16 ms·

Apple’s new abuse prevention system: an antritust/competition point of view

451 points by simonebrunozzi 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
echelon 5y ago
Or inversely, the FBI/CIA/CCP went to Apple and said "it'd be a shame it turned out you were a monopoly". Apple caved to pressure and had to implement this. Whatever the angle, this isn't about protecting kids whatsoever. It's about power.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  And the vaccine is not about protecting people either, it's also about power.
  - annadane 5y ago
    lmao
  - fsflover 5y ago
    How does vaccine give power to anyone?
    - arthurcolle 5y ago
      "Do your own research, the 5G implants from the vaccine have a secret server and reverse proxy to let them implant thoughts into you"
      - shotta 5y ago
        There’s no way that’s true. I’d be more likable by now.
      - FractalParadigm 5y ago
        I don't know what's more impressive, the fact someone managed to come up with something so ridiculous, or the fact some people actually believe this level of technology exists.
        bbarnett 5y ago
        The average Joe has no idea how computing, and tech works. None. To such a person, a smartphone is a piece of magic. Expecting them to know what is real tech, and what isn't, is not fair.
    - nickthegreek 5y ago
      It gave me the power to confidently shop again.
  - echelon 5y ago
    The vaccine that you've been forced to take? Please don't turn this into a clown show. The privacy and openness of our computers and devices is paramount to freedom and a strong democracy.
    - thepangolino 5y ago
      Depending on where they lives they might have very well been forced to take it they were hoping to keep a semblance of normal life. That’s why I got vaccinated at least (with the government forcing my hand). What truly scared me was realising that if the requirement was ratting on my Jewish neighbours, I probably would have done it too.
      - jjulius 5y ago
        That's not quite accurate; you both would end up having a "semblance of a normal life" without getting vaccinated, you just would've had to wait a bit longer.
      - revscat 5y ago
        Good.
      - jbverschoor 5y ago
        or just get fired if you're a pilot
        literallyaduck 5y ago
        Or work at CNN.
- collaborative 5y ago
  What a messed up world we live in where money and power are the only things that matter to the people that get to make a difference. But has it not always been this way? The show must go on..
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
    This is some guy’s theory, and they can’t even spell “anti-trust” (in the headline, no less). It’s not quite enough to lose all trust in society over.
    - collaborative 5y ago
      From what I can tell he is Italian, so spelling should not be a reason to judge imo
- asimpletune 5y ago
  I think that’s in essence what the author is arguing, at least the outcomes are the same. The only difference is maybe none of the 3-letter agencies had to come out and explicitly say it, when Apple is perfectly competent at spotting a bone to toss. In other words, the author thinks with Apple’s back to a wall, they only needed to make the announcement of this feature for the government to see there are advantages to apple having tight control as well. Now they’ll be able to make that very same argument in court in a public sense, but there’s always a behind the scenes sense with 3-letter agencies as well. Granted all of that is speculation and who knows what is really driving any of this. The author does have a point that if this first step causes bad guys to move on from these services then that will be future justification to move the scanning further and further upstream to the point where it’s baked into the API’s or something. At that level, Apple would really need a “monopoly” to accomplish such a feat. It’s certainly an interesting and creative perspective.
  - mr_toad 5y ago
    This could be aimed at pre-emptively de-fanging one argument against end-to-end encryption.
    - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      That’s the best case. But even in the best case, exists then worst abuse cases. That’s the problem. This WILL be abused.
- dcolkitt 5y ago
  Apple's a $2 trillion company. If not even they have enough legal firepower to stand up to the three letter agencies, what possible chance does any other private citizen have. This should be a wake-up call. It's time to start dismantling massive chunks of the intelligence community. It no longer works for the citizenry that's supposedly their bosses. (If it ever did.) It's become a power blackhole unto itself. Even elected officials, up to POTUS, have found themselves unable to control the unelected and unaccountable fiefdoms that make up the intelligence community.
  - zepto 5y ago
    Most people want the TLAs to be going after child abusers and pedophiles. Good luck using this as your argument for dismantling them.
    - whartung 5y ago
      Similarly, many people want the TLAs to be able to go after $2T companies as well.
      - zepto 5y ago
        Do they? What behavior do they want them to go after?
        8note 5y ago
        I imagine the IRS for taxes
        zepto 5y ago
        Very amusing, although these companies pay their taxes. The problem isn’t with them, it’s with the loopholes that let them pay less than people would like. The IRS can’t do anything.
- adrr 5y ago
  The biggest question is who is providing the hashes? Since possession of images is illegal, it has to be the government. So we have to trust the government enough that they won’t abuse it and stick in other hashes. Same government that recommended an encryption method that they figure out how to break it.
voidnullnil 5y ago
When I was 13 and my parent made me use a content filter on the web I bypassed it and watched porn and they never found out. On the other hand: Why would I ever want a piece of tech that reports me to the police (even if for legitimate reasons). EDIT: >Anonymous helplines and guidance exist for adults with at-risk thoughts and behaviour [https://www.apple.com/v/child-safety/a/images/guidance-img__eu6rk2abgp6q_large.jpg https://www.apple.com/v/child-safety/a/images/guidance-img__...] LOL NVM I TRIED BEING POLITE BUT NUKE SAN FRANCISCO AT THIS POINT TO BE HONEST this horseshit is why i quit the software industry 10 years ago. see also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28077491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28077491 this is the cancer you are creating
- whoknowswhat11 5y ago
  Then apple will lose market share and correct their ways. Conversely, what I've seen does put this top of list as a parent. Will notify me if my child is sending nudes. Will notify me if someone is sending porn to my child. Will notify police if known child porn is on the device. When folks talk about competition - part of this MUST include the USERS preferences (not as currently done the focus of what I see as largely predatory billers and businesses who I don't care about as a user). I don't want child porn on my systems. Be very happy if apple helps keep it off them. Are these hash databases available more broadly for scanning (ie, could I scan all work machines / storage using a tool of some sort)?
  - abawany 5y ago
    I don't think they will ever be able to walk this back. The governments that twisted Apple's arm to get this look-see into everyone's devices will roast them in the court of public opinion (or threaten to, which will be enough). IMO, this will just open up more and more - it will never go back to being what iDevice owners have now.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > The governments that twisted Apple's arm to get this look-see into everyone's devices will roast them in the court of public opinion Nothing about this technology gives governments a ‘look see’ into everyone’s devices.
cblconfederate 5y ago
Apple will release this in their desktop pcs. The major consequence of this is that, a year down the line, microsoft will also be compelled/forced to join this "coalition of the good". After all, they already scan all your files for viruses, it would be a shame if they didn't scan for anything that is deemed incriminating and also call the cops on you. Of course, the children are being used as a trojan horse again. We don't even mention the giant logical leap from finding someone possessing CP to automatically considering them a child molester, yet someone posessing ~~an action~~ a murder video is not considered a murderer. I m just imagining the situation where these companies took the initiative to scan all their users data in a situation like the attach in US capitol this year. Creating new affordances for spying always leads to their abuse in the first chance when an extreme circumstance occurs. So there is no excuse for creating those affordances just "because they can"
- beebmam 5y ago
  Windows has been doing this for years. Not with this new tech, but with older methods.
  - TrevorJ 5y ago
    I'm skeptical of the claim that MS has been A: scanning files on local windows machines and B: forwarding anything concerning to law enforcement. That's a fairly extraordinary claim, and I would like to see the evidence.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - ribosometronome 5y ago
      Microsoft hasn't been scanning files on local machines but Microsoft has been doing essentially the same thing Apple has been for years -- they pioneered it with PhotoDNA back in 2009. It's been in use with OneDrive since back when it was called SkyDrive (https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/unfortunate-truths-about-child-pornography-and-the-internet-feature/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/unfortunate-truths-about-child...). Apple's implementation is scanning images 1) stored on iCloud or 2) in Messages if parents turn it on. The first seems pretty arbitrary -- why is it worse to scan files you're sharing with the cloud locally than in the cloud (except potential performance/battery impact, but that seems moot). If Apple brings this feature to the desktop, it seems likely they'd be using it the same way: files stored in their cloud.
debt 5y ago
It's no coincidence this system launched around the same time the whole NSO scandal broke. The NSO leak shows what government-sponsored exploit analysis against a large tech company may yield. I mean the NSO exploit could've worked the same but been a worm; it could've been absolutely devastating for Apple, imagine something like every phone infected. Something like that was possible with that exploit. Apple has been a thorn in the side of the IC for a long while. IC probably saw an opportunity to gain a bit of leverage themselves via the whole NSO thing, and likely offered their cyber support in exchange of some support from Apple. I mean c'mon they've been consistently pressed by IC for tooling like what they just launched; it's the least invasive thing(compared to something like a literal backdoor like that NSA_KEY that MS did for Windows) they can offer in exchange for some cybersecurity support from the gov. idk if that's what's happened, but it's odd Apple would do this at all, and do it right around the time of the NSO thing.
least 5y ago
