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EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

549 points by DiabloD3 5y ago

slownews45 5y ago
here is a quote from EFF complaint about Apple alerting parents to kids under 13 being sent porn: "The recipient’s parents will be informed of the content without the sender consenting to their involvement." Are parents really outraged by this? Are people sending porn upset about this? My own view is as a parent if you send porn to my kids, I shouldn't NEED your consent to be alerted to this. I paid for the device, so it should do what I want, and if I turn this feature on than it should alert me.
- shuckles 5y ago
  For ideological consistency, I can only hope the EFF has a lecture prepared about two party consent for kids who show their phones to their parents if they receive a dick pic.
  - slownews45 5y ago
    I think they are coming at this from the view that because iMessage was one of the first actual E2E encrypted products, showing the pic to the parent (after picture has reached end user device and been decrypted and is ready to display) should require consent. Ie, the encryption has been "broken". That said - I don't find it very compelling. Parent paid for device. Parent is responsible for child. Parent should be allowed to control device (including setting a kids account instead of adult which trigger this etc). So I want to preserve MY right to both the device and to take care of my child. EFF seems to be focusing oddly on the rights of someone who DIDN'T pay for device.
    - shuckles 5y ago
      The picture is not sent to the parent. They are notified that the child viewed a sensitive photograph, after warning the child, and the parent can view the photograph on the child’s device.
      - slownews45 5y ago
        Right, but sender just wanted to send the photo to the kid, and now apple is providing a path for parent to see the picture. Listen - I don't get the EFF argument any more than you do.
        shuckles 5y ago
        I think we’re on the same page and just wanted to provide more detail about how far-fetched their argument seems when you examine the details of what was built.
slownews45 5y ago
I feel list this story keeps on showing up on HN. Does anyone have a link to previous discussion on this topic? Might help avoid endless re-hashes of the same arguments and misinformation.
- wskinner 5y ago
  https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=false&query=apple%20csam&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...
  - slownews45 5y ago
    Wow - 11 stories with tons of upvotes (lots more with fewer). A fair number are other "open letters" as well. Helpful.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  I've come to abhor the term `misinformation`, I know your intent but Twitter/FB has been using it in nafarious ways. Anytime I hear it, it triggers censorship related thoughts for me.
  - slownews45 5y ago
    I agree! It's been misused to mean things someone doesn't agree with too often :) In this case we have been gettings tons of claims that what apple doing will see them charged with child porn felonies etc with almost no foundation. We've also had lots of claims based on a failure to actually read about what apple is doing (ie, will scan all content not just that scheduled for upload to icloud etc).
    - zepto 5y ago
      Sure, but as someone who agrees with you, I’m not sure we can call that ‘misinformation’. It’s just poor understanding and bad arguments. I have seen a little misinformation relating to this subject - direct lies, fake news, fake links etc, but a negligible amount.
OzzyB 5y ago
Just EFF'ing sign it.
azinman2 5y ago
> As we’ve explained in Deeplinks blog posts, Apple’s planned phone-scanning system opens the door to broader abuses. It decreases privacy for all iCloud photo users, and the parental notification system is a shift away from strong end-to-end encryption. It will tempt liberal democratic regimes to increase surveillance, and likely bring even great pressures from regimes that already have online censorship ensconced in law. What’s clear is the potential for future abuse mandated by various gov (though that could easily be the same even without all these CSAM measures.. not a new threat). However, the other things are erroneously lumped in with it. It only weakens privacy for iCloud photos if you have CP or photos in a CP database, and it doesn’t prevent E2E with texting… it just gives an additional parental control in addition to the many numerous parental controls (with them kids have no privacy already), and is totally unrelated to the CSAM effort. I admire the EFF in many ways, but I wish they’d be more exact here given their access to expert knowledge.
- kurthr 5y ago
  "it just gives an additional parental control in addition to the many numerous parental controls (with them kids have no privacy already)" Wait, sending data (of matching CP hashes) to law enforcement is parental control?
  - aesh2Xa1 5y ago
    Yours is a very fair negative reaction. The information in the EFF’s includes a portion where it seems to be concerned only about alerting parents[1]. I think many parents would find that reasonable. However, the fact that the information will also be sent to the government [2] is just plainly an abuse of privacy, goes outside of the relationship between parent and child, and I do not imagine that parents would find that reasonable. > [1] Moreover, the system Apple has developed assumes that the "parent" and "child" accounts involved actually belong to an adult who is the parent of a child, and that those individuals have a healthy relationship. This may not always be the case; an abusive adult may be the organiser of the account, and the consequences of parental notification could threaten the child’s safety and wellbeing. LGBTQ+ youths on family accounts with unsympathetic parents are particularly at risk. As a result of this change, iMessages will no longer provide confidentiality and privacy to those users through an end-to-end encrypted messaging system in which only the sender and intended recipients have access to the information sent. > [2] When a preset threshold number of matches is met, it will disable the account and report the user and those images to authorities.
