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An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

• dancemethis 5y ago
  Why do people still think they have _any_ power over user-hostile corporations and its proprietary code? Apple can (and likely will) say they won't do it and then do it anyway. It's a proprietary platform. They already have it, now. All they are claiming is an excuse not to be caught in a certain way they wouldn't like at a later point.
  • toxik 5y ago
    This seems fatalist and goes against what we have learned from internet society: making a ruckus is exactly how you sway large companies.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • inanutshellus 5y ago
      I'm with you bud. Fatalism is how bad things survive. "Oh, nothing will happen to this [corrupt politician|naughty rich guy|corporation doing a thing I don't like], because they're all [bad thing]. It's all over already." :facepalm: (Also, I couldn't read the original article because my work thinks it's spreading malware or something so I'm really only referring to the fatalism thing here, not Apple.)
  • jackvezkovic 5y ago
    There can always be leaks, anonymous sources that confirm something is still ongoing, despite what was publicly announced. Brand image is important.
    • zibzab 5y ago
      Are you sure? Here is a true story for you: Company X claimed users voice commands never left their devices. Then someone leaked recordings of people having sex, commiting crimes, etc recorded from X devices. This was brought up by media. For every concerned user there were ten apologist trying to justify this behaviour and a week later everyone forgot this ever happened.
      • Clubber 5y ago
        Post a link so everyone can remember. If it's something you care about, you need to keep reminding people. I'll post stuff about police brutality on threads that are relevant. It helps remind everyone that they are susceptible to the whims of any rogue policeman at any given time, regardless of social status. Most likely with no recourse.
        • noduerme 5y ago
          Hilarious. I knew what they meant. Fanboys and their short memories. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/07/30/confirmed-apple-caught-in-siri-privacy-scandal-let-contractors-listen-to-private-voice-recordings/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/07/30/confirm...
      • snowwrestler 5y ago
        If you’re talking about Amazon, those stories did affect Echo sales, and the trajectory of the category overall. When was the last time you read a breathless article about how smart speakers will change everything?
        • zibzab 5y ago
          I was thinking of another company, but I am very happy that Amazon bottom line was affected (?)
  • failwhaleshark 5y ago
    And it's only a fraction of ubiquitous inverted totalitarianism that pervades modern life. If powerful people decide they don't like you, they have the power to exploit your content, shutoff your access to everything containing software, and, in some cases, have you arrested because they also buy the influence of politicians. Kleptocracy. Plutocracy.
• toxik 5y ago
  Please talk to non-tech people around you about this. This overreach simply cannot stand, and from a company that sees success from touting itself as a privacy-centric alternative? These really are some dark times. I imagine that if the world had Stasi fresher in its mind, this would never have happened.
  • tobyhinloopen 5y ago
    Talking about this with non-tech people might make the distrust in anything they don’t understand worse. Think vaccines.
    • u4ria 5y ago
      Theory of Vaccines is simple. They want you to outsource all your immunity to big pharma. Just like when they took away your guns, and made you outsource your self defence to government. Just like when they outsourced your critical thinking to fact checkers. You are no good on your own. Submit to us and pay us, and we will make you good.
    • faeyanpiraat 5y ago
      Yes, most people are not good at persuasion, and a generic mention of the fact may be harmful as you say.
    • cle 5y ago
      Intentionally deceiving people is probably not a good strategy for building their trust.
    • crocodiletears 5y ago
      Refusing to acknowledge egregious top-down decisions which threaten or violate either one's well-being or some perceived fundamental right has a much worse effect on public trust. "Why didn't you tell me this was going on?" "You're simply too stupid to handle the idea that your betters might occasionally be untrustworthy"
      • 5y ago
• donkeyd 5y ago
  I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place without moderation? Where are the boundaries for moderation (if it has to exist), one-on-one versus group chat, public versus private chat? To quote this open letter: “Apple is opening the door to broader abuses”. Wouldn't not doing anything open a different door to broader abuse? Edit: I would really love an actual answer, since responses until now have been "but muh privacy". You can't plead for unlimited privacy and ignore the impact of said privacy. If you want unlimited privacy, at least have the balls to admit that this will allow free trade of CSAM, but also revenge porn, snuff-films and other things like it.
  • 0xy 5y ago
    Evidently the episode you listened to was loaded with false information, because Kik has used PhotoDNA to scan for CSAM for 7 years. [1] [1] https://www.kik.com/blog/using-microsofts-photodna-to-protect-kik-users/ https://www.kik.com/blog/using-microsofts-photodna-to-protec...
    • donkeyd 5y ago
      > Doc: From what I can tell, it only starts looking in the rooms and looking at individual people if they are reported for something. https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/93/ https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/93/ If I were Kik, I would also write a blog post about using something like this. Many, many things point at Kik only doing the bare minimum though. (If you're the type who supports moderation, apparently they're already doing too much according to much of HN.)
  • 3rly 5y ago
    Should the internet be a free for all place without moderation? Yes!!!
    • 5y ago
• throwaway6352 5y ago
  In this day and age I am basically guilty of heresy for speaking out against the insanity of our times. Nobody should be prosecuted for possessing or viewing any text, image or audio recording, unless they created it themselves by abusing someone. That is a fundamental principle of a free society which has been acknowledged for if not decades, hundreds of years. By all means prosecute the distribution of such material - but to prosecute possession is returning us to the Middle Ages hunting witches again. It is only because of radical, extremist feminists and other moralists creating moral panics in the 1970s and 1980s are we faced with the present situation in the 21st Century, which is extremely dangerous in a highly interconnected society such as ours, where it is very difficult if not impossible to stop people from unintentionally coming across such material. We might as well have a nuclear reactor in our own homes, yes it's very useful and provides lots of free electricity but one day it can melt down destroying the entire family? Do you see the analogy I'm making? Because the Internet is just as dangerous. The penalties for possession of such material and being put on the sex offenders register are so horrific, it's totally unreal. It's like a real life nightmare. I cannot believe I'm typing this here in 2021. What has happened to our country? We criticize dangerous products that are unsafe and burn your house down or electrocute you, but why can't we criticize the dangers of the Internet and all the ridiculous draconian laws involving it? It is as if the law itself and the crazy ways it's made is beyond discussion? Nobody should have to fear their own computers (unless they are doing major hacking/fraud/sending death threats, etc...).. This simply cannot be happening in a free society. It looks like we are no better than China - it's just over different stuff here in the West.
• snemvalts 5y ago
  With regulators forcing encryption backdoors with "the children" as the argument, Apple's solution seems like the least of the possible evils.