There is no such thing as a trustworthy third party and even trusting yourself is questionable at the best of times. We are constantly balancing a bunch of different considerations with regards to the way that we compute, purchase devices, and utilize services. Security and privacy are of course important, and Apple to date has had a fairly good (if shallow) track record in this regard, at least in the United States. With that being said, what Apple is doing here is just a blatant violation of that 'trust' and certainly a compromise to their commitment to privacy. Under no circumstances is it justifiable to essentially enlist people's devices to police their owners, while using the electricity that you pay for, the internet service you pay for, and the device itself that you pay for to perform a function that is to absolutely no benefit to the user and in fact can only ever be harmful to them. It doesn't matter that the net data exfiltrated by Apple ends up being the same as before (through scanning unencrypted files on their servers). The distinction is so obvious to me that I find it incredible that people are legitimately arguing that it's the same, or that it in some way this is actually helping preserve user privacy. As mentioned in the article, this does absolutely nothing towards protecting children other than directing all but the biggest idiots towards platforms that can't be linked to them, which I'd imagine, they already are.
- fossuser 5y ago
  > "As mentioned in the article, this does absolutely nothing towards protecting children other than directing all but the biggest idiots towards platforms that can't be linked to them, which I'd imagine, they already are." I suspect you're more wrong than you think about this. People share large volumes of CSAM through lots of different services - I knew someone who worked on the problem at Linked In(!). HN likes to downplay the actual reality as if it's always some trojan horse, but the issue is real. It's worth talking to people that work on combatting it if you get the chance. I'm not really commenting on Apple's approach here (which I haven't thought enough about), but I know enough that an immediate dismissal based on it 'not helping' is not really appreciating the real tradeoffs you're making. You can be against this kind of thing from Apple, but as a result more CSAM will be undetected. Maybe that's the proper tradeoff, but we shouldn't pretend it's not a tradeoff at all. "Robin Hanson proposed stores where banned products could be sold. There are a number of excellent arguments for such a policy—an inherent right of individual liberty, the career incentive of bureaucrats to prohibit everything, legislators being just as biased as individuals. But even so (I replied), some poor, honest, not overwhelmingly educated mother of five children is going to go into these stores and buy a “Dr. Snakeoil’s Sulfuric Acid Drink” for her arthritis and die, leaving her orphans to weep on national television" [0] [0]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-debates-should-not-appear-one-sided https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-deb... Edit: After digging in, HN commentary is missing the most relevant details about this particular implementation. iCloud image checking compares to known CSAM image hashes - this means effectively zero false positive rate. For iMessage child account ML scanning it’s on device and just generic sexual material restriction - more similar to standard parental controls than anything else (alerts only go to the parent, and only happen on child accounts) My initial impression is this is a good approach. The risk mostly comes from future applications (like the CCP adding hashes of other stuff that isn’t CSAM like tankman or something). The frankly ignorant knee-jerk responses from technical HN readers do a disservice and weaken the ability of technical people to push back when necessary.
radicaldreamer 5y ago
This system is likely closely related to full encrypted E2E iCloud backups: 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...
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  Were iCloud photos already scanned CSAM? In the on-device system, if you're not using iCloud are the photos scanned? If that's true, as an iCloud user you are exactly as likely to be charged with a crime based on your photos as you were before, but you now get E2E encryption. Obviously I'd prefer E2E without any scanning. If I wanted to upload a pirated mp3 to icloud, I wouldn't want the RIAA knocking on my door. However, given that scanning was already in place, is this a step forward?
  - testvox 5y ago
    > If that's true, as an iCloud user you are exactly as likely to be charged with a crime based on your photos as you were before Is this strictly true? I feel like the evidence that a photo was present on specific device is different from evidence that a photo was uploaded by a specific account (and a specific ip address probably). It seems like it would be far easier for the government to justify a search warrant if they have evidence the photo they are looking for was on a specific device. Just having evidence that a specific account uploaded a photo seems like far shakier grounds to search a specific device, after all accounts are often stolen to be used for criminal purposes and ip addresses don't map cleanly to people or devices.
    - twobitshifter 5y ago
      Maybe there’s some plausible deniability if a warrant uncovered nothing - but I think they would always be able get a warrant and try to find the device and more evidence based on the upload. From what I’ve read the on-phone scanning only alerts after multiple photos and is designed to have a 1 in a trillion false positive rate. If the iCloud scan is similar they would have a strong case for getting a warrant based on uploads.
throwayws 5y ago
Planting false evidence is getting a new twist here. The attacker doesn't even have to make a report! The victim's computer does it for him. Disk encryption malware may have new successor. Effective and scalable extortion as a service.
- Kaytaro 5y ago
  This is a great point. You don't even need to unlock an iPhone to take a picture. So in theory anyone with access to your phone for a few seconds could incriminate you with little effort.
  - selsta 5y ago
    This is already possible today with things like iCloud Photos, Google Photos, OneDrive etc.
    - mobiledev2014 5y ago
      Today: "WTF is this?" delete iOS 15: "WTF is this?" SWAT team crashes through window
  - fossuser 5y ago
    This is not true. The check is only against known CSAM hashes.
    - noisem4ker 5y ago
      Just photograph a known bad picture.
      - fossuser 5y ago
        Then that's a different photo and will have a different hash.
        5y ago
734129837261 5y ago
It'll start with protecting children. We all want to protect children, don't we? Why do you want children abused? Are you a child abuser, what do you have to hide? Next it's elderly people. We don't want our forgetful elders to get lost, do we? What if grandma wanders off but is in someone's picture, surely you want the police to know right that second where she is? Next up, terrorists! Four adult brown men in an unmarked van are certainly suspicious, especially near a government building. Your Instagram selfies will help the police in the USA shoot even more innocent people for no good reason. Animal abuse is next. You don't like puppies being abused, do you? Why do you hate puppies? Do you take part in illegal underground dog fights? Gosh, that video looks like it might have been pirated. Nice house, but based on your estimated income it's really strange that you have such a big television. Is that safe full of cash? How much cash is on your table? Is that a bit of dust, flour, or maybe crack cocaine? Is that person asleep or recently murdered?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Remember that it only scans against a known database of already found content, and does not try to find new content.
  - ohazi 5y ago
    For now.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      Just as "for now" it doesn't try to stop copyright infringement. Seemingly every aspect of digital technology, from search engines to DNS providers, has been co-opted into the fight against piracy, so I wouldn't be surprised if the media industries started threatening Apple with "contributory infringement" suits if they don't re-purpose this technology for them.
pl0x 5y ago
Apple and Google need to be under a serious investigation and broken up. Their hardware needs to be accessible to install an OS of your choice. This isn't possible on iPhones. It may take decades for this to happen given the lobbying dollars both spend but by then it will be too late. We are headed for a China style surveillance state and there is no stopping this train.
lamontcg 5y ago
> But when a backdoor is installed, the backdoor exists and history teaches that it’s only a matter of time before it’s also used by the bad guys and authoritarian regimes. Problem is that this scanning is necessarily fuzzy and there is going to be a false positive rate to it. And the way that you'll find out that you've tripped a false positive is that the SWAT team will knock your door down and kill your dog (at a minimum). Then you'll be stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare trying to prove your innocence where you've been accused by a quasi Governmental agency that hides its methods so the "bad guys" can't work around them. It isn't just "authoritarian regimes" abusing it, it is the stochastic domestic terrorism that our own government currently carries out against its own citizens every time there's a beaurocratic fuckup in how it manages its monopoly on violence. This is the "Apple/Google cancelled my account and I don't know why" problem combined with SWATing.
- opinion-is-bad 5y ago
  Stochastic domestic terrorist is not a term I ever expected to read, but it seems very fitting for the “data-driven” (but generally poorly evaluated) future we find ourselves drifting into.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    "Stochastic terrorism" has been a popular term for a while[0], but it usually refers to the actions carried out by individuals, not government agents. Ironically, though, the word "terrorism" itself originally referred to the actions of a tyrannical government against its own citizens[1], so perhaps the definition has come full circle. [0] https://www.dictionary.com/e/what-is-stochastic-terrorism/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/what-is-stochastic-terrorism/ [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/history-of-the-word-terrorism https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/history-of-the...
- chongli 5y ago
  This really has been decades in the making, hasn’t it? Apple is only adding the latest piece of the puzzle. The seeds of everything you’ve described were planted years ago. How did we get here? How did everything become so politicized and polarized? How did law enforcement become so militarized? How did we as a society become so terrified and distrustful of our neighbours?
m3kw9 5y ago
Sophisticated abuser criminals will not be caught this way. This is for a likely significant percent of the abusers that doesn’t know, forget or make mistakes. Also this system can slow spread CSAM images which can facilitates abuse.
wizards420 5y ago
For another thought on how easy this could suffer from scope creep, iOS does (did?) store whole-app screen captures as PNGs for use on the app switcher, etc. If this is already scanning photo libraries locally, just add the temp dir for app screen captures and they're effectively monitoring your screen too.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
zimpenfish 5y ago
> Do we really think criminals trade CSAM in plain-sight web sites ? "In 2018, Facebook (especially Facebook Messenger) was responsible for 16.8 million of the 18.4 million reports worldwide of CSAM" Apparently they do, yeah.
- joshstrange 5y ago
  Also > Do we really think criminals don’t know mathematics or programming ? Yes, by and large yes I do. Amon is a great example of this. Surely in the world this author is imagining no criminal would get caught up in a scheme like Amon since there are criminals that know "mathematics or programming", except... no one noticed/blew the whistle and instead the FBI rounded up the users of that device.
lijogdfljk 5y ago
