7 ms·

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

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.
    - Grazester 5y ago
      Ok but this is not Windows, Which the op stated
- Grazester 5y ago
  What are you talking about?
threeseed 5y ago
> finding someone possessing CP to automatically considering them a child molester, yet someone posessing an action movie is not considered a murderer Sure sounds like you're trying to justify child pornography here.
rossmohax 5y ago
> yet someone posessing an action movie is not considered a murderer. I think it is more similar to drugs, possesing one doesn't mean you are consuming it, yet it is an illegal substance and production, transportation and distribution are understandably not allowed.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Good point. There are over 80,000 drug overdose deaths a year in the US, if these systems can detect nudity and CSAM, then why not save tens of thousands of lives by detecting heroin and fentanyl dealers, too?
slg 5y ago
>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 movie is not considered a murderer. This is a wild and in my opinion a wrongheaded analogy. Possessing CP is a crime by itself. It doesn't matter if the person possessing is actually a molester or not. It is just like the possession of drugs being illegal and it does not matter whether the person has actually taken or plans to take those drugs.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  Yeah it wasn't meant to be an analogy. For example consider a real murder video, is its posession illegal and does it mean its owner should be a murder suspect?
  - slg 5y ago
    You are still falling into the same line of thinking here. The person isn't arrested because we assume they are a molester. They are arrested for possessing illegal material. Your argument here really sounds like you are suggesting that CP should be legal and it is the action of molesting that should be illegal. I don't think you would find many people who agree with that. Society has decided both are separate crimes and while there is likely large overlap, overlap is not required to be charged for either crime individually.
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      > Society has decided both are separate crimes Actually it's legislators and the courts that come up with these laws and they are complicated. The question is if these laws reduce child abuse or simply increase spying, and in the end what is the acceptable balance between these two.
      - slg 5y ago
        Legislators are a proxy for society. Do you believe that if you polled the US that any sizable portion of the country would be in support of legalizing CP?
Asmod4n 5y ago
Microsoft already does this. „Microsoft removes content that contains apparent CSEAI. As a US-based company, Microsoft reports all apparent CSEAI to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) via the CyberTipline, as required by US law. During the period of July – December 2020, Microsoft submitted 63,813 reports to NCMEC. We suspend the account(s) associated with the content we have reported to NCMEC for CSEAI or child sexual grooming violations.“ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/digital-safety-content-report https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/dig...
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  I think that's for files uploaded to onedrive etc. Not for all the files on any windows pc
  - Asmod4n 5y ago
    The encouranged windows 10 setting is to sync your whole profile to OneDrive.
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      Does this imply that apple was not checking the photos stored in their servers for CP? Then icloud must have been the best way to share it
      - Asmod4n 5y ago
        It at least looks like apple is the last one to do this. google, flickr, facebook, twitter etc did this since forever.
        jachee 5y ago
        Almost like Apple was the last holdout to not give up customers’ privacy, and eventually had to cave. So they came up with a sophisticated system to handle the scanning on-device, and only for data that’s already destined for their servers.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
u10 5y ago
> possessing CP to automatically considering them a child molester, yet someone posessing an action movie is not considered a murderer That's specious reasoning. Someone who posesses an action movie likes action movies, while someone who posesses child porn likes child porn. One is ok, the other is pretty vile and illegal for a reason. I don't agree with Apple on this but let's be clear on what is and what isn't
- flutas 5y ago
  > Someone who posesses an action movie likes action movies, while someone who posesses child porn likes child porn. Unless it's planted. [0] Or sent to you. [1] Or (farther out there) happens to be embedded on a site you visited and ends up in your browser cache. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia-fake-news-hacking-cybersecurity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/vladimir-put... [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/nyregion/alex-jones-sandy-hook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/nyregion/alex-jones-sandy...
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    It only scans images in your iCloud Photo Library. Not paying for iCloud? No scanning. Not in your photo library? No scanning. And even then, only for known content, not new content.
    - runlevel1 5y ago
