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There is a difference between moderators manually identifying illegal content in a stream of mostly-legal material and a process where content which has already

There is a difference between moderators manually identifying illegal content in a stream of mostly-legal material and a process where content which has already been matched against the database and classified as almost-certainly-illegal is subjected to further internal review.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
The chance of a match being CSAM is not almost certain, though. Further, Apple only gets a low-resolution version of the image. In any case, presumably such issues have been addressed, as neither the FBI nor NCMEC have raised a stink about it.
- nybble41 5y ago
  > The chance of a match being CSAM is not almost certain, though. Not according to Apple. They're publicly claiming a one-in-a-trillion false positive rate from the automated matching. Either that's blatant false advertising or they're putting known (as in: more likely than not) CSAM in front of their human reviewers. Can't have it both ways. > Further, Apple only gets a low-resolution version of the image. Which makes zero difference with regard to the content being illegal. Do you think they would overlook you possessing an equally low-resolution version of the same photo? > In any case, presumably such issues have been addressed, as neither the FBI nor NCMEC have raised a stink about it. Selective enforcement; what else is new? It's still a huge risk for Apple to take when the ethically superior (and cheaper and simpler) solution would be to encrypt the files on the customer's device, not scanning them first, and store the backups with proper E2E encryption such that Apple has no access to or knowledge of any of the content.
rootusrootus 5y ago
AFAIK moderators at other organizations are also only reviewing content that has already been flagged somehow. I don't think it makes a difference. It comes down to good faith. If the company follows the recommendations of NCMEC on handling the material (and NCMEC absolutely does provide those recommendations), I doubt they're in any danger at all. Obviously you could not make the same argument yourself unless you were also a reputable megacorp. There are upsides to being king. In this case, NCMEC wants the actual perps in jail so they're not going to take shots at Apple or its employees on technicalities.

mrtranscendence 5y ago

The chance of a match being CSAM is not almost certain, though. Further, Apple only gets a low-resolution version of the image. In any case, presumably such issues have been addressed, as neither the FBI nor NCMEC have raised a stink about it.

nybble41 5y ago
> The chance of a match being CSAM is not almost certain, though. Not according to Apple. They're publicly claiming a one-in-a-trillion false positive rate from the automated matching. Either that's blatant false advertising or they're putting known (as in: more likely than not) CSAM in front of their human reviewers. Can't have it both ways. > Further, Apple only gets a low-resolution version of the image. Which makes zero difference with regard to the content being illegal. Do you think they would overlook you possessing an equally low-resolution version of the same photo? > In any case, presumably such issues have been addressed, as neither the FBI nor NCMEC have raised a stink about it. Selective enforcement; what else is new? It's still a huge risk for Apple to take when the ethically superior (and cheaper and simpler) solution would be to encrypt the files on the customer's device, not scanning them first, and store the backups with proper E2E encryption such that Apple has no access to or knowledge of any of the content.

rootusrootus 5y ago

AFAIK moderators at other organizations are also only reviewing content that has already been flagged somehow. I don't think it makes a difference. It comes down to good faith. If the company follows the recommendations of NCMEC on handling the material (and NCMEC absolutely does provide those recommendations), I doubt they're in any danger at all. Obviously you could not make the same argument yourself unless you were also a reputable megacorp. There are upsides to being king. In this case, NCMEC wants the actual perps in jail so they're not going to take shots at Apple or its employees on technicalities.