO dumb that it’s hard to believe politicians are actually dumb enough to think they can outlaw E2E
Not taking away form your point htere, but one country forcing its regulations on other countries’ internet users is not really a new thing, the US does it all the time and a lot of countries are somehow okay with it.
The US is where the internet began and has a lot of nukes so it’s ok.
But in all seriousness the US needs to stop too. they will still have a lot of power as they control so many major global internet companies. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc are all massive across the globe, potentially all in the top 5 biggest companies in the world (haven’t done my research on this front). And the US is and should absolutely be allowed to govern its companies, it’s just that that spills over to the internet since they control so much of it. All of their explicit internet management laws etc need to go though.
No, I didn’t mean the implicit soft power stuff, I mean the explicit overreaches such as when Kim Dotcom (who might be a dumbass, but still) got arrested for crimes he allegedly committed in the US while not being a US citizen, hosting his site in New Zealand and living in New Zealand, where the offenses he’s committed are not criminally punishable.