The UK’s war on encryption affects all of us

The encryption wars person reached a fever pitch, and the astir contentious conflict is not happening successful the United States, wherever overmuch of the enactment has been successful the past — similar the government’s efforts to restrict exports of encryption software until the 1990s and the FBI’s standoff with Apple successful 2016. It’s successful the United Kingdom, wherever the authorities has reportedly ordered Apple to springiness officials blanket entree to iCloud users’ encrypted backups. And the bid allegedly didn’t conscionable use to UK users — it demanded backdoor entree for users worldwide. 

The concealed order, first reported by The Washington Post, was issued successful January nether the auspices of the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act of 2016. Apple’s compliance oregon refusal volition person ramifications acold beyond the UK, perchance making users little harmless and signaling to different governments that they, too, tin question backdoor entree — a mode of bypassing encryption — to users’ accusation via legislation.

“Simply put, the connection the UK authorities is sending is that its ain citizens cannot expect its authorities to respect their privacy, and that it is consenting to enactment their information astatine hazard from each mode of atrocious actors similar …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.