So this new Apple stuff has made me decide not to buy an M1. I'm leaning Framework laptop. For my phone though... no idea. My iPhone is honestly such a solid piece of tech. I don't _want_ to go Google either... so what else do i have? I know lots of people run de-googled Androids, which i guess works, but i'd prefer to avoid them entirely. Is there anything that works? edit: I know of the Purism phone (https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/) but that's the only one i know of. Anyone know of others?
- lancemurdock 5y ago
  commenting here as I share the same exact sentiment. I guess I am going to look into LineageOS which falls in the de-googled category but im not sure I am in love with that idea. edit: Whoa, 2K for that purism phone. fuckin' a.
  - lijogdfljk 5y ago
    The standard (https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/) is cheaper - i guess the USA one comes with a large uptick for locally sourcing?
    - buildbot 5y ago
      Yep, having spec’d a few boards for assembly in the usa and China, the manufacturing costs seems to always be about double for USA fabrication.
    - lancemurdock 5y ago
      ah thats much more reasonable. The reviews on this phone are pretty awful although looks like its rather new to the market. Anyone who comes across this comment use one?
- windthrown 5y ago
  The Pinephone running something like Ubuntu Touch (UBports) or PostmarketOS is something to keep an eye on but it is still in heavy development and in my option not quite a reliable "daily driver" yet.
ctvo 5y ago
I don't think this issue is widespread enough and harmful enough to society to risk the privacy of all Apple users. Full stop. I haven't been particularly impressed with Apple's security record[1] lately, and I don't trust them to not mess this up. 1 - https://bhavukjain.com/blog/2020/05/30/zeroday-signin-with-apple/ https://bhavukjain.com/blog/2020/05/30/zeroday-signin-with-a...
- DSingularity 5y ago
  Why do you think this?
  - ctvo 5y ago
    I can't find a widely accepted statistic but these numbers should illustrate the point: - A 2016 study by the Center for Court Innovation found that between 8,900 and 10,500 children, ages 13 to 17, are commercially exploited each year in the United States. (Center for Court Innovation, 2016) https://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/Youth%20Involvement%20in%20the%20Sex%20Trade_3.pdf https://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/document... - The annual number of persons prosecuted for commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) cases filed in U.S. district court nearly doubled between 2004 and 2013, increasing from 1,405 to 2,776 cases. https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/archives/pressreleases/2017/ojp-news-10122017.pdf https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/archives/p... This is a niche crime from everything I've seen. Apple, if it were truly interested in the net good of children, could have picked something that impacts more of them (nutrition? early childhood education?), didn't introduce new vulnerability / abuse surface area, and was less politicized.
    - DSingularity 5y ago
      Thanks for the statistics. To me, these numbers are significant. Maybe Whole Foods or maybe some popular restaurants are better candidates for working on improving nutrition in public schools? Why don’t we let apple contribute where it thinks it can. Maybe with apple that number goes down from 10,000 to 2,000. Wouldn’t that be a celebrated outcome?
iabacu 5y ago
Why stop at scanning photos in your phone? With lower power sensors, head-mounted devices with always-on-sensors, and whatnot, why not sample real-time hashes that can tip LEO about potential crimes happening? Then why sacrifice recall in order to achieve high accuracy? Err on the side of uploading more hashes. Then feed it all into a ML so it can use other data to filter out potential false positives. Then if in a distance future, any LEO wants to investigate you for whatever reason, the set of potential hashes associated with your account will provide sufficient evidence for any court to authorize further non-hashed data access (it doesn't matter if they were all false positives)
pyuser583 5y ago
Recently my IPad’s AI made a montage of my pet cats. Only, my daughter was included in the montage. Why? She was wearing a shirt with a cat on it.
throwaway13239 5y ago
I don't see why we would believe they are not already doing this? Today's news is just that they can now legally take action on it. Also the whole SWAT scenario is a bit far-fetched, as they will most likely read thru your entire life (don't forget they already have access to it) to make sure they don't look stupid on the news.
- antpol 5y ago
  Your iphone is already capable to identify nude minors in near real time. Is it really that far-fetched that SWAT team gets triggered into action when iphone detects minor abuse?
  - throwaway13239 5y ago
    Pretty far-fetched, to swat you need a crisis situation, hostage/bomb/shooting
e-clinton 5y ago
This is optional. You don’t HAVE to use iCloud for your photos. This is no different that YouTube searching videos you upload for copyrighted music. If you don’t want your photos scanned, don’t upload your images to their servers.
- aburneraccnt 5y ago
  You're 100% correct. I had my images on iCloud because I thought Apple put my privacy first. I was being naive. I've pulled all my photos off and am looking to move the rest of my data too. My iPhone and iPad just got a lot less useful.
totetsu 5y ago
Does anyone know about a good write up of this discussion in Japanese?
tenpies 5y ago
Can I just say that I'm fascinated that this is happening under Tim Apple - an openly gay man in his 60s? I mean this is someone who would know what being on the wrong side of law means - not only federally, but probably quite intimately since Alabama was not exactly known for its acceptance of homosexual people. Now just imagine if the US still had anti-homosexuality laws (like the majority of the world still does) and your phone is constantly scanning your photos to check for signs of homosexual behaviour. Forgetfully take a selfie with your boyfriend, it gets flagged, sent to the Ministry of Morality, and next thing you know you're being dragged into a van. Best case scenario you're being jail. Worst you're being thrown off a building, stoned, or brutally beaten to death. That's the future Apple is signing us up for. There is zero chance this stops at CSAM, especially with the Democrats convinced that half the country are the absolute worst people on the planet and not being shy about completely ignoring the rule of law and Constitution to extend the reach of the state to levels that would make a totalitarian blush. This will end terribly.
- SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
  Your last paragraph ruined an otherwise great comment.
- ta56hf47yt 5y ago
  Alternatively, and just as likely, is that the Republicans do the same evil things that you say the Democrats would do. Misusing tech isn't just for the "other" side, my friend.
  - pcbro141 5y ago
    Yeah that was particularly weird comment for GP to make just 6 months after Republicans stormed the Capitol on the command of a Republican President to hang government officials and overturn an election.
    - h0l0cube 5y ago
      What's more galling is that an anti-authoritarian stance should be non-partisan in a country that sells itself on democracy and liberty
jacknews 5y ago
Child abuse, or any abuse should be stamped out vigorously. But this is the job of the police, using standard techniques to track down first, the people making and distributing this content, and then consumers of it. It is not Apple's job to put a policeman in everyone's phone.
adib 5y ago
Say that you're an official with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). You have huge stacks of brochures of anti-CCP materials. You've got them scanned and hashed. Next you call Apple and say, "Please alert us if similar imageries appears in your customers' devices. My assistants will send you weekly updates of the required hashes." Apple would say, "Sure, we're just following your law..." Hence when a Chinese photographs such brochure "in the wild" using an iPhone, someone from "the government" will knock the next day and "strongly enquire" about yesterday's photo. Likewise when a Chinese minor receives an iMessage containing such brochure. This is just _one_ example case of "extension" of the CSAM database as seen fit by some regulatory body.
- pentae 5y ago
  Yep, and now Apple can no longer say "Sorry, we can't put a backdoor into our devices" - one already publicly exists
  - adib 5y ago
    Technically it's "front door" since it _publicly exists_.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mctub 5y ago
iOS 15 is adversarial and Apple lacks credible neutrality.
choeger 5y ago
It's inevitable that software and hardware will be controlled by law enforcement. It's just too good an opportunity to not use it. Nearly no one will fight it and the apathy of the masses will lead us directly into a system at least as oppressive as china is now. You can prepare for it, though. Organize some hardware while you still can, teach your children to not trust any device or service, and, more importantly keep your mouth shut. It might be hard for a typical US millennial to grasp the concept, but people that grew up in eastern Europe will be able to understand the concepts.
panda88888 5y ago
For me the biggest concern is not that Apple is scanning the images for $BAD_STUFF but rather, now that the scanning occurs on my device instead of Apple cloud servers. The trust has been eroded. I can understand Apple scanning images on their servers (although I don’t think Apple should). However, running the scan on device is taking it too far, even if the assertion is that only images that would be eventually uploaded is scanned. Apple promised security and privacy on their devices, and this breaks the trust. Now I question their future software roadmap, such as: 1. Will the scanning come to MacOS? 2. Will the scanning start to include additional $BAD_STUFF, such as political censoring and/or even other files (video, document, etc.) I really like Apple hardware. The iPads and the M1 Macs are awesome, but this news makes me hesitant to stay in the Apple ecosystem and will be looking at alternatives. I already run Linux desktops, and I’ll probably move to Linux on laptop.
zeroimpl 5y ago
It seems Apple only applies this if you sync photos to iCloud. Isn't the solution just to not use iCloud? I've personally never used iCloud sync for photos, am happy enough managing the files myself. Demanding that Apple allows you to use iCloud to host illegal pictures seems a bit entitled to me. I am concerned about the slippery slope of if they start scanning files that were never going to go through their servers in the first place though.
- Heliosmaster 5y ago
  One of the major concerns that I've seen arising around here is the question "what's stopping Apple from doing this even without iCloud?". Once you open Pandora's Box, there is not going back.
xyzzy21 5y ago
At what point do other picture types become surveilled? Maybe if you take pictures of Trump signs... Maybe if you take pictures of Red states... Maybe if you take pictures of cis relationships... Maybe if you happen to be male and white and take a selfie... What/when do these get reported to the FBI or other woke agencies in government? It's a very slippery slope AND WE KNOW there are sociopaths in positions of power who'd gladly do such things without a second thought.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Or inversely, the FBI/CIA/CCP went to Apple and said "it'd be a shame it turned out you were a monopoly". Apple caved to pressure and had to implement this. Whatever the angle, this isn't about protecting kids whatsoever. It's about power.

