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Apple Delays Rollout of Child Safety Features

• superkuh 5y ago
  "Apple Delays Rollout of Security Compromising Backdoor"
  • q-rews 5y ago
    "…in Order to Implement It Silently Once the Uproar Quieted"
• pshirshov 5y ago
  Well, I personally feel that the trust was broken. I've migrated to a self-built Android (that was quick and mostly painless, I would recommend CalyxOS and/or Graphene to anyone) and have a long-term plan to completely pull myself out of Apple ecosystem. Also it was a good reminder to degoogle myself, so I did.
• sebiw 5y ago
  What do you think are the chances we'll see a server-side implementation instead of the so far proposed client-side one?
  • CubsFan1060 5y ago
    My prediction, based on zero evidence whatsoever. They'll implement it server side, and eventually introduce encrypted iCloud photos. But your choice is to allow this scheme (scan on device before upload) and have E2EE, or to not have E2E encryption and have it scanned on the server side.
    • sebiw 5y ago
      Huh, I never really thought about the possibility that Apple would implement both schemes. I don't think they will go down that path, though. Why: Cost and complexity for Apple would be somewhat higher and the surrounding discussion about capabilities (abuse of the client-side system for other things than CSAM scanning) would persist just because of the existence of client-side scanning. Let's see how this story continues.
    • jpxw 5y ago
      I highly doubt they’d offer a choice like this. 99% of their customers won’t know what these terms mean.
      • derefr 5y ago
        I’m guessing that rather than a choice, it’d be one or the other depending on the market, with most countries getting the server-side version, while totalitarian countries where people are already used to being spied on get the client-side one.
    • deleted 5y ago
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    • cwizou 5y ago
      Interesting thought but Apple never gives choice on much (well except Safari UI now!), and I don't see them giving an explicit choice on this. If they really had for a goal to implement E2EE, I could maybe see this now that you are mentioning it. However if I had to make a guess, they'll go server-side scanning only, and E2EE backups/Photos will never happen. To me it's a pipe dream to believe they would offer E2EE, there's too much international pressure from governments around the world to keep iCloud backups open and going E2EE would trigger unpalatable retaliations.
      • rjvir 5y ago
        I think it's plausible that they'd offer E2EE for all of iCloud. They already do it for iMessage, and it makes it easier to turn down subpoenas if they can credibly claim that they can't even access the data themselves. Likewise, offering an explicit choice also seems plausible. The full E2EE flow might have UX downsides (for example, the user might need to write down a recovery seed phrase on paper), so they might not force all users into that flow.
        • cwizou 5y ago
          But that's the thing, they have reached a compromise regarding iMessage being "E2EE" by keeping all those avenues (iCloud backups and iMessage on iCloud) that essentially trade E2EE for the convenience. Most users opt-in to the convenience for iMessage making it, for all purposes, no longer E2EE. I don't see them removing that precisely because of iMessage.
        • deleted 5y ago
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    • deleted 5y ago
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    • dylan604 5y ago
      Is there an alternate where they upload, scan, encrypt only non-offending data? Is there a way to share a public key that only allows for encrypting but not decrypting that would make this a viable option?
  • blacktriangle 5y ago
    Assuming they become very clear about advertising what they are doing and whether your data is stored locally or in their cloud, I might be okay with this. Having a vendor scanning my own personal device is downright terrifying to the point of walking away from iOS full stop. However the same logic can be applied to Apple's servers, and I think has serious implications for how we view cloud services going forward. If a company signs up to host my content, doesn't it make sense they would like to examine that content to make sure they are not breaking any laws simply by being in possession of said content? The real answer is the same it's always been, we need to abandon the cloud in favor of going back to self-hosting and bring back the fully distributed internet, the problem is just getting technology to the point where doing so is easy enough for non-technical users.
    • CubsFan1060 5y ago
      This is already done by quite a few places. Take a look at PhotoDNA. I believe at least OneDrive and Gmail have been confirmed to do this same scanning. For reference, from 2014: https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/06/why-the-gmail-scan-that-led-to-a-mans-arrest-for-child-porn-was-not-a-privacy-violation/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/06/why-the-gmail-scan-that-le...
