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This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. Imagine investing hundreds of millions of dollars in p

This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. Imagine investing hundreds of millions of dollars in pro-privacy programs, privacy features, privacy marketing, etc... just to pull this reverse card. Of course this is going to spark concern within their own ranks. It's like working for a food company that claims to use organic, non-processed, fair-trade ingredients and in just a day deciding that you're going to switch to industrial farming sourcing and ultra-processed ingredients. It's a complete change of narrative and there's no easy way to explain it and still defend Apple's Privacy narrative, wihout doing extreme mental gymnastics.

baggy_trough 5y ago
Hey it's still private... unless you have content that matches an opaque, government controlled list of forbidden content... what could go wrong?
- Covzire 5y ago
  Antifa or BLM or Burger King will never demand that they add certain content to the burn list. Don't worry. Be happy.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments. We're trying for something a bit different from internet default here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments. We're trying for something a bit different from internet default here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I actually think something else happened, and to be honest I think many at Apple behind this decision are likely pretty surprised by the blowback. That is, it seems like Apple really wanted to preserve "end-to-end" encryption, but they needed to do something to address the CSAM issue lest governments come down on them hard. Thus, my guess is, at least at the beginning, they saw this as a strong win for privacy. As the project progressed, however, it's like they missed "the forest for the trees" and didn't quite realize that their plan to protect end-to-end encryption doesn't mean that much if one "end" is now forced to run tech that can be abused by governments. This kind of thing isn't that uncommon with large companies. To me it seems very similar to the Netflix Qwikster debacle of a decade ago. Netflix could very clearly see the writing on the wall, that the DVD-by-mail business needed to morph into a streaming business. But they fumbled the implementation, and what largely came across to the public was "you're raising prices by 40%." I give Netflix huge props for actually reversing the decision pretty quickly - I find that exceptionally rare among large corporations. Remains to be seen if Apple will do the same.
- roody15 5y ago
  That is, it seems like Apple really wanted to preserve "end-to-end" encryption,“ … except they still have not mentioned anything about E2E encryption… and they currently don’t encrypt icloud backups. You would think apple would get ahead of this story and mention … or maybe they don’t have any E2E plans at all.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    This blog post got a lot of commentary on HN a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28118350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28118350. iMessages are already E2E encrypted, but you are correct, iCloud backups are decryptable with a warrant (and that was reportedly added at the FBI's request). But I agree with Ben Thompson's point in that blog post, that it's OK to not have strong, unbreakable encryption be the default, and that it's still possible to use an iPhone without iCloud and get full E2E. But with Apple's CSAM proposal is NOT possible to have an iPhone that Apple isn't continuously scanning.
intricatedetail 5y ago
Power 101: preach one thing do opposite
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments. We're trying for something a bit different from internet default here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
beezischillin 5y ago
If I were to speculate, I’ve seen lots of references as to how Apple reports way less of this to the appropriate authority than the rest of their competition. It does kinda sound to me like this is the consequence of external pressure. I cannot prove this but speculate, of course. I just don’t think the messaging they had around this is reassuring at all. While they had all sorts of technical explanations as to how trustworthy this will all be because they are in charge, the whole thing quickly went from “this is only for iCloud photos” and only in the US to “3rd party integration can happen” and “we’re expanding it to other countries”. Which I guess is a logical next step but it is a hint at expansion. The walled garden becomes much less tempting after all of this, especially right after a scandal like the Pegasus one.
amcoastal 5y ago
So who is responsible for this decision? Is it Tim Cook?
TroisM 5y ago
> This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. yes, but at least they are telling the truth now...
swiley 5y ago
Apple only had pro privacy PR. They were always working this way. What you're witnessing is a PR change and not a technical one.
- fastball 5y ago
  Aren't a number of things E2EE with Apple?
  - swiley 5y ago
    The few things that are get backed up in cleartext. Also E2EE doesn't mean jack shit if someone else owns the ends.
foobiekr 5y ago
