5 ms·

But who was complaining about google and microsoft doing the cloud scanning? I don’t mind my one drive being scanned for “bad stuff”, I very much mind my perso

by mox1 5y ago

But who was complaining about google and microsoft doing the cloud scanning? I don’t mind my one drive being scanned for “bad stuff”, I very much mind my personally owned data stores being scanned, with no opt out.

GeekyBear 5y ago
The only thing Apple scans are files you upload to iCloud Photos. If you turn off iCloud Photos, nothing is scanned. Microsoft scans everything. >The system that scans cloud drives for illegal images was created by Microsoft and Dartmouth College and donated to NCMEC. The organization creates signatures of the worst known images of child pornography, approximately 16,000 files at present. These file signatures are given to service providers who then try to match them to user files in order to prevent further distribution of the images themselves, a Microsoft spokesperson told NBC News. (Microsoft implemented image-matching technology in its own services, such as Bing and SkyDrive.) https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/your-cloud-drive-really-private-not-according-fine-print-1c8881731 https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/your-cloud-drive-really-pr...
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  I have no idea what I expected but 16,000 photos feels… disgustingly high and ridiculously low at the same time.
  - ffhhj 5y ago
    It's well known that there are also videos. So these criminals won't be caught watching them.
- kelnos 5y ago
  If Microsoft's scan is a server-side scan, how do they scan "everything" if "everything" includes things that you do not upload? By your definition of "everything", both Microsoft and Apple scan "everything". (Or Apple will, after this new system is rolled out.)
- erklik 5y ago
  > If you turn off iCloud Photos, nothing is scanned. According to Apple. and For Now. Patriot Act was only for terrorists. Apple makes concessions for China. Creating this technology, makes it very easy for China to go, "Look at all photos, always". If they only want to scan stuff on iCloud Photos, no worries, just implement on it on their end. This tech does not need to exist in that case. > Microsoft scans everything. Everything uploaded to the Cloud. The Cloud bit is fairly important here. That's me, willingly, putting information on their property. Perfectly acceptable and fine for them to ensure that it's nothing unethical. However, someone else snooping through your drawers looking for something to pin on you is not private, nor the same as checking their own property.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    “And for now” is not a particularly strong argument because it applies to literally anything that software could ever conceivably do on an iPhone, because Apple has the ability to release any software updates they want.
Spivak 5y ago
Where's the line though? Would you be upset that the Dropbox client scanned things before uploadng it? What about the Google Drive client JS?
nine_k 5y ago
That's the point: catching the bad guy foolish enough to keep known CSAM images on their phone, while not technically invading the privacy of any good guys. Anyway, if apple wanted to covertly invade their users' privacy, they'd have no technical problems to do so. What it takes to accept is the "nothing to hide" mentality: your files are safe to scan (locally) because they can't be known CSAM files. You have to trust the scanner. You allow the scanner to touch your sensitive files because you're not the bad guy, and you want the bad guy be caught (or at least forced off the platform). And this is, to my mind, the part Apple wasn't very successful at communicating. The whole thing should have started with an educational campaign well ahead of time. The privacy advantage should have been explained again and again: "unlike every other vendor, we won't siphon your files unecrypted for checking; we do everything locally and are unable to compromise your sensitive bits". Getting one's files scanned should have become a badge of honor among the users. But, for some reason, they tried to do it in a low-key and somehow hasty manner.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  I mostly agree, though I will argue for the other side; child predators don't exactly have a track record for intelligence. Pedophiles still to this day get caught trading CP on Facebook of all places. I think engaging in that kind of activity requires a certain number of brain cells misfiring. Watch some old episodes of To Catch A Predator. Most of those guys were borderline retarded or had obvious personality disorders.
  - jjjensen90 5y ago
    This is not true and a harmful generalization. There are dumb people of every type. There are probably smart people you respect that engage in CSAM and are minor-attracted. This kind of privacy invasion will only net a tiny section of that population, as most know that lack of caution is life or death.
    - ravenstine 5y ago
      > This is not true and a harmful generalization. There are dumb people of every type. That's purely specious, and you say it as if I ever asserted there aren't "dumb people of every type.", which I didn't say. Yes, there are dumb people of every "type". Are there as many intelligent people as those of low intelligence who struggle to think abstractly, struggle to read and write, have poor motor control, rely heavily on dogma for a moral compass, or have trouble with impulse control? If you think there are as many people with a high IQ as a low IQ with those traits, I don't think you're being honest. Here's some data for you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4478390/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4478390/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14744183/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14744183/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/961457/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/961457/ https://www.dw.com/en/scientists-find-brain-differences-in-pedophiles/a-16305968 https://www.dw.com/en/scientists-find-brain-differences-in-p... https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1023/a:1018754004962 https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1023/a:1018754004962 https://www.livescience.com/4671-study-pedophiles-tend-shorter.html https://www.livescience.com/4671-study-pedophiles-tend-short... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29625377/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29625377/ Are most pedophiles of low intelligence overall? It's doubtful, but there's room for more study. Are the pedophiles that are offenders of low intelligence? Significantly more offending pedophiles are of low intelligence than the general population. Yes, the factors at play may also apply to other forms of crime. But when you factor out non-offending pedophiles, those we aren't as concerned with in regards to CSAM, the ones that are caught aren't exactly the cream of the crop. Furthermore, I've met a handful of pedophiles, both convicted and not. Every one of them either was clearly mentally retarded or bordering on retardedness, or they had a severe personality disorder. Yes, it's a small sample size, but the ones that were caught did so doing the dumbest of shit (putting aside the horrific nature of child exploitation in the first place). This even includes a female pedophile, who was both stupid and psychopathic, and I find it funny that one of those studies questions the very existence of female pedophiles. There are many pedophiles that are of above-average intelligence. Most may not even be considered "dumb". But to imply that there's no difference in distribution of, frankly, dumb people to smart people between different behaviors is absurd in that it ignores any sort of relation implication that intelligence has on said behaviors. As a group, the data does not suggest that pedophiles are exceptionally intelligent, but rather the opposite. So yes, while I believe there is a privacy concern (I said earlier I would not want such software or hardware running on my own compuer), I stand by my conclusion that CSAM detection would catch a significant number of pedophiles and probably continue to do so for some time. The point of such systems isn't to be a superweapon to catch every pedophile. The ones that it might catch happen to be the ones who are most likely to offend. If you play the stupid game of uploading CSAM to Apple iCloud, you win the stupid prize of getting convicted, and it just so happens that a ton of pedophiles are likely to do something that boneheaded.
nonbirithm 5y ago
In my view, Apple is not going to take the risk of changing their mind and not implementing this new scanning feature in order to test the hypothesis that you can satisfy both the people who want to stop CSAM and the people who don't want their files scanned. And also, Apple or any other company announcing they will not scan or give up any user data means that criminals, foolish or not, will take notice and start uploading CSAM to their servers. If they get away with it, they've found their new home. That's why regulation against this kind of data exists. Possessing CSAM is still a felony. Nobody is arguing about the legality of CSAM itself. It's an issue that is not popular to discuss, and of course being on the wrong side of it results in near-universal, justifiable derision. Stopping its spread is absolutely the right thing to do. So at the point that companies will always be held liable for storing it, they will have to put up countermeasures of some kind or find themselves sued out of existence. Server-side scanning is one method, and Apple's on-device scanning is another. There are certainly ways that Apple can go too far with whatever it happens to come up with as its solution to stopping CSAM, but there is still seems to have been a line behind which nobody particularly cares how the detection is implemented and life continues as usual. If Apple had chosen not to cross that line, maybe many of the arguments being made here would never have been brought up at all.

