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Apple’s Mistake

• chovybizzass 5y ago
  Coming soon. Illegal meme hash scanning
  • ezekg 5y ago
    Also on the roadmap: scanning for images of illegal firearms.
    • nuclearnice1 5y ago
      Scanning photos for images of suspects in crimes. Checking location info on photos for evidence for investigation. Scanning texts for online bullying and sexual harassment. Searching bank statements for tax compliance and money laundering.
    • robertoandred 5y ago
      Scanning for arbitrary subjects is wildly impractical. There are, what, trillions of photographs of guns in the world?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • xanaxagoras 5y ago
      Also on the roadmap: making all firearms illegal.
  • toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Copyright scanning. Show us you legitimately bought and have a license to this content. Worry not if you don’t, the fines are automatic with Apple Pay.
• 1cvmask 5y ago
  This invasive capability on the device level is a massive intrusion on everyone's privacy and there will be no limits for governments to expand it's reach once implemented. The scope will always broaden. From the article: Apple’s choices in this case, though, go in the opposite direction: instead of adding CSAM-scanning to iCloud Photos in the cloud that they own-and-operate, Apple is compromising the phone that you and I own-and-operate, without any of us having a say in the matter. Yes, you can turn off iCloud Photos to disable Apple’s scanning, but that is a policy decision; the capability to reach into a user’s phone now exists, and there is nothing an iPhone user can do to get rid of it. A far better solution to the “Flickr problem” I started with is to recognize that the proper point of comparison is not the iPhone and Facebook, but rather Facebook and iCloud. One’s device ought be one’s property, with all of the expectations of ownership and privacy that entails; cloud services, meanwhile, are the property of their owners as well, with all of the expectations of societal responsibility and law-abiding which that entails. It’s truly disappointing that Apple got so hung up on its particular vision of privacy that it ended up betraying the fulcrum of user control: being able to trust that your device is truly yours.
  • onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    It's hard to argue they did this for a vision of privacy. They did this because they want YOUR phone to be a liability not THEIR servers.
    • aNoob7000 5y ago
      To make it even worse they extended the functionality to Mac OSX. WTF???
      • cassianoleal 5y ago
        Do you have references for this? I must have missed this part.
        • Xylakant 5y ago
          https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/, at the bottom lists macOS as target platform.
• ren_engineer 5y ago
  this is just a show of loyalty to the government to prevent any sort of monopoly action against Apple. The government actually loves monopolies because it makes monitoring citizens easier. The Feds would hate for Google, Facebook, or Apple to be broken up. Much better to have everybody using a small number of platforms with government backdoor access Wouldn't be surprised if this was agreed to behind closed doors in exchange for other assurances from the government. The government passing laws forcing Apple to do this would be very bad PR, better for Apple to appear to do it voluntarily
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • Rd6n6 5y ago
    > The government actually loves monopolies because it makes monitoring citizens easier. You make it sound like the government is a single person with a plan. I don’t think people and departments in a government are very coherent and aligned, it’s a huge number of people with a zoo of mandates and everyone is fighting to be seen as somebody who makes things happen
    • kfprt 5y ago
      In this case the incentives align. Much easier dealing with one or two parties than many.
  • 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    >The government actually loves monopolies because it makes monitoring citizens easier. Care to cite a source for that claim?
• villgax 5y ago
  Apple literally went 1984 at this point
  • crookshanked 5y ago
    full circle! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
  • cwkoss 5y ago
    They had to kill Big Brother to become Big Brother
• briefcomment 5y ago
  I may consider getting a stand alone camera now.
  • josephcsible 5y ago
    Apple is going to scan images you download too, not just ones you take with your camera. Leaving their ecosystem is way more important than just getting a standalone camera.
    • briefcomment 5y ago
      Do you mean this would apply to Macs too? So if I used some non-Apple photo app, and uploaded photos from a camera, they would be similarly monitored?
      • robertoandred 5y ago
        No, they wouldn't. It's only scanning photos you're uploading to iCloud Photo Library via Apple's Photos app.
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
      • rvz 5y ago
        > Do you mean this would apply to Macs too? From [0] 'These features are coming later this year in updates to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey.' So yes. Also by the OP: > iMessage encrypts messages end-to-end by default; however, if you have iCloud backup turned on, your messages can be accessed by Apple (who has the keys for iCloud backups) and, by extension, law enforcement with a warrant. So if you use iMessage and iCloud Photos then they will be scanned by Apple. Won't be surprised to see the on-device scanning feature more prevalent on M1/M1X Macs. [0] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/
        • 5y ago
• Kharvok 5y ago
  This is just a side-step away from complying with regimes that will want to use this capabilty to attack political speech or outlawed literature.
  • davewritescode 5y ago
    Apple is a company that has gone completely out of it's way to protect their users from end-to-end encryption and refusing to introduce backdoors into their products to get data from suspected terrorists. These slippery slope type arguments tend to assume that there is no middle ground between sides of this argument.
    • amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      “Unreasonable search and seizure” in the US has traditionally meant you needed a warrant from a judge stating specifically where you are going to search and what you are searching for. We now seem to be just tossing that out of the window. The government can’t do it, but it can deputize a private organization to do it and that makes it now ok?
      • mirkules 5y ago
        I have been saying this for years now. The gov’t is basically outsourcing violating the constitution to companies. Free speech? Just have Twitter, Facebook and Google censor unacceptable speech. 4th amendment? Have the private sector violate it. Easy peasy.
• asaddhamani 5y ago
  > These efforts will evolve and expand over time. I have no doubt they will. Pandora’s box has been opened, and okay, today the scanning is only for images uploaded to iCloud, and only for CSAM. But that is not auditable and subject to change at any time without notice. And today it is only looking at known hashes but the devices already have a capability to analyse images and even run OCR on them, this is not a matter of of these things will be weaponised but when. Can’t believe this is the same Apple that publicly defended the right to privacy for known terrorists by using the slippery slope argument themselves. The mind boggles.
  • comfymatrix 5y ago
    > today the scanning is only for images uploaded to iCloud, and only for CSAM This, to me, would be exponentially less privacy invasive as I’ve come to assume all major cloud hosting providers implement something like this (look at Google Drive), but Apple has said that the scanning is done on-device, meaning whether or not you upload your photo library to iCloud, your local photos will be scanned with an on-device database of hashes. Essentially iOS photos now implement a direct API call to the feds with some vague “human verification” layer if you go above an unknown threshold
    • asaddhamani 5y ago
      Right, this is what all the articles on this matter are getting wrong, unknowingly or otherwise. It’ll be one flag switch to change from scanning uploaded images to scanning local images. This is an erosion of fundamental human rights under the guise of “think of the children“ so that anyone who stands up against this tyranny can be labelled a “pedophile”. 1984 wasn’t like 1984 but 2021 is surely looking that way.
      • runawaybottle 5y ago
        It’s a delayed concern for us in the West. First the bait and switch will happen in all parts of the third world, autocratic, and dictatorial governments. After all, our list of hashes will be different from what their agencies will provide. Across the globe Apple will assist in this. Then one day we get another Trumpian President who adds more categories of hashes in a place like America. What Apple is not willing to do is have that philosophical and ethical discussion with its customers. It has simply made the decision.
• bob33212 5y ago
  It is interesting how quickly people jump to the worse case scenario. Obviously, it is possible this power could be abused and someone like Trump would have no problem using to steal an election, but it is also possible Apple is going to put tight controls in place and only use it for the states purpose. Keep an open mind please.
  • ratww 5y ago
    The problem is that not even Apple can guarantee it's not gonna be used for anything nefarious, since they won't have (and probably don't want!) access to the source of the PhotoDNA hashes to inspect them. Not only we have to blindly trust Apple, we also have to trust a (government?) institution that most of us had never heard about before.
• Tycho 5y ago
  Brilliant guerrilla marketing move, really: anyone who chooses Android over iPhone now implicitly has some very unsavoury reasons for doing so. And if it was really a broader surveillance initiative pushed by the government, the same implication neutralises any protest.
  • briefcomment 5y ago
    As long as false positives are a thing, there are very practical reasons for switching, especially for those who have kids. I wouldn't be surprised if a completely innocent false positive gets you put on a list indefinitely, with little recourse.