To me the issue is that it makes no sense: if it's just scanning iCloud photos, ___why does this feature need to exist at all__? Apple is saying this: "we need to scan your phone because we need to look for this material, and by the way, we're only scanning things _we've been scanning for years already_" Basiclaly, everything else aside, in the current state of things, this feature makes no sense. They are not scanning anything they weren't scanning already (literally, everything on iCloud) so why did they bother? A bunch of people are making speculative claims that Apple is doing this to enable encryption of data in iCloud, but there's no reason to believe that's true. Apple certainly hasn't mentioned it. So .. why?
- browningstreet 5y ago
  And, it’s absurdly defeat-able. Which means there’ll be an escalation. Whether in v2 or beyond, this will get worse / more intrusive.
- AnonC 5y ago
  > A bunch of people are making speculative claims that Apple is doing this to enable encryption of data in iCloud, but there's no reason to believe that's true. Apple certainly hasn't mentioned it. There is nothing surprising here. Apple never mentions things unless it’s ready for release or is just about to be released. It’s just how Apple works.
- Ceiling 5y ago
  Here's my hope: E2E encryption. Maybe the government is throwing a fit about Apple harboring potential CP on its server if it's E2E encrypted, so apple says, "fine well review it prior to upload, and then E2E encrypt the upload itself" I can hope, I guess...
- spuz 5y ago
  > "we need to scan your phone because we need to look for this material, and by the way, we're only scanning things _we've been scanning for years already_" As far as we know, Apple is not already using their decryption keys to decrypt images upload to iCloud and compare them with known images. That's according to this blog post that claims Apple make very few reports to the NCMEC: https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-One-Bad-Apple.html https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-On...
EGreg 5y ago
Apple was always pro “think of the children”, not just privacy.
EastSmith 5y ago
I was going to buy my first iphone ever this year. Because of the privacy promises. Now I am not sure anymore. Once they open the door they will not be able to close it ever.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  For me the only thing stopping me was the lack of type-c and a headphone jack, which at the time was an annoyance but now is turning out to be a blessing in disguise
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nextlevelwizard 5y ago
I don't think this is a good metaphor. You still get the privacy same privacy aspect as you did before. Only your iCloud images are now being scanned for visual matches. If you are already trusting Apple with rest of your private life this hardly is complete 180 degree turn. I don't quite understand why people are so against this. What if some algorithm scans your images? If you are using any cloud service to share your images then your images are already being scanned and far more invasively. Is the the storing of hashes that concerns you? Your password(s) is already being stored as a hash and we trust that it can not be reversed back to plain text, why wouldn't we trust that these image hashes can't be reversed back into images? I've seen some notion that this is a backdoor and governments and other Lovecraftian entities could use it to suppress freedom of speech by censoring certain images, but that would require them to first have the image in question, then creating hash of the image, and then inserting it into the Apple's database and after that it would only be flagged for human verification and again assuming you trust Apple to handle rest of your digital life (such as iMessages) why wouldn't you trust Apple to share your images? If some entity has it's hooks so deep in apple that they start to censor images why wouldn't they just stop all of your messages being sent? Please correct me if I'm missing something obvious.
- goldenkey 5y ago
  > why wouldn't we trust that these image hashes can't be reversed back into images? You should avoid making political or moral arguments when your technical knowledge is 10 feet below your ego. An image is orders of magnitude larger than a password, meaning that many more collisions. Also, because it's a perceptual hash, even more collisions. One does not simply reverse a perceptual hash. Keep your hat on ;-)
  - nextlevelwizard 5y ago
    >You should avoid making political or moral arguments I am not being political or moral. Why would you think that? Is this one of those "since you don't immediately agree with me it means you are the enemy and disagree on everything" type things? >An image is orders of magnitude larger than a password, meaning that many more collisions. Whole point of hashing algorithms is that they produce unique hashes for different inputs. Wouldn't a larger input value (bits of the image) make it harder to have collisions? >One does not simply reverse a perceptual hash So what actually is the privacy concern here? There is no way to get the original image from the hash at best you can get an approximation of it. >Keep your hat on ;-) I guess this is suppose to be some kind of dig at me. No need to be an asshole even if you don't agree with someone.
marticode 5y ago
