Are there any planned fixes to the iOS app? I keep wanting to use it but the text editor is unbearable as the cursor keeps jumping to random places and/or selecting chunks of text I just wrote and deleting it.

I’d say urgent is the right choice because now that the authoritarian regime here has seen how that has played out there, they’ll quickly work to do the same thing here.

Feel free to bookmark this post and call me wrong when/if that time comes.

yeah sounds like Apple knows more than they let on.

@patrickrhone I think Patrick is right. This is only the start: a lot of services offering encrypted solutions (including messaging) will probably need to stop offering these in the UK. And then more countries will follow suit with similar rules and regulations. Unfortunately…

For journalists, activists, and anyone targeted by surveillance, end-to-end encryption is always urgent. I think weakening it is a human rights issue (Article 12). And I’m with @patrickrhone—this sets a dangerous precedent. The US and others will follow. It’s a slippery slope.

@samradford Yes, I just submitted a new version to Apple today with an additional fix for editing. All the text cursor problems that I’m aware of have been fixed between the last couple of updates. You can also grab the TestFlight beta to make sure you’re on the latest.

that’s great to hear—thank you!

@sod @patrickrhone Fair enough. I guess if Apple thought it was urgent, why are encrypted backups still such an optional feature that almost no one knows about? But like @roelio said I am concerned about the UK approach leaking out to other end-to-end encrypted platforms. That would be bad.

Advanced Data Protection isn’t just about backups—it also adds end-to-end encryption to iCloud Drive, Notes, Reminders, etc. Basically, everything except mail, contacts, and calendar. My guess is that Apple isn’t forcing it on people due to the huge risk of data loss. Lose your key, lose everything. And most people aren’t knowledgeable enough about encryption to fully understand that risk.

When ADP was first announced, I remember being surprised that the 10 categories of data covered by it (particularly iCloud Drive and Notes, where users undoubtedly store sensitive data) weren’t already E2E encrypted. Probably shouldn’t be optional.

@sod Good point. Maybe they should decouple those things. Notes could have its own end-to-end encryption like iMessage. That way someone could have secure notes sync and choose to disable backups.

@dunn Yeah, I had completely forgotten that those apps were part of ADP until @sod mentioned it. At the very least, I think Notes is a special case that should be secure by default.

what isn’t stated in most of the releases is the events leading up was a demand for blanket access to users worldwide not just UK citizens. Presumably, this is still a possibility since it was a hard demand. Not that that hasn’t happened with other places before, but the urgency of protected data does makes sense. One wonders, then, if ADP is switched on and one visits the UK if iCloud services cannot function there.

@jonah Access to users outside the UK is such an overreach I can’t imagine that flying with Apple lawyers. It’s a good question about traveling, though.

@jonah VPN and geo-relocation makes it blatantly obvious a UK-only approach won’t work. It either has to be worldwide or not at all. Of course, knowledgeable criminals aren’t effected by this at all. The math(s) is out there, money does the rest to create e.g. a separate encrypted web app. You’d need to turn off the Internet to prevent that. All who will be effected are dumb criminals and law-abiding citizens.