6 ms·

This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported. Your Windows desktop has Window

by carom 5y ago

This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported. Your Windows desktop has Windows Defender. EFF lost a lot of credence to me after the Best Buy case. They made this big fuss about how Geek Squad employees were agents of the state for reporting CSAM on a customers hard drive, while doing a requested file recovery. When searched, the defendant had CSAM on 5 different devices. The case was dismissed on a technicality. Never did the EFF mention this. Never did they say they were defending a gynecological doctor who had CSAM on 5 devices. Nope, it was spin city. Now here we are. Apple has made a privacy preserving anti-virus scanner. It does not upload unknown files as Windows Defender does, it does not scan everything. It scans your photos, for known CSAM images, when you are using iCloud backups, in order to comply with the law that they must scan their hosting services for CSAM. It has a more narrow scope than an anti-virus scanner, and a bigger societal benefit. We seem to have taken the idea that sometimes bad things are promoted through "think of the children" to mean we must oppose anything involving the protection of children. Our greatest fear in this is the government using a national security letter to search for banned ISIS memes? Let's address that slippery slope when we come to it, and let's note that we do not see Windows Defender or similar doing the same. This is great, I hope it puts a bunch of pedos behind bars.

bathtub365 5y ago
This analogy only works at a superficial, technical level. When a virus scanner finds a virus, it alerts me and I can either quarantine or delete it. It’s up to me to decide if what it’s found is actually a virus, or a false positive. When Apple's tool thinks it’s found the material it’s looking for, the assumption is that I am a pedophile who collects CSAM.
- bitwize 5y ago
  Rather than oppose a measure to protect children because of the fear of a few false positives, why can't you accept the fact that the societal benefit outweighs the potential risk? A few innocent men might be condemned to rot -- or be murdered -- in prison, but Apple has developed a system that mostly protects your privacy and could save the lives of potentially millions of children around the world. The rights of a few harmed innocents must be balanced against the greater societal good. (/s in case you were wondering)
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    Sarcasm doesn't land well here, especially when it's a long comment. Thinking about false positives is the wrong thing to focus on. The point is the technology could be applied to any image such as Tiannanmen Square, Hong Kong, depictions of God, Muhammad, or Jesus, etc.
  - the_other 5y ago
    > why can't you accept the fact that the societal benefit outweighs the potential risk? Because a shit technical solution (which opens the doors to other abuses) isn’t the fix. Because Apple are not the government. A meaningful scheme to protect the children would need: - better sex ed in schools - better education for parents and people who would like to become parents as to the risks and signs - publicly announced meaningful support for people who self-identify with dangerous thoughts and seek help before their thoughts become behaviours - better support for people from abusive homes as they mature - (probably) two or three generations to pass through before you could measure statistically sound improvement
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      Funding of child care would identify the kids that are abused. Identifying any bad actor becomes much easier and targeted without compromising the privacy of everyone. More eyes on the problem and you will get better results. Easy solution that cannot be abused by bad political actors.
  - junon 5y ago
    /s doesn't work here, it's not reddit.
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    > Rather than oppose a measure to protect children because of the fear of a few false positives, why can't you accept the fact that the societal benefit outweighs the potential risk? But Apple apologists has been telling me all day that I could stop the system from scanning if I just disable iCloud. If a person can disable it that easily, then the system is effectively useless.
- nicce 5y ago
