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Over the last few years I have moved my entire Digital life to the Apple eco-system with a deep belief that Apple would care about "my" privacy for the long-ter

Over the last few years I have moved my entire Digital life to the Apple eco-system with a deep belief that Apple would care about "my" privacy for the long-term. And with this move to create a backdoor on the iPhone is making me very worried about relying on the Apple ecosystem.

leephillips 5y ago
I don’t want to be mean, but why would you entertain such a “deep belief” about a corporation? I’ve heard similar things from many Apple users. What leads people to have this kind of faith in particular corporations? It’s really alien to me.
- post_break 5y ago
  When you have two options it's pretty easy to have faith in the one that tries to drum up it's privacy first stance.
- bodo11 5y ago
  While also seeing deep belief in corporations sceptically myself, I don't think it should be the root cause of scepticism toward apple. The maximisation of proprietariness paired with this "deep belief" breads a really hard possibility to switch vendor (of whatever product), locking people in so much that the perceived cost of privacy-breaching software is lower than the cost of switching.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dm1011 5y ago
  >What leads people to have this kind of faith in particular corporations? Marketing and groupthink makes them join and buyers remorse makes them stay
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  Cynically, I would say I also had a deep belief that Apple would respect user privacy because Apple and Google are in a fight over control over the internet and your whole life. Google goes at it by giving away free shit then making billions off your data, Apple goes at this by making billions off hardware and software. From that point of view respecting user privacy is Apple's most powerful weapon in their fight against Google since its a place that Google simply cannot go.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Generating the impression that they respect your privacy works exactly equally as well, and is much cheaper.
- danuker 5y ago
  My guess is the advertising worked. https://medium.com/seedx-digital-marketing-guru/why-apple-spends-1-8-billion-on-advertising-38d3940270bf https://medium.com/seedx-digital-marketing-guru/why-apple-sp...
- D13Fd 5y ago
  I wouldn't say I have a "deep belief" in Apple, but I trust Apple more than the other available options, because Apple's financial incentives are basically the opposite of Google or Facebook's. Instead of being motivated to use and/or sell user data, it's in Apple's best interest to keep that data secure and play to its competitive advantage as the company who is not trying to pry into its users' lives. That said, I really don't understand why Apple would do this, and it is very disconcerting. Obviously child pornography is absolutely horrible, but this move seems to throw out everyone's privacy in exchange for catching what I have to imagine is a tiny minority of users who are involved with that.
  - handrous 5y ago
    > I wouldn't say I have a "deep belief" in Apple, but I trust Apple more than the other available options That, for me too. From my perspective they basically don't have competition. The only viable alternative to Apple is "do everything yourself with open software, and just accept everything being buggier, jankier, and less helpful, while eating way more of your time". Obviously I'm not in love with that option, but what else? MS? Google? Ha. If Apple stops being Apple it'll be the elimination of a whole category of products and services, essentially. Just won't exist anymore. This is all less a product of Apple being wonderful than of user-facing computing everywhere else being an embarrassing shit-show.
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago
  I don't know how Apple has managed to get the image of a "privacy friendly" company while painting Google as "privacy unfriendly" at the same time. Apple is better than Google, but mostly because they can't gather as much data about you as Google does (this is not related to iOS vs Android; it's about how pervasive Google is on the WWW), and that's about all the practical differences between the two. And on iOS, Apple is also just one silent App Store update away from being able to exploit your data, not very different from Android. Even if I consider Google enemy #1 right now, I also don't really see them as privacy unfriendly. They have a shitton of data, but what have they exactly done with it that warrants the moniker? Microsoft seems to me to be much more privacy unfriendly (e.g., LinkedIn)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - handrous 5y ago
    > Even if I consider Google enemy #1 right now, I also don't really see them as privacy unfriendly. They have a shitton of data, but what have they exactly done with it that warrants the moniker? Microsoft seems to me to be much more privacy unfriendly (e.g., LinkedIn) Collecting and having that data to begin with is awful & dangerous. The behavior of collecting it is creepy and gross. The existence of the collected data is threatening.
    - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