  • sizt 5y ago
    As with malware. Identify it. Isolate it. Remove it.
• john579 5y ago
  Apple is just being innovative. Scan phones for porn, then sell it for profit and use it for blackmail. Epstein on steroids.
• mfer 5y ago
  This reminds me that a two OS market isn’t a healthy one for consumers. We could use more diversity.
  • swiley 5y ago
    postmarketos.org
    • mfer 5y ago
      A quick look at that website and you see it's not for normal or typical consumers. It's for a technical crowd who is in to technical things and tinkering. It's like telling an average person to use GNU/Linux for their desktop OS and then watching them struggle to get printing to work well (I have been through this).
  • Spivak 5y ago
    Okay, but in a n OS market the companies behind them would still be pressured to implement CSAM detection. There's still a monopoly on government.
• ho_schi 5y ago
  I've someone has gone so far like Apple already did, I doubt that a open letter will change their thinking. Maybe they step a little back and bring the next similar thing which looks less invasive some time later? Thinks like this must to be stopped! Customers shall not buy anything from companies which are hostile. And laws against these usage need passed. As far as it looks, the laws in Europe are in place and prevent this currently. But just currently, we've seen how companies like Apple push the boundaries. We as humans behave totally irrational, we complain about inhumane working conditions at Amazon and then we order the next item. We complain about a golden prison from Apple and buy the next iPhone. We should change?
• sathackr 5y ago
  US Government: We suspect the person in this photo of committing a crime. Here is your subpoena, Apple. You are directed to scan all iPhone and iCloud storage for any pictures matching this NeuralHash and report to us where you find them. Chinese Government: Here is the NeuralHash for Tienanmen square. Delete all photos you find matching this or we will bar you from China. Apple has at this point already admitted this is within is capability. So regardless of what they do now, the battle is already lost. Glad I don't use iThings.
  • xyst 5y ago
    Selfies are suddenly going to be used as surveillance tools by the govt, or maybe a bad actor at Apple wants to find/track down their ex. This system has so much potential for abuse with very little upside.
    • calmworm 5y ago
      Suddenly?
      • EnlightenedBro 5y ago
        Nailed it. It was the intention all along. Funny how everyone just pretends that it's not what it is.
  • fny 5y ago
    The Chinese government already has direct access to everyone's data and messages. There is no encryption. This is mandated. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...
    • FabHK 5y ago
      > direct access to everyone's data and messages. From what I understand, only to Chinese customers's data and messages (bad enough, sure, but not as bad as you say).
• XorNot 5y ago
  Fixed: Chinese Government: Here is the NeuralHash for some child abuse imagery, please scan this user's phone and tell us if it's found. Apple: Sure we found it. Chinese Government: this user has unpermitted winnie the pooh memes. Send them to an internment camp.
  • rvz 5y ago
    Google: 'Sharing is caring'. Thanks for sharing all of this with us Apple Inc! [0] Amazon: Don't forget us too! [0] To Downvoters: Are you telling me that this is false? Even worse for the Gmail users. [1] I guess the outrage was already overdue with these tech giants. [0] https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/29/apple-is-now-googles-largest-corporate-customer-for-cloud-storage https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/29/apple-is-now-goog... [1] https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/5/5970141/how-google-scans-your-gmail-for-child-porn https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/5/5970141/how-google-scans-y...
    • gjioshjoasif 5y ago
      welcome to reddit
  • trashtester 5y ago
    Fixed further: Chinese Government: Here is the NeuralHash for some child abuse imagery, please scan this user's phone and tell us if it's found. Apple: Sure we found it. Chinese Government to some western company/instititution: We have detected unacceptable behavior from your employee/student/client/vendor. Please cancel them, or we will stop funding you.
    • trainsplanes 5y ago
      Replace Chinese with absolutely any government and that's what'll happen. We're pretty much at a point where any hacker/leaker anywhere on earth is "found" to have committed sex crimes or have 300 gigabytes of child abuse on their computers. Eventually Disney will be getting their hands in it to detect copyrighted content and then it's all over.
• getaclue 5y ago
  Sad :(
• CubsFan1060 5y ago
  Isn’t this just wrong? “ Apple's proposed technology works by continuously monitoring all photos stored or shared on a user's iPhone, iPad or Mac, and notifying the authorities if a certain number of objectionable photos is detected.” From: https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_for_Children_Technology_Summary.pdf https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_... “ Before an image is stored in iCloud Photos, an on-device matching process is performed for that image against the unreadable set of known CSAM hashes. “ I think it only does this before iCloud upload.
  • buzzy_hacker 5y ago
    I don’t see where in the first quotation it says that the scanning takes place after iCloud upload. It just says monitoring.
    • Cenk 5y ago
      The first quote says it happens to “all photos stored […] on a user’s iPhone”. The second quote clarifies that it only happens to photos that are going to be uploaded to iCloud Photos, and that the scan is performed before the upload happens.
      • CubsFan1060 5y ago
        Man. Sometimes English is an imprecise language. I guess the second quote I posted doesn't preclude scanning all photos. It would be a weird use of wording, but if all photos were scanned all the time, then technically that sentence would still be correct. I'm not 100% sure if this is about the on-device portion of this. Gmail and OneDrive already use this (and have for the better part of a decade) and I haven't seen any large outcry. Also, Apple has confirmed that turning off icloud photos means this doesn't work (this is separate from iCloud backups).
        • voakbasda 5y ago
          The difference is choice. You choose to upload your photos where you know they might be scanned. Not uploading them is a choice to keep them private. This destroys the very notion of sovereignty over your own data.
• artifact_44 5y ago
  Why are they telling everyone and not just doing it? Seems like aiding and abetting, if you've already dismissed the privacy aspect...
  • echelon 5y ago
    Because it was leaked, and the press release was damage control.
• m3kw9 5y ago
  Yes how do they not allow govt to ask them to scan for their set of restricted hashes?
  • voakbasda 5y ago
    They won’t. This is the big problem.
