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There’s been such a debate over this now that I don’t know why Apple are still trying? It’s not even their job to catch child porn. There are many far-reaching

by jug 5y ago

There’s been such a debate over this now that I don’t know why Apple are still trying? It’s not even their job to catch child porn. There are many far-reaching cooperations like at Interpol and Europol that successfully bust child porn groups? Even anonymizing networks like Tor are not safe havens. These guys don’t have it easy even today. So why is Apple suddenly extremely adamant about this? Would it even cost them anything to not go here? They’re a hardware and services company making mobile and computing devices mostly geared towards entertainment and creative work. How did they end up here?

sparker72678 5y ago
One possibility is that they'd like to go E2EE with all iCloud data, including photos, and this lets them do that without the politics (DC level) falling out against them.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  I doubt it, considering they give up customers' data when the government requests it for 150,000 users/accounts a year[1]. Not only do they choose to give data when requested, they have to comply with court orders, as well. Also, governments care about much more than just CSAM. They care about terrorism, drug manufacturing, drug and human trafficking, organized crime, gangs, fraud etc. This speculation only makes sense if Apple intends to use their CSAM detection and reporting system to detect and report on those other things, as well. Governments won't like that either, because during investigations and discovery, they'll want all of the customer's data that could be evidence of crimes. These detection and reporting systems, as implemented and by themselves, are only useful for flagging suspicious people. They're no good for complying with warrants or subpeonas. [1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
  - shuckles 5y ago
    I’ll take the other side of this and bet that Apple offers the ability to remove themselves from escrowing iCloud keys before they expand CSAM detection to other kinds of content. Nerd points are at stake.
- jjcon 5y ago
  Can you really call it E2EE if one of the ends is wide open?

by jug 5y ago

sparker72678 5y ago

One possibility is that they'd like to go E2EE with all iCloud data, including photos, and this lets them do that without the politics (DC level) falling out against them.

heavyset_go 5y ago
I doubt it, considering they give up customers' data when the government requests it for 150,000 users/accounts a year[1]. Not only do they choose to give data when requested, they have to comply with court orders, as well. Also, governments care about much more than just CSAM. They care about terrorism, drug manufacturing, drug and human trafficking, organized crime, gangs, fraud etc. This speculation only makes sense if Apple intends to use their CSAM detection and reporting system to detect and report on those other things, as well. Governments won't like that either, because during investigations and discovery, they'll want all of the customer's data that could be evidence of crimes. These detection and reporting systems, as implemented and by themselves, are only useful for flagging suspicious people. They're no good for complying with warrants or subpeonas. [1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html
- shuckles 5y ago
  I’ll take the other side of this and bet that Apple offers the ability to remove themselves from escrowing iCloud keys before they expand CSAM detection to other kinds of content. Nerd points are at stake.
jjcon 5y ago
Can you really call it E2EE if one of the ends is wide open?