      The reason I consider Google a public enemy is not because they collect data or have a poor privacy policy or whatever (because I don't think they are particularly bad at that). The reason is because I think they are "unavoidable". It's very hard to do anything online without it leaving a fingerprint on some Google server. Even governments seem to be ready to endorse Google services (e.g. recaptcha, Android) for fulfillment of basic services. Apple, Facebook, etc. may have (or not have) worse privacy policy, but it is much easier to avoid leaving fingerprints on their servers. Amazon & Microsoft are on the other hand particularly dangerous, though.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  Because privacy is an obvious goal that Apple can crediblebly target because of the nature of what they sell. Google is fundamentally an advertising agency, Amazon sells cheap stuff but steals your data in the process. Apple sells premium hardware and services, which means they have the margin to do things that neither google or amazon has. They also make money the old fashioned way: when you pay them. Therefore Apple could focus on privacy in a credible manor, because it didn't threaten their business model and it was an argument they could use, but their competition couldn't.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wnscooke 5y ago
  It probably stems from the well-known history of the start of the company. Who knows who started Dell, McDs, any number of SSD manufacturers, Lenovo, BlackBerry, etc.? I guess we all know about Microsoft and Bill Gates, but their story trajectory went the other way (more corporate). So, I imagine people say that because something Steve Jobs or Ives said or was recorded as saying resonated with them, and thus they share that deep belief.
- ksec 5y ago
  >I’ve heard similar things from many Apple users. What leads people to have this kind of faith in particular corporations? It is all part of their PR and marketing. And they are very good at it. This happened in Tim Cook's era, not Steve Jobs. May be too good it backfired. If you pay close attention to all the Apple news, ( not some, but ALL ). Pick the top 10 Apple news site and read through it for a few years and it will surely get to most people. And Apple news are the most sort after, highest paid Ads revenue in tech sector. So it is sort of a feedback loop. Worth remembering there are relatively little journalist left, only reporters. No one bother to fact check anything any more. That is why we have so much crap that anyone has some domain knowledge on the subject will immediately smells BS. And their PR tactics are.... dull or should I say predictable? Controlled Leaks ( I mean come on from the same press again? ) on the same subject or using same allies in testimony ( SnapChat again? )? Unfortunately most people dont do any analysis like this. ( Although I guess that is borderline forensic ).
dev_tty01 5y ago
I think Apple sees the writing on the wall in terms of governments soon forcing this kind of oversight into platforms. They have tried to create a system that will not create false positives and will still protect the 99.99999% of their users that simply want privacy. Its a messy business and fraught with downstream implications, but I think Apple is trying to avoid a future where end-to-end encryption of communications is made illegal by a tech-ignorant congress. I also think they are simply pissed off that their platforms are being used to shield these activities. Is being preemptive to avoid imposed regs that might be much worse for their users the right approach? I don't know. Based on the tech papers linked at the end of their announcement, they are trying hard to thread a needle here.
- dm1011 5y ago
  either way there marketing is truly amazing if people are still willing to write something like this after PRISM
- dcow 5y ago
  But, we've fought this type of bull crap entering via our government in the past. We rule ourselves we can literally say, "no, government, you can't do that". Why is it different now? Are people getting tired of the recurring battles? Is human trafficking on the rise?
  - dev_tty01 5y ago
    First, yes human trafficking is on the rise. It is a horrible blight affecting millions of people globally. Most people are not aware of how pervasive it is. Second, what is different today is that pervasive tech has made it possible for people to communicate over distance in a shielded way. Before modern tech, people had to physically stand next to each other to have a truly private conversation. That is new. I think that makes legislators feel that since tech has enabled this capability, tech should be enabling a way to "fix" the issue. The argument isn't completely without merit. Along with all the positive benefits of tech, there are of course some downsides. The question is what role should tech have in mitigating the downsides. This is an attempt by Apple to provide a mitigation. Time will tell if this attempt was a good idea. It could provide some benefit, but will the cost be too high?
Kenji 5y ago
Over the last few years I have moved my entire digital life to local disks and GNU/Linux machines. Best decision of my life. I sleep well knowing that I own my data because I own the disks it resides on, and I own the computers they store it, and the entire stack from top to bottom, including software, is tailored to my and only my needs. The machine serves me.
wutbrodo 5y ago
Apple has long set itself in opposition to user control and autonomy. That approach runs bone-deep in their DNA; it's practically their brand! To me, that DNA makes a move like this entirely unsurprising. To be clear, this isn't exclusively a bad thing: a paternalistic, limiting approach to one's userbase allows for everything from better hardware/software integration to lower risk of malware to Steve Jobs' famous "freedom from porn". By contrast, their privacy messaging runs much more shallow, and those who uncritically swallowed it always struck me as rather naive. Apple's ostensible pro-privacy stance has nothing to do with their ethos as a company, but was just convenient positioning relative to Google given their respective lines of business. It's fair game to highlight this advantage, but it's a lot like Facebook saying they "prioritize" avoiding abusive manufacturing practices more than Apple...while technically true, it's a function of their market position, and is not very useful for understanding the org's future behavior.