peakaboo 5y ago
And the vaccine is not about protecting people either, it's also about power.
- annadane 5y ago
  lmao
- fsflover 5y ago
  How does vaccine give power to anyone?
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    "Do your own research, the 5G implants from the vaccine have a secret server and reverse proxy to let them implant thoughts into you"
    - shotta 5y ago
      There’s no way that’s true. I’d be more likable by now.
    - FractalParadigm 5y ago
      I don't know what's more impressive, the fact someone managed to come up with something so ridiculous, or the fact some people actually believe this level of technology exists.
      - bbarnett 5y ago
        The average Joe has no idea how computing, and tech works. None. To such a person, a smartphone is a piece of magic. Expecting them to know what is real tech, and what isn't, is not fair.
  - nickthegreek 5y ago
    It gave me the power to confidently shop again.
- echelon 5y ago
  The vaccine that you've been forced to take? Please don't turn this into a clown show. The privacy and openness of our computers and devices is paramount to freedom and a strong democracy.
  - thepangolino 5y ago
    Depending on where they lives they might have very well been forced to take it they were hoping to keep a semblance of normal life. That’s why I got vaccinated at least (with the government forcing my hand). What truly scared me was realising that if the requirement was ratting on my Jewish neighbours, I probably would have done it too.
    - jjulius 5y ago
      That's not quite accurate; you both would end up having a "semblance of a normal life" without getting vaccinated, you just would've had to wait a bit longer.
    - revscat 5y ago
      Good.
    - jbverschoor 5y ago
      or just get fired if you're a pilot
      - literallyaduck 5y ago
        Or work at CNN.
collaborative 5y ago
What a messed up world we live in where money and power are the only things that matter to the people that get to make a difference. But has it not always been this way? The show must go on..
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  This is some guy’s theory, and they can’t even spell “anti-trust” (in the headline, no less). It’s not quite enough to lose all trust in society over.
  - collaborative 5y ago
    From what I can tell he is Italian, so spelling should not be a reason to judge imo
asimpletune 5y ago
I think that’s in essence what the author is arguing, at least the outcomes are the same. The only difference is maybe none of the 3-letter agencies had to come out and explicitly say it, when Apple is perfectly competent at spotting a bone to toss. In other words, the author thinks with Apple’s back to a wall, they only needed to make the announcement of this feature for the government to see there are advantages to apple having tight control as well. Now they’ll be able to make that very same argument in court in a public sense, but there’s always a behind the scenes sense with 3-letter agencies as well. Granted all of that is speculation and who knows what is really driving any of this. The author does have a point that if this first step causes bad guys to move on from these services then that will be future justification to move the scanning further and further upstream to the point where it’s baked into the API’s or something. At that level, Apple would really need a “monopoly” to accomplish such a feat. It’s certainly an interesting and creative perspective.
- mr_toad 5y ago
  This could be aimed at pre-emptively de-fanging one argument against end-to-end encryption.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    That’s the best case. But even in the best case, exists then worst abuse cases. That’s the problem. This WILL be abused.
dcolkitt 5y ago
Apple's a $2 trillion company. If not even they have enough legal firepower to stand up to the three letter agencies, what possible chance does any other private citizen have. This should be a wake-up call. It's time to start dismantling massive chunks of the intelligence community. It no longer works for the citizenry that's supposedly their bosses. (If it ever did.) It's become a power blackhole unto itself. Even elected officials, up to POTUS, have found themselves unable to control the unelected and unaccountable fiefdoms that make up the intelligence community.
- zepto 5y ago
  Most people want the TLAs to be going after child abusers and pedophiles. Good luck using this as your argument for dismantling them.
  - whartung 5y ago
    Similarly, many people want the TLAs to be able to go after $2T companies as well.
    - zepto 5y ago
      Do they? What behavior do they want them to go after?
      - 8note 5y ago
        I imagine the IRS for taxes
        zepto 5y ago
        Very amusing, although these companies pay their taxes. The problem isn’t with them, it’s with the loopholes that let them pay less than people would like. The IRS can’t do anything.
adrr 5y ago
The biggest question is who is providing the hashes? Since possession of images is illegal, it has to be the government. So we have to trust the government enough that they won’t abuse it and stick in other hashes. Same government that recommended an encryption method that they figure out how to break it.