Apple privacy focus was always opportunistic: they couldn't get a foothold into online advertising so they decided to make that weakness a selling point instead. They'll ditch privacy in a second if they can sell you enough ads, just as they ditched privacy for Chinese customers when the Chinese government asked them to.
- the_other 5y ago
  > Apple privacy focus was always opportunistic: they couldn't get a foothold into online advertising so they decided to make that weakness a selling point instead. You could spin that the other way: Apple’s foray into advertising was opportunistic, but didn’t sit with their focus on privacy. You’d need internal memos to prove it went either way.
  - marticode 5y ago
    You could, but it seems more likely that a mega corporation gave up on a huge market because it failed to succeed there rather than moral principles. It's not like Apple has showed a lot of moral standing when dealing with the CCP, or isn't ruthlessly crushing competition when it gets the chance.
    - TimTheTinker 5y ago
      I have a friend who knows Apple's head of user privacy. He vouches that the guy is deeply serious about security/privacy. Between that and Apple's principled stance against the FBI, I'm inclined to believe that at that time, they were making principled choices out of a real concern for user privacy. I suspect this time around they have a real concern for dealing with the growing child exploitation/abuse problem, but failed to prioritize system design principles in their zeal to pursue positive change in the world. I don't envy them: in their position, they have an incredible amount of pressure and the stakes are incredibly high. May cool heads and rational, principled thinking prevail.
  - dangerface 5y ago
    The focus on privacy was new and only after their focus on advertising failed.
afro88 5y ago
> It's like working for a food company that claims to use organic, non-processed, fair-trade ingredients and in just a day deciding that you're going to switch to industrial farming sourcing and ultra-processed ingredients. No it's not, it's more like in just a day they started including a chemical preservative amongst all the organic ingredients. All the good stuff is still there, it's just pointless now for people who want to eat pure organic food. I agree with the sentiment though.
ChrisRR 5y ago
Apple is heavy on their advertising. If there's a way to spin it, they will
- notquitehuman 5y ago
  They’re certainly trying. But the video of Craig trying to use a novel definition of “law enforcement backdoor” and accusing people of being confused is contemptibly dishonest.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throw2345678 5y ago
That is not an accurate analogy at all. Apple DID design this with privacy in mind. What would work to fit your inaccurate analogy is if Apple suddenly started reading everything of yours in the plain, directly violating your privacy. As it stands, the system is designed so that the phone snitches you out if you have CSAM on it matching some perceptual hashes (and plenty of it), but if you do not have CSAM above threshold amounts then your phone never even phones home about it. It is in fact a privacy-preserving mechanism in the sense that Apple never sees your photos.
masto 5y ago
Apple was never pro-privacy. Apple has always been pro-Apple. They will do whatever benefits them the most at any time. It just so happens that with the failure of their own attempts to start an advertising network, they saw an opportunity to spin themselves as the privacy company and take digs at their competitors. Nothing lasts forever. Maybe it's time for a new spin.
- m12k 5y ago
  Sure, but even if it was an illusion, they spent a lot of time and energy building it up, just to burst it like this.
ransom1538 5y ago
If a grandmother takes a photo of their grandchild in a bathtub this is technically against federal law 18 U.S.C. § 2252. There is no "I am grandma" exception. This is a serious felony with serious consequences. If you use an algorithm without any context I think you are looking at a ton of new 18 U.S.C. § 2252 (child pornography) charges through these scans. These charges are notoriously difficult to defend against and even the charge itself will ruin lives and careers [1]. Getting custody back of your child will also be impossible [found guilty or not]. I am getting my popcorn ready. Apple has no idea what they have unleashed. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8161067 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8161067 * edit: hahaha downvotes thanks apple employees!
- mkl 5y ago
  You seem to be missing the fact that they're only scanning for existing images in a database, not detecting brand new images. Grandma's photo won't be in the database unless she uploads it somewhere that reports it.
  - ransom1538 5y ago
    lol. Right they will just go through every photo you have ever posted.
encryptluks2 5y ago
If you will believe anything a company says I have a bridge to sell.
pyuser583 5y ago
It would feel a lot less creepy if they just scanned files on their servers like everyone else. Is it supposed to make us feel better the scanning is happening on our own devices instead of someone else’s? It certainly increases the “creep factor.”
lugged 5y ago
To be honest you lost the privacy battle when you bought apple hardware. Can't run Linux, can't run windows, you're stuck with zero competition in the OS space.