bequanna 5y ago
Does Tim Cook have a choice here? I would be surprised to hear that the genesis of this idea was inside of Apple vs. one or more govts pressuring Apple to add this functionality for them. It is also likely they even suggested that Apple should market this as anti-pedo tech to receive the least pushback from users.
- lrvick 5y ago
  Sure there is a choice. They could open source the OS allowing independent auditing and independent privacy focused builds to emerge so people have a way to opt out, as they have on Android via projects like CalyxOS. That is of course if privacy was actually a serious Apple objective.
- pmontra 5y ago
  Apple doesn't have a history of complying with every request from governments and police. They care more about their bottom line IMHO. So I was surprised by this "feature". I don't see how it sells more phones for them. Actually it could scare away some customers because of false positives. Everybody with small kids risks a match on some of their children pictures. If Android also implements something like that I could end up with a Linux phone as my main phone and an Android one at home for the 2FA of banks and other mandatory apps. No WhatsApp but I'll manage.
- hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
  The latest episode of The Daily podcast [0] from The New York Times said that Apple executives were told by members of Congress at a hearing that if they didn't do something about CSAM on their platform the federal government would force them through legislation. And it's not a completely idle threat; just look at the proposed EARN-IT Act of 2020 [1], which would pretty much outlaw end-to-end encrypted services without a law enforcement backdoor. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/podcasts/the-daily/apple-iphones-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/podcasts/the-daily/apple-... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020
  - sharken 5y ago
mrtksn 5y ago
The logical argument against this tech is solid but I despise it because it materializes the theological idea of “always being watched”. There’s always an option to be part of the government and be on the side that takes advantage of this tech to take out rivals, make your job easier etc. but implementation of always watching devices is a hill to die on.
tpush 5y ago
> [...] and the parental notification system is a shift away from strong end-to-end encryption. That particular statement doesn't make much sense to me. The parental notification system is just a frontend action (one of many, like link previews and such). What does that have to do with iMessage's encryption? I can see an argument about a shift away from privacy (though it only pertains to minors under 13 receiving sexually explicit images). But I think it's misleading to say that it relates to iMessage's encryption in any way.
- shuckles 5y ago
  EFF would probably argue that technologies like safe browsing are also a shift away from E2E encryption. They were strongly against email spam protection in the 90s for this reason.
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    You mean when they said blanket banning email lists is bad and shouldn't be done? Because yeah that's still true.
    - shuckles 5y ago
      That was in the 2000s and a different issue and not opposed on privacy grounds. There they argued they were defending freedom of speech. In the 90s the argument was against early probabilistic models.
  - vimacs2 5y ago
    Framing the EFF's position as being against browser safety or spam protection is disingenuous.
    - shuckles 5y ago
      I didn’t say they were against either. I said their opposition to iMessage parental control features as a change to E2E encryption translates directly to other messages client safety features that may reveal the content of communication to a third party. (Nobody in the discourse seems to take their FUD about iMessage seriously, given that the focus has largely been on known CSAM detection.) In particular, you can be concerned about E2E encryption being compromised while still believing parents should have some transparency over whether their kids are receiving explicit images. Not clear EFF offers a solution that meets both, but I did not say they are opposed to the latter.
soziawa 5y ago
This is based on pure speculation, but could it be that Apple believes the covid tracking functionality has shifted power from governments to Apple? Many governments (e.g. Germany) wanted location instead of token based tracking with central storage of location pretty much up until the point where Apple and Google said that it won't happen . This is based on my perception of Germany tech media coverage of the issue.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  > the covid tracking functionality has shifted power from governments to Apple? IMO this is off topic, but I think it absolutely has done that, and has demonstrated it. I'm surprised governments haven't screamed about it more loudly, but maybe they didn't want to do that in an example where they were clearly on the wrong side (pushing for privacy-violating approaches).
robertoandred 5y ago
After the EFF lied about the system in the first place, does anyone care what they’re asking for now? What they’re really asking for is donations.
- insomniacity 5y ago
  What did the EFF lie about? Missed that…
  - shuckles 5y ago
    2/3rds of their original letter was spent describing a parental control over sensitive content detection in iMessage as an end to end encryption back door. At best, that is highly cynical. At worst, it is an intentional conflation of different features to raise false alarm.