      • jliptzin 5y ago
        They scan material already on servers they own, I don't think anyone is surprised about this. If you don't want anyone seeing or scanning your data, don't push it to the cloud. Apple's new policy of analyzing your data before it even gets to their cloud would break that paradigm.
  • nowherebeen 5y ago
    If server-side implementation, you mean they will scan images that I manually upload to iCloud, then I don't have a problem with it. As long as its off my personal device, and it is through my own action and not theirs. My device is my property, not theirs.
    • madeofpalk 5y ago
      I guess the trade off here is that your data is still stored in (essentially) plain text on Apple's servers, and they (or whatever authorities) can still rifle through it at any time without telling you.
      • nowherebeen 5y ago
        iCloud is encrypted but Apple has the private keys so it’s only slightly better than plain text. You should not expect you data to be anything more whenever you post anything online. The only exception is E2EE but Apple will never offer it.
        • erikpukinskis 5y ago
          The whole point of this hashing thing everyone complained about was to enable E2EE.
          • madeofpalk 5y ago
            Just to be clear - that's pure speculation. There's no evidence (apart from this local CSAM detection) or other reports to back that up.
            • nowherebeen 5y ago
              Agreed. If they really planned to enable E2EE, they would have announced it with the CSAM detection. It makes no sense to have all this backlash only to enable E2EE at a later date.
      • 5y ago
  • yyyk 5y ago
    There's a good chance we'll have a server-side implementation and a client-side implementation. The currently proposed client-side implementation has obvious holes and there's no way Apple doesn't know that. They can expand client-side scanning massively or implement server-side scanning too. The latter will cause less objections, because 'Apple will not provide E2E' isn't a news item if they keep silent, while the client-side expansion will be.
  • simion314 5y ago
    >What do you think are the chances we'll see a server-side implementation instead of the so far proposed client-side one? If Google, Microsoft and Facebook are doing this for years then the question is why is Apple not doing it? Did they not think about the children until last month?
  • JohnFen 5y ago
    Personally, I wouldn't object to a server-side implementation at all. My objection is that it's client-side.
• cblconfederate 5y ago
  So, Apple choosing to endanger children to avoid bad PR
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • musha68k 5y ago
    Bad actors will just skip any of these technologies anyways: recording with old camera gear, sending hard disks by mail, meeting IRL to exchange USB sticks, etc Security theatre. Back in 2013 Snowden thankfully gave us good insight into why these efforts are made.
    • erikpukinskis 5y ago
      Some bad actors are stupid and lazy. The fact that people can still get away with crimes given a protection scheme is not, in itself, reason to skip the scheme. The relevant question is: will it catch some people?
      • musha68k 5y ago
        No, the relevant question is: who gets to decide that we end up having this discussion? Mass surveillance is not an option. Even if it were, it would eventually expose a wrong approach. Mitigating (systemic) child abuse does not necessitate flashy “crypto surveillance”. It asks for well educated and vigilant societies and correspondingly smart and industrious investigation work. At best this is aimless activism. Either way trust has been broken. Big time. With great power comes great responsibility.
        • deleted 5y ago
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  • burnished 5y ago
    This is a spicy hot take. I could see an element of valid criticism here, maybe something along the lines of questioning how their equivocation now lines up with their previous 'spirited' defense of this project (this would genuinely make an interesting case study). Placing Apple in the active role of endangering children though! Seems like the blame is in the wrong place.
• post_break 5y ago
  Wow, we made Apple blink. I did not see that coming. People like me who sold their iPhone and cancelled all services probably are a drop in the bucket, but it looks like the general public and the news picked up on this enough to get the ball rolling to make them step back. So now the question is in what 15.X update do they just sneak it in.
  • azalemeth 5y ago
    Part of me wonders if the calculus includes either (a) the open letter signed by (effectively) ~10k verified developers [1], (b) the complaint letters from groups like the EFF [2, 3], or (c) expert and qualified input from their (presumably huge) marketing department... [1] https://appleprivacyletter.com/ https://appleprivacyletter.com/ [2] https://act.eff.org/action/tell-apple-don-t-scan-our-phones https://act.eff.org/action/tell-apple-don-t-scan-our-phones [3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/apples-plan-think-different-about-encryption-opens-backdoor-your-private-life https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/apples-plan-think-diff...
