Britain and Apple Fucking Your Privacy

[grarpamp]

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/11/17/164203/britain-has-passed-the-most-extreme-surveillance-law-ever-passed-in-a-democracy

The UK has just passed a massive expansion in surveillance powers,
which critics have called "terrifying" and "dangerous." The new law,
dubbed the "snoopers' charter," was introduced by then-home secretary
Theresa May in 2012, and took two attempts to get passed into law
following breakdowns in the previous coalition government. Four years
and a general election later -- May is now prime minister -- the bill
was finalized and passed on Wednesday by both parliamentary houses.
Civil liberties groups have long criticized the bill, with some
arguing that the law will let the UK government "document everything
we do online." It's no wonder, because it basically does. The law will
force internet providers to record every internet customer's top-level
web history in real-time for up to a year, which can be accessed by
numerous government departments; force companies to decrypt data on
demand -- though the government has never been that clear on exactly
how it forces foreign firms to do that that; and even disclose any new
security features in products before they launch. Not only that, the
law also gives the intelligence agencies the power to hack into
computers and devices of citizens (known as equipment interference),
although some protected professions -- such as journalists and medical
staff -- are layered with marginally better protections. In other
words, it's the "most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a
democracy," according to Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights
Group.

https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/16/11/17/1448219/iphones-secretly-send-call-history-to-apple-security-firm-says

Russian digital forensics Elcomsoft says iPhones send near real-time
logs to Apple servers even when iCloud backup is switched off. The
firm adds that these logs are stored for up to four months. From a
report on the Intercept:"You only need to have iCloud itself enabled"
for the data to be sent, said Vladimir Katalov, CEO of Elcomsoft. The
logs surreptitiously uploaded to Apple contain a list of all calls
made and received on an iOS device, complete with phone numbers, dates
and times, and duration. They also include missed and bypassed calls.
Elcomsoft said Apple retains the data in a user's iCloud account for
up to four months, providing a boon to law enforcement who may not be
able to obtain the data either from the user's carrier, who may retain
the data for only a short period, or from the user's device, if it's
encrypted with an unbreakable passcode. "Absolutely this is an
advantage [for law enforcement]," Robert Osgood, a former FBI
supervisory agent who now directs a graduate program in computer
forensics at George Mason University, said of Apple's call-history
uploads. "Four months is a long time [to retain call logs]. It's
generally 30 or 60 days for telecom providers, because they don't want
to keep more [records] than they absolutely have to. So if Apple is
holding data for four months, that could be a very interesting data
repository and they may have data that the telecom provider might
not."


"call logs. It's generally 30 or 60 days for telecom providers,
because they don't want to keep more [records] than they absolutely
have to"

Lol, what?