    - dannyobrien 5y ago
      It's not cynical at all. It's what EFF has been warning about since 2019 and before. (Disclosure: I worked at EFF during this period. We were extremely concerned about the potential role of client-side scanners and the concerted push being made at that time by the intelligence community to present this as a "solution" to end-to-end encryption's privacy features.) https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/why-adding-client-side-scanning-breaks-end-end-encryption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/why-adding-client-side... It's also the consensus position of a very large number of other digital rights groups and infosec experts. Do you believe they are also cynical and raising a false alarm?
      - shuckles 5y ago
        Your link and most of the concern is about known CSAM detection announced for iCloud Photo Library, yet, again, 2/3rds of the original letter was about iMessage. Point me to the expert consensus that the parental control features announced were a threat to end to end encryption. The iMessage feature is a parental control feature where kids over 13 receiving on-device classified sensitive images have to click through to unblur them, and kids under 13 will do the same and also have their parents receive a notification that such an action was taken. The parent in any case does not receive a copy of the image. The EFF described it as such: “Whatever Apple Calls It, It’s No Longer Secure Messaging” and “Apple is planning to build a backdoor into…its messaging system.” The Center for Democracy and Technology who wrote this letter they have co-signed said: “Plan to replace its industry-standard encrypted messaging system creates new risks in US and globally” I, respectfully, don’t see much evidence that these are consensus views. Furthermore, I don’t see how you can characterize this feature as a back door without believing safe browsing checks on links received in iMessage is an encryption back door.
nullc 5y ago
I wrote a message explaining why I won't be posting any more neuralhash preimages and an index/summary of my posts on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28261147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28261147 Unfortunately it got flagged after getting 41 upvotes. :(
- kowlo 5y ago
  It may have been, but not anymore. Currently on the front page and not flagged! edit: and now it's disappeared...
- istingray 5y ago
  Thank you for all that you did here.
650 5y ago
With all the news of CSAM going to be scanned on iPhones, which people are even going to keep such content on iPhones anymore? The news of this has been so prominent in the media, people not even in tech have heard about it plenty. If you are a Person of Interest that consumes/distributes such content and are a tad aware of the news, you aren't going to use iPhones/iCloud storage anymore.
- CompuHacker 5y ago
  Apple will then have a list of all the people who have an iDevice but disabled iCloud in August, 2021.
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
    That is not evidence, that is inference (of what I am not even sure... prudence perhaps).
  - PartiallyTyped 5y ago
    And how does that relate to CSAM? Are we going to start from the premise that everyone is guilty of something?
  - istingray 5y ago
    I disabled iCloud the day of the announcement. This feature will be used to attack journalists, whistleblowers, and the vulnerable in our society. I then bought a System76 laptop to move away from my Macboom.
- websites2023 5y ago
  One would hope, but this severely overestimates the common user’s awareness of such features or their implementation on their devices. Check out this survey from 2019, where a majority of iPhone users of all stripes could not identify the phone they use: https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-users-survey-2019-1004535/ https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-users-survey-201... To put it bluntly, this fantasy that any significant portion of people who live east of Tahoe even knows, much less cares, about CSAM scanning is plainly absurd. All the headlines and breathless coverage about the fatal mistake Apple is making has resulted in… Apple’s stock soaring to record highs. Some creeps will get caught. Some will switch to another way of sharing that material. Apple will get shielded from liability for hosting this content in iCloud.
contingencies 5y ago
Screw Apple. Walked in to Huaqiangbei with an Ubuntu USB stick yesterday to test a bunch of laptops and ensure all the hardware worked. Bought a Lenovo. Screw Apple.
- istingray 5y ago
  Nice! For others not in the artery of electronics, System76 and Purism offer Linux-first laptops, rather than stuff that just happens to be compatible. Support them!
- websites2023 5y ago
  Lenovo? After Superfish? Interesting choice.
  - contingencies 5y ago
    Had a look at online pricing: couldn't order System76 to China without huge cost and long shipping time. Basically all electronics manufacturers have bad software now. It's assumed and rampant. Firmware on TVs, preinstalled apps on phones and tablets. You can't buy current-grade gear for a reasonable price without unwanted muck. As it stands I still had to pay the Windows tax.
websites2023 5y ago
EFF lost credibility on this issue when their first statement conflated the iMessage safety for kids feature with the CSAM scanning. It’s clear that they are willing to fearmonger to raise money and aren’t committed to the cause of educating users and advocating a nuanced position. I cancelled my recurring donation.
sativallday 5y ago
Apple is clearly headed down a path where they require intimate knowledge of your data. That AI assistant lives in the cloud in an Apple data center, not on your device.