      So the attacker only needs to get access to your iCloud. Your iPhone will happily sync down photos uploaded elsewhere. You don't have to be paying for iCloud, either. There's a free tier, so I'd imagine almost all iPhones are using some tier of it. iCloud account break-ins aren't exactly rare. An accusation, even if false, could ruin an innocent person's life.
      - mercora 5y ago
        > There's a free tier, so I'd imagine almost all iPhones are using some tier of it. i was quite surprised to see this was the default or at least was setup unknowingly to me.
mike3498234 5y ago
> 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 movie is not considered a murderer. Are you suggesting it's OK to possess CP as long as you're not a molester? What a fucking idiot.
- hughrr 5y ago
  That's a stupid assumption to make based on that. If someone emails or messages you a picture then you're in possession of it if you chose to be or not.
  - Mike8435 5y ago
    No it was not a stupid assumption. You need to read more carefully as I exposed a flaw in his reasoning. The suggestion was that since CP possession does not prove physical molestation, therefore it is OK. Actually possession of CP is a crime in itself. This is an objective fact. I've known of otherwise intelligent people who do believe its actually OK to possess child porn if they're not physically molesting anyone.
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      Of course it is not OK. Does making it illegal and violating everyone's privacy rights reduce child abuse? I'd like to see the evidence. Another example is virtual child pornography which , evil as it is, does not harm anyone during its production, yet that is also illegal (in the US). The question is how far will governments go with the instrumentalization of child abuse prevention in order to spy on their own citizens
  - mike3498234 5y ago
    No it was not a stupid assumption. You need to read more carefully as I exposed a flaw in his reasoning. The suggestion was that since CP possession does not prove physical molestation, therefore it is OK. Actually possession of CP is a crime in itself. This is an objective fact. I've known of otherwise intelligent people who do believe its actually OK to possess child porn if they're not physically molesting anyone.
PhasmaFelis 5y ago
> 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 movie is not considered a murderer. Filming an action movie does not require actually murdering people.
- jeltz 5y ago
  And neither does producing child porn. Drawn child porn is banned in most countries.
  - PhasmaFelis 5y ago
    And that's silly. But I'm talking about actual child porn. I'm not defending Apple. I'm saying it's absurd to act like "merely" distributing explicit photos taken without the subject's consent is a victimless crime.
anonuser123456 5y ago
>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. That is because the consumption of child porn induces people to create it. The consumption of action movies does not induce people to murder anyone.
- aj3 5y ago
  [citation needed]
- hakfoo 5y ago
  I'm curious to what extent the demand for new child porn content is directly driven by its illegal nature. Some proportion of existing content has been discovered, tagged, and hashed. The legally and technically savvy members of the audience would likely know this. In such an environment, "old standard" content would be seen as riskier to hold or exchange. A completely fresh, new abuse image is the least likely to trip any automated monitoring system. I could also easily see warez-ratio style "you've got to share something new to get access to our content" patterns, to try to discourage law-enforcement infiltration of their groups and to ensure "if I go down, I take you with me" legal leverage.
userbinator 5y ago
Of course, the next step after that is to make "non-authorised" operating systems -- which may include Linux (except for specially signed versions that will also include similar spyware) -- "deprecated" or "discouraged", then "suspicious", and perhaps even eventually illegal. Stallman predicted a similar outcome, and although he (and many others) thought the end of computing freedom would be due to copyright/DRM, I wouldn't be surprised if "the children" is what eventually pushes things over the edge. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html in a situation like the attach in US capitol this year ...and as much as I'd like to see at least that amount of "watering the liberty tree" directed at Big Tech, it unfortunately would likely lead to even more authoritarian outcomes. Any future fights for freedom will need to happen online and non-violently, but on platforms that are also under their control.
- mulmen 5y ago
  > ...and as much as I'd like to see at least that amount of "watering the liberty tree" directed at Big Tech […] I’m having a hard time finding a reading of this that isn’t advocating violence against tech workers. Is that what you intended?
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Given corporate personhood, destroying the companies could be considered corporate murder. (I admit it's a very stretched reading.)
    - mulmen 5y ago
      I agree that is a favorable reading. But it is especially a stretch in the context of January 6th which involved violence directed at people. And the rest of the paragraph laments that future action must be nonviolent.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        So, in fact, it's not advocating the violence.

