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I agree with (2). But I do think there is a fundamental (human, psychological, emotional) difference between a tool running on a server and one running on my de

I agree with (2). But I do think there is a fundamental (human, psychological, emotional) difference between a tool running on a server and one running on my device. The mental and ethical lines are clear when I hand content to a server, that's a contract I can understand and agree to. When it runs on my device, even if it's because of the option to send it to the server, that feels fuzzier. As Ben Thompson put it it's the difference between Capability and Policy. This is now rubbing in our faces that the privacy is only in the policy, not the capabilities of the software. And the capabilities of propriety software are pretty knowable, through a combination of inspection and long term observation. The end result isn't any different today, but it highlights the political position that Apple and others are being put in. I honestly don't fault Apple for this on anything except their clearly poor messaging, but they are getting pulled from all sides by governments who don't like the idea of them actually implementing a fully closed and end-to-end encrypted system for user data.

helen___keller 5y ago
> But I do think there is a fundamental (human, psychological, emotional) difference between a tool running on a server and one running on my device. I agree, but it's frustrating to me because it's an illusion: if your device is running proprietary software, you don't control the device. At that point there's little difference between your device and a server in the cloud, aside from technical characteristics like latency and compute power.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  The difference is I supposedly own my device. This is a line we use for all sorts of things, such as, say, hacking charges.
  - helen___keller 5y ago
    You explicitly do not own the software running on the device. It's Apple's software running both on your device and on their servers.
- stetrain 5y ago
  I think Apple is getting so much heat for this because they have at least maintained an outward appearance of separation between device and cloud for so long. Some of this was just due to being further behind on the SaaS ramp than MS and Google. Everyone expects a Google-services enabled Android device to basically be a cloud thin client, but less so an iPhone. And Apple has actually stood up for encryption and not putting in openly exploitable backdoor capabilities just to appease law enforcement, see their back and forth with the FBI a couple of years ago. Apple seems to be coming up with awkward solutions as they try to do the "right thing" in some places (more end to end encryption) while governments / law enforcement don't want hidden data because of "the children", terrorism, etc. They announced this proudly as though they had finally found the holy grail to negotiate this quagmire but the messaging did not go over at all how they seemed to expect. I don't think there's a path forward for fully open and non-proprietary software that everyone uses. It hasn't happened on the desktop so I doubt it will on mobile devices. And most people want their devices to be cloud terminals, not sovereign system states. So I think it comes back down to a legal and political issue of what requirements governments put on these tech companies, how data and privacy protections are guaranteed (or forced to be broken), and how that gets enforced.
- amatecha 5y ago
  Yeah, by even using the device at all, you already agreed to a very long EULA which includes provisions for whatever the vendor of the product wants to do. So, like you say, there's really no reason to have a shred of trust in proprietary software where you can never see for yourself what backdoors (etc.) might be there.
rcoveson 5y ago
> But I do think there is a fundamental (human, psychological, emotional) difference between a tool running on a server and one running on my device. Strongly agree. A law requiring police cameras in rented trucks is an invasion of privacy and a loss of rights for the populace, but it's a whole lot better than having those cameras in your home. But the sad truth is that handheld devices are actually more like rented tools than they are private homes. Apple devices are windows into SaaSpace; their local storage and compute capabilities are merely implementation details. They aren't anything like the PCs of yore.
mvanbaak 5y ago
> The mental and ethical lines are clear when I hand content to a server, that's a contract I can understand and agree to. This system will only work on photos you are going to upload to icloud photo library. If you dont enable this, no picture will be scanned. In my view this is exactly the same as before where this scan was running on the server.

helen___keller 5y ago

> But I do think there is a fundamental (human, psychological, emotional) difference between a tool running on a server and one running on my device. I agree, but it's frustrating to me because it's an illusion: if your device is running proprietary software, you don't control the device. At that point there's little difference between your device and a server in the cloud, aside from technical characteristics like latency and compute power.

bcrosby95 5y ago
The difference is I supposedly own my device. This is a line we use for all sorts of things, such as, say, hacking charges.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  You explicitly do not own the software running on the device. It's Apple's software running both on your device and on their servers.
stetrain 5y ago
I think Apple is getting so much heat for this because they have at least maintained an outward appearance of separation between device and cloud for so long. Some of this was just due to being further behind on the SaaS ramp than MS and Google. Everyone expects a Google-services enabled Android device to basically be a cloud thin client, but less so an iPhone. And Apple has actually stood up for encryption and not putting in openly exploitable backdoor capabilities just to appease law enforcement, see their back and forth with the FBI a couple of years ago. Apple seems to be coming up with awkward solutions as they try to do the "right thing" in some places (more end to end encryption) while governments / law enforcement don't want hidden data because of "the children", terrorism, etc. They announced this proudly as though they had finally found the holy grail to negotiate this quagmire but the messaging did not go over at all how they seemed to expect. I don't think there's a path forward for fully open and non-proprietary software that everyone uses. It hasn't happened on the desktop so I doubt it will on mobile devices. And most people want their devices to be cloud terminals, not sovereign system states. So I think it comes back down to a legal and political issue of what requirements governments put on these tech companies, how data and privacy protections are guaranteed (or forced to be broken), and how that gets enforced.
amatecha 5y ago
Yeah, by even using the device at all, you already agreed to a very long EULA which includes provisions for whatever the vendor of the product wants to do. So, like you say, there's really no reason to have a shred of trust in proprietary software where you can never see for yourself what backdoors (etc.) might be there.

rcoveson 5y ago

> But I do think there is a fundamental (human, psychological, emotional) difference between a tool running on a server and one running on my device. Strongly agree. A law requiring police cameras in rented trucks is an invasion of privacy and a loss of rights for the populace, but it's a whole lot better than having those cameras in your home. But the sad truth is that handheld devices are actually more like rented tools than they are private homes. Apple devices are windows into SaaSpace; their local storage and compute capabilities are merely implementation details. They aren't anything like the PCs of yore.

mvanbaak 5y ago

> The mental and ethical lines are clear when I hand content to a server, that's a contract I can understand and agree to. This system will only work on photos you are going to upload to icloud photo library. If you dont enable this, no picture will be scanned. In my view this is exactly the same as before where this scan was running on the server.