• freediver 5y ago
  While I applaud the goal, this is likely not to achieve it on its own. Those that should be affected are probably not using Messanger to begin with and if they are they can easilly switch to other communication apps. It is also not quite clear if Apple is taking a moral or legal stand here. If it is legal then this could in the future open doors to: - Scanning for other types of illegal content - Scanning for copyrighted content (music, images, books, ...) - Scanning your iCloud files and documents - Scanning emails to make sure you are not doing anyting illegal If it is morally driven and Apple wants to really take a stand against any CSAM material on its devices, they would really have to do it at a system level, monitoring all data being transferred (including all communications, all browsing etc) so this could just be the first step. A moral-based agenda would be much easier for broader public to accept, while a legal-based agenda could lead to other kinds of privacy-intruding consequences. And even a moral-based agenda would still be a precedent as ultimately we do not know what are Apple's "moral values" and what would it be ready to intrude user's privacy over in the future? Seems like a slippery slope for a company to take, any way you turn it, specially if privacy is one of your main selling points. Another thought: if we as a society agree that CSAM is unacceptable, why not globally prevent it at an internet router level? edit: jetlagged... we can't because data is encrypted. It has to be at client level, pre-encyption.
  • voakbasda 5y ago
    Apple is a legal entity not a moral one. It may have moral employees, but at best Apple itself is amoral. It will do what the law allows (or compels) it to do. This feature absolutely will be used for human rights abuse by countries like China, just like they have asked Apple to abuse their platform in the past. Why? Because those abuses are legal there, and capitulation will be the only way those governments will allow them continue to sell in their lucrative marketplace.
  • bambax 5y ago
    > While I applaud the goal Really? What is the goal? It's not to prevent child abuse, since passively looking at images is not, per se, abuse. It's also not to limit the making of child pornography, since this will only search for already existing and already known images that already exist in government databases. If you make new images that are not yet in said databases, you're fine. I'm not sure what the actual goal is (project a virtuous company image, maybe?), but the result could very well be the opposite of what people think.
• markus_zhang 5y ago
  I guess more the reason to use vintage computing for personal then? You can even disconnect them from Internet whenever not needed. Then you use the modern computer your company provides strictly for business purposes.
• rvz 5y ago
  It has been admitted in the past and now in the open. Apple Inc. is not your friend. [0] The author of this Tweet has a point and made it clear all along for a long time. [0] https://twitter.com/aral/status/1182186665625960448 https://twitter.com/aral/status/1182186665625960448
• Croftengea 5y ago
  Now I wonder how long will it take for this tech to reach macOS.
  • xyst 5y ago
    Later this year in the Monterey update. “ These features are coming later this year in updates to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey.*” — https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/
    • dexwell 5y ago
      Of the three new features mentioned, the CSAM scanning one is not yet coming to Monterey. > new technology in iOS and iPadOS* will allow Apple to detect known CSAM images stored in iCloud Photos. > * Features available in the U.S. The iMessage and Siri feature paragraphs do mention Monterey.
      • EasyTiger_ 5y ago
        The gall to refer to this as “features”
• whitepaint 5y ago
  We need open-source smartphone, for the love of god.
  • glenvdb 5y ago
    I think there are some around? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_phones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_pho...
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  I'm waiting for orthodox authorities to do stuff like reporting pictures of people (not just girls) without head coverings. or dressed in bikinis, thongs, or underwear (like a significant number of "influencers" do, every day). There are already places in this world, where a couple can be arrested for kissing in public. I suspect that the folks enforcing those laws, would have some real interest in this capability. Not to mention nations (many in Africa, but there are also Eurasian nations), where homosexuality is banned (or even considered for death penalties). If your phone has a picture of two men (or women) embracing, it could cause nightmares.
  • jll29 5y ago
    Or manipulating photos a little so the classifier deems them dangerous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXy6oX1iNoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXy6oX1iNoA
    • isaacimagine 5y ago
      Or sending manipulated but otherwise innocuous photos to someone else so the classifier is triggered on their device. Yikes.
    • judge2020 5y ago
      This isn’t a neutral network classifier, it’s an algorithm that searches against existing CSAM photos. https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Technical_Summary.pdf https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/CSAM_Detection_Techni...
      • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
        That's potentially, even worse. It means that the 'relevant authorities" can substitute any images they want, whenever they want.
      • tomas_nort 5y ago
        “ Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo is sexually explicit.” https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/
• hnthrowaway9721 5y ago
  It won’t matter. Most of the public will applaud the move, many will call for it to be rolled out across every platform, including desktops. As this gathers momentum, it will eventually become illegal not to have pervasive scanning apps running on your device. Naturally, the technology will almost immediately be expanded to other kinds of content, and will be used as a wide open backdoor into everything in everyone’s life. While this is not inevitable, I see a strong, perhaps overwhelming public response as being the only thing that will prevent it, and I do not see that response happening.
• nikkinana 5y ago
  Made for China, imported everywhere. Slippery slope you sheep.
• game_the0ry 5y ago
  Disappointing. While moderating CP distribution and storage is obviously the right thing to do, I do not think this approach will be a worthwhile endeavor for apple and governments. Let me explain: imagine you are bad guy with bad stuff on your iphone, and you hear apple will be scanning your phone. What is the next logical thing you would do? Migrate your stuff to something else, obviously. Encrypting a usb stick does not require a high degree of technical skill [1]; neither does running tor browser. So I am thinking 3 things: 1. This is not about CP or doing the right thing, but rather apple bowing to government/s pressure to create a half-ass backdoor to monitor and squash dissidents. 2. Apple and government/s are incompetent and do not realize that criminals are always one step ahead. 3. Most likely, some combination of the above - government/s have demonstrated they are willing to go hard on dissidents on the personal electronics front [2], not realizing that they will only mitigate, not exterminate, the dissent they fear so much. For the average joe, I would say this - your privacy is effectively gone when you use an electronic device that comes with closed-source code pre-installed. For the benevolent dissidents - there are many tools at your disposal [3, 4]. Likely next iteration - governments / courts / cops compel suspects to hand over passwords and encryption keys over to prosecutors. It looks like it already started [5, 6], so act accordingly. [1] https://www.veracrypt.fr/code/VeraCrypt/ https://www.veracrypt.fr/code/VeraCrypt/ [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2021/nso-spyware-pegasus-cellphones/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20... [3] https://files.gendo.ch/Books/InfoSec_for_Journalists_V1.1.pdf https://files.gendo.ch/Books/InfoSec_for_Journalists_V1.1.pd... [4] https://www.privacytools.io/ https://www.privacytools.io/ [5] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-11479831 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-11479831 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law
  • dannyw 5y ago
    It is not the role of infrastructure providers to reach into private, on device content. That is like the USPS opening every letter and scanning what is inside. Even if it's done with machine learning, that is absolutely not okay, no matter what it is for.
    • game_the0ry 5y ago
• sadness3 5y ago
  Should they persist in this, if I don't replace my current iPhone with an alternative, I will definitely not buy an iPhone for my next phone. It's a gross overreach and I'd be too worried about false positives.