voidnullnil 5y ago

When I was 13 and my parent made me use a content filter on the web I bypassed it and watched porn and they never found out. On the other hand: Why would I ever want a piece of tech that reports me to the police (even if for legitimate reasons). EDIT: >Anonymous helplines and guidance exist for adults with at-risk thoughts and behaviour [https://www.apple.com/v/child-safety/a/images/guidance-img__eu6rk2abgp6q_large.jpg https://www.apple.com/v/child-safety/a/images/guidance-img__...] LOL NVM I TRIED BEING POLITE BUT NUKE SAN FRANCISCO AT THIS POINT TO BE HONEST this horseshit is why i quit the software industry 10 years ago. see also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28077491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28077491 this is the cancer you are creating

whoknowswhat11 5y ago
Then apple will lose market share and correct their ways. Conversely, what I've seen does put this top of list as a parent. Will notify me if my child is sending nudes. Will notify me if someone is sending porn to my child. Will notify police if known child porn is on the device. When folks talk about competition - part of this MUST include the USERS preferences (not as currently done the focus of what I see as largely predatory billers and businesses who I don't care about as a user). I don't want child porn on my systems. Be very happy if apple helps keep it off them. Are these hash databases available more broadly for scanning (ie, could I scan all work machines / storage using a tool of some sort)?
- abawany 5y ago
  I don't think they will ever be able to walk this back. The governments that twisted Apple's arm to get this look-see into everyone's devices will roast them in the court of public opinion (or threaten to, which will be enough). IMO, this will just open up more and more - it will never go back to being what iDevice owners have now.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > The governments that twisted Apple's arm to get this look-see into everyone's devices will roast them in the court of public opinion Nothing about this technology gives governments a ‘look see’ into everyone’s devices.