    • judge2020 5y ago
      Or D) employees who weren’t part of the discussions heard about it the day before the official announcement, and made a stink about it internally.
      • haswell 5y ago
        E) All of the above
        • lumost 5y ago
          F) They received requests to scan for other forms of content from various governments.
          • sslayer 5y ago
            G) Secret Pedo BoardMembers/Investors/Mutual Fund Manager threaten to dump all Apple Stock.
• iyn 5y ago
  > "[...] we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features." Seeing how this situation was handled by Apple so far, my cynical take on this is that they want to wait for the storm to pass/get smaller and then will continue deployment of this tech but with better PR strategy. I hope to be wrong but the latest moves by Apple completely evaporated the remaining trust I had for them.
  • tomjen3 5y ago
    The same cynic could also say that they are postponing it indefinitely, but can't say so.
    • kristofferR 5y ago
      That's not really a cynic, that's an optimist.
      • wl 5y ago
        It’s being cynical about the idea that PR departments tell the straightforward truth.
  • e-clinton 5y ago
    Why not trust Apple? I get that you dislike their plan but consider three things: * they do want to help keep your children safe * they told you in detail how the system would work * they are holding off on releasing after the world gave them feedback Who else is doing better? I get that you don’t like the system, but how do you solve it? Is it not worth solving? Too easy to nix ideas without contributing to the conversation.
    • dylan604 5y ago
      >they are holding off on releasing after the world gave them feedback They did not state that they are changing things to address the concerns. Deploy it now, or deploy it later, it's the same thing being deployed.
• least 5y ago
  I hope this is a case of Apple delaying it long enough to silently cancel the feature or completely change it to not be on-device scanning rather than Apple delaying it long enough to be well out of the news cycle and silently enable it at a later date. Both features mentioned have potential for abuse and create an adversarial relationship with ones own device so I'm not sure what they do to implement them without these remaining concerns. A delay in either case is welcome.
  • dusing 5y ago
    I’d say very likely canceled quietly. Otherwise they are just taking the punishment twice, there isn’t a change they could make that would allow them to go live with this kind of thing at a later date and not get raked over the coals.
    • TillE 5y ago
      Yeah, if they implement it in the future, the whole cycle of news coverage repeats. I think/hope they'll just move to the simple compromise of scanning stuff on iCloud like everybody else, which is far less of an intrusion.
  • pwned1 5y ago
    The modus operandi of the surveillance state is to back off something newly intrusive just long enough for the outcry to die down and then slip it in when no one is looking. I'd expect this not to be canceled, but to find its way in to an update on a holiday weekend when no one is checking the news.
    • least 5y ago
      Well the day they announced it was also just a largely unremarkable day towards the start of a weekend but it still turned into a fiasco, so hopefully not.
• arrty88 5y ago
  Must have taken an act of congress. Imagine that. Powerful people dont want their photos analyzed. Hmmm
  • adventured 5y ago
    That's not how it works. One group of powerful people, better positioned to take advantage, want to analyze the personal contents of other powerful people. The more well positioned group always thinks they can be spared from their own creations, that they're in control of it. The politicians that passed the Patriot Act didn't personally fear it, they viewed themselves as the masters of it; it was to be applied to the other people. For example, that's how you build an illegal dragnet spying operation against an inbound, democratically elected President. You do it courtesy of having the loyalty of the intelligence community top to bottom. And you avoid that illegal activity becoming a punished criminal deed by controlling at least half or more of the government. One power group targeting another power group, that's how Washington DC has always worked, and will always work (as well as most governments throughout history, it's endemic to politics/politicians).
• foxfluff 5y ago
  Critically important? Really? A system that is trivial to circumvent and which only catches people sharing pics that have already been added to a database is not going to move the needle on actual physical abuse of children.
  • madeofpalk 5y ago
    Are you objecting to the general concept of CSAM scanning, something every online storage provider does? I think it's important to note that Apple is late to this, and they're just playing catch-up in implementing this scanning. The only difference between Apple and others is that they do it completely (or partially) on-device rather than all on their servers. And they they explicitly told people exactly what and how they're doing it all. It's kind of a funny situation where in Apple being more transparent than any other implementer of this same process, they've gotten themselves in more strife.