    • whisps 5y ago
      False positives of the kind you're thinking of aren't possible--it's checking for hashes that match known bad images, not running machine learning/image detection to detect if the photo you just took contains bad content. The issue is that there's nothing stopping Apple/the government from marking anything it finds objectionable--like anti-government free speech--as a Bad Image, beyond CSAM.
      • simion314 5y ago
        The thing is Apple uses some custom hash thing with parameters generated by AIs. As some other article shows you can get conflicting hashes if some color patterns and shadows match. Also the threshold they mentioned is secret so it could be 1 or 2 or it could change in future.
      • briefcomment 5y ago
        Really, hashes are sufficiently unique? The objections I saw for this news were along the lines that random images could be manipulated to have hashes that match the flagged cases, in a way that was undetectable by the naked eye.
      • watt 5y ago
        Once the policy decision is made that it can run some kind of scanning, it opens the doors for any kind of scanning. Today it's that "neural hash", tomorrow it's going to do something even more invasive.
• baggy_trough 5y ago
  There is little difference between Apple's proposal and a continuously running AI snitch examining your display output for forbidden thoughts and images.
• sharken 5y ago
  This is shaping up to be a monumental mistake for Apple, which by now should result in scrapping all client-side scanning. If not, it will be an interesting test of how many users Apple will lose over this. Those Apple devices i might upgrade will now be put on hold, it is simply unacceptable what Apple is doing.
  • websites2023 5y ago
    >If not, it will be an interesting test of how many users Apple will lose over this. Lose.. to whom? PinePhone? Not trying to be flippant, but... there is no longer any option for the common user. No, my elderly mother is not going to download and flash a custom de-googled ROM for her OnePlus 9 Pro. Pure fantasy that Apple will lose users because of this. This is a nonstory to everyone who lives and works east of Tahoe.
    • sharken 5y ago
      As far as I know Android devices do not implement the scheme that Apple is considering. But you're right that some users absolutely do not care (or can only use Apple devices), they will now give up their right to privacy. But you don't have to look that far to see that a lot of users disagree with what Apple is doing here.
      • websites2023 5y ago
        >As far as I know Android devices do not implement the scheme that Apple is considering. No, instead they just scan everything you upload to their service: https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/10330933?hl=en#zippy=%2Cwhat-is-googles-approach-to-combating-csam%2Chow-does-google-identify-csam-on-its-platform%2Cwhat-does-google-do-when-it-detects-csam-on-its-platform https://support.google.com/transparencyreport/answer/1033093...
        • sharken 5y ago
          Which is at least transparent and importantly: it leaves the user with a choice of not using Google services, e.g. Gmail, Drive and Backup to name a few. And scanning for CSAM is certainly commendable, but the whole issue with Apple's implementation is that you lose your privacy on your own device. That is a step too far.
• gmac 5y ago
  It’s truly disappointing that Apple got so hung up on its particular vision of privacy that it ended up betraying the fulcrum of user control: being able to trust that your device is truly yours. This is it. Of course I'd like child pornographers to be caught. But right now my expensive phone will be using up valuable charge looking for photos that aren't there. And in future I can't be sure it won't be searching for evidence of support for the political opposition. (This is not only China or Gulf states: democracy seems on pretty shaky ground in the US, UK and elsewhere right now).
  • Klonoar 5y ago
    What makes you think this will churn battery? It’s one extra processing step that’s run before a photo syncs and then cached. You don’t sync every photo every time. Out of all the arguments on this site against this feature, the battery bit is by far the most unfounded one and super odd to see repeated on a technical forum.
    • gmac 5y ago
      I agree it’s probably not very much battery at all. But it’s not going to be none either, so the principle remains: it’s my phone using my electricity to check up on me without my consent. I really don’t like that.
• klelatti 5y ago
  This is (rightly) causing enormous damage to Apple's brand and undermining one of the key messages they are using to promote the iPhone. What is more I'm sure Apple's executive team would realise that this would be the case. I can't help but feel that someone has wielded a 'big stick' to get Apple to do this. If not it's a huge misjudgment.
  • whoknowswhat11 5y ago
    I keep on reading that taking steps to prevent CASM is doing "huge damage" to their brand. Or that blocking minors from sending nudes if they are on a child account under their parent is doing huge damage. Really? You know some late night comedian is going to do some jokes about pedo's having to switch to android. You think that is damaging to apples' brand? My guess is some android folks do a follow eventually (as usual). I'm a parent. Even for those of us who are into privacy etc (yes, I did the early PGP key signing parties, EFF / ACLU stuff etc) I'm having a hard time seeing how this damages Apple's brand. I don't want this crap being sent to my children - PERIOD. If they are on a child account PLEASE screen it. Folks - pay attention to the kind of laws that will get passed and do get passed. Most folks will throw away a lot of civil rights for these types of issues. I found the arguments against this surprisingly uncompelling. I saw an HN article about how apple is committing felonies etc - it just didn't seem well founded. And everything is over hyperbolic over the top its insane.
    • hendersoon 5y ago
      Apple's brand won't be sullied until they give-in to a government order to flag other types of illegal images (gay porn in Saudi Arabia, say, or pictures of the Tank Man in China) and are caught doing it. Apple's rejoinder is that they will simply refuse to do that. And that's great, until you consider that all the iPhones are made in China and China is more than willing to apply immense pressure including but not limited to shutting down Foxconn if they feel strongly about it.
      • whoknowswhat11 5y ago
        Most of the major tech co's have already adapted to China's requests. That in general means hosting data about chinese nationals in china, usually using state govt controlled datacenters, and making sure the keys to decrypt content are also local and accessible to those state controlled employees. You should have little to no privacy expectation in china as an example. For example AWS is careful to use this language about it's china regions: "Amazon Web Services China (Ningxia) Region operated by NWCD" They used to block KMS services in China as well. Apple has said it will (generally) follow the law in the countries it operates in. Until we say apple can make its own laws that is probably what it'll have to do.
• aeoleonn 5y ago
  Goodbye All Apple Devices Hello All Linux Devices
• josh_today 5y ago
  I wouldn’t stop where Ben Thompson drew the privacy line between “your device versus the cloud”. Your content should be your content regardless of where it lives. -Photos -Texts -Social Posts -Notes, Reminders These are all what make up a person’s life. At one point in the not so distant future all of our data will live in the cloud, are we then property of the cloud providers?
  • websites2023 5y ago
    What percentage of your computer's storage are you willing to rent out to storing CSAM?
  • least 5y ago
    I think it's a kind of fine distinction... for now. My primary concern with Apple's proposed implementation of CSAM detection hinges almost entirely on the fact that it is performed on device. I use iCloud photos right now knowing fully well that it is subject to these scans. I think ideally things would truly be E2E encrypted, in which case Apple or any other cloud provider doesn't have to trouble themselves about what's on their servers, since no one but the user could ever look at the contents of it. In this case a big blob of data up to the storage limits of the person's plan is the only thing they'd have to worry about. That is also the other issue with Apple's proposed implementation. It completely circumvents E2EE and makes it entirely pointless. It doesn't preserve privacy in any respect whatsoever. And to what end? You might capture a few people that are syncing their child porn on iCloud without encrypting it themselves first, but does this really make children any safer? It certainly endangers anyone using an iPhone given the technology doesn't discriminate against what kind of hashes it provides and increases the scope of surveillance on everyone. These sorts of things are extremely hard to undo.
  • aj3 5y ago
    That's a pretty idealistic view. I guess the issue boils down to whether you believe there are things in digital realms that are illegal to possess. For comparison, it's pretty obvious that there are certain things in physical realm that citizens shouldn't have. So it would be wrong to claim "my things are mine and no one should be able to inspect them or take away from me, no matter what those things are". Examples for things citizens should not posses: weapons of mass destruction and slaves. Apple et al argue that CSAM should be digital content that nobody ought to possess. So while you're obviously technically capable of storing it, it shouldn't be legal.
• 6502nerdface 5y ago
  This makes me appreciate the tough spot that Apple is in: > both the UK and the EU are moving forward on bills that mandate online service companies proactively look for and report CSAM. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the most important factor behind Apple’s move: the company doesn’t want to give up on end-to-end encryption — and likely wants to expand it — which leaves on-device scanning as the only way to satisfy governments not (just) in China but also the West.
  • josephcsible 5y ago
    If Apple really cared about privacy, they'd instead have spent some money to lobby against those bills.
    • davewritescode 5y ago
      There is no company on Earth who is going to take the side of child pornographers. Most of the arguments against this ignore the fact there is a legitimate chance that this type of technology will only be used to combat child abuse and not more nefarious purposes.