  > When a virus scanner finds a virus, it alerts me and I can either quarantine or delete it. It’s up to me to decide if what it’s found is actually a virus, or a false positive. This is also a bit superficial. If you are breaking the law, you can't decide by yourself whether you are breaking the law of not. That is up to the judge. While you can quarantine or delete the virus, AV vendor is still getting all the stats. It is not maybe including PhotoDNA matches but cryptographical hashes are included for identical match. It is still perfectly legal to inform CSAM content against these matches, and we can't be sure if that has been made or not. In case of Windows Defender, what if automatic sample submission is enabled? Uploading and storing a file makes Windows as cloud-provider for this specific scenario, and is required by law to report CSAM content. Who knows if PhotoDNA is also applied into this content, but that hasn't been told yet? It is legal, there is no need to to tell that.
gfody 5y ago
Defender has been killing KMSAuto for years, I wonder what other utils are blacklisted
- mormegil 5y ago
  Netcat, for instance.
- inversetelecine 5y ago
  That's why I moved to using vlmcsd on a rpi.
djanogo 5y ago
"Virus Scanner" is optional, many ways to disable it, you won't be arrested if you are infected, and government doesn't get to decide what virus is. Apple scanning is NOT optional, if they have false match or mess up you will be charged/investigated for one of THE most hated crimes in human history, even if you win the case the damage will be irreparable. You lost your mind if you think governments are not going to setup their own CSAM database hashes with their own "manual review" centers. Apple will not be able to jack shit on what each country considers CSAM.
- BluSyn 5y ago
  It is optional to use iCloud Photos. There's no indication you get arrested if they find something, it isn't reported directly to FBI. Apple will just disable your account, and there is an appeals process to restore it if they made a mistake. There's more nuance here beyond the clickbait headlines.
  - rubslopes 5y ago
    > Apple will just disable your account That's the only thing they are going to do? That can't be right. What's the point, then?
  - zionic 5y ago
    > There's no indication you get arrested if they find something Yes, you are. > it isn't reported directly to FBI NCMEC is the FBI. >Apple will just disable your account, and there is an appeals process to restore it if they made a mistake. Good luck appealing from your jail cell or with confiscated devices >There's more nuance here beyond the clickbait headlines. Please stop spreading false information
throwaway476268 5y ago
Windows Defender a) tells you exactly what file/which virus triggered it and b) does not report you to the police. And AV that uploads files by itself is not OK either. Then, either the DB or the algorithms will result in false positives, and you have to trust the reviewers 100% – with your life – to sort them out correctly. From the article at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110159: (The false-positive was a fully clothed man holding a monkey -- I think it's a rhesus macaque. No children, no nudity.) Based just on the 5 matches, I am able to theorize that 20% of the cryptographic hashes were likely incorrectly classified.
Nicksil 5y ago
>This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported. Your Windows desktop has Windows Defender. The analogy isn't great. Anti-virus/malware software provides a benefit to the owner of the device; Apple's software does not.
- threeseed 5y ago
  If you are a parent you very much will appreciate your children not receiving or sending explicit photos. As someone who cares for society I am thrilled that Apple is preventing the dissemination of CSAM.
  - weikju 5y ago
    I think most people are fine with the measures taken in Messages, much less so with the measures taken with scanning of images and reporting to authorities, and the possible scope creep that is only prevented by policy, rather than by capability.
    - threeseed 5y ago
      The only thing stopping Apple from doing anything on your device is policy, rather than by capability. They do control the OS and apps after all.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    As someone who cares about free society I am disgraced that we push through de facto censorship regimes to oppress the world through weak child protection arguments.
- carom 5y ago
  Apple is using this as a proxy for scanning their iCloud infrastructure. If you are using their cloud service, it does provide a benefit to the owner of those machines.
BluSyn 5y ago
Thanks for stating a well-reasoned comment on this issue. I think far more people are in this camp than are willing to admit on social media. The voices of hyperbole have drowned out the conversation rendering all nuance meaningless.
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
> It scans your photos, for known CSAM images No, it scans photos for arbitray (fancy) hashes, and Apple chooses to limit it to CSAM images. Nothing about the tech prevents it from being expanded to other kinds of images. And from what I understand, nothing prevents it from being expanded to other filetypes either, does it? The only thing that ties this tech to CSAM images is Apples promise (and claim) to keep the scope limited.