  • rantwasp 5y ago
    the next phone? I will stop buying Apple products period.
• jasoneckert 5y ago
  I still remember Scott McNealy's 1999 quote from when he was at Sun Microsystems: "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."
  • echelon 5y ago
    Don't defend Apple. We have as much privacy as we're willing to stand up and defend. Even if Apple continues down this path, perhaps the backlash will make techies abandon them. That would have a notable effect on their ecosystem.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• danso 5y ago
  Both of the announced features sound fine on their own — Apple has always been able to scan iCloud and send your data to police [0], and PhotoDNA is a decade old; whereas on-device machine learning on kid phones does not (according to Apple) involve sending anything to Apple reviewers and the govt. But announcing both features in the same post makes it inevitable that they get conflated, e.g. “Apple’s machine learning will send suspected child porn-like images from your iMessages to iCloud, where it will be reviewed and possibly sent to the police”. Apple obviously knows this — so them being ok with that raises some serious eyebrows, as if they’re quietly setting the groundwork to make that a reality. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-fbi-icloud-investigation-seattle-protester-arson-2020-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-fbi-icloud-investigati...
  • koolhaas 5y ago
    > Apple has always been able to scan iCloud and send your data to police I don’t see how the article you linked to explains how Apple can “scan iCloud” for the police. What do you mean? It seems like they just hand data over for a specific warrant related to individual users.
    • danso 5y ago
      Sorry, are you insinuating that Apple has the ability to retrieve, read, and provide the unencrypted data from users' iCloud accounts, but not the ability to search across that data?
• SirensOfTitan 5y ago
  I know the privacy approach Apple has been pushing was just marketing, but I didn't care too much because I enjoyed my iPhone and M1 macbook. Because of this decision (and the fact that my iPhone more-or-less facilitates poor habits throughout my life), I'm considering moving completely out of the Apple ecosystem. Does anyone have any recommendations for replacements? * On laptops: I have an X1 carbon extreme running linux, but it's entirely impratical to take outside of the house: it has terrible battery life and runs quite hot. I also cannot stand its trackpad. Is there any linux-capable device with an okay trackpad? * On phones: are there any capable phones out there that aren't privacy nightmares? All I want is a phone with a long lasting battery that I can use with maps, a web browser, and texting. * On cloud: I've considered executing on a NAS forever, but I'm unsure where to start.
  • calgoo 5y ago
    From what I understand, you can use Linux on the M1 now, so at least as a stopgap. For nas, synology is always a good brand.
    • marcan_42 5y ago
      Linux on M1 isn't ready yet for daily use, but we're working on it. Expect things to move pretty quickly in the next few months.
      • javajosh 5y ago
        Link?
        • rvz 5y ago
          This person is the creator of Asahi Linux and the one who did the early work of Linux on M1 Macs. [0] When it is ready, it will be ready and they will say so. Until then it is not ready for general use and is still under active heavy development. [0] https://asahilinux.org/ https://asahilinux.org/
      • 5y ago
• opnac 5y ago
  https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/ https://www.apple.com/customer-letter/ A stark change since Apple/FBI.
  • dmitryminkovsky 5y ago
    And what happened since then, I wonder?
    • echelon 5y ago
      They were probably strong-armed into this. Perhaps the CCP and the FBI talked, and Apple was told they'd be cut off from their suppliers if they didn't introduce this. It doesn't matter. This is the wrong choice, and everyone should rebuke and abandon Apple for this.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• d--b 5y ago
  You guys can get outraged all you want. It's pretty clear that Apple debated this internally and decided that the backlash was worth whatever they got from this deal... By today, it's pretty clear than privacy is not the top priority of most people. See how much data people are giving fb/google every second...
  • dijit 5y ago
    This defeatist attitude is not helpful. The louder people are about this, the more it hurts and the more likely the policy is reversed. if the policy is not reversed, then at least the community has been loud enough that people took notice and understood that this is happening, giving them a chance to vote with their wallet; for most people what happens on a computer or a phone is a complete mystery.
    • d--b 5y ago
      What I am saying is that people have been told pretty clearly that FB would sell all your data to anyone, use it to target people with misinformation that clearly influence election outcomes, and lie about it everywhere. The dent that these revelations had on FB’s userbase is peanuts. Same thing with whatsapp. Apple’s saying that they’ll use a robot to check that their users arent paedophiles is clearly not going to change anything. Use your energy elsewhere...
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • bambax 5y ago
      > This defeatist attitude is not helpful. Maybe, but it's the truth. It's impossible Apple didn't think this through. They did, and they made a decision, and Google will do the exact same thing in 6 months if not earlier.
  • norov 5y ago
    A protest outside of Apple's main offices or Tim Cook's house would draw a good amount of attention to this issue.
• t0mmyb0y 5y ago
  Sounds like windows 10...
• post_break 5y ago
  If Apple doesn't change on this my next phone will not be an iPhone. I will dump my iPad, and Apple watch as well. This is complete bullshit. I'm angry. I never thought I'd see "privacy" Apple come out and say we're going to scan your photos on your device, scan you imessages, etc. This is insane.
  • voakbasda 5y ago
    I gave up on Macs almost 20 years ago, but I have an iPhone 7 that I need to upgrade. This whole shitshow has put that purchase on hold indefinitely.
    • relax88 5y ago
      I just got an iPhone 12 a couple months ago because “Hey it’s definitely more private than google”, better control of app permissions, and nice hardware. Seems unclear what the alternative is now. The Linux phones I’ve looked at have a lot of catching up to do.
      • voakbasda 5y ago
        Linux on the desktop has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to Mac/Win. The question is whether it is good enough. Personally, Linux desktop has been good enough for decades, for my work as a software engineer. I gave up many conveniences when I switched fully from Macs (e.g. BBEdit, Finale for music, etc.). I think phones are reaching the same point, where I am ready to sacrifice a decade or more of software “progress” to regain control of my hardware. In the very long term, I will always bet on open source when it comes to commodity devices. I believe phone development will progress much like the Linux desktop experience, which is now relatively rock solid. It may take a decade, but each of us that joins their movement will speed these alternatives on to their inevitable market domination.
• fortran77 5y ago
  I'm glad people are sticking their necks out and opposing this. Typically people keep quiet because they don't want to be branded as "pro child-pornography" and that opens the door for this sort of surveillance.
• fny 5y ago
  Why does everyone keep saying Apple introducing a backdoor? They've always been able to launch surveillance software on a whim apparently. This is proof.
