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I don't know... I have a really hard time getting too upset about this. I'm a big proponent of privacy and have always been a Snowden supporter. And while "prot

I don't know... I have a really hard time getting too upset about this. I'm a big proponent of privacy and have always been a Snowden supporter. And while "protecting children" is a trope in politics, I think everyone with an iPhone knows they're giving up some privacy to own one. It's constantly tracking their location and sending other data to Apple. This isn't a government agency. Apple has been incredibly thoughtful about privacy in the past, and I feel like they've earned the benefit of the doubt here. I hope I'm not wrong, but I don't see how this is insane. They're just making sure the files you upload to them aren't illegal.

randomhodler84 5y ago
Time has proven otherwise. All censorship systems start with protecting the kids, and grow to eventually encompass all undesirable content…
- robertoandred 5y ago
  How have Google’s, Facebook’s, or Microsoft’s CSAM scanning grown?
  - shuckles 5y ago
    To be fair, Google and Facebook both do plenty of content scanning, but you’re right that it likely doesn’t use the CSAM pipelines. Apple’s pipeline is probably even harder to repurpose since it’s designed very closely for this use case.
  - vayeate 5y ago
    Facebook filters and censors content on a massive scale. They even block private messages with certain keywords or domains
  - randomhodler84 5y ago
    Unknown re private scanning, however Australia and UK have rigorous internet censorship regimes that block copyright infringement and gambling that use exactly the same censorship infrastructure that was build to block CSAM in the early 00s.
    - torified 5y ago
      Lol, Australia's internet filter is just a DNS block. It couldn't really be any less rigorous. Not that I'm complaining...
geophile 5y ago
"just" And who gets to decide what is illegal?
- Pxtl 5y ago
  Laws?
  - SixDouble5321 5y ago
    I've not met any laws. Where do they live?
  - bigiain 5y ago
    Which laws? I'm uncomfortable enough with US laws or Australian laws deciding what images are "illegal" to have on my phone. But China also have laws. And Iraq. And Saudi Arabia. And Afghanistan had one set of laws last month, but new different laws since then. Multinational Corps may like to think they've lifted themselves above petty regional political and legal pressure from elected governments and regional law enforcement. But Apple is 100% capable of being destroyed by either of China or the USA. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. If you shut down Apples manufacturing in China, or head office and server farms in the US, they'd be finished.
    - czzr 5y ago
      The laws of the country you live in. If you don’t like those laws then work to change them, don’t depend on a foreign tech company to decide for you. If I wanted to live under US laws and cultural expectations I’d move there.
      - bigiain 5y ago
        > If I wanted to live under US laws and cultural expectations I’d move there. If I didn't want to be poor, I'd just be rich instead!
  - geophile 5y ago
    Yes, and that's the problem. If you think that the laws protect you, an average iPhone user, you are sadly mistaken. Laws are dictated by the highest bidder, and by those in power. If they want to go after gays, or Jews, or Blacks, or Moslems, or immigrants, or political activists, or whoever, do you think the laws are going to protect or remain neutral to those groups?
diebeforei485 5y ago
They can do that on their servers, not on my phone.
lostgame 5y ago
Thank you for expressing this opinion. I know it’s not a popular one; but I’m 100% with you.
mangoman 5y ago
"just making sure the files you upload to them aren't illegal" the problem lies in this sentence. 1) this happens on device before they're uploaded, which is a monumental shift for a company that claims to be pro-privacy 2) they're now saying they're willing to surveil photos for governments, the reason is sorta irrelevant. they're opening pandora's box - are they going to start scanning files on behalf of the RIAA or other copyright stuff now?
SixDouble5321 5y ago
Found the person who didn't read the article.
- gkoberger 5y ago
  I read it. I just disagree with it.
- dang 5y ago
  The site guidelines ask you not to post like this. Could you please review and follow them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Also, it would be good if you'd stop posting unsubstantive comments generally.
tjmc 5y ago
Maybe I'm completely paranoid here, but given that actual sex offenders commonly seek out ways to be near children, what happens if one or more of them end up in Apple's image vetting team? They'd be completely anonymous and fully covered, with an endless pipeline of naked kids images being delivered to them. The idea that if you take a picture of your kid in the bath, it just happens to match a CSAM fingerprint and then gets silently transmitted to anonymous reviewers for "review" is terrifying.
- shuckles 5y ago
  Your terrifying idea mischaracterizes the nature of false positives. Any photo in your library is equally liable to be a false positive as any other; the perceptual hash is not looking for similar images by the metric of what you find similar (content). That’s also the underlying idea behind why people have been able to turn arbitrary images into adversarial false positives.
  - tjmc 5y ago
    So that picture of my driver's license I took for an ID check or that sensitive work document I scanned with my phone are just as likely to be sent? Great.
    - shuckles 5y ago
      The chance that any pictures from your library are revealed at all is at most one in one trillion (mod you not storing CSAM or being attacked by someone trying to plant evidence on you). Contrast this to a server side scanning system where every photo in your library will be accessed with unknown false positive characteristics.
    - simondotau 5y ago
      The image would need to be vaguely similar in terms of gross shapes and arrangement. It's exceedingly unlikely that any CSAM would ever be remotely similar to an ID card or a sheet of paper. If there are ever going to be any "natural" matches to any CSAM hashes, it's probably going to be a photograph of people who are coincidentally in a similar pose at a nearly identical angle and strikingly shading.
istingray 5y ago
I'm curious could you unpack what this means for me? "big proponent of privacy and have always been a Snowden supporter" Given that, my assumption is this would click for you, but as you said it doesn't. What does being a big proponent mean to you? How do you support Snowden? What's important to you about privacy? Curious to hear your logic, I bet there are tons of people who have the same concerns (or lack of).