- threeseed 5y ago
  This sort of argument is just bizarre to me. If you think Apple is on a slippery slope and will just expand this feature without any consideration then why have an issue now ? Apple already has your unencrypted photos. They could scan it server-side. Or they scan it on your device and simply not tell you. And they can push OS updates without you knowing to enable all of this. Apple could even push CSAM to your phone and frame you if they wanted to. They control ALL of the keys to your device whilst you are using iCloud and allowing software updates.
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    … yes. And it will take less than 2 years for the world to push new entires, as had happened for the last 10y. They will be forced to detect rafts of totally unrelated content, ranging from king photos in Thailand to Winnie the Pooh in China. This is going to happen. You need to put away your “protect the children” pearls and realize wtf game they are playing here. It’s always about protecting the children, and folks fall for it every time.
- carom 5y ago
  The only thing that prevents Apple, Microsoft, or Ubuntu from executing arbitrary code on your system is their promise to keep the scope of updates limited. You already operate under this trust model.
  - 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
    > You already operate under this trust model. Do I? Can you elaborate? Do you notice a difference between a company (potentially) doing this behind closed doors and as quietly as possible and doing this in a public official way? What if I tell you I don't use any of the operating systems you listed? Does your answer change? I have a question: Would you welcome such a move? Do you believe that taking things a bit further would be nice because "we might catch a few criminals"?
unityByFreedom 5y ago
What are your thoughts on state actors asking Apple to use this technology to imprison dissidents? This effectively criminalizes anything the state deems unacceptable, which in some countries includes criticizing the ruling party. Is it right for an American company to open their gates to that?
- carom 5y ago
  Why has that state actor not already forced Apple to deploy a special firmware image to all citizens via software update functionality? Yes, this can be used to search for banned memes, but if a country has that flex, they would already be doing so.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    Why didn't Apple do this without announcing it? The answer is Apple risks a whistleblower on their hands if they do it secretly, regardless of the targeted country. Remember Google's project Dragonfly? Plus, software needs to be maintained. I don't see how they could do that in perpetuity without a major risk to their valuation. So all moves do need to be made public while the software is created in countries that have a free press.
    - threeseed 5y ago
      So why wouldn't that same whisteblower complain if Apple expands their CSAM detection system to other use cases ? And iOS is a modular operating system. They could easily swap out the Photos.framework for different state actors and support that in perpetuity. They were already doing this when cross-building for ARM/x86.
      - unityByFreedom 5y ago
        > So why wouldn't that same whisteblower complain if Apple expands their CSAM detection system to other use cases ? I assume Apple could make it very difficult, if not impossible, to detect what they're searching for when they are using hashes created and transmitted by all their own hardware and software. But, even if they did publish the hashes and those were somehow verified in free-press countries by a trusted 3rd party, that does nothing for countries with no free press. Such places would have no knowledge of what's being searched for, and that's the whole point. I won't support an American company that helps oppressive countries stymie what little freedom their people have left to connect via the internet. To the extent they are successful, the results of those tools will eventually be aimed at us, either via uninformed people or by using the tools themselves on us. > And iOS is a modular operating system. They could easily swap out the Photos.framework for different state actors and support that in perpetuity. They were already doing this when cross-building for ARM/x86. Sure. And I expect if there were something nefarious there working on behalf of foreign governments then we would eventually hear about it, one way or another. It's a terrible idea that would be abused, and humans are natural pattern recognizers.
bitwize 5y ago