• todd3834 5y ago
  I appreciate the privacy concerns, I really do. But please, can we suggest an alternative that still benefits children the way that this will? Imagine being Tim Cook and learning that technology that you control is being used for things that everyone agrees is horrific to children. Would you be able to turn a blind eye in matter of principle? I’m struggling with my opinion on this one because I care so much about the kids this can help. For the first time I’m feeling like the trade off is more than worth it.
  • ZekeSulastin 5y ago
    That’s why this sort of thing is first used “for the children” (or “to prevent terrorism” back in 2001 or 2015[0]) - because when you argue in favor of privacy you then also implied to support whatever is being used as the impetus. The alternative is to not start scanning your device in the first place and getting the foot in the door, because once it’s open it’s really hard to close. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI–Apple_encryption_dispute
• hughrr 5y ago
  I'm not even interested in the outcome of this now. Apple has chosen to act against the users without consultation. They should be punished for this by their customers walking away.
• belter 5y ago
  Where is Richard Stallman when you need him? This is the War on General Computation you have been warned about, and its good to reiterate: "You ( and I mean you as an Individual and you as a Company ) you are either with us, or against us"
  • acuozzo 5y ago
    > Where is Richard Stallman when you need him? He was canceled, but he still regularly updates his personal website: https://stallman.org/ https://stallman.org/
    • rantwasp 5y ago
      i mean. he did warn everyone that this is going to happen decades ago. chiming is on this would just give the cancel mob more ammunition
• arvinsim 5y ago
  More horrifying is the number of people defending or apologizing for this move. Truly mind boggling!
  • wyager 5y ago
    Anything for the children!! I think that earnest acceptance of “well, it’s for a good cause” style arguments indicates a severely stunted ability to generalize: either to generalize applications of the technology (it works on any proscribed content, not just stuff people generally agree is bad) or to generalize outcomes of this kind of corporate behavior (Apple will continue to actively spy on their customers as long as they can come up with a tenuous justification for it).
    • rantwasp 5y ago
      yes, think about the children! nobody thinks about the children that are literally starving every day or that are in social settings where they simply cannot succeed. Let’s just treat everyone like disgusting criminals until THEY prove they are innocent by giving us access to everything they do. The more I see, the more I want to literally dump all technology and go live off the grid.
      • simondotau 5y ago
        Translation: The child porn industry needs to wait until we solve world hunger. Priorities, people!
        • rantwasp 5y ago
          The real translation is that nobody gives a fuck about the children but they use this as an excuse to peddle their bs backdoors.
          • simondotau 5y ago
            You got that right—this is a bullshit back door. That's my favourite kind of back door. Because it does one thing incredibly well: it starves of oxygen the one remotely tractable argument politicians have found to break real E2E encryption with real, non-bullshit back doors. With this technology in place, never again will the Government be able to wail "think of the children" when claiming E2E needs a back door in order to protect the the children. Give me the bullshit back door any day.
• sul_tasto 5y ago
  how is this not a violation of the 4th amendment if Apple is performing this search on behalf of a government entity?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • voakbasda 5y ago
    Because you are submitting to it via their EULA. Probably time you read that contract again, eh? You have no rights once you give them up.
  • john_yaya 5y ago
    There is quite a bit of case law precedent over the past fifty years, notably US vs. Miller, that upholds the “Third Party Doctrine”: if you give your records to a third party, then the government doesn’t need a warrant to get those records. Personally I think that ruling is awful and needs to be overturned, but that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
• sudo_raspberry 5y ago
  this will lead to black mailing of future presidents in the U.S. No normal citizen will be allowed to run for president anymore. I think it's time for a true movement.
• bishoprook2 5y ago
  My take is that by simply announcing this sort of thing the Rubicon has been crossed. If you see one ant, there's 100 ants somewhere. The point in bitching to Apple isn't to make them change, but to bring attention to privacy issues to the hoi polloi. Cleaning up your own privacy act is the main lesson. Maybe the only logical place to end up is a dedicated Chromebook in guest mode for financial transactions, air-gapped workstation to do artistic or other useful things, rarely-used dumbphone, get out more among physical people.
• webmobdev 5y ago
  The intention to prevent child sexual abuse material is indeed laudable. But the "solution" is not. For those wondering what's wrong with this, two hard-earned rights in a democracy go for a toss here: 1. The law presumes we are all innocent until proven guilty. 2. We have the right against self-incrimination. Pervasive surveillance like this starts with the presumption that we are all guilty of something ("if you are innocent, why are you scared of such surveillance?"). The right against self-incrimination is linked to the first doctrine because compelling an accused to testify transfers the burden of proving innocence to the accused, instead of requiring the government to prove his guilt.
• baggachipz 5y ago
  Beyond the obvious here, I'm just shocked Apple thought they could do this without causing a shitstorm of biblical proportions. To market yourself as the "privacy-centric" ecosystem and then do a complete about-face requires either disarray and tone-deafness at the management level... or, alternatively, extremely nefarious intentions. I'm honestly not sure which one it is at this point, and their reaction in the coming days will probably reveal that.
• __afk__ 5y ago
  I applaud Apple for this. It reaffirms the reasons why it's one of the few companies I feel strongly about. If you can't understand the logic of a decision like this, maybe you don't realize the mountain of suffering that is caused from people trading this material. I recommend listening to Sam Harris's podcast with Gabriel Dance (#213 - THE WORST EPIDEMIC) to get a better picture of the problem. The main beef people seem to have here is the slippery slope argument. Binary choices are nice, I agree - but almost always they obscure a complex surface that deserves nuance.
  • bambax 5y ago
    This system will only search for known images. If you make new images of child pornography, you're fine (or at least, you won't be flagged by this system). So this initiative does nothing to prevent child abuse.
    • __afk__ 5y ago
      I understand that. I recommend listening to the podcast if you want to understand the issue in more detail. It's a heavy subject but people here generally want to see both sides of an issue, and I am pretty confident that most people have not really taken in the untold damage this brings to the abuse victims and their families as they are continuously notified about past images of their abuse being found and circulated. Which is how this actually works. I would be worried about a model predicting child sexual abuse content from unknown images but I am not in the least concerned with one that fingerprints known images.
• sizt 5y ago
  Just like other malware. Identify it. Isolate it. Remove it.
• AJRF 5y ago
  Anyone in London area want to buy a 2020 M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM + 256GB SSD for £1000?
  • juniperplant 5y ago
    So... What's next? A Thinkpad with Linux? I really wish there was more competition. There is simply no other digital ecosystem that works as well as Apple's.