- schoen 5y ago
  This phenomenon that you mention in your second paragraph was described in 2013 as a "strategy credit": https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/ https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/ Maybe kind of akin to the concept of "moral luck": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck
- taneq 5y ago
  For years I've found it interesting that Apple's privacy stance hasn't really shifted much over the past decade (other than their messaging in their advertising etc.) but Google's stance has changed so dramatically that by comparison, Apple's gone from invasive and overbearing to respectful and privacy-valuing.
enriquto 5y ago
> a deep belief that Apple In the context of software, beliefs are meaningless, religious issues. You do not need trust when you can have proof (i.e. source code that you can compile and modify yourself).
arthur_sav 5y ago
As long as the US government is pushing laws that makes it easier to spy on people, it's not going to get any better. The only hope is for other countries to (legally) force global companies to abide by local laws, just like EU did with GDPR. So user experience will vary by country of residence.
vineyardmike 5y ago
I did the same. It's not just concerning that this occurred, but that we effectively got no warning about it at all that this would be starting! Its already running now.
nanidin 5y ago
I imagine this is the result of some sort of negotiation with the US government. US government wants backdoors, Apple doesn't want to provide them. Apple also wants to store pictures on iCloud encrypted, without encryption backdoors. The compromise to protect the rest of encrypted things on iCloud was to implement this client side scanning before upload to iCloud to ensure iCloud does not contain any illegal material without exposing backdoors directly to the US government. In light of that, I then imagine that other providers are already storing photos and data unencrypted and did not object to adding scanning on the server side, and also did not share anything about the scanning with the public.
- distances 5y ago
  > In light of that, I then imagine that other providers are already storing photos and data unencrypted and did not object to adding scanning on the server side, and also did not share anything about the scanning with the public. It is well known that competitors scan on server side, I don't think that's any kind of a secret with Google Drive et al. Outrage is exactly about that -- client side scanning is seen as way more intrusive, for a good reason.
ur-whale 5y ago
Move your digital life to a system that you actually own. Baseline, it means no cloud.
ezoe 5y ago
For all these years, Apple is trying so hard to prevent you from modifying the physical computer you own from you, the owner. You are so delusional.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Your final sentence detracts from the otherwise reasonable point you are making.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
It was a belief or hope? Because seeing they’re a closed source, closed ecosystem, closed to feedback and criticism behemoth I was wondering how can one even hope that.
anonuser123456 5y ago
Such a Faustian bargain; giving up the ability to store child porn in the cloud for reliable backups and seamless access across devices... I can't believe people put up with this!
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  And giving up the ability to carry a gun in exchange for safe streets for everyone! Lunacy! /s If it would 100% eliminate child pornography and not produce a residual erosion of personal privacy no one would be arguing against it. It won't solve the problem. It will erode privacy. It's perfectly reasonable to be not ok with it.
  - jpmoral 5y ago
    Why does the elimination have to be 100% and the privacy erosion be 0 for it to be worthwhile? To be clear I'm not saying that Apple are right to do this or that there aren't privacy concerns. What I am saying is that those thresholds seem unreasonable.
    - BobbyJo 5y ago
      Because that's the only way an individual's value system wouldn't come into play. If it's anything less than completely fixed and anything more than no erosion of privacy, then it just depends on how important privacy is to the person. I personally think privacy is super important, and it would take massive changes in how society and our government work before I was willing to give it up for just about anything.
  - anonuser123456 5y ago
    What information leaks from the system? That a user isn't storing child porn on Apple servers? That's literally the only information emitted by the system _unless_ you have actual child porn on your system.
    - BobbyJo 5y ago
KingOfCoders 5y ago
"privacy for the long-term." Apple cares about your privacy as long as it helps their marketing position against Amazon, Google and Facebook. If they decide for a different marketing, you will lose all your privacy. If their bottom line dips they will sell your data in a heartbeat. The EFF cares about your privacy.
herbst 5y ago
You moved your entire digital life to a walled garden because of some believe? I hope you see the deeper issue here.
systemsignal 5y ago
Check out what it’s actually doing “ Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo is sexually explicit. The feature is designed so that Apple does not get access to the messages.” https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ It’s all on-device which satisfies E2E I believe
- ric2b 5y ago
  It doesn't satisfy E2E, it works around it.