> This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported. Your Windows desktop has Windows Defender. 1) I don't run Windows. 2) The principle of antivirus software is different: the software scans your files but does everything locally and with the end user in full control over what happens next, and of their data. Windows Defender does not report you to the fuzz when it finds a match -- yet. Given that it is apparently now enforcing copyright laws in addition to protecting the end user against viruses, that may change. > The case was dismissed on a technicality. If the cops want to catch chomos and bring them to justice, they can assiduously avoid bringing the fruit of the poisoned tree into the courtroom. The societal risks of allowing them to bring ill-gotten evidence to trial are too great, no matter how evil we think the defendant is. > It scans your photos, for known CSAM images, when you are using iCloud backups, in order to comply with the law that they must scan their hosting services for CSAM. The USA has no such law (yet). Service providers have a duty to report if they find CSAM, not a duty to scan for it. Even if they had such a duty, they could scan the copy that lives on their servers, rather than pushing spyware to users' devices and blatantly breaking the trust that a user's device implicitly serves the user's needs. > We seem to have taken the idea that sometimes bad things are promoted through "think of the children" to mean we must oppose anything involving the protection of children. That's a disingenuous strawman. No one is objecting to laws that punish child abusers, or to legitimate forensic techniques to catch them. We're objecting to companies -- and now end-user devices -- being deputized to participate in law enforcement dragnets likely in violation of the U.S. Constitution, other national constitutions, and the principles of a free society (the applicable one being: LE doesn't get to search you without a damned good reason signed off by a judge on a warrant, and by extension they don't get to twist OEMs' arms to build devices to search you on their behalf).
aborsy 5y ago
Did you read the article? A scanner of any kind is a tool that user chooses among several options in App Store based on community review, is preferably open source, with parameters that user sets, and content and specific directories that user would like to scan. In many cases, people don’t want to install any scanner. The job of a virus scanner in particular is to protect the user. Apple’s scanner is not installed by user, can scan for arbitrary information, is closed source, uses an unknown database and harms most users. It’s more like a virus or Trojan than a virus removal program.
Barrin92 5y ago
>This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported yeah with the small difference that the virus scanner reports to you, whereas this scanner reports to Apple or authorities. The virus scanner's purpose is to alert you of viruses on your machine, the purpose of apple's scanner is to engage in blanket surveillance and treat ordinary users like potential consumers of CSAM by default. Nothing about this is privacy preserving. Privacy would be preserved if Apple refrains from touching any of the information that belong to me and doesn't treat their customers like potential criminals. Imagine you rent parking space for your car and at random intervals, with no reason at all, nothing suspicious has ever happened, the owner comes up, opens your trunk, and rummages through it to check for child porn. That's what Apple is doing. Since when has renting storage space ever entitled anyone to check what the customer puts in the storage? Do you expect the bank clerk to crawl through your personal safe deposit box as well to prevent crime?
- npteljes 5y ago
  >yeah with the small difference that the virus scanner reports to you Important to note that in case of the Win 10 Defender and its default settings, executables, and hashes of other files are uploaded to Microsoft automatically. Much less worse than a csam false positive reporting someone to the authorities, but not really "reporting to you" either.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    If Microsoft were explicit that they were trying to look at your personal files and were then going to send the police to your house based on what the hashes were, that would be a big issue to.
    - npteljes 5y ago
      I hope so!
oliwarner 5y ago
Because feature-based detection has such a great specificity record? That's where the problems start. At the very least, I suspect their employees are going to see a lot of teenagers' nudes. No idea how that will translate into Apple One family account holders' lives being torn apart. We'll see.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by carom 5y ago