by mox1 5y ago

GeekyBear 5y ago

The only thing Apple scans are files you upload to iCloud Photos. If you turn off iCloud Photos, nothing is scanned. Microsoft scans everything. >The system that scans cloud drives for illegal images was created by Microsoft and Dartmouth College and donated to NCMEC. The organization creates signatures of the worst known images of child pornography, approximately 16,000 files at present. These file signatures are given to service providers who then try to match them to user files in order to prevent further distribution of the images themselves, a Microsoft spokesperson told NBC News. (Microsoft implemented image-matching technology in its own services, such as Bing and SkyDrive.) https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/your-cloud-drive-really-private-not-according-fine-print-1c8881731 https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/your-cloud-drive-really-pr...

Waterluvian 5y ago
I have no idea what I expected but 16,000 photos feels… disgustingly high and ridiculously low at the same time.
- ffhhj 5y ago
  It's well known that there are also videos. So these criminals won't be caught watching them.
kelnos 5y ago
If Microsoft's scan is a server-side scan, how do they scan "everything" if "everything" includes things that you do not upload? By your definition of "everything", both Microsoft and Apple scan "everything". (Or Apple will, after this new system is rolled out.)
erklik 5y ago
> If you turn off iCloud Photos, nothing is scanned. According to Apple. and For Now. Patriot Act was only for terrorists. Apple makes concessions for China. Creating this technology, makes it very easy for China to go, "Look at all photos, always". If they only want to scan stuff on iCloud Photos, no worries, just implement on it on their end. This tech does not need to exist in that case. > Microsoft scans everything. Everything uploaded to the Cloud. The Cloud bit is fairly important here. That's me, willingly, putting information on their property. Perfectly acceptable and fine for them to ensure that it's nothing unethical. However, someone else snooping through your drawers looking for something to pin on you is not private, nor the same as checking their own property.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  “And for now” is not a particularly strong argument because it applies to literally anything that software could ever conceivably do on an iPhone, because Apple has the ability to release any software updates they want.