leephillips 5y ago

I don’t want to be mean, but why would you entertain such a “deep belief” about a corporation? I’ve heard similar things from many Apple users. What leads people to have this kind of faith in particular corporations? It’s really alien to me.

post_break 5y ago
When you have two options it's pretty easy to have faith in the one that tries to drum up it's privacy first stance.
bodo11 5y ago
While also seeing deep belief in corporations sceptically myself, I don't think it should be the root cause of scepticism toward apple. The maximisation of proprietariness paired with this "deep belief" breads a really hard possibility to switch vendor (of whatever product), locking people in so much that the perceived cost of privacy-breaching software is lower than the cost of switching.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dm1011 5y ago
>What leads people to have this kind of faith in particular corporations? Marketing and groupthink makes them join and buyers remorse makes them stay
blacktriangle 5y ago
Cynically, I would say I also had a deep belief that Apple would respect user privacy because Apple and Google are in a fight over control over the internet and your whole life. Google goes at it by giving away free shit then making billions off your data, Apple goes at this by making billions off hardware and software. From that point of view respecting user privacy is Apple's most powerful weapon in their fight against Google since its a place that Google simply cannot go.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Generating the impression that they respect your privacy works exactly equally as well, and is much cheaper.
danuker 5y ago
My guess is the advertising worked. https://medium.com/seedx-digital-marketing-guru/why-apple-spends-1-8-billion-on-advertising-38d3940270bf https://medium.com/seedx-digital-marketing-guru/why-apple-sp...
D13Fd 5y ago
I wouldn't say I have a "deep belief" in Apple, but I trust Apple more than the other available options, because Apple's financial incentives are basically the opposite of Google or Facebook's. Instead of being motivated to use and/or sell user data, it's in Apple's best interest to keep that data secure and play to its competitive advantage as the company who is not trying to pry into its users' lives. That said, I really don't understand why Apple would do this, and it is very disconcerting. Obviously child pornography is absolutely horrible, but this move seems to throw out everyone's privacy in exchange for catching what I have to imagine is a tiny minority of users who are involved with that.
- handrous 5y ago
  > I wouldn't say I have a "deep belief" in Apple, but I trust Apple more than the other available options That, for me too. From my perspective they basically don't have competition. The only viable alternative to Apple is "do everything yourself with open software, and just accept everything being buggier, jankier, and less helpful, while eating way more of your time". Obviously I'm not in love with that option, but what else? MS? Google? Ha. If Apple stops being Apple it'll be the elimination of a whole category of products and services, essentially. Just won't exist anymore. This is all less a product of Apple being wonderful than of user-facing computing everywhere else being an embarrassing shit-show.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
I don't know how Apple has managed to get the image of a "privacy friendly" company while painting Google as "privacy unfriendly" at the same time. Apple is better than Google, but mostly because they can't gather as much data about you as Google does (this is not related to iOS vs Android; it's about how pervasive Google is on the WWW), and that's about all the practical differences between the two. And on iOS, Apple is also just one silent App Store update away from being able to exploit your data, not very different from Android. Even if I consider Google enemy #1 right now, I also don't really see them as privacy unfriendly. They have a shitton of data, but what have they exactly done with it that warrants the moniker? Microsoft seems to me to be much more privacy unfriendly (e.g., LinkedIn)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- handrous 5y ago
  > Even if I consider Google enemy #1 right now, I also don't really see them as privacy unfriendly. They have a shitton of data, but what have they exactly done with it that warrants the moniker? Microsoft seems to me to be much more privacy unfriendly (e.g., LinkedIn) Collecting and having that data to begin with is awful & dangerous. The behavior of collecting it is creepy and gross. The existence of the collected data is threatening.
  - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    The reason I consider Google a public enemy is not because they collect data or have a poor privacy policy or whatever (because I don't think they are particularly bad at that). The reason is because I think they are "unavoidable". It's very hard to do anything online without it leaving a fingerprint on some Google server. Even governments seem to be ready to endorse Google services (e.g. recaptcha, Android) for fulfillment of basic services. Apple, Facebook, etc. may have (or not have) worse privacy policy, but it is much easier to avoid leaving fingerprints on their servers. Amazon & Microsoft are on the other hand particularly dangerous, though.
tomjen3 5y ago
Because privacy is an obvious goal that Apple can crediblebly target because of the nature of what they sell. Google is fundamentally an advertising agency, Amazon sells cheap stuff but steals your data in the process. Apple sells premium hardware and services, which means they have the margin to do things that neither google or amazon has. They also make money the old fashioned way: when you pay them. Therefore Apple could focus on privacy in a credible manor, because it didn't threaten their business model and it was an argument they could use, but their competition couldn't.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wnscooke 5y ago
It probably stems from the well-known history of the start of the company. Who knows who started Dell, McDs, any number of SSD manufacturers, Lenovo, BlackBerry, etc.? I guess we all know about Microsoft and Bill Gates, but their story trajectory went the other way (more corporate). So, I imagine people say that because something Steve Jobs or Ives said or was recorded as saying resonated with them, and thus they share that deep belief.
ksec 5y ago
>I’ve heard similar things from many Apple users. What leads people to have this kind of faith in particular corporations? It is all part of their PR and marketing. And they are very good at it. This happened in Tim Cook's era, not Steve Jobs. May be too good it backfired. If you pay close attention to all the Apple news, ( not some, but ALL ). Pick the top 10 Apple news site and read through it for a few years and it will surely get to most people. And Apple news are the most sort after, highest paid Ads revenue in tech sector. So it is sort of a feedback loop. Worth remembering there are relatively little journalist left, only reporters. No one bother to fact check anything any more. That is why we have so much crap that anyone has some domain knowledge on the subject will immediately smells BS. And their PR tactics are.... dull or should I say predictable? Controlled Leaks ( I mean come on from the same press again? ) on the same subject or using same allies in testimony ( SnapChat again? )? Unfortunately most people dont do any analysis like this. ( Although I guess that is borderline forensic ).