      • tiagod 5y ago
        What about terrorism, hate speech, etc? Most people would agree these are very bad things. Problem is there is no objective definition of what constitutes it.
    • bzbarsky 5y ago
      What makes you think they didn't? (I don't know whether they did or not, but I would absolutely expect such lobbying to (1) be happening and (2) be kept very quiet because it's too easy to spin it as "Apple supports pedophilia" or some such.)
  • mbauman 5y ago
    Even without a requirement to proactively scan, Apple is surely expanding its ML stack on photos to categorize and describe photos and persons in them. Is that not the simpler explanation for this?
• aeoleonn 5y ago
  Many of the biggest lies ever sold, such as the Operation Iraqi Liberation, started with "We must do it for The Children™!" Yet we have widespread evidence that political/financial elites engage in Child Sexual Abuse in a Cult-like way, as a condition for their assumption of political/financial power. When Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bill Richardson, many other politicians and financial elites (the majority are still in the shadows, not yet exposed to the public) have been jet setting with decades-known child sexual abusers such as their good friend Jeffrey Epstein, it really makes me question the ACTUAL motive. Ruling elites do not care about CSAM-- many of them engage in it, as part of unbeknownst or beknownst honey pot schemes, whereby blackmail is gathered on them as collateral that they will follow the political and financial dictates of their [ultimately] Israeli Intelligence handlers. This is merely an excuse to exercise power. And why now? Because you know qui are afraid that they've played their hand too sloppily-- forbidden knowledge on their true colors has spread too fast & they can't keep a lid on it-- and now populaces around the world are rioting against their satanic organization. Hence, this is likely to find and eliminate their political opponents from effecting their mission to centralize financial control. One way to centralize financial control: Demoralize and Destroy a capitalist society. Introduce communism. The massive revolution will cause real estate and capital prices to fall in relative value (such as thanks to massive inflation), making it all the easier to buy up by elites to further centralize their control. When you're happy with your level of control, re-implement Capitalism (but not before selling the most important state controlled infrastructure assets to your cronies) and the cycle begins a new. Such is the Capitalist-Communist dialectic that we've all been exposed to for the last ~120 years. Actual solution: Eliminate Israeli intelligence agents across the US Government & Economy. Hold Israel accountable. (Rather inconvenient to do when they're holding blackmail material on you as a politician)
  • nolawi89 5y ago
    why are you only calling out BILL's - coincidence I don't think so. You have a Bills only bias. :)
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• yuy910616 5y ago
  On somewhat of a side note, has anyone stopped their subscription to Stratechery in the past year? I've been a paid sub to Stratechery since the Amazon acquiring Wholefood article - I think Ben's thinking is really unique and valuable. But - I've recently stopped my subscription, partly because of change in my own finance, partly because I am no longer interested in what Ben wants to cover - namely privacy, policy, and anti-competitive. I miss the days where companies like Stitch Fix could earn a email. I think Ben is covering important topics - but it's not something that I'm really interested in. Plus the fact that each post seems to require a large amount of prior knowledge - manifested by the large amount of quotes in each email. What do you think? Have you found other blogs worth subscribing to?
• throwaway98797 5y ago
  Apple, That winnie the pooh with text over it sure does look like a problem. Can I haz alert to whoever has that? k. thx. — Xi Jinping
  • samatman 5y ago
    That ship has sailed. iCloud in China is controlled de facto by the CCP. Apple is taking something from its users in the West which its users in China never had. I walk by an iPhone billboard fairly frequently, all it says is "Privacy". I can come to only one conclusion as to why Apple is doing this, and it isn't because they're acting on their own free will in the interest of their business and users.
    • throwaway98797 5y ago
      Fair point. The sad part is that all the bad things need to happen for the populace to revolt. Most will forget about this intrusion and move on with their lives. And yet, i cant help but shed a tear for the liberity we all, in the good countries, are losing. bit by bit. rung by rung. but at least the phones keep getting better…
      • samatman 5y ago
        I'm optimistic, but only because things are getting so bad, so quickly, that I expect catastrophic change before the decade is out.
  • ComodoHacker 5y ago
    FYI, all Chinese phones have a mandatory app installed for years, which scans everything on device for these "problems" (as well as CSAM).
  • lern_too_spel 5y ago
    Not an unreasonable request, and don't be surprised if it affects phones outside of China too. https://www.wired.com/story/apple-china-censorship-bug-iphone-crash-emoji/ https://www.wired.com/story/apple-china-censorship-bug-iphon...
• lern_too_spel 5y ago
  > it ended up betraying the fulcrum of user control: being able to trust that your device is truly yours. The more opaque proprietary services a device runs, the less yours it can be. I'm surprised it took this long to remember this concept.
• somenewaccount1 5y ago
  > . Yes, you can turn off iCloud Photos to disable Apple’s scanning, so, Apple now has the ability to reach into every law abiding citizens personal phone - report them to the FBI when the algorithm makes mistakes (and it will - nothing is 100%, particular in image recognition), AND THEN THE PERPETRATORS CAN STILL GET AWAY BY JUST TURNING IT OFF??!??!?! My goodness, I couldn't imagine a stupider way to fight CSAM. > Facebook made 20.3 million reports of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in 2020. Were there 20.3 million arrests of offenders? I don't think so. I doubt they caught 20 perps from that data. While it may be a better algorithm, it should be a good warning of how often your' very legitimate and non-CSAM data will be leaked to a "verifier", and worse, to the authorities. Take a look at how often YouTube channels are taken down by "auto triggers" that are then "reviewed" and you will get a good idea of how often the government is going to screw law abiding citizens. It's not zero, and imho, it will be well above a range of "acceptable fallout".
  • 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
    When I saw that - 20.3 million reports - I was like... hold on. Apple's smaller reported numbers are probably almost completely accurate, whereas that 20 million number is almost guaranteed to be mostly wrong. Who really made the mistake? The one reporting cases that are almost definitely true? Or the one reporting so many false cases that authorities are buried in false reports?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • fistynuts 5y ago
      Listen to the story of any former Facebook content filtering employee and you would not be surprised by that figure. They have horrific jobs that leave them with PTSD and drive some to suicide. Also it's worth mentioning that 20 million flagged images does not mean 20 million unique offenders.
    • michaelmrose 5y ago
      For any population you test wherein the true positive rate is very low even a very low false positive rate will produce overwhelmingly false positives. Also you could trivially have 1 bad guy with thousands of photos being accounted as 5,000 reports instead of 1 report listing 5000 images.
• ab_testing 5y ago
  I think the real test would be the sales of the upcoming iPhone 13 . If Apple sees a material difference in their sales, they might consider changing that policy. However as things stand now, with Apple trying to move more of their revenue to services and the general stickiness of the Apple's platform, this change would be palatable to most users.
  • frickinLasers 5y ago
    > If Apple sees a material difference in their sales, they might consider changing that policy. I think the problem is that it's too late; they expended the effort to build the engine into iOS 15. As far as we know the FBI couldn't compel them to write code like this (see the case with the San Bernardino shooter), but it's easy to believe they could compel Apple to maintain this backdoor in the future.
  • Skunkleton 5y ago
    I probably won’t buy another iPhone at this point. I’m in a tough position because I have said the same about Android for other reasons. In the end, all I can say for sure is that I have lost my enthusiasm for consumer technology.
    • amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      Yeah I hear you. I started playing with computers in the early 80s. It was so much fun I made it my career. Computers and the internet were what was exciting and what I spent my time and energy with. Now I’m retired, and the exciting promise of all this technology has taken such a dark turn that I’m honestly less and less involved with it all. Better to spend time in my garden, or in nature, or eating and drinking with friends.
    • maerF0x0 5y ago
      I dont blame you. After all this change is retroactive to all iPhones, and you might see the iPhone 14 removes the scanning. But then iPhone 15 re-adds it. You're at their mercy.
• OzzyB 5y ago
  So in short: Apple respected its Users' privacy and therefore only reported a low number CSAM cases since it didn't monitor and scan anything. Facebook, because it doesn't respect its Users' privacy, wants to monitor and scan everything so it has to report large numbers of CSAM cases (in the millions). It seems to me that the "number of CSAM cases" is a nice (perverse?) corollary to how much a particular service respects its Users privacy.