    • fsflover 5y ago
      It doesn't matter what the purpose of this move is. It's not "catch-up" at all. The scanning will happen on the devices using the users' resources, before uploading. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28309202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28309202.
      • madeofpalk 5y ago
        I understand people's objection with Apple's on-device implementation of this scanning, but that didn't seem to be parent's objection. I was just trying to clarify.
      • judge2020 5y ago
        It’s catch-up in that Apple submits less than a thousand CSAM reports to NCMEC annually: > According to NCMEC, I submitted 608 reports to NCMEC in 2019, and 523 reports in 2020. In those same years, Apple submitted 205 and 265 reports (respectively). It isn't that Apple doesn't receive more picture than my service, or that they don't have more CP than I receive. Rather, it's that they don't seem to notice and therefore, don't report. > In 2020, FotoForensics received 931,466 pictures and submitted 523 reports to NCMEC; that's 0.056%. During the same year, Facebook submitted 20,307,216 reports to NCMEC. https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-One-Bad-Apple.html https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-On...
• shantara 5y ago
  I was wondering how Apple would handle their imminent iPhone 13 announcement event in light of the public outcry over the photo scanning. Now we know the answer, they will pretend to listen until everyone buys a new shiny, and then quietly slip in the changes without making much noise after everyone forgets about them.
  • bitigchi 5y ago
    “Good Morning!” (Grinning like a Cheshire Cat).
  • neop1x 5y ago
    It may be easy to hide that as part of an update, after mainstream focus settles down. It could be part of "Various privacy improvements" changelog line and it may not be easily noticable. And if some security researcher discovers it many years later, they will say "we told everyone in 2021 we cared about children and that we would implement this".
• balozi 5y ago
  What's the point of delaying anything, the damage is already done. I can only imaging all the yelling and recrimination happening in executive meetings at Apple Spaceship. Oooff!
• mrtksn 5y ago
  In my opinion, Apple will break its brand if they actually go ahead and release "self-reporting to the authorities" device features. Even if they somehow manage to make it do exactly the thing it is supposed to do and not slide into a feature for mass governmental control, I think a lot of people will loose trust into the devices they own. Automatically scanning your stuff and reporting the bad things to the police is like the concept of God always watching. Even if you don't do anything wrong and you agree that the stuff they are watching for is bad and should be prevented, there is something eerie about always being watched and controlled. The iPhones should mind their own business and leave the police work to the police. That being said, I would be O.K. if the scan is performed on the device upon physical access by the authorities. You caught someone, You have enough evidence to investigate the person, you are allowed to search his/her home then maybe it can be O.K. to run a fingerprint scan on the phone to look for evidence.
  • dylan604 5y ago
    >That being said, I would be O.K. if the scan is performed on the device upon physical access by the authorities. Why? You have physical access to the device. Just look at the data. The CSAM scan will only ID known imagery. What if this person has new content that is unknown to the database? This is a non-sensical justification.
    • mrtksn 5y ago
      I want my data to stay encrypted no matter what however I accept that there are people who can do bad things and access to their data could be valuable. So it is a compromise, the data stays encrypted but the authorities can get an idea about the nature of the data. Then it is up to the person to reveal their data as a part of a cooperation agreement. If there's a CSAM material match, the person can prove innocence by revealing the data(false positives) or the judges can increase the severity of the penalty for not cooperating. Milage may vary depending on your jurisdiction however I think it is a good way to look at someones stuff for offensive material without actually looking at unrelated stuff. So no match, no reason to try to get into the device.
• opnac 5y ago
  We are likely a week and a bit away from new iPhone releases—a good bit of damage control at play here.
• Macha 5y ago
  I'm pleasantly surprised Apple backed down on well... anything. Especially this. However, macrumors has probably the most user-hostile gdpr modal I've encountered. 1. I used it on my android device. The modal popped up, I gave it several seconds to load in, everything seemed stable, I go to tap the settings dialog and... up jumps the modal and registers a click on the accept button. 2. Want to go fix it after the fact? Go to the footer, find the privacy link, find the link in the middle of the policy, now you get the desktop modal on the site. 3. Everything shows consent default off, so all good right? Nope. Expand out the toggles and you'll see under the "Personalised ads" a set of more granular toggles. 4. So toggle them off and you're good, right? Nope, each of them you need to tap into and get to a new screen. This new screen has two modals, one for consent, and one defaulted in for legitimate interest. One screen per sub modal, and the only way to go back to get to the others is to click "Back" in the top left, which leaves you at the root of the flow. I have seen this particular modal on or two other sites, and finding yet another layer to bury the controls in seems to be a new "innovation" in this regard. Hopefully they're one of the sites targeted by noyb's enforcement complaints.
