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What happened to it being USA only? This sounds like one of those errors where they double down on it and call it a "solution". Sounds like they're misunderst

What happened to it being USA only? This sounds like one of those errors where they double down on it and call it a "solution". Sounds like they're misunderstanding people's concerns pretty badly. Sorry if we miscommunicated. Kill this "feature" yesterday. Thanks Tim!

dannyw 5y ago
This is just business. Governments around the world are thinking of breaking up the app store, and Apple is saying they'll help governments surveil on their citizens inside their walled garden. Would be a shame if users can escape from the surveillance by choosing alternates outside of the walled garden, wouldn't it? Expect an App Store rule soon - all photos apps must scan for CSAM. In a year, expect Signal to be banned from all app stores, just like how it's already banned from some countries.
treesprite82 5y ago
USA-only referred to which accounts would be scanned. Whereas it's theoretically a good thing to require the CSAM hashes to be verified by organisations in multiple countries (rather than a single US government-tied organisation that dismissed privacy concerns as "the screeching voices of the minority"). I'm hoping for something along the lines of "iOS will reject hashes that haven't been signed by independent organisations in US, Russia, China, and India" to make it very difficult to push through anything except actual CSAM. Won't be much of a guarantee if it's just Apple saying "we promise we're only using hashes that have been checked by Australia and the US".
TillE 5y ago
My impression was that it's currently US only because that's the only country so far where they've arranged a process to report their users to the cops. No reason they wouldn't expand it as they make arrangements with other countries. They've really bought into a ton of complexity at all levels by doing this instead of just scanning stuff on their own servers, which would at least have been a clear dividing line. Privacy is really all about control, and on-device scanning dangerously blurs that line.

dannyw 5y ago

This is just business. Governments around the world are thinking of breaking up the app store, and Apple is saying they'll help governments surveil on their citizens inside their walled garden. Would be a shame if users can escape from the surveillance by choosing alternates outside of the walled garden, wouldn't it? Expect an App Store rule soon - all photos apps must scan for CSAM. In a year, expect Signal to be banned from all app stores, just like how it's already banned from some countries.

treesprite82 5y ago

USA-only referred to which accounts would be scanned. Whereas it's theoretically a good thing to require the CSAM hashes to be verified by organisations in multiple countries (rather than a single US government-tied organisation that dismissed privacy concerns as "the screeching voices of the minority"). I'm hoping for something along the lines of "iOS will reject hashes that haven't been signed by independent organisations in US, Russia, China, and India" to make it very difficult to push through anything except actual CSAM. Won't be much of a guarantee if it's just Apple saying "we promise we're only using hashes that have been checked by Australia and the US".

TillE 5y ago

My impression was that it's currently US only because that's the only country so far where they've arranged a process to report their users to the cops. No reason they wouldn't expand it as they make arrangements with other countries. They've really bought into a ton of complexity at all levels by doing this instead of just scanning stuff on their own servers, which would at least have been a clear dividing line. Privacy is really all about control, and on-device scanning dangerously blurs that line.