cblconfederate 5y ago

Apple will release this in their desktop pcs. The major consequence of this is that, a year down the line, microsoft will also be compelled/forced to join this "coalition of the good". After all, they already scan all your files for viruses, it would be a shame if they didn't scan for anything that is deemed incriminating and also call the cops on you. Of course, the children are being used as a trojan horse again. We don't even mention the giant logical leap from finding someone possessing CP to automatically considering them a child molester, yet someone posessing ~~an action~~ a murder video is not considered a murderer. I m just imagining the situation where these companies took the initiative to scan all their users data in a situation like the attach in US capitol this year. Creating new affordances for spying always leads to their abuse in the first chance when an extreme circumstance occurs. So there is no excuse for creating those affordances just "because they can"

beebmam 5y ago
Windows has been doing this for years. Not with this new tech, but with older methods.
- TrevorJ 5y ago
  I'm skeptical of the claim that MS has been A: scanning files on local windows machines and B: forwarding anything concerning to law enforcement. That's a fairly extraordinary claim, and I would like to see the evidence.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ribosometronome 5y ago
    Microsoft hasn't been scanning files on local machines but Microsoft has been doing essentially the same thing Apple has been for years -- they pioneered it with PhotoDNA back in 2009. It's been in use with OneDrive since back when it was called SkyDrive (https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/unfortunate-truths-about-child-pornography-and-the-internet-feature/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/unfortunate-truths-about-child...). Apple's implementation is scanning images 1) stored on iCloud or 2) in Messages if parents turn it on. The first seems pretty arbitrary -- why is it worse to scan files you're sharing with the cloud locally than in the cloud (except potential performance/battery impact, but that seems moot). If Apple brings this feature to the desktop, it seems likely they'd be using it the same way: files stored in their cloud.

debt 5y ago

It's no coincidence this system launched around the same time the whole NSO scandal broke. The NSO leak shows what government-sponsored exploit analysis against a large tech company may yield. I mean the NSO exploit could've worked the same but been a worm; it could've been absolutely devastating for Apple, imagine something like every phone infected. Something like that was possible with that exploit. Apple has been a thorn in the side of the IC for a long while. IC probably saw an opportunity to gain a bit of leverage themselves via the whole NSO thing, and likely offered their cyber support in exchange of some support from Apple. I mean c'mon they've been consistently pressed by IC for tooling like what they just launched; it's the least invasive thing(compared to something like a literal backdoor like that NSA_KEY that MS did for Windows) they can offer in exchange for some cybersecurity support from the gov. idk if that's what's happened, but it's odd Apple would do this at all, and do it right around the time of the NSO thing.

least 5y ago

There is no such thing as a trustworthy third party and even trusting yourself is questionable at the best of times. We are constantly balancing a bunch of different considerations with regards to the way that we compute, purchase devices, and utilize services. Security and privacy are of course important, and Apple to date has had a fairly good (if shallow) track record in this regard, at least in the United States. With that being said, what Apple is doing here is just a blatant violation of that 'trust' and certainly a compromise to their commitment to privacy. Under no circumstances is it justifiable to essentially enlist people's devices to police their owners, while using the electricity that you pay for, the internet service you pay for, and the device itself that you pay for to perform a function that is to absolutely no benefit to the user and in fact can only ever be harmful to them. It doesn't matter that the net data exfiltrated by Apple ends up being the same as before (through scanning unencrypted files on their servers). The distinction is so obvious to me that I find it incredible that people are legitimately arguing that it's the same, or that it in some way this is actually helping preserve user privacy. As mentioned in the article, this does absolutely nothing towards protecting children other than directing all but the biggest idiots towards platforms that can't be linked to them, which I'd imagine, they already are.

fossuser 5y ago
> "As mentioned in the article, this does absolutely nothing towards protecting children other than directing all but the biggest idiots towards platforms that can't be linked to them, which I'd imagine, they already are." I suspect you're more wrong than you think about this. People share large volumes of CSAM through lots of different services - I knew someone who worked on the problem at Linked In(!). HN likes to downplay the actual reality as if it's always some trojan horse, but the issue is real. It's worth talking to people that work on combatting it if you get the chance. I'm not really commenting on Apple's approach here (which I haven't thought enough about), but I know enough that an immediate dismissal based on it 'not helping' is not really appreciating the real tradeoffs you're making. You can be against this kind of thing from Apple, but as a result more CSAM will be undetected. Maybe that's the proper tradeoff, but we shouldn't pretend it's not a tradeoff at all. "Robin Hanson proposed stores where banned products could be sold. There are a number of excellent arguments for such a policy—an inherent right of individual liberty, the career incentive of bureaucrats to prohibit everything, legislators being just as biased as individuals. But even so (I replied), some poor, honest, not overwhelmingly educated mother of five children is going to go into these stores and buy a “Dr. Snakeoil’s Sulfuric Acid Drink” for her arthritis and die, leaving her orphans to weep on national television" [0] [0]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-debates-should-not-appear-one-sided https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PeSzc9JTBxhaYRp9b/policy-deb... Edit: After digging in, HN commentary is missing the most relevant details about this particular implementation. iCloud image checking compares to known CSAM image hashes - this means effectively zero false positive rate. For iMessage child account ML scanning it’s on device and just generic sexual material restriction - more similar to standard parental controls than anything else (alerts only go to the parent, and only happen on child accounts) My initial impression is this is a good approach. The risk mostly comes from future applications (like the CCP adding hashes of other stuff that isn’t CSAM like tankman or something). The frankly ignorant knee-jerk responses from technical HN readers do a disservice and weaken the ability of technical people to push back when necessary.

radicaldreamer 5y ago

This system is likely closely related to full encrypted E2E iCloud backups: 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...

twobitshifter 5y ago
Were iCloud photos already scanned CSAM? In the on-device system, if you're not using iCloud are the photos scanned? If that's true, as an iCloud user you are exactly as likely to be charged with a crime based on your photos as you were before, but you now get E2E encryption. Obviously I'd prefer E2E without any scanning. If I wanted to upload a pirated mp3 to icloud, I wouldn't want the RIAA knocking on my door. However, given that scanning was already in place, is this a step forward?
- testvox 5y ago
  > If that's true, as an iCloud user you are exactly as likely to be charged with a crime based on your photos as you were before Is this strictly true? I feel like the evidence that a photo was present on specific device is different from evidence that a photo was uploaded by a specific account (and a specific ip address probably). It seems like it would be far easier for the government to justify a search warrant if they have evidence the photo they are looking for was on a specific device. Just having evidence that a specific account uploaded a photo seems like far shakier grounds to search a specific device, after all accounts are often stolen to be used for criminal purposes and ip addresses don't map cleanly to people or devices.
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    Maybe there’s some plausible deniability if a warrant uncovered nothing - but I think they would always be able get a warrant and try to find the device and more evidence based on the upload. From what I’ve read the on-phone scanning only alerts after multiple photos and is designed to have a 1 in a trillion false positive rate. If the iCloud scan is similar they would have a strong case for getting a warrant based on uploads.

throwayws 5y ago

Planting false evidence is getting a new twist here. The attacker doesn't even have to make a report! The victim's computer does it for him. Disk encryption malware may have new successor. Effective and scalable extortion as a service.

