Comment by InTheArena

Comment by InTheArena 21 hours ago

16 replies

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The first two are reasonable positions. The third, on the merits of the argument in the article, is absolutely bonkers. It's the UK government that is unleashing this stupidity on the world. There is no European alternative that is any safer, and it's the UK's own hands that are at fault in the first place.

Not that there aren't other reasons to be skeptical of American companies' right, but it's just so easy to fall into nationalistic prattle instead of fixing the real problem.

thewebguyd 21 hours ago

> but it's just so easy to fall into nationalistic prattle instead of fixing the real problem.

Right. This, right now, is 100% a UK problem. De-Americanising your tech stack isn't going to fix the political issues domestically. Hence Apple pulling ADP out, they made the choice of not complying with the UK and not offering the service instead of compromising the service for everyone else in the world.

UK citizens need to direct their attention inwards against their own government.

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  • alt227 4 hours ago

    > Right. This, right now, is 100% a UK problem.

    Do you not think every other govenrment in the world is currently eyeing this up and figuring out how to do the same thing?

    Reply View 3 replies
    • NetMageSCW 7 minutes ago

      That is just borrowing trouble that hasn’t arisen.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • port11 3 hours ago

      Scary stuff: they've just handed the EU a reason to go after ADP. Turns out no back door is needed, you just force their position into making ADP unavailable in the EU.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • alt227 3 hours ago

        I still believe that 5 eyes organised this, but the UK drew the short straw and had to be the guinea pig.

        Reply View 0 replies
  • denkmoon 16 hours ago

    Oh yes, the UK is very keen on Reform. Reform in this case however is the death rattle of a long dead empire.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • rounce 7 hours ago

      “Death rattle”? More like “zombie groan”.

      Reply View 0 replies
  • ungreased0675 16 hours ago

    Last time I was in the UK, the news (BBC) was bizarrely 90% American politics. Trump this, Trump did that, etc. People there knew American politicians better than the people who actually represent them.

    Reply View 5 replies
    • 1over137 9 hours ago

      Why “bizarrely”? The US has enormous influence on many countries, Trump’s actions are newsworthy in many places.

      Reply View 2 replies
    • subscribed 2 hours ago

      Trump is a chum with Farage, far right con man and Putin's buddy.

      For the reasons unknown BBC is *massively* promoting and platforming far right in the last few times (airtime, framing of the events, promoting party lines as facts, etc).

      So Trump in the BBC might be considered beneficial to the far right. This would explain it.

      Reply View 0 replies
lmm 6 hours ago

> There is no European alternative that is any safer

How do you figure that? If you're worried about your privacy in the UK, keeping your data in a Five Eyes country cloud provider is a very bad idea, arguably even worse than keeping it in a UK cloud provider where it becomes a domestic legal matter where you at least get a day in court, not a foreign intelligence matter where you don't. And the US is a pretty bad place for anyone's data given a) its lack of robust privacy laws (and large commercial data-trafficking ecosystem) and b) the National Security Letter system.

While there is no perfect country, somewhere like Germany or the Netherlands seems a much better bet.

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protocolture 15 hours ago

>The first two are reasonable positions. The third, on the merits of the argument in the article, is absolutely bonkers. It's the UK government that is unleashing this stupidity on the world. There is no European alternative that is any safer, and it's the UK's own hands that are at fault in the first place.

Disagree. Australia and also likely Canada have identical these laws. And once the capability is in place, its likely that the US can all writs access to the same tool. Apple is unique in that it has a semi legal canary, in choosing to withdraw the services instead of complying.

You cant trust any tech company that remains located in the 5 eyes nations.

I am not aware of good alternatives, but worst case you can run up a VPS with Owncloud or something.

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