5 ms·

I'm in two minds about this Apple news. In one part, the pro-privacy part of me is of course aghast at the whole idea. However... If you "read the room", the

I'm in two minds about this Apple news. In one part, the pro-privacy part of me is of course aghast at the whole idea. However... If you "read the room", there have been increasing noises from the global political world in recent years, and perhaps especially in the US. So if you think about it that way, it might be a case of Apple jumping before they were pushed. I mean, let's face it, if you wait for the politicos to come up with a solution and force it through with legislation, they really would put in actual backdoors and encryption bans given half the chance. I suspect others, such as WhatsApp, might begrudgingly follow in due course. There's always GPG and a whole litany of other tools and apps for those who know what they are doing in terms of privacy.

ndr 5y ago
> There's always GPG and a whole litany of other tools and apps for those who know what they are doing in terms of privacy. And it's always there also for whoever they claim to want to catch, so this measure is useless. This is not protecting anyone, Apple might very well be anticipating the regulation, but that does not automatically deserve our praise. We should fight against this implementation and any regulation requiring similar measures.
- comeonseriously 5y ago
  > And it's always there also for whoever they claim to want to catch, so this measure is useless. Right. This will, a) catch the low hanging fruit type of criminal and b) keep honest people honest while forcing them to give up something for nothing.
  - ndr 5y ago
    c) non-trivial chance it will be used for something much worse than what (a) & (b) fix, without solving the main issue That risk is not tiny, can you imagine any authoritarian government asking a compliant Apple to remove inconvenient pictures?
studentrob 5y ago
> let's face it, if you wait for the politicos to come up with a solution and force it through with legislation, they really would put in actual backdoors and encryption bans given half the chance. They've tried to do this for decades and have failed. If they're going to do it then let it be on record. Let's see how voters like it.
- dnh44 5y ago
  Well, they could always try putting pressure on the tech giants in other places via other means in order to get them to acquiesce to these sorts of anti-privacy measures. Maybe via things like anti-trust measures which seem to be popular.
- altantiprocrast 5y ago
  90% of the voters are too stupid or probably don't even know what encryption is. Many are also going to stick to party lines. It just matters whether the 10% swing voters will care about this issue *more than* the other awful things the leadership is doing.
  - studentrob 5y ago
    Plenty do know and care when news outlets' tech experts report on seemingly incomprehensible topics such as net neutrality or encryption. You can't white wash expert opinion. Again, the government has been asking for this for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
- thw0rted 5y ago
  Bad news, buddy: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/message-screening/?lang=en https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/message-screening/?la... ETA: in short, about a month ago they did get the votes, at least in the EU, and it's now "allowed" for providers to scan all content. In a little while, they're going to have a vote to change "allowed" to "required", and we have no reason to think it'll go differently.
  - 5y ago
unionpivo 5y ago
This is worse. If they ban encryption tech sector will kick up enough noise that even non tech people will at least notice. This way, it essentially opens a backdoor. Changing this from scanning hashes of pictures stored locally, to scanning for arbitrary things stored locally probably is not monumental task ( next in line probably hate speech ). And once you have that capability it's hard to argue to governments that you cant let them scan the content of either particular phone, or all of the phones, for whatever they want, which could be: .* This way, the message to non techies will be, we are protecting children, but bunch of online weirdos and maybe pedophiles don't want us too.
- hef19898 5y ago
  I'd say next in line would be stuff oppressive governments don't like. Winnie the Puuh might be front runner along with men standing shirtless in front of tanks.
  - unionpivo 5y ago
    Everything sold in China, already has that. Remember ICloud is operated by Chinese company in china.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      And we all now that these governments stop carrying about their citizens at the border. Not.
      - zepto 5y ago
        Are you claiming that China will force Apple to scan the phones of US citizens now?
        hef19898 5y ago
        Not necessarily, but I jave no reason to believe China, Saudi, Turkey, the UAE or other countries with some kind of leverage won't try. Especially with their own citizens living abroad.

ndr 5y ago

> There's always GPG and a whole litany of other tools and apps for those who know what they are doing in terms of privacy. And it's always there also for whoever they claim to want to catch, so this measure is useless. This is not protecting anyone, Apple might very well be anticipating the regulation, but that does not automatically deserve our praise. We should fight against this implementation and any regulation requiring similar measures.

comeonseriously 5y ago
> And it's always there also for whoever they claim to want to catch, so this measure is useless. Right. This will, a) catch the low hanging fruit type of criminal and b) keep honest people honest while forcing them to give up something for nothing.
- ndr 5y ago
  c) non-trivial chance it will be used for something much worse than what (a) & (b) fix, without solving the main issue That risk is not tiny, can you imagine any authoritarian government asking a compliant Apple to remove inconvenient pictures?

studentrob 5y ago

> let's face it, if you wait for the politicos to come up with a solution and force it through with legislation, they really would put in actual backdoors and encryption bans given half the chance. They've tried to do this for decades and have failed. If they're going to do it then let it be on record. Let's see how voters like it.

dnh44 5y ago
Well, they could always try putting pressure on the tech giants in other places via other means in order to get them to acquiesce to these sorts of anti-privacy measures. Maybe via things like anti-trust measures which seem to be popular.
altantiprocrast 5y ago
90% of the voters are too stupid or probably don't even know what encryption is. Many are also going to stick to party lines. It just matters whether the 10% swing voters will care about this issue *more than* the other awful things the leadership is doing.
- studentrob 5y ago
  Plenty do know and care when news outlets' tech experts report on seemingly incomprehensible topics such as net neutrality or encryption. You can't white wash expert opinion. Again, the government has been asking for this for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars
thw0rted 5y ago
Bad news, buddy: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/message-screening/?lang=en https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/message-screening/?la... ETA: in short, about a month ago they did get the votes, at least in the EU, and it's now "allowed" for providers to scan all content. In a little while, they're going to have a vote to change "allowed" to "required", and we have no reason to think it'll go differently.
- 5y ago

unionpivo 5y ago

This is worse. If they ban encryption tech sector will kick up enough noise that even non tech people will at least notice. This way, it essentially opens a backdoor. Changing this from scanning hashes of pictures stored locally, to scanning for arbitrary things stored locally probably is not monumental task ( next in line probably hate speech ). And once you have that capability it's hard to argue to governments that you cant let them scan the content of either particular phone, or all of the phones, for whatever they want, which could be: .* This way, the message to non techies will be, we are protecting children, but bunch of online weirdos and maybe pedophiles don't want us too.

hef19898 5y ago
I'd say next in line would be stuff oppressive governments don't like. Winnie the Puuh might be front runner along with men standing shirtless in front of tanks.
- unionpivo 5y ago
  Everything sold in China, already has that. Remember ICloud is operated by Chinese company in china.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    And we all now that these governments stop carrying about their citizens at the border. Not.
    - zepto 5y ago
      Are you claiming that China will force Apple to scan the phones of US citizens now?
      - hef19898 5y ago
        Not necessarily, but I jave no reason to believe China, Saudi, Turkey, the UAE or other countries with some kind of leverage won't try. Especially with their own citizens living abroad.