dev_tty01 5y ago

I think Apple sees the writing on the wall in terms of governments soon forcing this kind of oversight into platforms. They have tried to create a system that will not create false positives and will still protect the 99.99999% of their users that simply want privacy. Its a messy business and fraught with downstream implications, but I think Apple is trying to avoid a future where end-to-end encryption of communications is made illegal by a tech-ignorant congress. I also think they are simply pissed off that their platforms are being used to shield these activities. Is being preemptive to avoid imposed regs that might be much worse for their users the right approach? I don't know. Based on the tech papers linked at the end of their announcement, they are trying hard to thread a needle here.

dm1011 5y ago
either way there marketing is truly amazing if people are still willing to write something like this after PRISM
dcow 5y ago
But, we've fought this type of bull crap entering via our government in the past. We rule ourselves we can literally say, "no, government, you can't do that". Why is it different now? Are people getting tired of the recurring battles? Is human trafficking on the rise?
- dev_tty01 5y ago
  First, yes human trafficking is on the rise. It is a horrible blight affecting millions of people globally. Most people are not aware of how pervasive it is. Second, what is different today is that pervasive tech has made it possible for people to communicate over distance in a shielded way. Before modern tech, people had to physically stand next to each other to have a truly private conversation. That is new. I think that makes legislators feel that since tech has enabled this capability, tech should be enabling a way to "fix" the issue. The argument isn't completely without merit. Along with all the positive benefits of tech, there are of course some downsides. The question is what role should tech have in mitigating the downsides. This is an attempt by Apple to provide a mitigation. Time will tell if this attempt was a good idea. It could provide some benefit, but will the cost be too high?

Kenji 5y ago

Over the last few years I have moved my entire digital life to local disks and GNU/Linux machines. Best decision of my life. I sleep well knowing that I own my data because I own the disks it resides on, and I own the computers they store it, and the entire stack from top to bottom, including software, is tailored to my and only my needs. The machine serves me.

wutbrodo 5y ago

Apple has long set itself in opposition to user control and autonomy. That approach runs bone-deep in their DNA; it's practically their brand! To me, that DNA makes a move like this entirely unsurprising. To be clear, this isn't exclusively a bad thing: a paternalistic, limiting approach to one's userbase allows for everything from better hardware/software integration to lower risk of malware to Steve Jobs' famous "freedom from porn". By contrast, their privacy messaging runs much more shallow, and those who uncritically swallowed it always struck me as rather naive. Apple's ostensible pro-privacy stance has nothing to do with their ethos as a company, but was just convenient positioning relative to Google given their respective lines of business. It's fair game to highlight this advantage, but it's a lot like Facebook saying they "prioritize" avoiding abusive manufacturing practices more than Apple...while technically true, it's a function of their market position, and is not very useful for understanding the org's future behavior.