• fassssst 5y ago
  Perhaps Apple should add “at home iCloud server” support to Macs so you can selfhost your personal iCloud, and keep all your data on your own property with easy UX.
• wallacoloo 5y ago
  > It’s truly disappointing that Apple got so hung up on its particular vision of privacy that it ended up betraying the fulcrum of user control: being able to trust that your device is truly yours. These devices haven’t been “truly yours” for a decade. Hence, jail-breaking. Maybe this is just the first time you‘ve encountered friction against the walled garden and become widely aware of its existence, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there before.
• qeternity 5y ago
  Most of the comments ignore that this is likely to be well received by many consumers, because it sounds good on the surface: Apple is using tech magic to fight bad guys. Hooray! Worse, it’s nearly impossible for a competitor to market against without risking the general population believing you tacitly approve CSAM. How does Google market Android without coming across like a safe haven for pedophilia?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • asteroidbelt 5y ago
    It's hard to predict what will consumers think. It will be enough to have one big scandal with police crashing into innocent person house after they shared a photo of their child on the beach with their close relatives to change public opinion of this feature. Even from business perspective Apple is playing very risky game here. It can backfire. Also let's keep in mind that iPhones are usually owned by higher income more educated left-leaning people. And have a look how MSM (which is generally left-leaning) writes about this feature. For example, Guardian here https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/07/week-in-patriarchy-apple-privacy https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/07/week-i... "Privacy. That’s (no longer) iPhone." Such coverage of Apple may result in people switching away from iPhones, or for example, switching to Google for photo storage, and switching further away from iMessage. It is very unclear how events will unfold.
  • wccrawford 5y ago
    In an era with so many people screaming, "Defund the police!" I can't see how reporting more stuff to the police automatically is going to go over well PR-wise. Even before that phrase, we were already in era of "Don't talk to the cops without your lawyer, especially if you're innocent." Giving those same cops more information is not in your own best interest.
    • qeternity 5y ago
      > In an era with so many people screaming, "Defund the police!" This is a very vocal, very small minority. The most ardent police reformers I know believe that law enforcement is necessary. Defunding has devastating consequences on those who are most vulnerable.
• andrewmcwatters 5y ago
  In reality, these devices are so complex, we really have no clue what they're already doing, and we've only found out about some of the more recent absurd things they're doing due to flaws with their implementations, such as MacBooks calling out to Apple before you can login after wake causing abnormally long wake times when network conditions are less than ideal or you're connected over international VPN, or calling out to their servers every time you launch an app. They could have not told us this at all, and we wouldn't have found out until some hacker playing around with network interfaces noticed unusual traffic going to Apple's iCloud servers from the bird daemon. What Apple is doing is distasteful to me, but I'm afraid the market is so poor in comparison, I don't know what else you could purchase besides Dell XPS systems running Ubuntu. But there's no phone version of that, to my knowledge.
  • ZekeSulastin 5y ago
    If you don’t mind custom ROMs etc, Pixels with GrapheneOS or similar?
    • andrewmcwatters 5y ago
      Yeah, my thought was the latest Pixel, flashed with something. But I'm not up-to-date on that world. I've never had an Android device as a personal device.
• ComputerGuru 5y ago
  This entire analysis is based off a flawed assumption - that it’s a matter of proactiveness and not a nature of platform differences that causes the reported CSAM numbers disparity. A social networking site/platform is one where previously created media is shared. iMessage pictures are not uploaded to iCloud Photos by default (they are part of the usually E2E content with the standard online backup caveat), only photo albums or photo rolls are - and those are overwhelmingly first or second party just-created content. This means that if comparing against known CSAM hashes, it’s extremely likely for Apple to find orders of magnitude less content in the first place. The only thing that their system can catch is first-party images that end up being distributed and registered with the various hash databases. Regardless of whether we are talking CSAM or anything else, it is the norm for the amount of content “created” to be significantly (as in several orders of magnitude) less than the material consumed. I don’t think scanning on the device vs scanning in the cloud is going to change any of that.
  • bloopernova 5y ago
    Will a neural hash of every picture be uploaded to Apple? If so, any abusive pictures that are discovered during pedophile ring arrests could be traced back to the phone that took them.
    • ComputerGuru 5y ago
      I don’t believe any non-matching hashes are uploaded (that’s part of the crypto work that has been done) but the device will periodically rescan previously ingested content, as I understand it.
      • tehnub 5y ago
        All are uploaded but only when the secret sharing threshold is met are any of them decryptable, and then it’s only the ones that were a match that can be decrypted.
        • ComputerGuru 5y ago
• throwaway09223 5y ago
  This article has what I would consider a major error. It attributes Facebook's CSAM reporting to "scanning." In truth, the issue is that photos are put on Facebook to share with others and other people will be looking at them and reporting them. Facebook does look at content as well, but the reporting numbers are guaranteed to be vastly different simply because one is a sharing platform and the other is a means to back up your private data.
• fay59 5y ago
  > One of the most powerful arguments in Apple’s favor in the 2016 San Bernardino case is that the company didn’t even have the means to break into the iPhone in question, and that to build the capability would open the company up to a multitude of requests that were far less pressing in nature, and weaken the company’s ability to stand up to foreign governments. I think that a crucial missing piece is the FBI's argument: Apple is fully capable of developing and signing a "law enforcement iBoot". IIRC, the FBI was even willing to have someone else develop the software and only ask Apple to sign it–which they definitely have the capability to do, and only policy of not signing other people's software stood in the way. If we agree that Apple was right in 2016, it stands to reason that Apple cannot be compelled to modify its CSAM filter to capture arbitrary contents, or report it at lower thresholds, or expand it beyond iCloud Photos (like to Messages itself). The amount of work they would have to do for it seems like it would be even higher. There are whole infrastructure pieces that just don't exist. What am I missing?
  • 0x00000000 5y ago
    > If we agree that Apple was right in 2016, it stands to reason that Apple cannot be compelled to modify its CSAM filter to capture arbitrary contents The government or whoever will regularly add hashes to the list. Those hashes can be for anything and it’s not like Apple has any way to verify what they are for. Apple doesn’t really have oversight on what they’re doing if I understand correctly, all the trust is in whoever creates the list of hashes
    • fay59 5y ago
      The government will have to overcome the same issues compelling NCMEC to add pictures to its data set that it would have to overcome with Apple. Additionally, by compelling the NCMEC, the government cannot increase the scope of searching or lower the match threshold.
      • 0x00000000 5y ago
        I wouldn’t think the government shares the images with NCMEC, wouldn’t they just say “we captured some hard drives, add these hashes to the list”?
• jliptzin 5y ago
  20 MILLION reports just from Facebook alone in one year?? I am surprised there is no discussion of the sheer scale of the problem. Will we need to build more prisons once this new system is rolled out?
• ComputerGuru 5y ago
  I also want to add that anyone that says “you can just turn off iCloud photos” can just see themselves out of the conversation. Apple iPhones ship with such low free space after OS and apps and they refuse to support SD cards (although it would be trivial for someone with their resources to abstract away the UX problems) and each photo is now 8+ MiB while videos quickly reach a GiB+ that users really have no choice - especially given how badly iPhones double as mass storage USB devices to allow for manual curation - but to enable iCloud photos.
  • czzr 5y ago
    You can use other cloud services besides iCloud
• thow16161 5y ago
  My friend is a camgirl and OF girl. I take most of her pics and vids on my iPhone. So I have thousands of nudes of her on my phone. She's 24, but could pass for much younger. I'm paranoid that I'll get flagged.. Especially since all of her tik-toks with any skin shown, or any drinking get flagged.
  • YokoSix 5y ago
    It's the same as with parents photographing their naked babies in the bathtub. Those images won't be flagged because they aren't in the database provided to Apple. Only verified illegal photos should be in the database. So you and your girlfriend will be fine.
    • tiagod 5y ago
      These are perceptual hashes though. What if you take a picture of your naked baby in the bathtub or your child on the beach, and the picture is very similar to a known CSAM picture with a hash in the database, enough to pass the distance threshold they're using? The picture would be sent for screening, the Apple screener would indeed say that's a naked baby/child, and soon enough you've got the FBI (or whatever is the equivalent in your country) knocking on your door and arresting you for pedophilia.