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.
  - Grazester 5y ago
    Ok but this is not Windows, Which the op stated
Grazester 5y ago
What are you talking about?

threeseed 5y ago

> finding someone possessing CP to automatically considering them a child molester, yet someone posessing an action movie is not considered a murderer Sure sounds like you're trying to justify child pornography here.

rossmohax 5y ago

> yet someone posessing an action movie is not considered a murderer. I think it is more similar to drugs, possesing one doesn't mean you are consuming it, yet it is an illegal substance and production, transportation and distribution are understandably not allowed.

heavyset_go 5y ago
Good point. There are over 80,000 drug overdose deaths a year in the US, if these systems can detect nudity and CSAM, then why not save tens of thousands of lives by detecting heroin and fentanyl dealers, too?

slg 5y ago

>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 movie is not considered a murderer. This is a wild and in my opinion a wrongheaded analogy. Possessing CP is a crime by itself. It doesn't matter if the person possessing is actually a molester or not. It is just like the possession of drugs being illegal and it does not matter whether the person has actually taken or plans to take those drugs.

cblconfederate 5y ago
Yeah it wasn't meant to be an analogy. For example consider a real murder video, is its posession illegal and does it mean its owner should be a murder suspect?
- slg 5y ago
  You are still falling into the same line of thinking here. The person isn't arrested because we assume they are a molester. They are arrested for possessing illegal material. Your argument here really sounds like you are suggesting that CP should be legal and it is the action of molesting that should be illegal. I don't think you would find many people who agree with that. Society has decided both are separate crimes and while there is likely large overlap, overlap is not required to be charged for either crime individually.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    > Society has decided both are separate crimes Actually it's legislators and the courts that come up with these laws and they are complicated. The question is if these laws reduce child abuse or simply increase spying, and in the end what is the acceptable balance between these two.
    - slg 5y ago
      Legislators are a proxy for society. Do you believe that if you polled the US that any sizable portion of the country would be in support of legalizing CP?

Asmod4n 5y ago

Microsoft already does this. „Microsoft removes content that contains apparent CSEAI. As a US-based company, Microsoft reports all apparent CSEAI to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) via the CyberTipline, as required by US law. During the period of July – December 2020, Microsoft submitted 63,813 reports to NCMEC. We suspend the account(s) associated with the content we have reported to NCMEC for CSEAI or child sexual grooming violations.“ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/digital-safety-content-report https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/dig...

cblconfederate 5y ago
I think that's for files uploaded to onedrive etc. Not for all the files on any windows pc
- Asmod4n 5y ago
  The encouranged windows 10 setting is to sync your whole profile to OneDrive.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    Does this imply that apple was not checking the photos stored in their servers for CP? Then icloud must have been the best way to share it
    - Asmod4n 5y ago
      It at least looks like apple is the last one to do this. google, flickr, facebook, twitter etc did this since forever.
      - jachee 5y ago
        Almost like Apple was the last holdout to not give up customers’ privacy, and eventually had to cave. So they came up with a sophisticated system to handle the scanning on-device, and only for data that’s already destined for their servers.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

u10 5y ago

> possessing CP to automatically considering them a child molester, yet someone posessing an action movie is not considered a murderer That's specious reasoning. Someone who posesses an action movie likes action movies, while someone who posesses child porn likes child porn. One is ok, the other is pretty vile and illegal for a reason. I don't agree with Apple on this but let's be clear on what is and what isn't

flutas 5y ago
> Someone who posesses an action movie likes action movies, while someone who posesses child porn likes child porn. Unless it's planted. [0] Or sent to you. [1] Or (farther out there) happens to be embedded on a site you visited and ends up in your browser cache. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/vladimir-putin-russia-fake-news-hacking-cybersecurity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/vladimir-put... [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/nyregion/alex-jones-sandy-hook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/nyregion/alex-jones-sandy...
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  It only scans images in your iCloud Photo Library. Not paying for iCloud? No scanning. Not in your photo library? No scanning. And even then, only for known content, not new content.
  - runlevel1 5y ago
    So the attacker only needs to get access to your iCloud. Your iPhone will happily sync down photos uploaded elsewhere. You don't have to be paying for iCloud, either. There's a free tier, so I'd imagine almost all iPhones are using some tier of it. iCloud account break-ins aren't exactly rare. An accusation, even if false, could ruin an innocent person's life.
    - mercora 5y ago
      > There's a free tier, so I'd imagine almost all iPhones are using some tier of it. i was quite surprised to see this was the default or at least was setup unknowingly to me.