549 points by DiabloD3 5y ago

here is a quote from EFF complaint about Apple alerting parents to kids under 13 being sent porn: "The recipient’s parents will be informed of the content without the sender consenting to their involvement." Are parents really outraged by this? Are people sending porn upset about this? My own view is as a parent if you send porn to my kids, I shouldn't NEED your consent to be alerted to this. I paid for the device, so it should do what I want, and if I turn this feature on than it should alert me.

shuckles 5y ago
For ideological consistency, I can only hope the EFF has a lecture prepared about two party consent for kids who show their phones to their parents if they receive a dick pic.
- slownews45 5y ago
  I think they are coming at this from the view that because iMessage was one of the first actual E2E encrypted products, showing the pic to the parent (after picture has reached end user device and been decrypted and is ready to display) should require consent. Ie, the encryption has been "broken". That said - I don't find it very compelling. Parent paid for device. Parent is responsible for child. Parent should be allowed to control device (including setting a kids account instead of adult which trigger this etc). So I want to preserve MY right to both the device and to take care of my child. EFF seems to be focusing oddly on the rights of someone who DIDN'T pay for device.
  - shuckles 5y ago
    The picture is not sent to the parent. They are notified that the child viewed a sensitive photograph, after warning the child, and the parent can view the photograph on the child’s device.
    - slownews45 5y ago
      Right, but sender just wanted to send the photo to the kid, and now apple is providing a path for parent to see the picture. Listen - I don't get the EFF argument any more than you do.
      - shuckles 5y ago
        I think we’re on the same page and just wanted to provide more detail about how far-fetched their argument seems when you examine the details of what was built.

slownews45 5y ago

I feel list this story keeps on showing up on HN. Does anyone have a link to previous discussion on this topic? Might help avoid endless re-hashes of the same arguments and misinformation.

