> Apple has admitted to the government forcing them to cover-up backdoors
Handing over push notification data stored on a company's server is not any type of "backdoor".
That's how the law works in the US when the Federal, State, or local authorities come to you with a warrant.
If the Feds come to you with a National Security Letter, then you are forced to hand over the data stored on your servers, and are indeed prohibited from speaking out about it.
The only way to defend your customer's privacy is to minimize data collected and stored on your servers, which is what makes the surveillance capitalism business model of companies like Google and Meta so dangerous.
It's a backdoor. A rose by any other name is just as thorny.
I'm sorry that it upsets you. If it's any consolation, I consider Google and Meta's complicity equally disgusting. But I consider it disgusting because they are doing the same thing Apple does; hiding the existence of interception and privacy-degrading functionality that benefits the government. The pedigree that Apple once garnered through publicity stunts like San Bernadino has been entirely negated in posterity. The federal government has a much closer relationship with Apple than any customer ever could; the "privacy is a human right" advertisement was always conditional on where you lived and how you're oppressed.
The only way to defend customer privacy is to offer genuine freedom. As you've admit in this comment, federal coercion of a platform like iOS is like shooting fish in a barrel. iMessage, App Store, WebKit dylibs, Push Notifications, OCSP servers; none of them have any alternatives. If Apple were to lose control over the security of those products, the implications could be lethal. They could never argue that proprietary code or privately-managed security is a benefit to mankind ever again.
It's no coincidence that Tim Cook greeted Kashoggi's killer last night over dinner. Welcome to the new normal, a surveillance state where Apple was priced-out of defending freedom, safety or privacy.
Handing over push notification data stored on a company's server is not any type of "backdoor".
That's how the law works in the US when the Federal, State, or local authorities come to you with a warrant.
If the Feds come to you with a National Security Letter, then you are forced to hand over the data stored on your servers, and are indeed prohibited from speaking out about it.
The only way to defend your customer's privacy is to minimize data collected and stored on your servers, which is what makes the surveillance capitalism business model of companies like Google and Meta so dangerous.