• buildbot 5y ago
  I don’t think the timing of this is an accident - or at least I’d like to imagine it’s not. iCloud subs renew at the end of the months; I bet they were maybe surprised at the number of people not paying them money anymore for iCloud…
  • LeSaucy 5y ago
    I cancelled my recurring iCloud subscription because of this, switched to self-hosting photo prism for storage.
    • buildbot 5y ago
      Yep, I did too, and set up a local+remote self hosted solution instead. Probably not going back now, it was very convenient for the iPhone upgrade program with a new phone each year, but I no longer really want use Apple services...
  • ziml77 5y ago
    That doesn't make much sense. People would have cancelled their subscriptions during the month of August. There's no need to wait until the end of the month to know how many people are cancelling.
    • cwkoss 5y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised if the suits only look at the numbers once a month.
      • buildbot 5y ago
        Exactly - someone looked at the September vs. August iCloud numbers, and went, "oh shit!"...
  • kmlx 5y ago
    > I bet they were maybe surprised at the number of people not paying them money anymore for iCloud I bet you are overestimating how many people care about this kind of stuff.
• hughrr 5y ago
  Delay is not the word I want to see. It’s too late anyway. Their reputation is shot now. I don’t trust them.
• CubsFan1060 5y ago
  While looking up something, I came across this article (I believe from before Apple's original announcement): https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whatsapp-encryption-child-abuse https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whatsapp-encryption-child-ab... It's interesting in that it talks about both server and client side scanning, and some of the things that WhatsApp does. An interesting fact from the article: in 2020, Whatsapp made 400,000 reports to the NCMEC. Apple: 265
  • cwizou 5y ago
    Yep, Apple currently only scans iCloud Mail attachements (I believe they confirmed this, don't have the source at hand though), which explains the discrepancy. There's a big difference though between scanning a library (which is closer to what DropBox/OneDrive are doing) and when it's messaging platform whose ultimate goal is communication between people. It does make sense that those catch way more. If Apple had roll those scans on iMessage attachements (which they didn't planned to, though the feature looked to be designed for it way more than it was for a library scan), you would probably see comparable numbers (modulo those platforms relative marketshares). One big problem though is are those large numbers actually actionable ? I think I remember seeing a quote from Swiss (?) law enforcement that complained that the reports they got from NCMEC were nearly all of the time unactionable. There are possibly many reasons from this, it could be differences in local laws, algorithms that wrongly report things, or other factors (maybe not enough to identify the user of the acount, etc). This is where one feature of Apple's design was a bit better: they didn't plan to report every single occurence, but would only if 30 such images were detected. Part of the reason they did was because of the imperfections of the NeuralHash mechanism, sure, but in the end it doesn't matter. One can argue doing this would at least generate more actionnable reports. It shouldn't be a numbers game.
    • CubsFan1060 5y ago
      The article touched on the actionable parts. "They say it is “highly unlikely” that a search warrant could be made from a tip that does not include content “and instead only includes IP data and an indication from an algorithm that there is a high probability of suspicious or anomalous activity”." It sounds like simply being able to say "This user was messaging with 4 known offenders,and sending something the size of images" is unlikely to be helpful to law enforcement.
• aborsy 5y ago
  The idea of a vendor scanning your device is terrifying, to say the least.
  • BitwiseFool 5y ago
    And, I might add, they've created the infrastructure that allows governments to scan for other 'questionable content'. How long until they begin to scan for hate-speech? What if you download files from Wikileaks? Or a journalist gets their hands on classified materials? The government could know about this before they have a chance to release it.
    • danlugo92 5y ago
      This is obviously the end plan. I support all measures against child abuse, but child abuse is always the trojan horse.
    • gremloni 5y ago
      Why bring up specifically hate-speech as some sort of paragon that needs to be protected? I agree with you but put hate-speech in its place, it’s vile.
