5 ms·

How is this system, where Apple sees far less photos, worse? You can't audit anything Apple does on their servers.

• feross 5y ago
  Now that a fully built system for breaking end-to-end encryption is shipped directly in the OS, we're one configuration change away from massive scope creep. First terrorist content, then "misinformation", then political speech. Apple will be unable to resist government demands to use this preexisting backdoor with a different set of perceptual hashes.
  • shuckles 5y ago
    Disabling end to end encryption is always “one configuration change” away, presumably by substituting keys. How closely do you keep track of which keys are used to encrypt Health data - which is end to end encrypted - versus photos - which are not?
    • dannyw 5y ago
      If Apple substitutes keys, then that is a detectable event (by jailbroken devices) and that would make news. This is Apple explicitly announcing they are actively backdooring all iOS and Mac devices, and using your CPU cycles to determine whether you should be reported to the government.
      • shuckles 5y ago
        Not really. Key management is done by the SEP, which can’t be introspected. And again, database updates take an iOS update so the back door threat is the exact same.
        • Hackbraten 5y ago
          > database updates take an iOS update macOS already supports silent database updates, for example for Gatekeeper and MRT signatures. Why wouldn’t Apple use this feature on iOS, too?
          • shuckles 5y ago
            Because it’s bad for privacy.
            • Hackbraten 5y ago
              What do you mean by that?
  • davidcbc 5y ago
    It's not built to break end-to-end encryption because photos in iCloud aren't end-to-end encrypted https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303
    • feross 5y ago
      Then ask yourself why they shipped this scanning on the client-side. This is the first step towards normalizing client-side scanning of encrypted content across the entire device.
      • davidcbc 5y ago
        Hopefully so they can remove their current ability to decrypt user photos for whatever reason they want. The current state is they can decrypt any user photos on iCloud. Doing client side scanning and this CSAM detection implementation could allow them to remove their ability to decrypt EXCEPT in very specific situations. It's not true end-to-end encryption since in some cases the content can be decrypted without the user key but it's significantly closer than what they have today. That being said I don't know if that is their plan or not, but it is a plausible reason to make this change.
        • ScoobleDoodle 5y ago
          If they can decrypt in a “specialized” situation, then they can decrypt in any situation. All that has to be done is to broaden the classifier step by step. Or someone else gets access to the back door. That’s why there can be zero allowed back doors.
          • Thorrez 5y ago
            They can decrypt iCloud content currently, so it wouldn't be a step back. On the topic of backdoors, automatic update systems could be used as backdoors.
            • 5y ago
  • midev 5y ago
    This doesn't break end-to-end encryption. If you're going to comment on this topic you need to be technically aware of how it works. You're just spreading nonsense.
• serf 5y ago
  >How is this system, where Apple sees far less photos, worse? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_collision option three : don't allow Apple to judge user data at all.
  • gowld 5y ago
    That's non-responsive to the topic of the thread.
• almostdigital 5y ago
  It's disturbing because of how effective it could be. It's at OS level, anything you have on your phone can be scanned. Even if an app tries to circumvent it by keeping files encrypted at rest it can scan them in-memory. And since it's all done client-side you'd never know it was happening until it found a match and sent it to Apple.
  • deleted 5y ago
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