wskinner 5y ago
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=false&query=apple%20csam&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...
- slownews45 5y ago
  Wow - 11 stories with tons of upvotes (lots more with fewer). A fair number are other "open letters" as well. Helpful.
systemvoltage 5y ago
I've come to abhor the term `misinformation`, I know your intent but Twitter/FB has been using it in nafarious ways. Anytime I hear it, it triggers censorship related thoughts for me.
- slownews45 5y ago
  I agree! It's been misused to mean things someone doesn't agree with too often :) In this case we have been gettings tons of claims that what apple doing will see them charged with child porn felonies etc with almost no foundation. We've also had lots of claims based on a failure to actually read about what apple is doing (ie, will scan all content not just that scheduled for upload to icloud etc).
  - zepto 5y ago
    Sure, but as someone who agrees with you, I’m not sure we can call that ‘misinformation’. It’s just poor understanding and bad arguments. I have seen a little misinformation relating to this subject - direct lies, fake news, fake links etc, but a negligible amount.

OzzyB 5y ago

Just EFF'ing sign it.

azinman2 5y ago

> As we’ve explained in Deeplinks blog posts, Apple’s planned phone-scanning system opens the door to broader abuses. It decreases privacy for all iCloud photo users, and the parental notification system is a shift away from strong end-to-end encryption. It will tempt liberal democratic regimes to increase surveillance, and likely bring even great pressures from regimes that already have online censorship ensconced in law. What’s clear is the potential for future abuse mandated by various gov (though that could easily be the same even without all these CSAM measures.. not a new threat). However, the other things are erroneously lumped in with it. It only weakens privacy for iCloud photos if you have CP or photos in a CP database, and it doesn’t prevent E2E with texting… it just gives an additional parental control in addition to the many numerous parental controls (with them kids have no privacy already), and is totally unrelated to the CSAM effort. I admire the EFF in many ways, but I wish they’d be more exact here given their access to expert knowledge.

kurthr 5y ago
"it just gives an additional parental control in addition to the many numerous parental controls (with them kids have no privacy already)" Wait, sending data (of matching CP hashes) to law enforcement is parental control?
- aesh2Xa1 5y ago
  Yours is a very fair negative reaction. The information in the EFF’s includes a portion where it seems to be concerned only about alerting parents[1]. I think many parents would find that reasonable. However, the fact that the information will also be sent to the government [2] is just plainly an abuse of privacy, goes outside of the relationship between parent and child, and I do not imagine that parents would find that reasonable. > [1] Moreover, the system Apple has developed assumes that the "parent" and "child" accounts involved actually belong to an adult who is the parent of a child, and that those individuals have a healthy relationship. This may not always be the case; an abusive adult may be the organiser of the account, and the consequences of parental notification could threaten the child’s safety and wellbeing. LGBTQ+ youths on family accounts with unsympathetic parents are particularly at risk. As a result of this change, iMessages will no longer provide confidentiality and privacy to those users through an end-to-end encrypted messaging system in which only the sender and intended recipients have access to the information sent. > [2] When a preset threshold number of matches is met, it will disable the account and report the user and those images to authorities.

bequanna 5y ago

Does Tim Cook have a choice here? I would be surprised to hear that the genesis of this idea was inside of Apple vs. one or more govts pressuring Apple to add this functionality for them. It is also likely they even suggested that Apple should market this as anti-pedo tech to receive the least pushback from users.

lrvick 5y ago
Sure there is a choice. They could open source the OS allowing independent auditing and independent privacy focused builds to emerge so people have a way to opt out, as they have on Android via projects like CalyxOS. That is of course if privacy was actually a serious Apple objective.
pmontra 5y ago
Apple doesn't have a history of complying with every request from governments and police. They care more about their bottom line IMHO. So I was surprised by this "feature". I don't see how it sells more phones for them. Actually it could scare away some customers because of false positives. Everybody with small kids risks a match on some of their children pictures. If Android also implements something like that I could end up with a Linux phone as my main phone and an Android one at home for the 2FA of banks and other mandatory apps. No WhatsApp but I'll manage.
hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
The latest episode of The Daily podcast [0] from The New York Times said that Apple executives were told by members of Congress at a hearing that if they didn't do something about CSAM on their platform the federal government would force them through legislation. And it's not a completely idle threat; just look at the proposed EARN-IT Act of 2020 [1], which would pretty much outlaw end-to-end encrypted services without a law enforcement backdoor. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/podcasts/the-daily/apple-iphones-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/podcasts/the-daily/apple-... [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020
- sharken 5y ago