• threshold 5y ago
  This technology could have led to the arrests of hardcore criminals and spared some poor children a very difficult life. Well now we know where this generations priorities and values stand.
  • vnchr 5y ago
    We could just imprison everyone and prevent all future crime… Valuing and prioritizing privacy is not advocating for crimes against children.
    • threshold 5y ago
      In this case it is. That’s the choice today. Have a more private cell phone -or- take many serious offenders off the streets.
      • vnchr 5y ago
        And the serious offenders will keep using the anti-privacy phone?
  • yomly 5y ago
    as a criminal you can just opt out of Apple hardware, and/or implement separately encrypted content. Better - maintain your facade of having an Apple device for your daytime phone and use a burner by night. Has DRM really stopped piracy? All this did was make it more annoying for criminals and maybe make it easier to catch dumb criminals - who would have been caught by other means anyway.
  • roamerz 5y ago
    Privacy doesn’t seem to matter to you. What happens when Apple adds brainwave detection to their Airpods? Now all I have to do is have a fleeting thought about something that is deemed unacceptable by the ruling class and the authorities show up and arrest me. So in your perfect little world where do you draw the line? Is it there or the next logical step where AI deems that based on it’s algorithm you are going to break some law tomorrow and now they are going to preemptively take action? Privacy matters.
• alliao 5y ago
  honestly, brand breaking.
  • Gareth321 5y ago
    I've been using Apple hardware for so long now and have been a huge fan. They killed almost all the goodwill they had with me. I no longer trust them, and since their operating systems are closed source, trust is critical. This has been a wake up call. If it's not open source, I don't know what's happening on my devices.
    • musha68k 5y ago
      Same here. I installed arch on my x86 MBP and I’m honestly shocked how smooth it went and how well it runs. Definitely a good time to get back to open source desktop experiences (after ~17 years for me). Now I’m waiting to do the same thing with my M1 MBP which is still on Big Sur for now (Asahi linux looking very promising though!).
• vagrantJin 5y ago
  I can't help but laugh at the good faith Apple Inc has. The less obvious questions about the company are never asked because anyone who does is attacked by fans, who in a manic state of self righteousness never asked why were child safety features not a concern for Apple Inc for the last 20+ years. That's the blind good faith of which I speak. It makes Apple Inc is a mouthwatering target. So good, there's no need to rush. No need to be splashy. The intrinsic trust its users have on its integrity is mindblowing. People trust it more than they trust their own children and their ability to raise them. And no good can come from such blind faith.
  • stetrain 5y ago
    The reason they care now is because they have been trying to increase privacy and encryption of their services, and the powerful political flag that gets waved in opposition is CSAM. (second place is Terrorism but that engenders more political debate) Even if the real government motives for wanting decryption backdoors or no encryption at all are less pure in motivation, CSAM investigation and prosecution is something that nobody wants to argue against politically. That's the only explanation, sinister or benevolent, that makes sense to me for why Apple wanted to do this with all of the rube goldberg steps they created to make it inconvenient as a direct surveillance tool. . Given the priors that they want to avoid decrypted dragnet scanning of user data on their servers, limit who at Apple has access to user data on their servers (even when compelled by govt warrant), and that they can't continue down their road of device and cloud privacy without addressing CSAM, this is a solution that attempts to fit those measures. I don't think that makes it a good thing. There is a clear ethical boundary for most people between "I uploaded this to your server and you scan it" versus "I'm about to upload this to your server so you run a scanner on my device, and that scan can result in a human at Apple seeing some kind of censored/thumbnail version of my personal photos." Apple tried to find a clever work around to the above assumptions but their solution is something that feels like a worse privacy violation than just scanning everything server side.
  • least 5y ago
    > ...never asked why were child safety features not a concern for Apple Inc for the last 20+ years. This is remarkably disingenuous and can be applied to any company who hasn't done any number of things to help prevent any number of criminal or immoral activities on their platforms. Did we have the need or the technology to implement such features in 2001? I wasn't using cloud services to store photos in 2001. Were servers, let alone devices powerful enough to generate the hashes? Did NCMEC have the capability to generate these hashes or even have a database from which they could help create these technologies? PhotoDNA's development didn't start until 2009. Capability has expanded because the devices we carry around are super computers with built-in ML chips to enable these sorts of technologies. This would not have been possible with a feature phone in 2001. Advancements in machine learning have also enabled these sorts of technologies. Concerns have expanded because our use of third party platforms for cloud storage has significantly expanded which creates a liability for all these platforms. E2EE would of course remove their liability since they would have no idea what was being hosted on their platforms but the problem of ensuring that people don't lose access to their photos in the case of losing their device or password remains. If Apple's users had intrinsic trust in the company then Apple wouldn't be concerned about the push back against this tech. All you're doing here is outing yourself as the opposite of the "apple sheep."