bathtub365 5y ago

This analogy only works at a superficial, technical level. When a virus scanner finds a virus, it alerts me and I can either quarantine or delete it. It’s up to me to decide if what it’s found is actually a virus, or a false positive. When Apple's tool thinks it’s found the material it’s looking for, the assumption is that I am a pedophile who collects CSAM.

bitwize 5y ago
Rather than oppose a measure to protect children because of the fear of a few false positives, why can't you accept the fact that the societal benefit outweighs the potential risk? A few innocent men might be condemned to rot -- or be murdered -- in prison, but Apple has developed a system that mostly protects your privacy and could save the lives of potentially millions of children around the world. The rights of a few harmed innocents must be balanced against the greater societal good. (/s in case you were wondering)
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  Sarcasm doesn't land well here, especially when it's a long comment. Thinking about false positives is the wrong thing to focus on. The point is the technology could be applied to any image such as Tiannanmen Square, Hong Kong, depictions of God, Muhammad, or Jesus, etc.
- the_other 5y ago
  > why can't you accept the fact that the societal benefit outweighs the potential risk? Because a shit technical solution (which opens the doors to other abuses) isn’t the fix. Because Apple are not the government. A meaningful scheme to protect the children would need: - better sex ed in schools - better education for parents and people who would like to become parents as to the risks and signs - publicly announced meaningful support for people who self-identify with dangerous thoughts and seek help before their thoughts become behaviours - better support for people from abusive homes as they mature - (probably) two or three generations to pass through before you could measure statistically sound improvement
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Funding of child care would identify the kids that are abused. Identifying any bad actor becomes much easier and targeted without compromising the privacy of everyone. More eyes on the problem and you will get better results. Easy solution that cannot be abused by bad political actors.
- junon 5y ago
  /s doesn't work here, it's not reddit.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  > Rather than oppose a measure to protect children because of the fear of a few false positives, why can't you accept the fact that the societal benefit outweighs the potential risk? But Apple apologists has been telling me all day that I could stop the system from scanning if I just disable iCloud. If a person can disable it that easily, then the system is effectively useless.
nicce 5y ago
> When a virus scanner finds a virus, it alerts me and I can either quarantine or delete it. It’s up to me to decide if what it’s found is actually a virus, or a false positive. This is also a bit superficial. If you are breaking the law, you can't decide by yourself whether you are breaking the law of not. That is up to the judge. While you can quarantine or delete the virus, AV vendor is still getting all the stats. It is not maybe including PhotoDNA matches but cryptographical hashes are included for identical match. It is still perfectly legal to inform CSAM content against these matches, and we can't be sure if that has been made or not. In case of Windows Defender, what if automatic sample submission is enabled? Uploading and storing a file makes Windows as cloud-provider for this specific scenario, and is required by law to report CSAM content. Who knows if PhotoDNA is also applied into this content, but that hasn't been told yet? It is legal, there is no need to to tell that.

gfody 5y ago

Defender has been killing KMSAuto for years, I wonder what other utils are blacklisted

mormegil 5y ago
Netcat, for instance.
inversetelecine 5y ago
That's why I moved to using vlmcsd on a rpi.

djanogo 5y ago

"Virus Scanner" is optional, many ways to disable it, you won't be arrested if you are infected, and government doesn't get to decide what virus is. Apple scanning is NOT optional, if they have false match or mess up you will be charged/investigated for one of THE most hated crimes in human history, even if you win the case the damage will be irreparable. You lost your mind if you think governments are not going to setup their own CSAM database hashes with their own "manual review" centers. Apple will not be able to jack shit on what each country considers CSAM.

BluSyn 5y ago
It is optional to use iCloud Photos. There's no indication you get arrested if they find something, it isn't reported directly to FBI. Apple will just disable your account, and there is an appeals process to restore it if they made a mistake. There's more nuance here beyond the clickbait headlines.
- rubslopes 5y ago
  > Apple will just disable your account That's the only thing they are going to do? That can't be right. What's the point, then?
- zionic 5y ago
  > There's no indication you get arrested if they find something Yes, you are. > it isn't reported directly to FBI NCMEC is the FBI. >Apple will just disable your account, and there is an appeals process to restore it if they made a mistake. Good luck appealing from your jail cell or with confiscated devices >There's more nuance here beyond the clickbait headlines. Please stop spreading false information

throwaway476268 5y ago

Windows Defender a) tells you exactly what file/which virus triggered it and b) does not report you to the police. And AV that uploads files by itself is not OK either. Then, either the DB or the algorithms will result in false positives, and you have to trust the reviewers 100% – with your life – to sort them out correctly. From the article at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28110159: (The false-positive was a fully clothed man holding a monkey -- I think it's a rhesus macaque. No children, no nudity.) Based just on the 5 matches, I am able to theorize that 20% of the cryptographic hashes were likely incorrectly classified.

Nicksil 5y ago

>This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported. Your Windows desktop has Windows Defender. The analogy isn't great. Anti-virus/malware software provides a benefit to the owner of the device; Apple's software does not.

threeseed 5y ago
If you are a parent you very much will appreciate your children not receiving or sending explicit photos. As someone who cares for society I am thrilled that Apple is preventing the dissemination of CSAM.
- weikju 5y ago
  I think most people are fine with the measures taken in Messages, much less so with the measures taken with scanning of images and reporting to authorities, and the possible scope creep that is only prevented by policy, rather than by capability.
  - threeseed 5y ago
    The only thing stopping Apple from doing anything on your device is policy, rather than by capability. They do control the OS and apps after all.
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  As someone who cares about free society I am disgraced that we push through de facto censorship regimes to oppress the world through weak child protection arguments.
carom 5y ago
Apple is using this as a proxy for scanning their iCloud infrastructure. If you are using their cloud service, it does provide a benefit to the owner of those machines.