randomhodler84 5y ago

Time has proven otherwise. All censorship systems start with protecting the kids, and grow to eventually encompass all undesirable content…

robertoandred 5y ago
How have Google’s, Facebook’s, or Microsoft’s CSAM scanning grown?
- shuckles 5y ago
  To be fair, Google and Facebook both do plenty of content scanning, but you’re right that it likely doesn’t use the CSAM pipelines. Apple’s pipeline is probably even harder to repurpose since it’s designed very closely for this use case.
- vayeate 5y ago
  Facebook filters and censors content on a massive scale. They even block private messages with certain keywords or domains
- randomhodler84 5y ago
  Unknown re private scanning, however Australia and UK have rigorous internet censorship regimes that block copyright infringement and gambling that use exactly the same censorship infrastructure that was build to block CSAM in the early 00s.
  - torified 5y ago
    Lol, Australia's internet filter is just a DNS block. It couldn't really be any less rigorous. Not that I'm complaining...

geophile 5y ago

"just" And who gets to decide what is illegal?

Pxtl 5y ago
Laws?
- SixDouble5321 5y ago
  I've not met any laws. Where do they live?
- bigiain 5y ago
  Which laws? I'm uncomfortable enough with US laws or Australian laws deciding what images are "illegal" to have on my phone. But China also have laws. And Iraq. And Saudi Arabia. And Afghanistan had one set of laws last month, but new different laws since then. Multinational Corps may like to think they've lifted themselves above petty regional political and legal pressure from elected governments and regional law enforcement. But Apple is 100% capable of being destroyed by either of China or the USA. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. If you shut down Apples manufacturing in China, or head office and server farms in the US, they'd be finished.
  - czzr 5y ago
    The laws of the country you live in. If you don’t like those laws then work to change them, don’t depend on a foreign tech company to decide for you. If I wanted to live under US laws and cultural expectations I’d move there.
    - bigiain 5y ago
      > If I wanted to live under US laws and cultural expectations I’d move there. If I didn't want to be poor, I'd just be rich instead!
- geophile 5y ago
  Yes, and that's the problem. If you think that the laws protect you, an average iPhone user, you are sadly mistaken. Laws are dictated by the highest bidder, and by those in power. If they want to go after gays, or Jews, or Blacks, or Moslems, or immigrants, or political activists, or whoever, do you think the laws are going to protect or remain neutral to those groups?

diebeforei485 5y ago

They can do that on their servers, not on my phone.

lostgame 5y ago

Thank you for expressing this opinion. I know it’s not a popular one; but I’m 100% with you.

mangoman 5y ago

"just making sure the files you upload to them aren't illegal" the problem lies in this sentence. 1) this happens on device before they're uploaded, which is a monumental shift for a company that claims to be pro-privacy 2) they're now saying they're willing to surveil photos for governments, the reason is sorta irrelevant. they're opening pandora's box - are they going to start scanning files on behalf of the RIAA or other copyright stuff now?

SixDouble5321 5y ago

Found the person who didn't read the article.

gkoberger 5y ago
I read it. I just disagree with it.
dang 5y ago
The site guidelines ask you not to post like this. Could you please review and follow them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Also, it would be good if you'd stop posting unsubstantive comments generally.

tjmc 5y ago

Maybe I'm completely paranoid here, but given that actual sex offenders commonly seek out ways to be near children, what happens if one or more of them end up in Apple's image vetting team? They'd be completely anonymous and fully covered, with an endless pipeline of naked kids images being delivered to them. The idea that if you take a picture of your kid in the bath, it just happens to match a CSAM fingerprint and then gets silently transmitted to anonymous reviewers for "review" is terrifying.

shuckles 5y ago
Your terrifying idea mischaracterizes the nature of false positives. Any photo in your library is equally liable to be a false positive as any other; the perceptual hash is not looking for similar images by the metric of what you find similar (content). That’s also the underlying idea behind why people have been able to turn arbitrary images into adversarial false positives.
- tjmc 5y ago
  So that picture of my driver's license I took for an ID check or that sensitive work document I scanned with my phone are just as likely to be sent? Great.
  - shuckles 5y ago
    The chance that any pictures from your library are revealed at all is at most one in one trillion (mod you not storing CSAM or being attacked by someone trying to plant evidence on you). Contrast this to a server side scanning system where every photo in your library will be accessed with unknown false positive characteristics.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    The image would need to be vaguely similar in terms of gross shapes and arrangement. It's exceedingly unlikely that any CSAM would ever be remotely similar to an ID card or a sheet of paper. If there are ever going to be any "natural" matches to any CSAM hashes, it's probably going to be a photograph of people who are coincidentally in a similar pose at a nearly identical angle and strikingly shading.

istingray 5y ago

I'm curious could you unpack what this means for me? "big proponent of privacy and have always been a Snowden supporter" Given that, my assumption is this would click for you, but as you said it doesn't. What does being a big proponent mean to you? How do you support Snowden? What's important to you about privacy? Curious to hear your logic, I bet there are tons of people who have the same concerns (or lack of).