    • AJRF 5y ago
      Probably one of those nice Clevo laptops, more bang for my buck with that (https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/05/review-clevo-n151cu-lafite-iv-system76-darter-pro-entroware-proteus/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/05/review-clevo-n151cu-lafite-...) I've weaned myself off big tech services now (except I still use Chrome, but I used that un-synced - could just change to Chromium). I just want something capable, with a nice keyboard running an OS that doesn't constantly change things underneath me, is stable, and secure. I agree about the ecosystem working well together, but for me, the ends don't justify the means anymore.
• mchusma 5y ago
  People always use child porn as the backdoor excuse. Once they have the mechanism in place to censor and report content. They will for sure be requested to use this. For terrorism, hate speech, etc until it's so blurry until it's absolutely limitless :(
  • robertoandred 5y ago
    Can you give an example of a widely shared picture of hate speech that someone would keep in their online photo library?
    • rantwasp 5y ago
      this is a narrow way to look at it. once they start doing this, it’s not going to stop at pictures and it’s not going to stop at hashes. you will literally end up with the thought police combing everything you do (via Machine Learning!!!) and keep tabs on everything you do, see, write, read. the future is bright!
• jstsch 5y ago
  Disagree. I think this is a boon to E2E encryption. However you might feel, content filter legislation is unstoppable. It will just take a few high profile media cases for E2E encryption to be killed, otherwise. This is the right (privacy-conscious) way to implement it, on device. Google has been doing this for years, yet server-side. I recommend reading the actual docs: https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/
• thoughtstheseus 5y ago
  I support content filtering but it should be controlled and implemented by users.
• adunn 5y ago
  Alternate take and apparently unpopular opinion: the US government can simply force Apple to give them a back door to access iCloud photos directly. What Apple has done here is both way more complicated and way more visible than necessary, while being less useful to a government. The slippery slope and capability to exploit is cloud storage.
  • simondotau 5y ago
    I'll add to your alternate take: technology like this starves of oxygen the singular argument (disingenuous as it is) which has proven tractable in the public sphere against robust E2E encryption. With this technology in place, never again will the Government be able to wail "think of the children" when claiming E2E needs a Government sanctioned back door.
• thedream 5y ago
  So that "walled garden" turned out to be a cage after all.
• jbschirtz 5y ago
  Where is the line for scanning for content versus planting the content and then finding it with a "scan"?
  • rantwasp 5y ago
    it’s all ones and zeros. if you have nothing to hide you should not worry about it /s
• rahkiin 5y ago
  I was thinking, what if they want to move their icloud photos to e2e without losing the csam scanning they already have. So they move it on-device, just for photos that would be uploaded to iCloud (which is what Apple claims) I really just hope they revert this plan.
• vladharbuz 5y ago
  > To help address this, new technology in iOS and iPadOS* will allow Apple to detect known CSAM images stored in iCloud Photos. After reading OP, my understanding had been that this update will cause _all_ photos on Apple devices to be scanned. However, the above quote from Apple's statement seems to indicate that only photos uploaded to iCloud Photos are scanned (even though they are technically scanned offline). This doesn't invalidate any of the points people are making, but it does seem the update does not directly affect those of us who never stored our photos “in the cloud”.
  • dylan604 5y ago
    How long until those of use not storing data in the cloud are the guilty ones? At least, the very suspect ones?
  • conception 5y ago
    And this has always been Apple’s stance because of the government. We lock down the phone and don’t let the government in but if you use cloud service that doesn’t have the same rights because it’s not stored on your property. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/apple-drops-plans-icloud-encryption-after-fbi-complain https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/apple-drops-plans-... This sounds like them trying to find a way to encrypt your data and remove the fbi from having a “what about the children excuse”. They scan the image on upload and then store it on iCloud and encrypt it. It’s of course a slippery slope but the FBI has been trying to have back doors everywhere since forever.
    • gordon_gee123 5y ago
      In a somewhat judo move, it could end up protecting user security going forward if the FBI has no leverage with pedophile content in iCloud, there’s no argument for a backdoor. I won’t play total corporate shill here but it seems people are jumping to this being the end of times vs a) a way to catch severe abusers of child pornography and b) removing a trump card for future security org strawman arguments
    • vmladenov 5y ago
• robertoandred 5y ago
  This letter fundamentally misunderstands how this technology works. Or intentionally misunderstands. It’s sad that it’s being spread by people claiming to be tech-minded.
  • juniperplant 5y ago
    How so?
    • robertoandred 5y ago
      The letter implies a false positive can ruin your life, which ignores the facts that a false positive is incredibly unlikely, that you’d need many such false positives to flag an account, and the following manual review would immediately catch the error. Then it goes on to scare you about WHAT IF OTHER PEOPLE USE THE DATABASE? What if they EXPAND the database?? This database isn’t Apple’s it belongs to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and companies like Google and Facebook have been using it for a decade. And then it talks about how this will get queer kids thrown out of their homes, and I don’t even know where to start with this. How they got from warning an 8-year-old to not open a dick pic to this, I have no idea.
• dmitryminkovsky 5y ago
  Maybe I'm an overly-sensitive person but I really can't get comfortable with a neural network looking over my shoulder, spying on me 24/7. My parents gave me privacy and treated me with respect when I was a child. Now I'm an adult, and in a way it's like I have less privacy than when I was a kid. And the entities violating my privacy have way more power than my parents. I want to continue working with technology, but how can I make mass consumer goods (i.e. apps) without being a user myself? These moves are going to slowly force me out of technology, which is sad, because creating with programming is my favorite activity. But life without some semblance privacy is hardly life. Here's to a slow farewell, Apple! It was a good run.
  • Uupis 5y ago
    I could have written this comment myself, albeit less eloquently. That is a very accurate representation of how I feel about this, too. I enjoy building apps, but I don't know that I can keep using these devices. I was looking forward to upgrading to the new hardware in the fall, but now I'm not sure I can stomach the implications of buying a new device that may at any point start policing what I do far beyond what I'd accepted at the time of purchase.
• RegnisGnaw 5y ago
  Note that: 1) its only scanned on upload to iCloud, so if you don't upload then its not scanned 2) (per another article, https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/05/apple-icloud-photos-scanni https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/05/apple-icloud-photos-scanni...): Most cloud services — Dropbox, Google, and Microsoft to name a few — already scan user files for content that might violate their terms of service or be potentially illegal, like CSAM. So you really can't opt out unless you avoid all cloud photos
  • rantwasp 5y ago
    yes it’s only icloud photos for now. what’s going to be next? are you going to have a huge scandal every time they turn on a new “feature”?