    • echohack5 5y ago
      > Only verified illegal photos should be in the database. Considering PhotoDNA, the source code of Apple's implementation, a 30-year Ph.D. level in cryptographic knowledge, and the processes by which neuralMatch actually run are unavailable to the OP, I think OP is justified in the minor paranoia of not wanting to be falsely accused of owning CSAM. That's precisely the problem with Apple's announcement here. You can't apply common sense to an algorithm and dragnet-style surveillance. I doubt even Apple specifically knows precisely how things will turn out with this system.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    • 5y ago
• backtoyoujim 5y ago
  Apple new ad strategy: "Either buy and use Apple iPhone, or you are predator."
• snyp 5y ago
  But isn't apple just hashing the image and then matching it with the CSAN database on the cloud? Thats how the feature works no?
• Geee 5y ago
  This is just really sad. Apple used to be the beacon of hope. Maybe it was false hope all along. We must go full FOSS from hardware to software to preserve humanity. Everyone needs to get on board, not just the savvy minority. That's the goal.
  • pm90 5y ago
    I agree with you. Ultimately though, we can’t rely on Technology companies to make the right decisions. Businesses exist to make profits, if there aren’t regulations against doing this someone was ultimately going to come up with a way to do it. Even with regulations many corporations fail to be compliant. I feel like we almost need a “Constitution for the Digital Age”, which would eg guarantee privacy rights.
  • mindslight 5y ago
    I never thought of Apple as a beacon of hope, but I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they could succeed at giving non-technical people the majority of their digital rights. Build systems that are secure from everybody-but-Apple, use top-down control to police bad actors, and allow privacy/security/freedom to flourish within their walled garden. Sticking government spyware onto people's phones is a direct repudiation of this philosophy. I'm not surprised this would happen eventually, but I am surprised it has happened this quickly. It has been what, a mere 5 years since the San Bernardino affair? The authoritarian delusion is a strong siren call, but I had expected it to result in ever more App Store restrictions and perhaps a few breaks where the government compelled signing trojan horse targeted updates - not a full rejection of the very idea of user privacy by placing a government agent in every phone. With this development, Free Software is once again the only option if you'd like to preserve your own digital rights. Its story for mobile historically kind of sucks (Android with varying amount of bad bits stripped out), but that is changing with things like PinePhone. IMO inexpensive devices are a necessity to get iterations into many people's hands, as opposed to the waterfall-feeling model of OpenMoko (etc).
• nbzso 5y ago
  These features are coming later this year in updates to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey. The Elephant in the room is "this will be on Mac OS". So the fact that the user cannot have root access to an Apple mobile device is well established by now. But to have my desktop/laptop computer do things on behalf of third party, whatever the "logic", is total madness. This is not some SaaS app. When I buy a car I expect that I am in control. When I buy a computer I care about my control over my property. What is this madness? Is due process and innocent until proven guilty bed time stories now?
  • zionic 5y ago
    To be honest, this entire episode is starting to radicalize me. Everything stallman has said about proprietary software is slowly coming true, and I must admit that now I’m reevaluating a lot of the technology in my life.
  • selsta 5y ago
    > Next, iOS and iPadOS will use new applications of cryptography to help limit the spread of CSAM online, while designing for user privacy. CSAM detection will help Apple provide valuable information to law enforcement on collections of CSAM in iCloud Photos. The CSAM scanning is only getting added to iOS and iPadOS. If it does getting added to Mac at some point it will be part of Photos.app, not the general OS.
    • hosteur 5y ago
      No one knows. They could make it part of the os. They could even hide the fact that it is there. Like the intel ME stuff. I am switching to Linux for desktop.
    • nicce 5y ago
      People are forgetting here that MacOS is already scanning all your unknown files (not only images) and sending hashes into the cloud. https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/ https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
• Jenk 5y ago
  How do we know this isn't a three letter government org silently pressuring apple into compliance? I see Apple getting a lot of flak but I'm surprised as anyone that they have decided to suddenly buck their trend/perception of being pro privacy quite so dramatically.
• darkwizard42 5y ago
  I like this fairly subtle take (which I agree with the author that Apple's cloud product is essentially a betrayal of their privacy stance). The subtle take I got is that devices should be completely private... given that is what you pay for. This drives Apple's phone system into that "unremovable bloatware" which I pretty much want to escape from on Android devices without necessarily setting up all the control myself. I wanted to trust Apple's hardware for privacy (and already understood the limits of their privacy in their cloud), but now I feel betrayed as this product can be eventually used for more sinister practices should a government pass laws necessitating it, as highlighted in many other comments.
• lbriner 5y ago
  One of the best protections against invasion of privacy and feature creep is to require an independently obtained warrant that is served to the person in question. Firstly, this allows the general public to get an idea of how much governments or police are interfering in people's lives but secondly, the enforcers have to convince someone (usually a judge) that their case has merit before they start defaming someone or taking away their liberty. We shouldn't be as scared about lacking privacy as we should be about the fact that our privacy can be invaded with little oversight and sometimes without us even knowing about it! Also, we need to speak up for those who are much more likely to be affected by privacy invasions (black, Muslim, other minorities etc.) even if we are white and don't think it will be a problem for us personally.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• schaefer 5y ago
  This whole business makes me want to return my iPhone and iPad for full refund. The terms of ownership have changed significantly since time of purchase, and frankly it feels like a privacy bait-and-switch. I'm curious if there any possibility of a small claims case forcing such a return.
  • acdha 5y ago
    When you signed up for iCloud, did you read the terms of service? They specifically require you to not to use them for illegal purposes and I’m sure they’d argue that everyone in the industry scans cloud storage and this change is only shifting when they make this check. I would really not expect that claim to go very far.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • ursugardaddy 5y ago
      well now they can argue everyone in the industry already scans locally on device for illegal content, not a huge step a few years from now: "it's been such a success we're going to do it everywhere for everything now"
• intrasight 5y ago
  I recently got a new iPhone for the better camera. Did this rather than getting a camera. Now I'm wondering how long it'll be before cameras will also have CSAM scanning. It also leads me to this question about CSAM. If it only recognizes existing photos, then it's of no use for photos that I take. So perhaps CSAM on a dedicated camera will never be a thing, and people will gravitate back to such cameras. Also leads to this question. If Apple isn't scanning my photos ( for which there is no CSAM fingerprint), what photos are they scanning? Things that showed up in my browser?
• aeoleonn 5y ago
  When Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bill Richardson, many other politicians and financial elites (the majority are still in the shadows, not yet exposed to the public) have been jet setting with decades-known child sexual abusers such as their good friend Jeffrey Epstein, it really makes me question the ACTUAL motive. Ruling elites do not care about CSAM-- many of them engage in it, as part of unbeknownst or beknownst honey pot schemes, whereby blackmail is gathered on them as collateral that they will follow the political and financial dictates of their [ultimately] Qui Intelligence handlers. This is merely an excuse to exercise power. And why now? Because you know qui are afraid that they've played their hand too sloppily-- forbidden knowledge on their true colors has spread too fast & they can't keep a lid on it-- and now populaces around the world are rioting against their satanic organization.
  • kfprt 5y ago
    This is a perfect example of the hypocrisy involved with such 'for the children' schemes. Elites are allowed to have massive birthday parties whereas plebs are not allowed to gather, elites are allowed to rape children while plebs are not.
  • cwkoss 5y ago
    What does Qui mean in this context?
    • aeoleonn 5y ago
      It's... code for a meme which is... representative of a tight knit group... speaking any criticism against whom outlawed in many countries. Hence I can't even say. youtube search this: france qui interview
      • throwawaay_3424 5y ago
        AWOOOGA AWOOOGA DING DONG DING DONG.
  • samstave 5y ago
    Well hot damn. THIS is so FN important. Its disgusting that there are many like yourself, and myself who have been aware of and been talking about it for DECADES and we were ridiculed and called "conspiracy theorists" CSAM blackmail is the bread-and-butter of Dark Intelligence Agencies. As a victim of abuse myself, where I lived on a Commune in Lafayette California in the 1970s, which was riddled with child sexual abuse - i was told by my father on his death-bed that the Commune (More University (The 'Purple People') was a "destination" and people, including rich and celebrities came there for "Experiences". There was a write up about it in Penthouse Magazine in the 80s - and it was known that the CIA played a role in putting Vic Baranco in the position he was in as head of that cult. My parents also knew Jim Jones when he was still in SF before the mass suicide.. In talking with other kids from the commune, we found out just how bad the abuse was, and the fact that the CIA was closely monitoring it. I was involved in a study to follow a bunch of the kids from there , held by University of San Diego where they followed us as we grew up and interviewed us every few years to see what our life-path would turn out as based on our childhood situations... (it was a lot of different kids from all sorts of socio-eco backgrounds...) This was also at the same time the Michael Aquino abuse was happening to kids in the Presidio and other parts of San Francisco... Personally, I feel pedophilia should be a capital crime. and I would have no issues exacting it on people who abuse small children. One girl from the commune, Maria, was turned into a prostitute at the age of 4 years old by her father. We got out in 1978....