Kaytaro 5y ago
This is a great point. You don't even need to unlock an iPhone to take a picture. So in theory anyone with access to your phone for a few seconds could incriminate you with little effort.
- selsta 5y ago
  This is already possible today with things like iCloud Photos, Google Photos, OneDrive etc.
  - mobiledev2014 5y ago
    Today: "WTF is this?" delete iOS 15: "WTF is this?" SWAT team crashes through window
- fossuser 5y ago
  This is not true. The check is only against known CSAM hashes.
  - noisem4ker 5y ago
    Just photograph a known bad picture.
    - fossuser 5y ago
      Then that's a different photo and will have a different hash.
      - 5y ago

734129837261 5y ago

It'll start with protecting children. We all want to protect children, don't we? Why do you want children abused? Are you a child abuser, what do you have to hide? Next it's elderly people. We don't want our forgetful elders to get lost, do we? What if grandma wanders off but is in someone's picture, surely you want the police to know right that second where she is? Next up, terrorists! Four adult brown men in an unmarked van are certainly suspicious, especially near a government building. Your Instagram selfies will help the police in the USA shoot even more innocent people for no good reason. Animal abuse is next. You don't like puppies being abused, do you? Why do you hate puppies? Do you take part in illegal underground dog fights? Gosh, that video looks like it might have been pirated. Nice house, but based on your estimated income it's really strange that you have such a big television. Is that safe full of cash? How much cash is on your table? Is that a bit of dust, flour, or maybe crack cocaine? Is that person asleep or recently murdered?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gjsman-1000 5y ago
Remember that it only scans against a known database of already found content, and does not try to find new content.
- ohazi 5y ago
  For now.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    Just as "for now" it doesn't try to stop copyright infringement. Seemingly every aspect of digital technology, from search engines to DNS providers, has been co-opted into the fight against piracy, so I wouldn't be surprised if the media industries started threatening Apple with "contributory infringement" suits if they don't re-purpose this technology for them.

pl0x 5y ago

Apple and Google need to be under a serious investigation and broken up. Their hardware needs to be accessible to install an OS of your choice. This isn't possible on iPhones. It may take decades for this to happen given the lobbying dollars both spend but by then it will be too late. We are headed for a China style surveillance state and there is no stopping this train.

lamontcg 5y ago

> But when a backdoor is installed, the backdoor exists and history teaches that it’s only a matter of time before it’s also used by the bad guys and authoritarian regimes. Problem is that this scanning is necessarily fuzzy and there is going to be a false positive rate to it. And the way that you'll find out that you've tripped a false positive is that the SWAT team will knock your door down and kill your dog (at a minimum). Then you'll be stuck in a Kafkaesque nightmare trying to prove your innocence where you've been accused by a quasi Governmental agency that hides its methods so the "bad guys" can't work around them. It isn't just "authoritarian regimes" abusing it, it is the stochastic domestic terrorism that our own government currently carries out against its own citizens every time there's a beaurocratic fuckup in how it manages its monopoly on violence. This is the "Apple/Google cancelled my account and I don't know why" problem combined with SWATing.

opinion-is-bad 5y ago
Stochastic domestic terrorist is not a term I ever expected to read, but it seems very fitting for the “data-driven” (but generally poorly evaluated) future we find ourselves drifting into.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  "Stochastic terrorism" has been a popular term for a while[0], but it usually refers to the actions carried out by individuals, not government agents. Ironically, though, the word "terrorism" itself originally referred to the actions of a tyrannical government against its own citizens[1], so perhaps the definition has come full circle. [0] https://www.dictionary.com/e/what-is-stochastic-terrorism/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/what-is-stochastic-terrorism/ [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/history-of-the-word-terrorism https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/history-of-the...
chongli 5y ago
This really has been decades in the making, hasn’t it? Apple is only adding the latest piece of the puzzle. The seeds of everything you’ve described were planted years ago. How did we get here? How did everything become so politicized and polarized? How did law enforcement become so militarized? How did we as a society become so terrified and distrustful of our neighbours?

m3kw9 5y ago

Sophisticated abuser criminals will not be caught this way. This is for a likely significant percent of the abusers that doesn’t know, forget or make mistakes. Also this system can slow spread CSAM images which can facilitates abuse.

wizards420 5y ago

For another thought on how easy this could suffer from scope creep, iOS does (did?) store whole-app screen captures as PNGs for use on the app switcher, etc. If this is already scanning photo libraries locally, just add the temp dir for app screen captures and they're effectively monitoring your screen too.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

zimpenfish 5y ago

> Do we really think criminals trade CSAM in plain-sight web sites ? "In 2018, Facebook (especially Facebook Messenger) was responsible for 16.8 million of the 18.4 million reports worldwide of CSAM" Apparently they do, yeah.

joshstrange 5y ago
Also > Do we really think criminals don’t know mathematics or programming ? Yes, by and large yes I do. Amon is a great example of this. Surely in the world this author is imagining no criminal would get caught up in a scheme like Amon since there are criminals that know "mathematics or programming", except... no one noticed/blew the whistle and instead the FBI rounded up the users of that device.

lijogdfljk 5y ago

So this new Apple stuff has made me decide not to buy an M1. I'm leaning Framework laptop. For my phone though... no idea. My iPhone is honestly such a solid piece of tech. I don't _want_ to go Google either... so what else do i have? I know lots of people run de-googled Androids, which i guess works, but i'd prefer to avoid them entirely. Is there anything that works? edit: I know of the Purism phone (https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/) but that's the only one i know of. Anyone know of others?

lancemurdock 5y ago
commenting here as I share the same exact sentiment. I guess I am going to look into LineageOS which falls in the de-googled category but im not sure I am in love with that idea. edit: Whoa, 2K for that purism phone. fuckin' a.
- lijogdfljk 5y ago
  The standard (https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/ https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/) is cheaper - i guess the USA one comes with a large uptick for locally sourcing?
  - buildbot 5y ago
    Yep, having spec’d a few boards for assembly in the usa and China, the manufacturing costs seems to always be about double for USA fabrication.
  - lancemurdock 5y ago
    ah thats much more reasonable. The reviews on this phone are pretty awful although looks like its rather new to the market. Anyone who comes across this comment use one?
windthrown 5y ago
The Pinephone running something like Ubuntu Touch (UBports) or PostmarketOS is something to keep an eye on but it is still in heavy development and in my option not quite a reliable "daily driver" yet.

ctvo 5y ago

I don't think this issue is widespread enough and harmful enough to society to risk the privacy of all Apple users. Full stop. I haven't been particularly impressed with Apple's security record[1] lately, and I don't trust them to not mess this up. 1 - https://bhavukjain.com/blog/2020/05/30/zeroday-signin-with-apple/ https://bhavukjain.com/blog/2020/05/30/zeroday-signin-with-a...

