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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 powerf

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."
- devwastaken 5y ago
  This is possible, but the decision is coming from higher up. I can certainly see apple engineers thinking this would really work, by focusing entirely upon the singular problem and getting a chance to use fancy tech. But at the end of the day Timmy is the head cook, and decisions like this go against apples "mission", so, there's incentive higher than just the engineers.
zepto 5y ago
> that they value money over anything else. Maybe or maybe they think that good computing devices are valuable to everyone now and that repressive laws can be changed eventually as they have in many countries, and denying good computers to people who also live with repression makes their lives worse, not better.
bbatsell 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. The most positive spin I can put on it is that it has become clear behind the scenes that NCMEC and partners have put enough pressure on Congress that Apple believes that on-device scanning for CSAM content will be soon be required by federal law, and this is their attempt to define the parameters in as privacy-preserving a way they can before the actual legislative language is drafted and can't be changed. Even if all of that is true, I don't think this was the best way to do it and it is a huge own-goal to concede ground before there's even been a public debate about it.
fragileone 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. For several years now politicians have been asking for "exceptional access for law enforcement" to backdoor encryption. In Europe there's been a number of laws passed recently which violate privacy also. This is just Apple getting ahead of future legislation so that they can be the ones who get the power and money from every government agency turning to them first whenever they want to monitor and punish their citizens.

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."

devwastaken 5y ago
This is possible, but the decision is coming from higher up. I can certainly see apple engineers thinking this would really work, by focusing entirely upon the singular problem and getting a chance to use fancy tech. But at the end of the day Timmy is the head cook, and decisions like this go against apples "mission", so, there's incentive higher than just the engineers.

zepto 5y ago

> that they value money over anything else. Maybe or maybe they think that good computing devices are valuable to everyone now and that repressive laws can be changed eventually as they have in many countries, and denying good computers to people who also live with repression makes their lives worse, not better.

bbatsell 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. The most positive spin I can put on it is that it has become clear behind the scenes that NCMEC and partners have put enough pressure on Congress that Apple believes that on-device scanning for CSAM content will be soon be required by federal law, and this is their attempt to define the parameters in as privacy-preserving a way they can before the actual legislative language is drafted and can't be changed. Even if all of that is true, I don't think this was the best way to do it and it is a huge own-goal to concede ground before there's even been a public debate about it.

fragileone 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. For several years now politicians have been asking for "exceptional access for law enforcement" to backdoor encryption. In Europe there's been a number of laws passed recently which violate privacy also. This is just Apple getting ahead of future legislation so that they can be the ones who get the power and money from every government agency turning to them first whenever they want to monitor and punish their citizens.