mrtksn 5y ago

The logical argument against this tech is solid but I despise it because it materializes the theological idea of “always being watched”. There’s always an option to be part of the government and be on the side that takes advantage of this tech to take out rivals, make your job easier etc. but implementation of always watching devices is a hill to die on.

tpush 5y ago

> [...] and the parental notification system is a shift away from strong end-to-end encryption. That particular statement doesn't make much sense to me. The parental notification system is just a frontend action (one of many, like link previews and such). What does that have to do with iMessage's encryption? I can see an argument about a shift away from privacy (though it only pertains to minors under 13 receiving sexually explicit images). But I think it's misleading to say that it relates to iMessage's encryption in any way.

shuckles 5y ago
EFF would probably argue that technologies like safe browsing are also a shift away from E2E encryption. They were strongly against email spam protection in the 90s for this reason.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  You mean when they said blanket banning email lists is bad and shouldn't be done? Because yeah that's still true.
  - shuckles 5y ago
    That was in the 2000s and a different issue and not opposed on privacy grounds. There they argued they were defending freedom of speech. In the 90s the argument was against early probabilistic models.
- vimacs2 5y ago
  Framing the EFF's position as being against browser safety or spam protection is disingenuous.
  - shuckles 5y ago
    I didn’t say they were against either. I said their opposition to iMessage parental control features as a change to E2E encryption translates directly to other messages client safety features that may reveal the content of communication to a third party. (Nobody in the discourse seems to take their FUD about iMessage seriously, given that the focus has largely been on known CSAM detection.) In particular, you can be concerned about E2E encryption being compromised while still believing parents should have some transparency over whether their kids are receiving explicit images. Not clear EFF offers a solution that meets both, but I did not say they are opposed to the latter.

soziawa 5y ago

This is based on pure speculation, but could it be that Apple believes the covid tracking functionality has shifted power from governments to Apple? Many governments (e.g. Germany) wanted location instead of token based tracking with central storage of location pretty much up until the point where Apple and Google said that it won't happen . This is based on my perception of Germany tech media coverage of the issue.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
> the covid tracking functionality has shifted power from governments to Apple? IMO this is off topic, but I think it absolutely has done that, and has demonstrated it. I'm surprised governments haven't screamed about it more loudly, but maybe they didn't want to do that in an example where they were clearly on the wrong side (pushing for privacy-violating approaches).

robertoandred 5y ago

After the EFF lied about the system in the first place, does anyone care what they’re asking for now? What they’re really asking for is donations.

insomniacity 5y ago
What did the EFF lie about? Missed that…
- shuckles 5y ago
  2/3rds of their original letter was spent describing a parental control over sensitive content detection in iMessage as an end to end encryption back door. At best, that is highly cynical. At worst, it is an intentional conflation of different features to raise false alarm.
  - dannyobrien 5y ago
    It's not cynical at all. It's what EFF has been warning about since 2019 and before. (Disclosure: I worked at EFF during this period. We were extremely concerned about the potential role of client-side scanners and the concerted push being made at that time by the intelligence community to present this as a "solution" to end-to-end encryption's privacy features.) https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/why-adding-client-side-scanning-breaks-end-end-encryption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/why-adding-client-side... It's also the consensus position of a very large number of other digital rights groups and infosec experts. Do you believe they are also cynical and raising a false alarm?
    - shuckles 5y ago
      Your link and most of the concern is about known CSAM detection announced for iCloud Photo Library, yet, again, 2/3rds of the original letter was about iMessage. Point me to the expert consensus that the parental control features announced were a threat to end to end encryption. The iMessage feature is a parental control feature where kids over 13 receiving on-device classified sensitive images have to click through to unblur them, and kids under 13 will do the same and also have their parents receive a notification that such an action was taken. The parent in any case does not receive a copy of the image. The EFF described it as such: “Whatever Apple Calls It, It’s No Longer Secure Messaging” and “Apple is planning to build a backdoor into…its messaging system.” The Center for Democracy and Technology who wrote this letter they have co-signed said: “Plan to replace its industry-standard encrypted messaging system creates new risks in US and globally” I, respectfully, don’t see much evidence that these are consensus views. Furthermore, I don’t see how you can characterize this feature as a back door without believing safe browsing checks on links received in iMessage is an encryption back door.