• devwastaken 5y ago
  The decision shoots CSAM policing in the foot. Before, people trusted their iphone, and when a phone was conphiscsted as apart of an investigation orgs like the FBI had methods to break them due to their singular popularity. Now, those with actual intent to create and distribute are going to be far more cautious and use more secure systems. The actual perpetrators of abuse slip through the cracks once again while we pat ourselves on the back that we maybe will catch a few idiots that only consume it. Same happened with Fosta, same with the war on drugs. The actual perpetrators don't get caught, the abuse continues, but the metrics make it look good.
• sharikone 5y ago
  I think HN readership is so used to live in the digital world that many forgot we can live without internet as humans. ANY connected digital media can become a 1984-style spying device if you don't have full access to it or even if you have that but you are not an experienced electrical engineer. The only defensible platforms are nondigital media and airgapped computing. I, for one, wouldn't shoot a nude with any digital device nowadays. Only exception would be a camera that gets connected only to airgapped computers. But we are losing that too. In a short time we won't even be able to pay for that Polaroid or to buy a Librephone without being traced in some digital form. We are losing all the battles but we need at least to prioritize. The cloud is lost, connected devices are lost. We need at least to keep cash payments, and to pressure the government to break up digital monopolies. I don't want to sound like desperate luddite but I really think that warrants requirements are unenforceable in the digital world and we really really need to keep important parts of our lives in the analog one.
  • ccvannorman 5y ago
    >we can live without internet as humans. Sorry, but I'm not going back to pre-internet days to accomplish my life goals. You might as well tell people in 1900 that they could live just as well without electricity. If you want to be a monk or Amish, sure. If you want to be a normal human in pursuit of self-actualization and helping the world, internet is a de-facto critical piece of your life.
    • alerighi 5y ago
      If my job wouldn't be in the IT field, I would be certainly be able to live without the internet. You can live without the internet, as does billions of people in the world. My grandma never had a computer, or a smartphone, she doesn't even know how to say the word internet, and still she lives fine, and she knows more informed than I that use internet, reads newspapers, on paper, without stupid ads, listens to the radio, watches TV, calls her friends with the landline phone, and most importantly, a thing that nowadays is lost, she goes outside and talks to people. It seems like we no longer can talk to people, we are constantly busy with our devices, back in the days if you were on a train what could you do, read a book, or talk with the people sitting next to you, nowadays you use your phone, listen to music with headphones, and isolate from others. Internet was a great thing, but the internet of the beginning, of the '90 and first '00, where it was a cool thing, where you could have used it to learn new stuff, the internet of IRC chats, the internet of forums, communities. The internet was good because it was something alternative to the real life, something you did in the evening when you didn't have other things to do, nowadays internet became a substitute of the real life, on the internet you share things you do, you talk with people that you know in person, and then when you meet what have to say since everyone knows everything others have done thanks to social media? Also in the modern internet privacy is destroyed, back in the days one rule was never use your real name on the internet, and never share personal information. Now it's the opposite, Facebook requires you to use your real name, YouTube wants your ID to watch age restricted videos, they encourage you to share to them all your personal information, that is bad. I wouldn't return to the days before internet, but I would return to the '90, where internet was something good, and just a cool tool you could have used, but not something fundamental for your life.
• aeoleonn 5y ago
  Sooo... once child predators switch from iphone to a regular camera ... then what, Apple? Fuck everyone's privacy though?
  • renewiltord 5y ago
    Well, the idea is they have to share it. If you scan their Gmail, scan their iCloud, get Sony/Canon/Nikon to scan when copying off the camera, get Windows and Mac OS to scan images on copy, you can constrain them. It will be interesting what the effect on sexting will be once we know that some Apple employee can look at you naked because the tool mismatched.
• itronitron 5y ago
  I'm trying to think of another situation where a company has a default starting position that their customers are breaking the law during normal use of their product. If car manufacturers installed a breathalyzer ignition interlock device on every car (new or currently owned) that would save some lives, but I'm pretty sure very few people would tolerate it.
  • 0x000000001 5y ago
    U.S. Senate bill seeks to require anti-drunk driving vehicle tech https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-bill-seeks-require-anti-drunk-driving-vehicle-tech-2021-08-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-bill-seeks-requir...
    • kfprt 5y ago
      Truly dystopian. I can't wait until someone has to drive to the hospital but has been drinking and can't.
      • asadlionpk 5y ago
        Should they be driving though? They can always call 911
      • wilg 5y ago
        There is no drunk driving exception based on where or why you are driving.
• angry_octet 5y ago
  This is a great example of people being in a tech bubble. In a short while nobody except techies and molesters will remember that this is happening. Some significant number of KP men will be caught, but not the clever ones. Most iPhone users will put it out of their minds and continue using iCloud. The bigger authoritarian countries (China, India) will demand, and receive, the ability to match against illegal images and memes, like Tank Man, Winnie the Pooh, illicit tweet screencaps, etc. No one with power in the West will really care. The slippery slope is actually iMessage scanning, not iCloud Photos. Real time, ML based, it is fully capable of scanning for keywords, the same way as NSA analysts used X-KEYSCORE (in the ancient historical period, before they switched to ML). (Fortunately, NSA (or others) probably won't let it's ML classifiers be distributed, because they could be reverse engineered to see how much NSA knows.)
• sloshnmosh 5y ago
  As the recent NSO/Pegasus scandal has proved, there is no need to add backdoors into our cellphones. If someone is suspected of a crime a warrant can be issued by a judge and the suspects phone compromised under lawful control of law enforcement. What Apple is wanting to do is pre-crime where everyone is considered suspect until proven otherwise.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• GiorgioG 5y ago
  I've likely bought my last Apple device.
• camillomiller 5y ago
  Apple was in a very bad damn if you do damn if you don't situation. Their CSAM reporting looked awful. They needed a solution. They came up with something that's definitely more elegant and more privacy-oriented than scanning all iCloud Photos. They went for the more complicated solution, which incidentally is one that less people will properly understand (or care about), therefore limiting the size of the inevitable dent on their privacy reputation. I think they are also preventing the consequences of some upcoming legislation in the US, UK and other parts of the world to make CSAM scanning mandatory in the Cloud, which would carry the risk of weakening Apple's privacy infrastructure even more. So, if you're given the choice to go for a haute cuisine gourmet sandwich with a side of shit salad, and a huge shit clam chowder, what would you rather go for? In Cupertino they picked the sandwich.
  • klelatti 5y ago
    Why are they 'preventing' the upcoming legislation?
    • camillomiller 5y ago
      Sorry, bad phrasing. Clarified.
  • cblconfederate 5y ago
    > more privacy-oriented than scanning all iCloud Photos But they ll be scanning all icloud photos
    • camillomiller 5y ago
      They don’t. It’s technically not a scan, but a hashing of all content. It’s a non trivial difference.
      • cblconfederate 5y ago
        is there any difference in effect?
• stakkur 5y ago
  Imagine if home builders, under pressure from law enforcement and government bodies, included built-in devices in your home that monitored and analyzed your behaviors and interactions, just to 'keep people safe'. And you couldn't uninstall them, even though you own the home. And you couldn't know when a human was reviewing 'suspicious behavior' telemetry, which included images, video and audio of you and your family. And you couldn't control anything about when and where this happened, except by moving house. And all of this was framed as a 'safety' problem, and if you complained about this, you were considered one of the 'screeching voices of the minority'.
  • barbazoo 5y ago
    Not during construction but people sure do put devices in their homes that tick all those boxes and you know what, they mostly don't care.
    • zionic 5y ago
      How do we make them care? Or more politically worded, show them it is in their interest to care?
      • rnjesus 5y ago
        lobby, or run for their office. edit: er, i think i misunderstood your question.
