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Apple's bright idea for CSAM scanning could start persecution on a global basis
- justinzollars 5y agoI've turned off auto-updates and I'm reconsidering my decade long allegiance to this brand. I love apple, I love the look and feel, but I could contribute to Linux to make it better. This is the final straw.
- tradesmanhelix 5y agoMe too. I have ~20 members of my immediate and extended family that are iOS users. Since 2009, I've evangelized Apple devices to them, but if Apple pushes this through, I'm done. I'll find either a de-Google Android or feature phone to use and start encouraging them move off of iOS.
- skinkestek 5y agoRemember Mac became cool 15 - 20 or so years ago? I'm at least old enough to remember it and I have a very strong feeling that the same is happening these days with Linux on the desktop. Also on phones the alternatives are shaping up nicely so do talk well about them, don't say people should swith now but say you are considering a switch next time you upgrade etc.
- tradesmanhelix 5y agoDang I hope Linux is getting cool :D Recent releases of things like Gnome and ElementaryOS are pretty close to mainstream-ready IMO, so will be interesting to see things play out over the next few years. > Also on phones the alternatives are shaping up nicely so do talk well about them, don't say people should swith now but say you are considering a switch next time you upgrade etc. This is excellent advice, thank you!
- miohtama 5y agoDoes anyone know Apple's internal motives and why they enables CSAM in the first place? They must have known the consequences, PR and otherwise.
- unicornmama 5y agoA wise financier once advised me to “never underestimate the stupidity of management”
- mercora 5y agoits probably not their real internal motive but i think it is somewhat interesting that they've done it in a way that was publicly discussed, sparking valuable debates over this and similar practices and forcing people consciously and governments even publicly to decide upon if they like this or not. I also think it could be a nice way out of this negative PR if they just claim they wanted to open the debate over this apparently not so uncommon practice of scanning user data independent of if it is on-device or not...
- safog 5y ago/shrugs Companies try to do stupid things and end up with egg on their face all the time. They'll backtrack from this and people will forget it ever happened in a few months.
- toxik 5y agoThey absolutely won't backtrack from this, the damage is done and it was hardly noticed by mainstream news outlets.
- Rd6n6 5y agoPeoples goodwill and trust towards Apple used to be overwhelming and viral on hn and in privacy communities. I don’t think that’s as easy to get back as people are saying - what they had was rare and powerful
- shuckles 5y ago
- dmitryminkovsky 5y agoSince this news broke a few weeks ago, I've seen many people suggesting that Apple miscalculated and might be surprised by the push-back they're receiving; that some misunderstanding may have occurred. I find exceedingly difficult to imagine that one of the most sophisticated companies in the world, with some of brightest minds out there, did not consider and calculate this precisely; that there is any way any of this has come as a surprise to Apple. Extending Apple the benefit of doubt does not seem possible in this case. Yesterday we saw OnlyFans exit the adult industry. Two weeks ago we saw Apple exit the privacy industry. EDIT: Some are questioning whether Apple was ever in the privacy industry. That's a good question. Even though their devices were certainly not secure and could be compromised, I think they were certainly in the privacy industry in the sense that they marketed an intention to make their devices as private and secure as possible[0]. Which is basically all a consumer can ask from a computer company. [0] https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/01/DwGoq2uV4AA_Aov.jpg-large.jpeg?quality=82&strip=all&w=1600 https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/01/DwGoq...
- userbinator 5y agoA popular theory is that this was motivated by the government somehow, and they had to comply by hiding it under the guise of something else.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y agoIt could be the other way around. Interesting thoughts: https://mobile.twitter.com/benadida/status/1424764923717066758 https://mobile.twitter.com/benadida/status/14247649237170667... > I don’t see a huge threat to privacy, but I’m not sure how this meaningfully stops CSAM. My guess: Apple is trying to stave off more heavy-handed gov intervention. Thread:
- dmitryminkovsky 5y ago> Apple is trying to stave off more heavy-handed gov intervention. This is an interesting and charitable interpretation, but if so, then this tactic will fail. As others here have pointed out: with this capability in place, the only thing stopping them from total intrusion is now merely policy. And that's scary and dangerous.
- 3pt14159 5y agoThere is an easy way for Apple to handle this. During iPhone setup present the following screen: "We here at Apple do not want our servers to host images of exploited children, but we also respect your privacy. So you're free to use your phone with the photos stored locally, but if you'd like to enable iCloud we need you to press the button below to *install* our CSAM detector." Then the argument basically goes away. It's like a virus scanner that you voluntarily installed. But having it baked into the phone as it ships rubs me the wrong way.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- llampx 5y agoThat implies that the end goal or simply next step is not to scan all photos and the device whether or not you use icloud
- skinkestek 5y agoIt is not a goal. And it was not a goal that the unsecured boulder at the top of the hill should come tumbling down over the road and into the house, it just so happens that when an unsecured boulder lies on the top of a large hill where teenagers gather and it doesn't stay there for too long. Same goes for liberties and certain politicians. For this reason we secure boulders, teach teens about consequences, keep invasive tech out of reach from wanna be authoritarian politicians and teach history in school.
- dmitryminkovsky 5y agoIn my understanding, iCloud is not E2E encrypted. They hold the keys. They can scan content on ingress if they want.
- 3pt14159 5y agoBut they don't want to. They want to keep the content encrypted on their infrastructure to reduce the risk of leaking it. They only decrypt it with a court order.
