UK Quietly Scrubs Encryption Advice From Government Websites

The U.K. government appears to have quietly scrubbed encryption advice from government web pages, just weeks after demanding backdoor access to encrypted data stored on Apple's cloud storage service, iCloud. From a report: The change was spotted by security expert Alec Muffett, who wrote in a blog post on Wednesday that the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is no longer recommending that high-risk individuals use encryption to protect their sensitive information.

The NCSC in October published a document titled "Cybersecurity tips for barristers, solicitors & legal professionals," that advised the use of encryption tools such as Apple's Advanced Data Protection (ADP). ADP allows users to turn on end-to-end encryption for their iCloud backups, effectively making it impossible for anyone, including Apple and government authorities, to view data stored on iCloud. The URL hosting the NCSC document now redirects to a different page that makes no mention of encryption or ADP. Instead, it recommends that at-risk individuals use Apple's Lockdown Mode, an "extreme" security tool that restricts access to certain functions and features.

This is a two way street

[wakeboarder]

No encryption = data theft, you want to look at your citizens data? So do your enemies and hacker groups.

Re:

[Sebby]

No encryption = data theft.

More like no encryption = privacy rape.

Re:

[Sebby]

Sebby is a rapist. That is the only logical explanation for the continued attempts to dilute the meaning of RAPE.

Here ya go [slashdot.org], you easily triggered Meta[stasize] employee.

Flashing Red Light Warning

[divide overflow]

Imagine having an Elon Musk/DOGE-like entity running amok through the U.K. government once it has has secretly backdoored all their citizen's data services and transports.Talk about a dystopian future....

Assumption

[JBMcB]

You're assuming there isn't some existing entity un the UK doing that now. This is the same country that locked up hundreds of postal workers for theft based on some third party software recommendation with no auditing, vetting, or verification whatsoever.

Re:

[Entrope]

Why wait for Musk or DOGE? Imagine a government that issued "anti-social behaviour orders" and says that you can be jailed for praying in your own house if you live in the wrong place ... once it has has secretly backdoored all their citizen's data services and transports.

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[serviscope_minor]

Imagine having an Elon Musk/DOGE-like entity running amok through the U.K. government

You mean an entity just cutting shit for the sheer hell of it, to hell with the consequences? Yeah that was Cameron and Osborn. Their legacy is a fucking disaster.

You can't have it both ways.

[Pseudonymous Powers]

You can't have it two ways. You may have it one way, or the other. You cannot have it a third way that avoids the trade-offs of the two previously established ways. The way you will get it may be selected from only two possibilities. Any attempt to change something away from one way will lead to the other way. You ain't a both ways kind of cat, you dig? Two ways diverged in a yellow wood, and you, you had to pick one and etc.

Re:

[Pseudonymous Powers]

By which I mean to say: Your citizens can have secure communications, or your government can have visibility into your citizens' communications, but you can't have both.

Re:

[divide overflow]

Can you tell us something more obvious?
By which I mean to say: Duh.

Makes sense

[ixus2600]

How can they recommend something that nobody in the UK can use anymore because the UK government is shortsighted and simple-minded! Just saying...

well, of course not

[v1]

is no longer recommending that high-risk individuals use encryption to protect their sensitive information.

Naturally, they don't want high-risk individuals (or anyone else for that matter) to protect their sensitive information from the government. And since hackers are evidently better at getting at your "sensitive information" than they are, you've got to write it in crayon and leave it posted on a tack board outside your flat so the keystone cops can look at it anytime they want to.

What a world we've co

why the red police box?

[v1]

When the US is censoring, we get a "censorship" group icon for the story. But when the UK is censoring, we get a UK group icon for the story. Does someone think censorship isn't that big of a deal in the UK?