• jliptzin 5y ago
  Here's my take on this I think this was Apple calling the US government's bluff. I don't think they ever wanted to do anything like this because they know it destroys their claims of superior privacy. I think they have internal plans to roll out E2E iCloud encryption so that in addition to not being able to provide law enforcement the code to unlock any phone, they also won't be able to help law enforcement decrypt anything stored in iCloud, including those phone backups. So Apple sees the incoming fight where government cries foul to the public, making the same tried and true "think of the children" arguments, saying now all pedophiles will be free to save their CSAM on Apple servers. It's the government's way to try to get the public against Apple on this, and this is how Apple neuters that argument. But I don't think anyone in the government really cares about the CSAM. What they really want is backdoor access to the devices for the high-value targets that they actually care about, or just to make their jobs a lot easier in other investigations, but that's a lot harder to sell to the public. Look at Facebook alone. They made 20 MILLION CSAM reports last year ALONE. That number was astounding to me. I haven't heard anyone discuss the sheer numbers yet. Think about that for a second. That's one company, making 55,000 CSAM reports PER DAY. The equivalent of a medium sized city being reported for CSAM materials every day! I don't know how many people work in government handling those reports, but I'd imagine the process of taking in reports, evaluating them, forwarding them to appropriate authorities, and then making arrests is not one that can possibly be automated away to deal with that kind of volume. And Apple would generate at least as many reports as Facebook I'd imagine, not to mention all the other sources of CSAM reports that are out there. Do we really think there's anyone in law enforcement who is saying "oh gee, if only we had an ADDITIONAL 55,000 CSAM reports coming in PER DAY then we'd really be able to get a handle on the problem." If anything, that just provides even more noise, making it harder to find real signals. So now that they've shown they're willing to call law enforcement's bluff, I think law enforcement predictably has now said to them ok, it's not really about the CSAM, we still want backdoor access for other reasons, and now Apple is reevaluating their response. The issue for Apple though is that even if they're legally allowed to say no to law enforcement requests to open up backdoors, they're probably being extorted by law enforcement threatening to come down on them for antitrust issues if they don't go along with it. Smaller companies that don't have antitrust issues to worry about would be able to put up a much more resilient fight.
• numair 5y ago
  For everyone who is saying that the technical community “won”... Nobody’s been fired. Rather, Apple’s senior execs publicly doubled down and basically labeled those of us who thought this scheme to be insane, as a bunch of uninformed idiots... You can change a product decision in a day, but it takes a LONG time to change a culture that thinks these sort of insane product decisions make any sense whatsoever. Making a long-term bet on Apple has become precarious at best.
  • hughrr 5y ago
    Yeah the thing that really got me was the double down. They are not on my side.
  • zekrioca 5y ago
    The technical community was labeled the "screeching voices of the minority".
    • jodrellblank 5y ago
      Not by Apple, much as the media would love to have you think otherwise. The 'screeching' description comes from Marita Rodriguez, executive director of strategic partnerships at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, in a memo to Apple employees. [Edit, since I can't reply anymore because I'm "posting too fast"] I didn't say you thought that personally; in a sub-thread about Apple senior execs applying negative labels to people, and this being one of the most insulting labels applied, I think it's important to note that this label came from somewhere else. (and maybe important to note "the technical community" were not labelled "screeching voices"; the memo said "the air will be filled with the screeching voices of the minority". It didn't say "everyone who disagrees is a screeching voice"). [1] https://www.howtogeek.com/746588/apple-discusses-screeching-voices-of-the-minority-in-internal-memos/ https://www.howtogeek.com/746588/apple-discusses-screeching-...
      • zekrioca 5y ago
        It is interesting how you thought that I thought the label came from Apple, even though I did not mention it. The key point is that the label did come from the collaboration that Apple engaged in.