    • randyrand 5y ago
      What devices are you talking about? specifically this box "And you couldn't know when a human was reviewing 'suspicious behavior' telemetry, which included images, video and audio of you and your family." and this box: "And you couldn't uninstall them"
    • brandon272 5y ago
      They voluntarily install those cameras in their homes and it isn't for the express purpose of government surveillance.
• cblconfederate 5y ago
  how probable is it even to find CP in an iphone, considering that is not really possible to upload stuff directly and that most likely those people would not use anything that s connected to the cloud. I think it's more interesting that this will now be in the desktop
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• y04nn 5y ago
  The decision of Apple is bad for the simple fact that it assuming that everybody is suspected to be guilty until you have been scanned, inspected and proven clean. Until now you would have to be under an investigation for your data to be monitored/inspected. But now everybody is a suspect and has to be under scrutiny, this is really bad and will lead to abuse of the system in the future.
• tartoran 5y ago
  For whoever thinks they are fine and have nothing to hide, think about the clock cycles that the scanner consumes on your phone’s cpu slowing it down and draining the battery if it scans when not plugged in. Second, this will classify and extract metadata from your own private photos, receipts, photo of your router’s password on it and so on. This is not only a privacy concern but abusive move from Apple. Windows does all kindof of shady things under the telemetry pretext, now Apple’s doing this. What I hope is more smartphone opensource options.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• kevwil 5y ago
  If I could go out and buy a Google-free Android phone today, I would. Now that I no longer trust Apple with privacy doesn't mean I trust Google. Even less so, actually. The alternative now is: no phone. Bye-bye Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat and Candy Crush, etc. The mobile app market, and the advertising market, could fall apart if everyone did the same. The economy would be significantly impacted. What a huge mistake.
• arbirk 5y ago
  Recent stories from the world of child porn rings have shown, that members are very coordinated. If iPhones are deemed the safe platform they will migrate there. This is a compromise to rid them from or at least threaten a potential safe space. All real compromises are bad compromises. This seems to be just that
• grouphugs 5y ago
  fascism alt-right right-wing being a corporation 100% failing at privacy and security on purpose for fascist interests ruining the hong kong uprisings in favor of fascist and alt-right interests we can keep going fuck everyone that supports these people forever
• yyyk 5y ago
  It took me time to think about this news. I despise the cavalier attitude some people in software engineering have towards the social consequences of their work. A community where 'think of the children' is an ironic phrase is a sick one. Yet, something here doesn't smell entirely right. TL;DR: I think one of three must be correct: A) NCMEC is seriously neglecting protecting children by accepting a subpar solution. We're getting the client-side scanning precedent without any benefit to society. OR B) Apple is not entirely ditching server-side scanning, so again we'll be gaining nothing from client-side scanning aside from normalization of a dubious practice. OR C) The client-side solution will end up way more invasive than what even Apple believes it would be. --- Lets look at the worst scenarios. One or more pedos is actively molesting in order to record CSAM on a iPhone. The iPhone soon syncs to the iCloud, while the pedos distribute the CSAM. This is the scenario we all want to stop most and ASAP. 1) Apple's is a hash-based approach, not an AI based one. So the original upload must be marked as 'clear' by the iPhone, since NCMEC can't yet know about the CSAM. 2) Hopefully, sometimes later NCMEC does find the CSAM and marks it appropriately. 3) In the 'naive' server-side approach, Apple could scan iCloud and find the original CSAM and then the uploaders. This is not what we're doing. This is a client-side approach, and if certain rumors are right Apple will eventually do end2end encryption and so will not even be able to scan server-side. So do we do? 4) One option is for NCMEC to give up and let Apple do a worse solution than server-side scanning where the original perpetrators not only go free but can use iCloud for storage without being detected. That's our option A above. This is undesirable and unlikely. Even if NCMEC were so compromised, Apple can't want to get all this fire and then implement an non-working solution. Even if Apple were to do that, eventually pressure will force them to implement a working solution. 5) The other option is for the iPhone client to receive regular hash updates, and then periodically rescan any picture that was at one time uploaded to the iCloud (option C). Since the incriminating files may well not even exist anymore on the phone (the pedos in our scenario have good motivation to eventually delete the CSAM to save space even without the issue of client-side scanning), Apple will have to store the hashes of deleted images on the phone in order to periodically rescan them. So to implement effective client-side scanning, iPhone owners will not be able to ever truly delete an image if it was ever synced to iCloud, even if the owners deleted it from the cloud and their phone. The hash will be stored, and not only that - a rough facsimile of the image should be restorable from the hash*. I can't see any other way to do it, and Apple and NCMEC must want the client-side solution to work. In a world where Pegasus and things like it exist, this is.. not optimal. 6) Of course, Apple could avoid all this by storing the hashes in their iCloud (option B), but what would be the point of client-side scanning than, aside from a dubious precedent? Am I missing something? * AFAIK the ability to make a rough facsimile of the original image from the hash is a property of visual hashes required for them to work even on manipulated images, and also required for the manual review system. Apple can't avoid this on a client-side solution - it's either the original image or something close enough so it can be manually reviewed if later found to be CSAM.
• lolsal 5y ago
  I really did not expect this from Apple. Perhaps I am too naive. It makes me think Apple is doing this as a sort of litmus test or as a way to force another issue: - Government says Apple has to do it - Apple announces they will do it - Apple brand suffers immensely - Apple cites suffering as a reason to not do it? Seems like there would be a word/term/phrase for this kind of thing. I'm so optimistic I'm hoping there is an ulterior motive here or some sort of outside coercion.
• cannabis_sam 5y ago
  The people who have written «scientific papers» on this absolute insane garbage should be laughed out of every serious conference on cryptography. And the people pushing this behind the scenes know that the majority of CSA happens in the home or with adults that the child trusts, so if we are to be fine with reaching into everyones private life, video surveillance in every kid’s bedroom should be far more effective than attacking the distribution of CSAM alone…?
• anonymouswacker 5y ago
  For those of us who just bought new iPhones (over the 2 week return period) and are having buyer’s remorse after this decision, is there a way to return this now that the product is different than when I purchased it? Credit card chargeback, etc? I would like to switch to a phone I can control.
  • cwkoss 5y ago
    Call your credit card company and ask if you can chargeback. Those lines exist to satisfy customers - they don't have to say yes, but I think you have a good chance.
• intricatedetail 5y ago
  I was considering getting M1 laptop, but now that's off the table. I am looking for a performant fanless laptop that will run Linux. Any suggestions?
  • h4x0r12345 5y ago
    Donate a few dollars monthly to https://asahilinux.org https://asahilinux.org on Patreon. We'll get Linux running smoothly on the M1 within a year or so.
• hoops8 5y ago
  I keep seeing Apple take a beating. But I can’t help but think this is politically motivated. I’ve seen private-government collusion first hand; create paranoia, goto government with a solution, get some custom legislation or exec order; profit. Politicians began hating on tech corp and promising changes. We’ve seen attacks on section 230 in the press and bills popping up. This is not going away. My guess is it’s a hedge against government who decided to pass some messages along. “Why won’t Apple help us fight this?” being suggested by political grifters in both parties. Cable news will hassle them. They’ll do this to avoid that.
• PostThisTooFast 5y ago
  This is such a stupid argument. Apple is not comparable to Facebook because Apple is NOT PUBLISHING YOUR MEDIA. Anyone too dumb to make that distinction should not be weighing in on the matter.
• J253 5y ago
  I’m no expert in all things Apple, but this whole thing seems, to me at least, pretty un-Apple like. It would be easier to rationalize if this was actually a directive from, say, a certain large nation who said “if you want to continue to do business here, implement this capability” and what we’re seeing is Apple trying to spin it as a feature or in some sort of positive light.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  It feels like unreasonable search and seizure. That's my property that is being searched constantly and without a warrant to make sure I'm not committing a crime.
• annadane 5y ago
  I actually completely understand WHY the average "lay-person" thinks encryption must be bad because it allows terrorists and child pornographers to confer in secret to plan their nasty deeds. It's completely defensible to think that way from a standpoint of human nature and it would make all the sense in the world for that to be the case - that indeed, encryption is fundamentally something we cannot have due to xyz. Now, that's not how the situation actually is, but understanding that it isn't is more complex than thinking about it for a brief amount of time only
• cycop 5y ago
  Sounds like a great way to attack a target and destroy their life. Most people have no idea how many or what photos are on their devices. 1) Either get photos on their phone with the correct HASH, or get some photos that are already on their phone into the HASH list. 2) FBI will be quietly informed by Apple. 3) FBI shows up one day at the targets home or work. They confiscates all electronic devices and ruins that persons life.