schoen 5y ago
This phenomenon that you mention in your second paragraph was described in 2013 as a "strategy credit": https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/ https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/ Maybe kind of akin to the concept of "moral luck": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck
taneq 5y ago
For years I've found it interesting that Apple's privacy stance hasn't really shifted much over the past decade (other than their messaging in their advertising etc.) but Google's stance has changed so dramatically that by comparison, Apple's gone from invasive and overbearing to respectful and privacy-valuing.

enriquto 5y ago

> a deep belief that Apple In the context of software, beliefs are meaningless, religious issues. You do not need trust when you can have proof (i.e. source code that you can compile and modify yourself).

arthur_sav 5y ago

As long as the US government is pushing laws that makes it easier to spy on people, it's not going to get any better. The only hope is for other countries to (legally) force global companies to abide by local laws, just like EU did with GDPR. So user experience will vary by country of residence.

vineyardmike 5y ago

I did the same. It's not just concerning that this occurred, but that we effectively got no warning about it at all that this would be starting! Its already running now.

nanidin 5y ago

I imagine this is the result of some sort of negotiation with the US government. US government wants backdoors, Apple doesn't want to provide them. Apple also wants to store pictures on iCloud encrypted, without encryption backdoors. The compromise to protect the rest of encrypted things on iCloud was to implement this client side scanning before upload to iCloud to ensure iCloud does not contain any illegal material without exposing backdoors directly to the US government. In light of that, I then imagine that other providers are already storing photos and data unencrypted and did not object to adding scanning on the server side, and also did not share anything about the scanning with the public.

distances 5y ago
> In light of that, I then imagine that other providers are already storing photos and data unencrypted and did not object to adding scanning on the server side, and also did not share anything about the scanning with the public. It is well known that competitors scan on server side, I don't think that's any kind of a secret with Google Drive et al. Outrage is exactly about that -- client side scanning is seen as way more intrusive, for a good reason.

ur-whale 5y ago

Move your digital life to a system that you actually own. Baseline, it means no cloud.

ezoe 5y ago

For all these years, Apple is trying so hard to prevent you from modifying the physical computer you own from you, the owner. You are so delusional.

dane-pgp 5y ago
Your final sentence detracts from the otherwise reasonable point you are making.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

It was a belief or hope? Because seeing they’re a closed source, closed ecosystem, closed to feedback and criticism behemoth I was wondering how can one even hope that.

anonuser123456 5y ago

Such a Faustian bargain; giving up the ability to store child porn in the cloud for reliable backups and seamless access across devices... I can't believe people put up with this!

BobbyJo 5y ago
And giving up the ability to carry a gun in exchange for safe streets for everyone! Lunacy! /s If it would 100% eliminate child pornography and not produce a residual erosion of personal privacy no one would be arguing against it. It won't solve the problem. It will erode privacy. It's perfectly reasonable to be not ok with it.
- jpmoral 5y ago
  Why does the elimination have to be 100% and the privacy erosion be 0 for it to be worthwhile? To be clear I'm not saying that Apple are right to do this or that there aren't privacy concerns. What I am saying is that those thresholds seem unreasonable.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    Because that's the only way an individual's value system wouldn't come into play. If it's anything less than completely fixed and anything more than no erosion of privacy, then it just depends on how important privacy is to the person. I personally think privacy is super important, and it would take massive changes in how society and our government work before I was willing to give it up for just about anything.
- anonuser123456 5y ago
  What information leaks from the system? That a user isn't storing child porn on Apple servers? That's literally the only information emitted by the system _unless_ you have actual child porn on your system.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago

KingOfCoders 5y ago

"privacy for the long-term." Apple cares about your privacy as long as it helps their marketing position against Amazon, Google and Facebook. If they decide for a different marketing, you will lose all your privacy. If their bottom line dips they will sell your data in a heartbeat. The EFF cares about your privacy.

herbst 5y ago

You moved your entire digital life to a walled garden because of some believe? I hope you see the deeper issue here.

systemsignal 5y ago

Check out what it’s actually doing “ Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo is sexually explicit. The feature is designed so that Apple does not get access to the messages.” https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ It’s all on-device which satisfies E2E I believe

ric2b 5y ago
It doesn't satisfy E2E, it works around it.