nullc 5y ago

I wrote a message explaining why I won't be posting any more neuralhash preimages and an index/summary of my posts on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28261147 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28261147 Unfortunately it got flagged after getting 41 upvotes. :(

kowlo 5y ago
It may have been, but not anymore. Currently on the front page and not flagged! edit: and now it's disappeared...
istingray 5y ago
Thank you for all that you did here.

650 5y ago

With all the news of CSAM going to be scanned on iPhones, which people are even going to keep such content on iPhones anymore? The news of this has been so prominent in the media, people not even in tech have heard about it plenty. If you are a Person of Interest that consumes/distributes such content and are a tad aware of the news, you aren't going to use iPhones/iCloud storage anymore.

CompuHacker 5y ago
Apple will then have a list of all the people who have an iDevice but disabled iCloud in August, 2021.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  That is not evidence, that is inference (of what I am not even sure... prudence perhaps).
- PartiallyTyped 5y ago
  And how does that relate to CSAM? Are we going to start from the premise that everyone is guilty of something?
- istingray 5y ago
  I disabled iCloud the day of the announcement. This feature will be used to attack journalists, whistleblowers, and the vulnerable in our society. I then bought a System76 laptop to move away from my Macboom.
websites2023 5y ago
One would hope, but this severely overestimates the common user’s awareness of such features or their implementation on their devices. Check out this survey from 2019, where a majority of iPhone users of all stripes could not identify the phone they use: https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-users-survey-2019-1004535/ https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-users-survey-201... To put it bluntly, this fantasy that any significant portion of people who live east of Tahoe even knows, much less cares, about CSAM scanning is plainly absurd. All the headlines and breathless coverage about the fatal mistake Apple is making has resulted in… Apple’s stock soaring to record highs. Some creeps will get caught. Some will switch to another way of sharing that material. Apple will get shielded from liability for hosting this content in iCloud.

contingencies 5y ago

Screw Apple. Walked in to Huaqiangbei with an Ubuntu USB stick yesterday to test a bunch of laptops and ensure all the hardware worked. Bought a Lenovo. Screw Apple.

istingray 5y ago
Nice! For others not in the artery of electronics, System76 and Purism offer Linux-first laptops, rather than stuff that just happens to be compatible. Support them!
websites2023 5y ago
Lenovo? After Superfish? Interesting choice.
- contingencies 5y ago
  Had a look at online pricing: couldn't order System76 to China without huge cost and long shipping time. Basically all electronics manufacturers have bad software now. It's assumed and rampant. Firmware on TVs, preinstalled apps on phones and tablets. You can't buy current-grade gear for a reasonable price without unwanted muck. As it stands I still had to pay the Windows tax.

websites2023 5y ago

EFF lost credibility on this issue when their first statement conflated the iMessage safety for kids feature with the CSAM scanning. It’s clear that they are willing to fearmonger to raise money and aren’t committed to the cause of educating users and advocating a nuanced position. I cancelled my recurring donation.

sativallday 5y ago

Apple is clearly headed down a path where they require intimate knowledge of your data. That AI assistant lives in the cloud in an Apple data center, not on your device.