- ajnin 5y agoWith that move I don't see how Apple will be able to refuse when a government asks it to scan for images of Whinnie the Pooh for example. They say they won't but they are too reliant on Foxconn's Chinese plants for manufacture, they could easily be blackmailed into compliance. (Android devices with a Chinese OS probably already report a wide array of stuff to the government) This is another step towards total global surveillance of citizens. I don't see what can be done about it, technology makes it possible so it will happen, it is just too juicy for governments, they can't resist it.
- bityard 5y agoYou have it the wrong way around, Apple is FoxConn's cash cow. Apple is probably the only company in the world that has the resources to make its devices anywhere in the western world, it's just not as profitable or convenient as their current suppliers.
- shrimp_emoji 5y agoWell, they seem to be so reliant on cheap Chinese manufacturing that they're willing to be China's complete bitch. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-ce...
- Grustaf 5y agoHow does this feature relate to scanning for Winnie the Pooh? They already scan and classify ALL your photos locally, not just the ones destined for iCloud, that's a widely touted feature.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoThat is a lie - they only scan in your iCloud Photo Library. An external drive? Messages? Not scanned (except for the generic nudity detection system for child accounts that doesn't contact Apple about anything, a separate piece from the CSAM scanner).
- Tycho 5y agoThe overarching trend I see recently is that your rights, as an individual citizen, simply do not matter. They will be brushed away by any agenda that has a semblance of globalist right-think. Your right to privacy, in the face of government agencies executing their mission, does not matter. Your right to free movement, in the face of a flu that overburdens the hospital system, does not matter. Your right to free speech, in the face of the need to eliminate outsider politicians, does not matter. Your right to election security, in the face of the establishment getting their preferred candidate, does not matter. Your right to raise your children with traditional values, in the face of social engineering guidelines, does not matter. Your right to bodily autonomy, in the face of globally coordinated medical interventionism, does not matter. Your right to closed borders, in the face of foreign policy expediency, does not matter. Your right to eat what you want, in the face of “climate change” activism, will not matter. Your preferences are simply not safeguarded by your rights, which can be overruled by the whim of “experts.” If you want to imagine how any particular future scenario unfolds, just ask yourself whether your rights would be an inconvenience to the plans of, say, Bill Gates. As a sort of stand-in for the general careerpol/NGO/billionaire/Harvard class running things. (and most of the media and many of the public intelligentsia merrily support this)
- czzr 5y agoThe world is full of trade-offs, no rights are absolute.
- mindslight 5y agoYour argument is completely undermined by being full of references to enthusiastic ignorance. Covid was a massive IQ test, which many failed by following con men who told them to take the easy path, rather than the path of self responsibility. Rather than insisting that doubling down on bad decisions is somehow defending your "rights", you need to come to terms with how you were led so far astray in the first place. Furthermore, "right to closed borders" ? You previously invoked "free movement" yet there is also a right to closed borders? It appears you've just cloaked the same tired red team talking points in the language of freedom. Please, as a libertarian, stop trying to use freedom to justify what is a highly authoritarian movement. You're doing freedom no favors.
- high_5 5y agoI'll just wait for the Chinese government to ask Apple to implement CSAM for Tank Man pics.
- tradesmanhelix 5y agoApple swears they'll say no...very reassuring and no way this gets abused. /s
- emodendroket 5y agoOh enough already. If you are uploading 30 or more images that would be illegal in your country to iCloud you're not using your head.
- tradesmanhelix 5y agoThe problem is that the definition of what is "illegal" can shift very quickly, esp. in certain countries, so moving the ability to scan for "illegal" stuff to user's devices is absolutely disastrous privacy/freedom-wise.
- emodendroket 5y agoAnd MY point is that if you're really concerned with that you never should have been using iCloud sync in the first place. You were already exposed to that risk.
- tradesmanhelix 5y agoBut the CSAM technology won't be limited to photos uploaded to iCloud. That's where it starts, not where it ends. This technology exposes all users of iOS, past and present, to the whims of the current definition of "legal".
- emodendroket 5y agoSo your argument is that I should be concerned because they may change the feature to do something different than it does now. But you could always say that. They could make it do anything in the future.
- tradesmanhelix 5y agoTrue, at some point you have to trust someone, whether it's your phone's manufacturer, your telco, or the developers of the apps you use. But when there's a flagrant disregard for users and the potential impact a system like CSAM could have on them, to me that crosses a line and means the company is no longer trustworthy: > If a company actively screws its users in broad daylight, then what's going on behind closed doors? At least previously Apple had the pastiche of a privacy and user-centric company. No more if this goes through.
- andix 5y agoI was always using iPhones because I felt like Apple tries a bit harder to protect my data than Google with Android. But for the future I probably need Android phones with custom ROMs. Without spyware.
- tradesmanhelix 5y agoYeah, I've alerted family to this and they're asking if they're going to need to move off of iOS. I told them to wait and see for now...fingers crossed that this gets walked back.
- ruph123 5y agoLook into CalyxOS. I am also about to jump ship.
- andix 5y agoThanks for the tip, I'm still going to wait a bit, let's see how it is going to turn out. For now Apples plans are not that bad, but that can quickly change once Pandora's box is opened.
- merricksb 5y agoThe letter this article is about was discussed several times already: Policy groups ask Apple to drop plans to inspect messages, scan for abuse images - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28230248 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28230248 - 284 points, 1 day ago, 190 comments Policy Groups Urge Apple to Abandon Building Surveillance Capabilities - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28232068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28232068 - 92 points, 1 day ago, 25 comments Policy groups ask Apple to drop plans to inspect iMessages scan for abuse images - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28231094 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28231094 - 33 points, 1 day ago, 3 comments