    • RegnisGnaw 5y ago
      Its interesting that its only brought up when Apple does it. Google, MS, Dropbox, etc gets a pass..
      • rantwasp 5y ago
        Google, MS, Dropbox don't wave their Privacy flag and pretend they are better than everyone. Guess I'll add Apple to my "do not buy stuff from them" list
      • drampelt 5y ago
        People have been talking about other companies doing that for ages, and many specifically choose Apple products because of their perceived commitment to privacy.
• websites2023 5y ago
  It’s astounding how many very smart people are getting this wrong. Perhaps I missed it, but does anywhere on this letter mention that that both of these features are optional? CSAM depends on using iCloud Photos. Don’t rent someone else’s computer if you don’t want them to decide what you can put on it. Content filter for iMessages is for kids accounts only, and can be turned off. Or, even better: skip iMessages for Signal.
  • epanchin 5y ago
    The new system is overkill for iCloud, which Apple already scans. The obvious conclusion is Apple will start to scan photos kept on device, even where iCloud is not used. Very smart people are not getting this wrong.
    • websites2023 5y ago
      > The obvious conclusion is Apple will start to scan photos kept on device, even where iCloud is not used. Why is this the obvious conclusion?
      • whartung 5y ago
        Partly it falls under the supposition of "if they can, they will". It's also suggested when they tout that they are going to start blurring "naked" pictures, of any kind, sent to children under 14. Which means they need some kind of tech to detect "naked" pictures, locally, across encrypted channels, in order to block them. In theory, this is different tech than CSAM, which is supposed to checking hashes against a global database, vs determining the "nakedness" score of an arbitrary picture. But, scan them once, scan them all, on your phone. The details start to matter less and less. Also, since they already scanning all of the photos up on iCloud already, why would they need to have it put locally on the phone? Finally, I know that Apple scans photos on my device, because that's how I get those "memories" of Furry Friends with vignettes of my cats. I don't even use iCloud. (To be clear, I love this feature. Send me movies of my cats once a week.)
        • 5y ago
• btdmaster 5y ago
  Why is CP punished more harshly than CA [1]? Is it because it is easier to do so, or is it because it gives an illusion of protecting children? This, of course, ignores how a lot of child abusers are underage themselves and know the victim,[2] and that the prosecutors are committing the same crime as the prosecuted in the case of CP, and that, in too many cases, the content in question is impossible to call malicious if it is seen in context.[3] [1] https://columbiachronicle.com/discrepancy-in-sex-offender-sentencing/ https://columbiachronicle.com/discrepancy-in-sex-offender-se... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20130327054759/http://columbiachronicle.com/discrepancy-in-sex-offender-sentencing/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130327054759/http://columbiach... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5825087
  • SSLy 5y ago
    your [1] 404's
    • btdmaster 5y ago
      My bad, got [1] and [2] backwards. [1] is supposed to be the archive link, and [2] is https://www.d2l.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/all_statistics_20150619.pdf https://www.d2l.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/all_statistic....
• klad_majoor 5y ago
  Simple rule: if it is possible it will happen. If you want total security, go analog. Strategically, apple showed its cards. But then again, that was bound to happen too ;-)
• kypro 5y ago
  This letter assumes Apple is too stupid or has overlooked the risks of the tool they've built. I guarantee this isn't the case. We have to assume given the pressure Apple has been under to build a surveillance tool like this that any "abuse cases" such as identifying outlawed LGBTQ content is in fact exactly what this tool was built for. Apple have already proven their willingness to bend the knee to the CCP with actions such as App Store removals. I almost can't blame Apple for this because in all likelihood if Apple refuses to cooperate they will eventually lose market access. Couple this with the fact today Apple is seeing increasing pressure from western governments to surveil and censor "hate speech" and "misinformation" they've probably reluctantly accepted that sooner or later they will have no choice but to spy on their users. What I'm trying to say is that Apple isn't the problem here. My guess is Apple's engineers are smart enough to know this technology can and likely will be abused. They're also probably not that interested in spying on their customers as a private company in the business of convincing people to buy their communication devices. Apple did this because governments have been demanding this. And in recent years these demands have not only been coming from the CCP and other authoritarian regimes, but also from governments in their primary markets in the West. The only way we can fight this is by demanding our politicians respect our right to privacy and fight for technologies like e2e encryption on all of our devices. I don't want to be overly negative, but realistically this isn't going to happen. Most people who use Apple's devices don't understand encryption or the risks content scanning technology present. And even if they did, no one is going to vote for a representative because of their stance on encryption technology. It seems almost inevitable that the luxury of private communication for all will eventually be a thing of the past. I'm just glad I know how to secure my own devices.
• sf_rob 5y ago
  Outside of the privacy debate on this, I cannot overstate how dumb it was of Apple to announce this and sexual image ML in the same press release. It's resulting in an errant and vastly exagerated understanding of it by members of the public.
• Symmetry 5y ago
  Apparently "It will also scan messages sent using Apple’s iMessage service for text and photos that are inappropriate for minors." https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/05/apple-child-pornography-iphone/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/05/apple-c... That seems even worse. In the US we have this terrible situation where it might be perfectly legal for two 17 year olds or a 17 and an 18 year old to have sex with each other but if they sext then they're engaging in child pornography which is a huge federal crime. But it hasn't been a problem until now because it's very hard to enforce. But it looks like Apple is now going to take part in enforcing that law. It'll be tattling to the parents rather than law enforcement but I still think that's terrible.
• jegaman 5y ago
  This is just a kind of confirmation I need to see from time to time to justify being a bit "paranoid". This literally gives me energy to configure my linux.
• CraftingLinks 5y ago
  Will be interesting to monitor sales when this goes live!
• mark_l_watson 5y ago
  Yes, a major disappointment. I suggest reading a few William Gibson cyberpunk books to get a rough idea of the future, both society and tech. In fiction, and as a non-technical author, I think he gets it right. Everyone who has the technical knowledge to do so needs to decide how much effort they are willing to go through for privacy. Personally, for my iPhone photos, I have my phone setup to upload every picture I take to Apple iCloud, Google Photos, and Microsoft OneDrive, so I gave up on photo privacy many years ago.
