Why does the government worry about Apple encryption but not Signal et al.?

2 points by thinkloop 3 years ago | 3 comments

Whenever Apple upgrades it's privacy scheme it seems the government becomes quite concerned requesting backdoors and such. However we have had apps like Signal and WhatsApp and a plethora of others with e2e for years.

Is it because our phones are compromised enough that they can access data before any user-space encryption ever takes place?

Am I simply experiencing media bias because Apple is so interesting to write about?

Are the apps themselves compromised somehow rendering the problem moot?

Perhaps some other reason?

azalemeth 3 years ago |

I suspect it's because the number of people who install signal, briar, tor or v2ray is small, but the number of people who buy iPhones is large, and apple's defaults really matter.

If you take means to hide your activity, and you're in the minority, then that's a signal that you are suspicious. If everyone does it, dragnet surveillance stops working and it becomes harder to get information out of everyone, and the metadata of who is hiding their tracks vanishes.

I have a strong ideological objection to being spied upon and take measures to mitigate it. It's not easy though, and I'm probably in a minority. The government wants to keep it that way.

Buffout 3 years ago |

    Whenever Apple upgrades it's privacy scheme it seems the government becomes quite concerned requesting backdoors and such. However we have had apps like Signal and WhatsApp and a plethora of others with e2e for years.

link on government requesting backdoor?

controversial97 3 years ago | |

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI-Apple_encryption_dispute

Part of it is the time that the FBI wanted Apple to create custom firmware to allow unlimited attempts to enter a PIN number.