Bonum Certa Men Certa

Unlike GAFAM, Free Software Serves You, It Does Not Serve Governments and MElons (Overlapping Forces)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 08, 2025,
updated Feb 08, 2025

Tired of oligarchy controlling your life through gadgets and "apps"? There's another way....

You uploaded my swimming suit photos to iCloud??? Apple lies to you

MY wife tells me "it's not just Apple." She never bought or used any Apple products/services and she only uses Free software, which perhaps make her a "purist" - actually a very practical choice, a pragmatic approach that does not interfere with life and work.

PRESS RELEASE: United Kingdom goes after Apple’s encrypted data

For those who got totally distracted by DOGE MElon, Apple is colluding with our government [1-5] that we voted for, but we're not too worried yet. Those who don't rely on GAFAM (or Apple or Amazon, the As in GAFAM) aren't impacted, at least not yet. Unless the government here bans Free software, it cannot mess around with our computers, which now have a combined uptime of about 1,200 days (wife last rebooted her laptop 348 days ago), many physical backups (no Clown Computing, thank you), and use encryption for E-mail (end-to-end, not the fake type).

As time goes by and society gets "harder to control" (we know who wants to control everything in society; it's about oppression and suppression, it's not about safety or societal security or order or stability) because more families feel anguish/desperation, the imperative to embrace Software Freedom ought to become clearer. At the same time, those who speak about it, e.g. Dr. Stallman, will be marginalised and their message censored. Daniel Pocock called it "social engineering" last year. He travelled all the way to the US to talk about it. Pocock is an expert in communication and encryption, with a focus on Free software facilities that help accomplish that.

"They'll do whatever any government asks them to, always," Ryan said about Apple. "Taking a stand means losing money. The only way to be protected is assume that anyone could be listening in."

The other way is to use secure software, i.e. not what the corrupted EFF recommends (the new and corrupted EFF went out of its way to attack or to broadly FUD E-mail encryption while promoting stuff like Facebook because today's EFF cannot distinguish between E-mail and Web pages).

Some people who read the news below will get angry at Apple and move to some other letter in "the GAFAM". That's what false choices look like. The real choice is to name, recognise, and then abandon proprietary software as a whole. In the case of GAFAM, all "the letters" are working for the convicted felon, accused of sexually assaulting about 30 women (those are the ones who dare speak out). Rich and corrupt people only demand privacy for themselves. █

  1. PRESS RELEASE: United Kingdom goes after Apple’s encrypted data | Privacy International

    • Privacy International is alarmed that the United Kingdom have used an unfettered power that undermines every Apple users’ privacy and security globally.

    • This latest overreach threatens everyone’s data and the security of the Internet as a whole, not just Apple’s customers.

  2. The UK's Demands for Apple to Break Encryption Is an Emergency for Us All

    As reported, the British government’s undisclosed order was issued last month, and requires the capability to view all encrypted material in iCloud. The core target is Apple’s Advanced Data Protection, which is an optional feature that turns on end-to-end encryption for backups and other data stored in iCloud, making it so that even Apple cannot access that information. For a long time, iCloud backups were a loophole for law enforcement to gain access to data otherwise not available to them on iPhones with device encryption enabled. That loophole still exists for anyone who doesn’t opt in to using Advanced Data Protection. If Apple does comply, users should consider disabling iCloud backups entirely. Perhaps most concerning, the U.K. is apparently seeking a backdoor into users’ data regardless of where they are or what citizenship they have.

  3. U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

    Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

  4. UK Orders Apple To Break Encryption Worldwide While World Is Distracted

    This comes after years of the UK government’s steadily mounting assault on encryption, from the Investigatory Powers Act to the Online Safety Act. While officials repeatedly insisted they weren’t trying to break encryption entirely, those of us following closely saw this coming. Apple even warned it might have to exit the UK market if pushed too far.

  5. UK Home Office stays shtum on alleged Apple backdoor order

    Such a mechanism would enable the government to independently access and read encrypted data, both within the UK and potentially for users worldwide.

Bill Gates advocates for stopping end-to-end encryption (to tackle 'misinformation')

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