baggy_trough 5y ago

Hey it's still private... unless you have content that matches an opaque, government controlled list of forbidden content... what could go wrong?

Covzire 5y ago
Antifa or BLM or Burger King will never demand that they add certain content to the burn list. Don't worry. Be happy.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments. We're trying for something a bit different from internet default here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 5y ago
Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments. We're trying for something a bit different from internet default here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

I actually think something else happened, and to be honest I think many at Apple behind this decision are likely pretty surprised by the blowback. That is, it seems like Apple really wanted to preserve "end-to-end" encryption, but they needed to do something to address the CSAM issue lest governments come down on them hard. Thus, my guess is, at least at the beginning, they saw this as a strong win for privacy. As the project progressed, however, it's like they missed "the forest for the trees" and didn't quite realize that their plan to protect end-to-end encryption doesn't mean that much if one "end" is now forced to run tech that can be abused by governments. This kind of thing isn't that uncommon with large companies. To me it seems very similar to the Netflix Qwikster debacle of a decade ago. Netflix could very clearly see the writing on the wall, that the DVD-by-mail business needed to morph into a streaming business. But they fumbled the implementation, and what largely came across to the public was "you're raising prices by 40%." I give Netflix huge props for actually reversing the decision pretty quickly - I find that exceptionally rare among large corporations. Remains to be seen if Apple will do the same.

roody15 5y ago
That is, it seems like Apple really wanted to preserve "end-to-end" encryption,“ … except they still have not mentioned anything about E2E encryption… and they currently don’t encrypt icloud backups. You would think apple would get ahead of this story and mention … or maybe they don’t have any E2E plans at all.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  This blog post got a lot of commentary on HN a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28118350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28118350. iMessages are already E2E encrypted, but you are correct, iCloud backups are decryptable with a warrant (and that was reportedly added at the FBI's request). But I agree with Ben Thompson's point in that blog post, that it's OK to not have strong, unbreakable encryption be the default, and that it's still possible to use an iPhone without iCloud and get full E2E. But with Apple's CSAM proposal is NOT possible to have an iPhone that Apple isn't continuously scanning.

intricatedetail 5y ago

Power 101: preach one thing do opposite

dang 5y ago
Please don't post flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments. We're trying for something a bit different from internet default here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

beezischillin 5y ago

If I were to speculate, I’ve seen lots of references as to how Apple reports way less of this to the appropriate authority than the rest of their competition. It does kinda sound to me like this is the consequence of external pressure. I cannot prove this but speculate, of course. I just don’t think the messaging they had around this is reassuring at all. While they had all sorts of technical explanations as to how trustworthy this will all be because they are in charge, the whole thing quickly went from “this is only for iCloud photos” and only in the US to “3rd party integration can happen” and “we’re expanding it to other countries”. Which I guess is a logical next step but it is a hint at expansion. The walled garden becomes much less tempting after all of this, especially right after a scandal like the Pegasus one.

amcoastal 5y ago

So who is responsible for this decision? Is it Tim Cook?

TroisM 5y ago

> This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. yes, but at least they are telling the truth now...

swiley 5y ago

Apple only had pro privacy PR. They were always working this way. What you're witnessing is a PR change and not a technical one.

fastball 5y ago
Aren't a number of things E2EE with Apple?
- swiley 5y ago
  The few things that are get backed up in cleartext. Also E2EE doesn't mean jack shit if someone else owns the ends.

foobiekr 5y ago

To me the issue is that it makes no sense: if it's just scanning iCloud photos, ___why does this feature need to exist at all__? Apple is saying this: "we need to scan your phone because we need to look for this material, and by the way, we're only scanning things _we've been scanning for years already_" Basiclaly, everything else aside, in the current state of things, this feature makes no sense. They are not scanning anything they weren't scanning already (literally, everything on iCloud) so why did they bother? A bunch of people are making speculative claims that Apple is doing this to enable encryption of data in iCloud, but there's no reason to believe that's true. Apple certainly hasn't mentioned it. So .. why?