BluSyn 5y ago

Thanks for stating a well-reasoned comment on this issue. I think far more people are in this camp than are willing to admit on social media. The voices of hyperbole have drowned out the conversation rendering all nuance meaningless.

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago

> It scans your photos, for known CSAM images No, it scans photos for arbitray (fancy) hashes, and Apple chooses to limit it to CSAM images. Nothing about the tech prevents it from being expanded to other kinds of images. And from what I understand, nothing prevents it from being expanded to other filetypes either, does it? The only thing that ties this tech to CSAM images is Apples promise (and claim) to keep the scope limited.

threeseed 5y ago
This sort of argument is just bizarre to me. If you think Apple is on a slippery slope and will just expand this feature without any consideration then why have an issue now ? Apple already has your unencrypted photos. They could scan it server-side. Or they scan it on your device and simply not tell you. And they can push OS updates without you knowing to enable all of this. Apple could even push CSAM to your phone and frame you if they wanted to. They control ALL of the keys to your device whilst you are using iCloud and allowing software updates.
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  … yes. And it will take less than 2 years for the world to push new entires, as had happened for the last 10y. They will be forced to detect rafts of totally unrelated content, ranging from king photos in Thailand to Winnie the Pooh in China. This is going to happen. You need to put away your “protect the children” pearls and realize wtf game they are playing here. It’s always about protecting the children, and folks fall for it every time.
carom 5y ago
The only thing that prevents Apple, Microsoft, or Ubuntu from executing arbitrary code on your system is their promise to keep the scope of updates limited. You already operate under this trust model.
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
  > You already operate under this trust model. Do I? Can you elaborate? Do you notice a difference between a company (potentially) doing this behind closed doors and as quietly as possible and doing this in a public official way? What if I tell you I don't use any of the operating systems you listed? Does your answer change? I have a question: Would you welcome such a move? Do you believe that taking things a bit further would be nice because "we might catch a few criminals"?

unityByFreedom 5y ago

What are your thoughts on state actors asking Apple to use this technology to imprison dissidents? This effectively criminalizes anything the state deems unacceptable, which in some countries includes criticizing the ruling party. Is it right for an American company to open their gates to that?

carom 5y ago
Why has that state actor not already forced Apple to deploy a special firmware image to all citizens via software update functionality? Yes, this can be used to search for banned memes, but if a country has that flex, they would already be doing so.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  Why didn't Apple do this without announcing it? The answer is Apple risks a whistleblower on their hands if they do it secretly, regardless of the targeted country. Remember Google's project Dragonfly? Plus, software needs to be maintained. I don't see how they could do that in perpetuity without a major risk to their valuation. So all moves do need to be made public while the software is created in countries that have a free press.
  - threeseed 5y ago
    So why wouldn't that same whisteblower complain if Apple expands their CSAM detection system to other use cases ? And iOS is a modular operating system. They could easily swap out the Photos.framework for different state actors and support that in perpetuity. They were already doing this when cross-building for ARM/x86.
    - unityByFreedom 5y ago
      > So why wouldn't that same whisteblower complain if Apple expands their CSAM detection system to other use cases ? I assume Apple could make it very difficult, if not impossible, to detect what they're searching for when they are using hashes created and transmitted by all their own hardware and software. But, even if they did publish the hashes and those were somehow verified in free-press countries by a trusted 3rd party, that does nothing for countries with no free press. Such places would have no knowledge of what's being searched for, and that's the whole point. I won't support an American company that helps oppressive countries stymie what little freedom their people have left to connect via the internet. To the extent they are successful, the results of those tools will eventually be aimed at us, either via uninformed people or by using the tools themselves on us. > And iOS is a modular operating system. They could easily swap out the Photos.framework for different state actors and support that in perpetuity. They were already doing this when cross-building for ARM/x86. Sure. And I expect if there were something nefarious there working on behalf of foreign governments then we would eventually hear about it, one way or another. It's a terrible idea that would be abused, and humans are natural pattern recognizers.