• devwastaken 5y ago
  There has to be some incentive somewhere for Apple to do this. They know it's wrong, they know it will be abused. Tim Cook himself, if he wasn't rich and powerful, would be executed in a number of countries that Apple operates in for his sexual/romantic identity. Apple also removes LGBT based applications in countries where they're illigal, to continue doing business. This demonstrates that Apple complies with the demands of foreign governments, that they value money over anything else. So Apple, a company that complies with governments committing human rights violations (Including the U.S), forces everyone to have an image scanner that looks through their private images and documents to find content Apple has deemed objectionable, with the sources of that content supposedly being from these governments. FBI: Hey apple, here's some new hashes for images that are bad, let us know who has them. You just have to trust us, no way that we would ever put political imagery critical of the government in that database. But you can't prove it even if we did. Remember, this is the FBI that flaunts federal court orders, breaks the law, and no one is ever held accountable. https://youtu.be/oy3623YRsMk https://youtu.be/oy3623YRsMk My suspicion is that the FBI finally had enough of Apple not complying with their encryption standards and have done some work behind the scenes to make various individuals at Apple's lives difficult. So they're implementing this to appease the feds. There was a thread on HN here not too long ago with the FBI stalking and threatening pentesters that wouldn't join them. No doubt they're doing the same to big companies that are making their "jobs" harder.
  • SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    I'm not sure such a big conspiracy is needed. After all, the reason "nothing to hide" memes are so common is that a lot of people believe them enthusiastically. It seems entirely plausible to me that a core team of passionate crusaders could have driven this project to completion by just making it too awkward for anyone to object. For a sample of outside perspectives (https://www.npr.org/2021/08/06/1025402725/apple-iphone-for-child-sexual-abuse-privacy https://www.npr.org/2021/08/06/1025402725/apple-iphone-for-c...): > Meanwhile, the computer scientist who more than a decade ago invented PhotoDNA, the technology used by law enforcement to identify child pornography online, acknowledged the potential for abuse of Apple's system but said it was far outweighed by the imperative of battling child sexual abuse. > "Apple's expanded protection for children is a game changer," John Clark, the president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said in a statement. "With so many people using Apple products, these new safety measures have lifesaving potential for children."
• jimbob45 5y ago
  I'm sorry, I just don't see how this is any different from Google auto-searching Google Drive files and flagging/deleting them. Apple is only doing this to "Apple Cloud" files and flagging/deleting them if they see them. The best counterargument I've seen to that is that Apple is lying and it's not limited to Apple Cloud, unlike Google. However, no one yet has been able to substantiate that claim.
• djanogo 5y ago
  Can we also have a section where users can propose alternative solutions?
• oort-cloud9 5y ago
  It's not Apple. It's the government. Thank the government.
• rubyn00bie 5y ago
  So the M1 has turned me off of Apple products because, quite frankly, I don't want to spend (more) of my time fixing shit a trillion dollar company broke and doesn't care to fix. This though, this will be the nail in the coffin with my 25 year relationship to Apple. I probably wouldn't even have batted an eye at it to be honest, iff, Apple hadn't been selling me on the idea that their platform is "private and secure." But... they have... And this has made it quite clear, they will absolutely destroy that security/privacy the moment they want/need to. So I have been paying, a hefty premium, to be lied to and that makes me fucking cross. I have previously supported Apple because it seems like they typically do "the right thing" but this is so fucking insane to me I have to permanently question the judgement of those in charge. Do not sell privacy and security if you're going to completely violate that security and privacy. In 25 years or less this bullshit will be made illegal, because there is ZERO chance nefarious actors won't learn how to create benign images that match the hash of a heinous photo to destroy people. I can almost guarantee, right now, nation-state sponsored hackers and affiliated groups are attempting to get those hashes and do exactly that. It's just too fucking easy to manipulate once you're in and has absolutely zero chance of being detected once you're generating the hashes until too many lives are ruined. May hell have no mercy for the souls who made this...
  • systemvoltage 5y ago
    I used to downvote people a couple of years ago who were shedding doubt on Apple’s commitment to privacy. Boy. I was so wrong. I fell for the Marketing and it made sense at the time “Their business is selling hardware and services, not ads. Ofcourse they are privacy advocates”. Pass laws and legislation. I admit I was wrong and it’s refreshing to see this whole thing unfold before my eyes. It just solidified my opinion about open source hardware.
    • dehrmann 5y ago
      I'm just surprised they did it for CP and not terrorism.
      • hellbannedguy 5y ago
• aoetalks 5y ago
  I'm confused. If iCloud backups are not encrypted [1], and this only scans iCloud photos, why can't they just do this server side? I'm not saying server-side is OK, but its at least not device side (which is obviously a slippery slope). [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive/exclusive-apple-dropped-plan-for-encrypting-backups-after-fbi-complained-sources-idUSKBN1ZK1CT https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...
  • rantwasp 5y ago
    there has been some speculation that they will turn on encryption after pushing this out. if this turns out to be true apple sucked at controlling the PR for this whole thing.
• tomc1985 5y ago
  And this kind of thing is exactly why you should never trust the cloud.
• _davebennett 5y ago
  Wait, why is everyone so distraught about this? Am I missing something? This only affects people who upload their photos to iCloud? Just don't store any data on iCloud. Seems simple enough. Yeah sure, we can make conspiracy theories and all, but based off of what was officially announced I'm not understanding all the hysteria.
  • hnthrowaway9721 5y ago
    Why is everyone so distraught about the man standing in mainstreet shooting people with a rifle? Just don’t go down mainstreet! Seems simple enough.
• grae_QED 5y ago
  Honest question: why does apple think this will help anything? From what I've read, it looks like the sheer volume of the problem out weights virtually any solution (within reason) [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-abuse.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-...
• JGM_io 5y ago
  So will apple also pick up the bill for the electricity and depreciation my device will consume?
• VBprogrammer 5y ago
  Seems to me that a 1x1 pixel image tag pointing at an image matching one of the signatures would be enough to trigger some kind of action, even if the end user doesn't see that single pixel. What then, does your phone get seized automatically? Of course the civil disobedience way of dealing with this would be to find an entirely safe image which matches the hash so that every website can safely embed such an image and show the utter futility of the idea.
  • hnthrowaway9721 5y ago
    I’m shocked that on a website filled with engineers, developers and myriad other hackers, many of whom seem to be outraged by this level of invasiveness, no one is suggesting direct action. How far will people let this continue while standing back and doing nothing? Rights are the things you’re willing to fight for. If all you’re willing to do is make a vaguely angry post on a forum, then that’s all you’ll end up with.
• TheRealNGenius 5y ago
  I couldn't find, why are some people's names bolded?