• karaterobot 5y ago
  Historically, taking a position against measures which (even if only nominally) stop CSAM because they have abstract, negative privacy consequences is difficult. Try to explain to the average person why Apple's decision here is ominous, and the first question you'll get is "wait, why do you want to protect child abusers?" I've been getting angry about this for the last week, and am just now getting to the point where I can accept the reality that the snowball is already rolling. The government isn't going to step in and prevent this, unless it's to make the backdoor larger, and nobody who was going to buy an iPhone or use iCloud is going to stop because of this. So, it's done. Apple will put a backdoor on your phone and yes, and obviously that backdoor will eventually be used for things beyond the scope of what they're telling you now.
• theonlybutlet 5y ago
  Has Apple or someone at Apple commented on the whole thing following the outcry? Any chance of them reneging?
  • tummulfingur 5y ago
    Maybe not what you were looking for, but some FAQs[0] were released by Apple today. I found them here [1]. [0] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_for_Children_Frequently_Asked_Questions.pdf https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_... [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/09/apple-faq-csam-detection-messages-scanning/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/09/apple-faq-csam-detectio...
    • theonlybutlet 5y ago
      Thanks!
• ychompinator 5y ago
  There is no scanning by Apple taking place, they are not reaching in to your phone, your phone is checking whether the binary data of your photos matches the data in a database of known bad images. This is much more secure than Apple having access to scan your files or messages in the cloud. If you use cloud storage services you are trusting your provider with a lot more data than you are giving up by allowing your phone to check MD5 hashes of images don't match offending hashes. Windows added Smart Screen, this checks your apps against known bad apps to protect you from malware and virus, this is very similar and not unusual at all. Well the internet loves to be outraged so crack on I guess... sigh
• Agingcoder 5y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with the premises that I own my device, which most people seem to take for granted. After all, in the iPhone case, I'm not allowed to root it, install anything I want on it, etc. Apple already controls it, and already decides what I can do with it. So, if Apple decides that it can't be used to send child pornography, how is it different from 'standard' usage restrictions ? Or is it only the fact that it might trigger a call to law enforcement which is a problem, and without this call, everything would be ok ? In other words, would an iPhone which detects child porn and refuses to do anything ('error : illegal content') with it be ok? Or would this be a violation of privacy?
• darwingr 5y ago
  The canary died for Apple when they made it clear to all that they had developed a way to selectively bypass all device firewalls.
• animex 5y ago
  Now that Apple has demonstrated ability/capacity to scan for unencrypted content, law enforcement & government agencies with court-backing will compel them to provide any content moving forward. However, the majority of Apple users are uncaring and/or unaware of these recent changes and it will not affect their sales beyond the tiny tech minority.
• ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  > What happens when China announces its version of the NCMEC, which not only includes the horrific imagery Apple’s system is meant to capture, but also images and memes the government deems illegal? This is the crucial part here. The means are there, apple can't say it's impossible to do so, the implementation is simple, and the consequences for individuals with winne-the-pooh photos are horrible.
• firecall 5y ago
  I was at an outdoor exhibition last week, and one of the staff called me out and said "No Digital Photography Allowed... it says so on your ticket" Meanwhile, it feels like almost everyone is taking photos, videos and live steaming the entire thing from high-end smartphones!
• Valkhyr 5y ago
  > One’s device ought be one’s property, with all of the expectations of ownership and privacy that entails Preach. Though with Apple phones this has never been the case, unfortunately. Having your photos scanned on upload is just the little cherry on top of the sundae of user disenfranchisement that is iOS.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• _carbyau_ 5y ago
  Scope creep concerns: 1. what else to scan for. 2. what other OS vendors should add matching functionality because Apple has proven it is doable.
• Renaud 5y ago
  Apple could have solved the issue by making iCloud photo sharing its own separate App. The App could have done the scanning before sending and I would be free to not install it on my phone if I don't use iCloud photo sharing. Instead, we now have an ever-present spyware engine embedded into the OS itself that can be abused by policy, as the author points out. But I guess having a separate App would potentially cut into Apple's bottom line as it would have lessen the opportunities of pushing for iCloud subscriptions.
  • nicce 5y ago
    I don’t know where have you got your information, but it works literally as you said. If you don’t use iCloud Photos sync, then in-device scanning is not applied. Is it app or not, does not really matter because you have to trust its existency or option selection anyway. https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_for_Children_Technology_Summary.pdf https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...
    • zionic 5y ago
      Nope, Apple is opening this up to 3rd party app devs as announced today.
    • Renaud 5y ago
      There is a huge difference between an OS-level feature and an App-level feature. Once it's embedded in the OS there is basically nothing stopping the extension of "features" to also eventually scan everything else at some point. As an App-only feature, you basically disable that whole functionality if you don't have the App. If you're an iCloud user, it's not much different. But if you're not, you're basically safe from that particular feature creep of extending the scan to other parts of the system (like whole photo-roll, documents, data from other apps, etc)
      • nicce 5y ago
        This is what you see, but the whole system is a black box. All this speculation exist already. All you have is the trust. Same "if" argument is as strong as before and after this feature. People don't seem to understand, that the way they see how the system works does not mean that it works that way. For example if Apple releases iCloud Photo app, how do you know that it is actually removed when it is removed? Same party is responsible about the OS and the app. Again, you have to trust their word. If they are saying, that they only scan photos which are going into cloud, then it is the same thing. You have to trust what they say and final functionality does not get any different. > If you're an iCloud user, it's not much different. But if you're not, you're basically safe from that particular feature creep of extending the scan to other parts of the system (like whole photo-roll, documents, data from other apps, etc) If you read their protocol, you would see that they can't send data alone. They have 30 pages long whitepaper which explains how scan analysis is cryptografically embedded into voucher with original data, and is not possible to send alone. Again, all you can do is to trust their word. If you look at the past, Apple has invested a lot of things, that it can lock itself out. There are no history of misuse in the past, yet this is speculated all the day. "Scanning other parts of the system" is like only 10 lines of code without this new feature, and many don't realize that. Antivirus engines has existed since 1980s and if Apple wants to allow some government to scan your files by changing their model, it has happened already. Once they allow that, then we should be mad. We should not be mad about speculation everything. For example giving private keys to China government to access their iCloud data is not an example if someone tries to mention that. They haven't change the underlying model in their operating system. They gave out the data, which was result of their operating system unchanged.
• stereoradonc 5y ago
  The device (as per ToS- which no one reads) is NEVER yours. You "rent" it. Not "own " it. I am wondering how long the hoopla around Apple's backdoor will last. Ordinary users don't understand and won't care. From the missing discussion- companies have the capability to plant evidence where it was non-existent.
• elisbce 5y ago
  Don't blame Apple for this. Blame the liberal lawmakers and political advocacy groups in EU and the US who are pushing for regulations that force Apple and other phone makers to implement this kind of mass surveillance. It always starts from
• tomlin 5y ago
  I'm a pretty big Apple fan. But I think this is the end. There's no way you can bob and weave around the fact this makes your property there's. You're insane or Gruber if you think that's okay.
• cable2600 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_d... Apple once refused the FBI to hack a terrorist's phone because it would lead to a loss of privacy for iPhone users. Now Apple has reversed that decision.
• 88840-8855 5y ago
  Drop Tim an Email: tcook@apple.com Explain your thoughts on that topic. I am pretty sure they have a this email monitored and can filter for "CSAM". Once big enough it might be reported to Tim.
• nnx 5y ago
  What I really don't get this is why would Apple implement this feature nobody asked for? And damage their privacy brand. Why?
• choeger 5y ago
  With locked devices acting as a scanner for good behavior (and make no mistake, this is not about CP), the governments are nearly where they want to be: A world that is officially free (for propaganda reasons) but allows for every citizen to be imprisoned at once. Now the only thing left is to install some devices that monitor every spoken word in our apartments and check it against, well, CP ain't going to cut it, religious extremism, maybe? Good thing that no one would be that stupid to voluntarily install such equipment in their home...
• stevetsourounis 5y ago
  According to their FAQ, they are only scanning photos in iCloud and not doing on-device scanning. https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_for_Children_Frequently_Asked_Questions.pdf https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...
• magwa101 5y ago
  The internet is littered with stratechery prognostications and pronouncements.