Spivak 5y ago

Where's the line though? Would you be upset that the Dropbox client scanned things before uploadng it? What about the Google Drive client JS?

nine_k 5y ago

That's the point: catching the bad guy foolish enough to keep known CSAM images on their phone, while not technically invading the privacy of any good guys. Anyway, if apple wanted to covertly invade their users' privacy, they'd have no technical problems to do so. What it takes to accept is the "nothing to hide" mentality: your files are safe to scan (locally) because they can't be known CSAM files. You have to trust the scanner. You allow the scanner to touch your sensitive files because you're not the bad guy, and you want the bad guy be caught (or at least forced off the platform). And this is, to my mind, the part Apple wasn't very successful at communicating. The whole thing should have started with an educational campaign well ahead of time. The privacy advantage should have been explained again and again: "unlike every other vendor, we won't siphon your files unecrypted for checking; we do everything locally and are unable to compromise your sensitive bits". Getting one's files scanned should have become a badge of honor among the users. But, for some reason, they tried to do it in a low-key and somehow hasty manner.

ravenstine 5y ago
I mostly agree, though I will argue for the other side; child predators don't exactly have a track record for intelligence. Pedophiles still to this day get caught trading CP on Facebook of all places. I think engaging in that kind of activity requires a certain number of brain cells misfiring. Watch some old episodes of To Catch A Predator. Most of those guys were borderline retarded or had obvious personality disorders.
- jjjensen90 5y ago
  This is not true and a harmful generalization. There are dumb people of every type. There are probably smart people you respect that engage in CSAM and are minor-attracted. This kind of privacy invasion will only net a tiny section of that population, as most know that lack of caution is life or death.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    > This is not true and a harmful generalization. There are dumb people of every type. That's purely specious, and you say it as if I ever asserted there aren't "dumb people of every type.", which I didn't say. Yes, there are dumb people of every "type". Are there as many intelligent people as those of low intelligence who struggle to think abstractly, struggle to read and write, have poor motor control, rely heavily on dogma for a moral compass, or have trouble with impulse control? If you think there are as many people with a high IQ as a low IQ with those traits, I don't think you're being honest. Here's some data for you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4478390/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4478390/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14744183/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14744183/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/961457/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/961457/ https://www.dw.com/en/scientists-find-brain-differences-in-pedophiles/a-16305968 https://www.dw.com/en/scientists-find-brain-differences-in-p... https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1023/a:1018754004962 https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa.net/10.1023/a:1018754004962 https://www.livescience.com/4671-study-pedophiles-tend-shorter.html https://www.livescience.com/4671-study-pedophiles-tend-short... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29625377/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29625377/ Are most pedophiles of low intelligence overall? It's doubtful, but there's room for more study. Are the pedophiles that are offenders of low intelligence? Significantly more offending pedophiles are of low intelligence than the general population. Yes, the factors at play may also apply to other forms of crime. But when you factor out non-offending pedophiles, those we aren't as concerned with in regards to CSAM, the ones that are caught aren't exactly the cream of the crop. Furthermore, I've met a handful of pedophiles, both convicted and not. Every one of them either was clearly mentally retarded or bordering on retardedness, or they had a severe personality disorder. Yes, it's a small sample size, but the ones that were caught did so doing the dumbest of shit (putting aside the horrific nature of child exploitation in the first place). This even includes a female pedophile, who was both stupid and psychopathic, and I find it funny that one of those studies questions the very existence of female pedophiles. There are many pedophiles that are of above-average intelligence. Most may not even be considered "dumb". But to imply that there's no difference in distribution of, frankly, dumb people to smart people between different behaviors is absurd in that it ignores any sort of relation implication that intelligence has on said behaviors. As a group, the data does not suggest that pedophiles are exceptionally intelligent, but rather the opposite. So yes, while I believe there is a privacy concern (I said earlier I would not want such software or hardware running on my own compuer), I stand by my conclusion that CSAM detection would catch a significant number of pedophiles and probably continue to do so for some time. The point of such systems isn't to be a superweapon to catch every pedophile. The ones that it might catch happen to be the ones who are most likely to offend. If you play the stupid game of uploading CSAM to Apple iCloud, you win the stupid prize of getting convicted, and it just so happens that a ton of pedophiles are likely to do something that boneheaded.

nonbirithm 5y ago

In my view, Apple is not going to take the risk of changing their mind and not implementing this new scanning feature in order to test the hypothesis that you can satisfy both the people who want to stop CSAM and the people who don't want their files scanned. And also, Apple or any other company announcing they will not scan or give up any user data means that criminals, foolish or not, will take notice and start uploading CSAM to their servers. If they get away with it, they've found their new home. That's why regulation against this kind of data exists. Possessing CSAM is still a felony. Nobody is arguing about the legality of CSAM itself. It's an issue that is not popular to discuss, and of course being on the wrong side of it results in near-universal, justifiable derision. Stopping its spread is absolutely the right thing to do. So at the point that companies will always be held liable for storing it, they will have to put up countermeasures of some kind or find themselves sued out of existence. Server-side scanning is one method, and Apple's on-device scanning is another. There are certainly ways that Apple can go too far with whatever it happens to come up with as its solution to stopping CSAM, but there is still seems to have been a line behind which nobody particularly cares how the detection is implemented and life continues as usual. If Apple had chosen not to cross that line, maybe many of the arguments being made here would never have been brought up at all.