browningstreet 5y ago
And, it’s absurdly defeat-able. Which means there’ll be an escalation. Whether in v2 or beyond, this will get worse / more intrusive.
AnonC 5y ago
> A bunch of people are making speculative claims that Apple is doing this to enable encryption of data in iCloud, but there's no reason to believe that's true. Apple certainly hasn't mentioned it. There is nothing surprising here. Apple never mentions things unless it’s ready for release or is just about to be released. It’s just how Apple works.
Ceiling 5y ago
Here's my hope: E2E encryption. Maybe the government is throwing a fit about Apple harboring potential CP on its server if it's E2E encrypted, so apple says, "fine well review it prior to upload, and then E2E encrypt the upload itself" I can hope, I guess...
spuz 5y ago
> "we need to scan your phone because we need to look for this material, and by the way, we're only scanning things _we've been scanning for years already_" As far as we know, Apple is not already using their decryption keys to decrypt images upload to iCloud and compare them with known images. That's according to this blog post that claims Apple make very few reports to the NCMEC: https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-One-Bad-Apple.html https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-On...

EGreg 5y ago

Apple was always pro “think of the children”, not just privacy.

EastSmith 5y ago

I was going to buy my first iphone ever this year. Because of the privacy promises. Now I am not sure anymore. Once they open the door they will not be able to close it ever.

bodge5000 5y ago
For me the only thing stopping me was the lack of type-c and a headphone jack, which at the time was an annoyance but now is turning out to be a blessing in disguise

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nextlevelwizard 5y ago

I don't think this is a good metaphor. You still get the privacy same privacy aspect as you did before. Only your iCloud images are now being scanned for visual matches. If you are already trusting Apple with rest of your private life this hardly is complete 180 degree turn. I don't quite understand why people are so against this. What if some algorithm scans your images? If you are using any cloud service to share your images then your images are already being scanned and far more invasively. Is the the storing of hashes that concerns you? Your password(s) is already being stored as a hash and we trust that it can not be reversed back to plain text, why wouldn't we trust that these image hashes can't be reversed back into images? I've seen some notion that this is a backdoor and governments and other Lovecraftian entities could use it to suppress freedom of speech by censoring certain images, but that would require them to first have the image in question, then creating hash of the image, and then inserting it into the Apple's database and after that it would only be flagged for human verification and again assuming you trust Apple to handle rest of your digital life (such as iMessages) why wouldn't you trust Apple to share your images? If some entity has it's hooks so deep in apple that they start to censor images why wouldn't they just stop all of your messages being sent? Please correct me if I'm missing something obvious.

goldenkey 5y ago
> why wouldn't we trust that these image hashes can't be reversed back into images? You should avoid making political or moral arguments when your technical knowledge is 10 feet below your ego. An image is orders of magnitude larger than a password, meaning that many more collisions. Also, because it's a perceptual hash, even more collisions. One does not simply reverse a perceptual hash. Keep your hat on ;-)
- nextlevelwizard 5y ago
  >You should avoid making political or moral arguments I am not being political or moral. Why would you think that? Is this one of those "since you don't immediately agree with me it means you are the enemy and disagree on everything" type things? >An image is orders of magnitude larger than a password, meaning that many more collisions. Whole point of hashing algorithms is that they produce unique hashes for different inputs. Wouldn't a larger input value (bits of the image) make it harder to have collisions? >One does not simply reverse a perceptual hash So what actually is the privacy concern here? There is no way to get the original image from the hash at best you can get an approximation of it. >Keep your hat on ;-) I guess this is suppose to be some kind of dig at me. No need to be an asshole even if you don't agree with someone.

marticode 5y ago

Apple privacy focus was always opportunistic: they couldn't get a foothold into online advertising so they decided to make that weakness a selling point instead. They'll ditch privacy in a second if they can sell you enough ads, just as they ditched privacy for Chinese customers when the Chinese government asked them to.