bitwize 5y ago

> This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported. Your Windows desktop has Windows Defender. 1) I don't run Windows. 2) The principle of antivirus software is different: the software scans your files but does everything locally and with the end user in full control over what happens next, and of their data. Windows Defender does not report you to the fuzz when it finds a match -- yet. Given that it is apparently now enforcing copyright laws in addition to protecting the end user against viruses, that may change. > The case was dismissed on a technicality. If the cops want to catch chomos and bring them to justice, they can assiduously avoid bringing the fruit of the poisoned tree into the courtroom. The societal risks of allowing them to bring ill-gotten evidence to trial are too great, no matter how evil we think the defendant is. > It scans your photos, for known CSAM images, when you are using iCloud backups, in order to comply with the law that they must scan their hosting services for CSAM. The USA has no such law (yet). Service providers have a duty to report if they find CSAM, not a duty to scan for it. Even if they had such a duty, they could scan the copy that lives on their servers, rather than pushing spyware to users' devices and blatantly breaking the trust that a user's device implicitly serves the user's needs. > We seem to have taken the idea that sometimes bad things are promoted through "think of the children" to mean we must oppose anything involving the protection of children. That's a disingenuous strawman. No one is objecting to laws that punish child abusers, or to legitimate forensic techniques to catch them. We're objecting to companies -- and now end-user devices -- being deputized to participate in law enforcement dragnets likely in violation of the U.S. Constitution, other national constitutions, and the principles of a free society (the applicable one being: LE doesn't get to search you without a damned good reason signed off by a judge on a warrant, and by extension they don't get to twist OEMs' arms to build devices to search you on their behalf).

aborsy 5y ago

Did you read the article? A scanner of any kind is a tool that user chooses among several options in App Store based on community review, is preferably open source, with parameters that user sets, and content and specific directories that user would like to scan. In many cases, people don’t want to install any scanner. The job of a virus scanner in particular is to protect the user. Apple’s scanner is not installed by user, can scan for arbitrary information, is closed source, uses an unknown database and harms most users. It’s more like a virus or Trojan than a virus removal program.

Barrin92 5y ago

>This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported yeah with the small difference that the virus scanner reports to you, whereas this scanner reports to Apple or authorities. The virus scanner's purpose is to alert you of viruses on your machine, the purpose of apple's scanner is to engage in blanket surveillance and treat ordinary users like potential consumers of CSAM by default. Nothing about this is privacy preserving. Privacy would be preserved if Apple refrains from touching any of the information that belong to me and doesn't treat their customers like potential criminals. Imagine you rent parking space for your car and at random intervals, with no reason at all, nothing suspicious has ever happened, the owner comes up, opens your trunk, and rummages through it to check for child porn. That's what Apple is doing. Since when has renting storage space ever entitled anyone to check what the customer puts in the storage? Do you expect the bank clerk to crawl through your personal safe deposit box as well to prevent crime?

npteljes 5y ago
>yeah with the small difference that the virus scanner reports to you Important to note that in case of the Win 10 Defender and its default settings, executables, and hashes of other files are uploaded to Microsoft automatically. Much less worse than a csam false positive reporting someone to the authorities, but not really "reporting to you" either.
- roenxi 5y ago
  If Microsoft were explicit that they were trying to look at your personal files and were then going to send the police to your house based on what the hashes were, that would be a big issue to.
  - npteljes 5y ago
    I hope so!

oliwarner 5y ago

Because feature-based detection has such a great specificity record? That's where the problems start. At the very least, I suspect their employees are going to see a lot of teenagers' nudes. No idea how that will translate into Apple One family account holders' lives being torn apart. We'll see.

deleted 5y ago

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