mike3498234 5y ago

hughrr 5y ago
That's a stupid assumption to make based on that. If someone emails or messages you a picture then you're in possession of it if you chose to be or not.
- Mike8435 5y ago
  No it was not a stupid assumption. You need to read more carefully as I exposed a flaw in his reasoning. The suggestion was that since CP possession does not prove physical molestation, therefore it is OK. Actually possession of CP is a crime in itself. This is an objective fact. I've known of otherwise intelligent people who do believe its actually OK to possess child porn if they're not physically molesting anyone.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    Of course it is not OK. Does making it illegal and violating everyone's privacy rights reduce child abuse? I'd like to see the evidence. Another example is virtual child pornography which , evil as it is, does not harm anyone during its production, yet that is also illegal (in the US). The question is how far will governments go with the instrumentalization of child abuse prevention in order to spy on their own citizens
- mike3498234 5y ago
  No it was not a stupid assumption. You need to read more carefully as I exposed a flaw in his reasoning. The suggestion was that since CP possession does not prove physical molestation, therefore it is OK. Actually possession of CP is a crime in itself. This is an objective fact. I've known of otherwise intelligent people who do believe its actually OK to possess child porn if they're not physically molesting anyone.

PhasmaFelis 5y ago

jeltz 5y ago
And neither does producing child porn. Drawn child porn is banned in most countries.
- PhasmaFelis 5y ago
  And that's silly. But I'm talking about actual child porn. I'm not defending Apple. I'm saying it's absurd to act like "merely" distributing explicit photos taken without the subject's consent is a victimless crime.

anonuser123456 5y ago

>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. That is because the consumption of child porn induces people to create it. The consumption of action movies does not induce people to murder anyone.

aj3 5y ago
[citation needed]
hakfoo 5y ago
I'm curious to what extent the demand for new child porn content is directly driven by its illegal nature. Some proportion of existing content has been discovered, tagged, and hashed. The legally and technically savvy members of the audience would likely know this. In such an environment, "old standard" content would be seen as riskier to hold or exchange. A completely fresh, new abuse image is the least likely to trip any automated monitoring system. I could also easily see warez-ratio style "you've got to share something new to get access to our content" patterns, to try to discourage law-enforcement infiltration of their groups and to ensure "if I go down, I take you with me" legal leverage.

userbinator 5y ago

Of course, the next step after that is to make "non-authorised" operating systems -- which may include Linux (except for specially signed versions that will also include similar spyware) -- "deprecated" or "discouraged", then "suspicious", and perhaps even eventually illegal. Stallman predicted a similar outcome, and although he (and many others) thought the end of computing freedom would be due to copyright/DRM, I wouldn't be surprised if "the children" is what eventually pushes things over the edge. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html in a situation like the attach in US capitol this year ...and as much as I'd like to see at least that amount of "watering the liberty tree" directed at Big Tech, it unfortunately would likely lead to even more authoritarian outcomes. Any future fights for freedom will need to happen online and non-violently, but on platforms that are also under their control.

mulmen 5y ago
> ...and as much as I'd like to see at least that amount of "watering the liberty tree" directed at Big Tech […] I’m having a hard time finding a reading of this that isn’t advocating violence against tech workers. Is that what you intended?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Given corporate personhood, destroying the companies could be considered corporate murder. (I admit it's a very stretched reading.)
  - mulmen 5y ago
    I agree that is a favorable reading. But it is especially a stretch in the context of January 6th which involved violence directed at people. And the rest of the paragraph laments that future action must be nonviolent.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      So, in fact, it's not advocating the violence.