the_other 5y ago
> Apple privacy focus was always opportunistic: they couldn't get a foothold into online advertising so they decided to make that weakness a selling point instead. You could spin that the other way: Apple’s foray into advertising was opportunistic, but didn’t sit with their focus on privacy. You’d need internal memos to prove it went either way.
- marticode 5y ago
  You could, but it seems more likely that a mega corporation gave up on a huge market because it failed to succeed there rather than moral principles. It's not like Apple has showed a lot of moral standing when dealing with the CCP, or isn't ruthlessly crushing competition when it gets the chance.
  - TimTheTinker 5y ago
    I have a friend who knows Apple's head of user privacy. He vouches that the guy is deeply serious about security/privacy. Between that and Apple's principled stance against the FBI, I'm inclined to believe that at that time, they were making principled choices out of a real concern for user privacy. I suspect this time around they have a real concern for dealing with the growing child exploitation/abuse problem, but failed to prioritize system design principles in their zeal to pursue positive change in the world. I don't envy them: in their position, they have an incredible amount of pressure and the stakes are incredibly high. May cool heads and rational, principled thinking prevail.
- dangerface 5y ago
  The focus on privacy was new and only after their focus on advertising failed.

afro88 5y ago

> It's like working for a food company that claims to use organic, non-processed, fair-trade ingredients and in just a day deciding that you're going to switch to industrial farming sourcing and ultra-processed ingredients. No it's not, it's more like in just a day they started including a chemical preservative amongst all the organic ingredients. All the good stuff is still there, it's just pointless now for people who want to eat pure organic food. I agree with the sentiment though.

ChrisRR 5y ago

Apple is heavy on their advertising. If there's a way to spin it, they will

notquitehuman 5y ago
They’re certainly trying. But the video of Craig trying to use a novel definition of “law enforcement backdoor” and accusing people of being confused is contemptibly dishonest.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throw2345678 5y ago

That is not an accurate analogy at all. Apple DID design this with privacy in mind. What would work to fit your inaccurate analogy is if Apple suddenly started reading everything of yours in the plain, directly violating your privacy. As it stands, the system is designed so that the phone snitches you out if you have CSAM on it matching some perceptual hashes (and plenty of it), but if you do not have CSAM above threshold amounts then your phone never even phones home about it. It is in fact a privacy-preserving mechanism in the sense that Apple never sees your photos.

masto 5y ago

Apple was never pro-privacy. Apple has always been pro-Apple. They will do whatever benefits them the most at any time. It just so happens that with the failure of their own attempts to start an advertising network, they saw an opportunity to spin themselves as the privacy company and take digs at their competitors. Nothing lasts forever. Maybe it's time for a new spin.

m12k 5y ago
Sure, but even if it was an illusion, they spent a lot of time and energy building it up, just to burst it like this.

ransom1538 5y ago

If a grandmother takes a photo of their grandchild in a bathtub this is technically against federal law 18 U.S.C. § 2252. There is no "I am grandma" exception. This is a serious felony with serious consequences. If you use an algorithm without any context I think you are looking at a ton of new 18 U.S.C. § 2252 (child pornography) charges through these scans. These charges are notoriously difficult to defend against and even the charge itself will ruin lives and careers [1]. Getting custody back of your child will also be impossible [found guilty or not]. I am getting my popcorn ready. Apple has no idea what they have unleashed. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8161067 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8161067 * edit: hahaha downvotes thanks apple employees!

mkl 5y ago
You seem to be missing the fact that they're only scanning for existing images in a database, not detecting brand new images. Grandma's photo won't be in the database unless she uploads it somewhere that reports it.
- ransom1538 5y ago
  lol. Right they will just go through every photo you have ever posted.

encryptluks2 5y ago

If you will believe anything a company says I have a bridge to sell.

pyuser583 5y ago

It would feel a lot less creepy if they just scanned files on their servers like everyone else. Is it supposed to make us feel better the scanning is happening on our own devices instead of someone else’s? It certainly increases the “creep factor.”

lugged 5y ago

To be honest you lost the privacy battle when you bought apple hardware. Can't run Linux, can't run windows, you're stuck with zero competition in the OS space.