DSingularity 5y ago
Why do you think this?
- ctvo 5y ago
  I can't find a widely accepted statistic but these numbers should illustrate the point: - A 2016 study by the Center for Court Innovation found that between 8,900 and 10,500 children, ages 13 to 17, are commercially exploited each year in the United States. (Center for Court Innovation, 2016) https://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/documents/Youth%20Involvement%20in%20the%20Sex%20Trade_3.pdf https://www.courtinnovation.org/sites/default/files/document... - The annual number of persons prosecuted for commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) cases filed in U.S. district court nearly doubled between 2004 and 2013, increasing from 1,405 to 2,776 cases. https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/archives/pressreleases/2017/ojp-news-10122017.pdf https://www.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh241/files/archives/p... This is a niche crime from everything I've seen. Apple, if it were truly interested in the net good of children, could have picked something that impacts more of them (nutrition? early childhood education?), didn't introduce new vulnerability / abuse surface area, and was less politicized.
  - DSingularity 5y ago
    Thanks for the statistics. To me, these numbers are significant. Maybe Whole Foods or maybe some popular restaurants are better candidates for working on improving nutrition in public schools? Why don’t we let apple contribute where it thinks it can. Maybe with apple that number goes down from 10,000 to 2,000. Wouldn’t that be a celebrated outcome?

iabacu 5y ago

Why stop at scanning photos in your phone? With lower power sensors, head-mounted devices with always-on-sensors, and whatnot, why not sample real-time hashes that can tip LEO about potential crimes happening? Then why sacrifice recall in order to achieve high accuracy? Err on the side of uploading more hashes. Then feed it all into a ML so it can use other data to filter out potential false positives. Then if in a distance future, any LEO wants to investigate you for whatever reason, the set of potential hashes associated with your account will provide sufficient evidence for any court to authorize further non-hashed data access (it doesn't matter if they were all false positives)

pyuser583 5y ago

Recently my IPad’s AI made a montage of my pet cats. Only, my daughter was included in the montage. Why? She was wearing a shirt with a cat on it.

throwaway13239 5y ago

I don't see why we would believe they are not already doing this? Today's news is just that they can now legally take action on it. Also the whole SWAT scenario is a bit far-fetched, as they will most likely read thru your entire life (don't forget they already have access to it) to make sure they don't look stupid on the news.

antpol 5y ago
Your iphone is already capable to identify nude minors in near real time. Is it really that far-fetched that SWAT team gets triggered into action when iphone detects minor abuse?
- throwaway13239 5y ago
  Pretty far-fetched, to swat you need a crisis situation, hostage/bomb/shooting

e-clinton 5y ago

This is optional. You don’t HAVE to use iCloud for your photos. This is no different that YouTube searching videos you upload for copyrighted music. If you don’t want your photos scanned, don’t upload your images to their servers.

aburneraccnt 5y ago
You're 100% correct. I had my images on iCloud because I thought Apple put my privacy first. I was being naive. I've pulled all my photos off and am looking to move the rest of my data too. My iPhone and iPad just got a lot less useful.

totetsu 5y ago

Does anyone know about a good write up of this discussion in Japanese?

tenpies 5y ago

Can I just say that I'm fascinated that this is happening under Tim Apple - an openly gay man in his 60s? I mean this is someone who would know what being on the wrong side of law means - not only federally, but probably quite intimately since Alabama was not exactly known for its acceptance of homosexual people. Now just imagine if the US still had anti-homosexuality laws (like the majority of the world still does) and your phone is constantly scanning your photos to check for signs of homosexual behaviour. Forgetfully take a selfie with your boyfriend, it gets flagged, sent to the Ministry of Morality, and next thing you know you're being dragged into a van. Best case scenario you're being jail. Worst you're being thrown off a building, stoned, or brutally beaten to death. That's the future Apple is signing us up for. There is zero chance this stops at CSAM, especially with the Democrats convinced that half the country are the absolute worst people on the planet and not being shy about completely ignoring the rule of law and Constitution to extend the reach of the state to levels that would make a totalitarian blush. This will end terribly.

SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
Your last paragraph ruined an otherwise great comment.
ta56hf47yt 5y ago
Alternatively, and just as likely, is that the Republicans do the same evil things that you say the Democrats would do. Misusing tech isn't just for the "other" side, my friend.
- pcbro141 5y ago
  Yeah that was particularly weird comment for GP to make just 6 months after Republicans stormed the Capitol on the command of a Republican President to hang government officials and overturn an election.
  - h0l0cube 5y ago
    What's more galling is that an anti-authoritarian stance should be non-partisan in a country that sells itself on democracy and liberty

jacknews 5y ago

Child abuse, or any abuse should be stamped out vigorously. But this is the job of the police, using standard techniques to track down first, the people making and distributing this content, and then consumers of it. It is not Apple's job to put a policeman in everyone's phone.

adib 5y ago

Say that you're an official with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). You have huge stacks of brochures of anti-CCP materials. You've got them scanned and hashed. Next you call Apple and say, "Please alert us if similar imageries appears in your customers' devices. My assistants will send you weekly updates of the required hashes." Apple would say, "Sure, we're just following your law..." Hence when a Chinese photographs such brochure "in the wild" using an iPhone, someone from "the government" will knock the next day and "strongly enquire" about yesterday's photo. Likewise when a Chinese minor receives an iMessage containing such brochure. This is just _one_ example case of "extension" of the CSAM database as seen fit by some regulatory body.

pentae 5y ago
Yep, and now Apple can no longer say "Sorry, we can't put a backdoor into our devices" - one already publicly exists
- adib 5y ago
  Technically it's "front door" since it _publicly exists_.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mctub 5y ago

iOS 15 is adversarial and Apple lacks credible neutrality.

choeger 5y ago

It's inevitable that software and hardware will be controlled by law enforcement. It's just too good an opportunity to not use it. Nearly no one will fight it and the apathy of the masses will lead us directly into a system at least as oppressive as china is now. You can prepare for it, though. Organize some hardware while you still can, teach your children to not trust any device or service, and, more importantly keep your mouth shut. It might be hard for a typical US millennial to grasp the concept, but people that grew up in eastern Europe will be able to understand the concepts.

panda88888 5y ago

For me the biggest concern is not that Apple is scanning the images for $BAD_STUFF but rather, now that the scanning occurs on my device instead of Apple cloud servers. The trust has been eroded. I can understand Apple scanning images on their servers (although I don’t think Apple should). However, running the scan on device is taking it too far, even if the assertion is that only images that would be eventually uploaded is scanned. Apple promised security and privacy on their devices, and this breaks the trust. Now I question their future software roadmap, such as: 1. Will the scanning come to MacOS? 2. Will the scanning start to include additional $BAD_STUFF, such as political censoring and/or even other files (video, document, etc.) I really like Apple hardware. The iPads and the M1 Macs are awesome, but this news makes me hesitant to stay in the Apple ecosystem and will be looking at alternatives. I already run Linux desktops, and I’ll probably move to Linux on laptop.

zeroimpl 5y ago

It seems Apple only applies this if you sync photos to iCloud. Isn't the solution just to not use iCloud? I've personally never used iCloud sync for photos, am happy enough managing the files myself. Demanding that Apple allows you to use iCloud to host illegal pictures seems a bit entitled to me. I am concerned about the slippery slope of if they start scanning files that were never going to go through their servers in the first place though.

Heliosmaster 5y ago
One of the major concerns that I've seen arising around here is the question "what's stopping Apple from doing this even without iCloud?". Once you open Pandora's Box, there is not going back.

xyzzy21 5y ago

At what point do other picture types become surveilled? Maybe if you take pictures of Trump signs... Maybe if you take pictures of Red states... Maybe if you take pictures of cis relationships... Maybe if you happen to be male and white and take a selfie... What/when do these get reported to the FBI or other woke agencies in government? It's a very slippery slope AND WE KNOW there are sociopaths in positions of power who'd gladly do such things without a second thought.