• c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  Apple's brand is tarnished in my eyes. I already got rid of my iPhone and won't be returning. The fact that they even announced this is proof that they only ever cared about providing a facade of privacy.
  • SamuelAdams 5y ago
    Just curious, what did you switch to? All the truly open source phones still have a lot of work that needs doing, which means the only real competitors are android devices with a custom rom, and that doesn't really fix privacy either.
    • busymom0 5y ago
      Not op but I started moving away from Apple a few months ago, much before this Apple CSAM debacle. This is a pretty big move for me because I am a developer who makes apps for both iOS and MacOS, so I pretty much need Apple software for work. No longer buying iPhones or Macs. I was planning on upgrading to the Mac Mini with M1 chip later this fall but now I plan on building a hackintosh instead. I also no longer recommend Apple devices to friends/family. I got myself a cheap android phone which I have de-googled myself. I got this Android phone ($190 USD for a very good phone - 8GB ram, 12gb space): https://www.amazon.com/UMIDIGI-Unlocked-4150mAh-Capacity-Smartphone/dp/B09372DWKL/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=umidigi+a9+pro&qid=1628479572&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/UMIDIGI-Unlocked-4150mAh-Capacity-Sma... I use Firefox for YouTube on it with the following add-ons: 1. uBlock Origin 2. Video Background Play Fix add-on This allows me to use YouTube as a background playback music player. And if needed, I use YouTube-dl to get the audio files and put them on the phone. You can check out several tutorials to de-google an android phone.
      • xena 5y ago
        The hackintosh is still going to have the ability to do CSAM scanning fwiw.
        • busymom0 5y ago
• diebeforei485 5y ago
  It's not clear if this means it's coming in iOS 15.2 or something, or if it's being delayed to iOS 16. If it's the former, it may be best to stick with iOS 14.
• lugged 5y ago
  Between this and the docker desktop bs we're talking about moving around a thousand apple laptop purchases a year over to Linux.
  • neom 5y ago
    Just as a reference point. Apple sells approx 2,200 macs an hour.
    • pshirshov 5y ago
      Yes, sure. Probably they won't notice anyone leaving. That's not a reason not to leave though.
    • SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
      That seems crazy from the production side. Think of what it would look like to manufacture 2,200+ macs per hour (19,000,000 year).
      • dharmab 5y ago
        Pre-pandemic, Ford sold a pickup truck on average once every 30 seconds.
        • frockington1 5y ago
          off topic but post-pandemic my Bronco still doesn't have a build date, this chip shortage is out of hand
          • SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
            You have no idea. I just got a 100 week factory lead time for a cortex m4 ARM chip… it’s not a super rare chip.
          • godelski 5y ago
            A year later and Ampere GPUs are still near impossible to get. So much for my home ML machine... (literally only waiting on a GPU and been that way for a year)
• stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I personally think one of the best things you can do is turn off icloud and automatic updates. No doubt they collect that telemetry. That sends a bigger "vote" than complain on HN, although both are welcome. I turned it all off and set idrive as my backup for now. Not optimal but the best I could do on short notice.
• concinds 5y ago
  I think it's just sad that Apple will now likely be forced to switch to server-side scanning, which they've explained is strictly inferior to their client-side proposal (and which I wrote about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28176418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28176418). Irrational fears and (some) misinformation (which I won't accude HN of, for the purposes of this discussion, just reddit, Twitter, and the "tech NGOs") will result in worse outcomes for consumers. This backlash (including these NGOs) also protested the iMessage changes by equating "putting a nudity warning" with "breaking E2E encryption". I'm not a parent yet, but why prevent tech companies from adding this obvious (and desirable to many) feature? It'll be interesting if they walk back their fears of "non-CSAM hashes being added" when that problem is still present with cloud-scanning. They didn't protest Google, Microsoft, and others using PhotoDNA, which presents identical risks. Will they now still complain about Apple if they propose cloud-scanning? They'd be hypocritical not to, since their current arguments would still apply. But then why haven't they complained when everyone else did it?
  • stjohnswarts 5y ago
    How is scanning on My Phone better than on server side? Either you trust apple with your data or you don't, supposedly only they have the keys to open the data on their servers in case it gets into 3rd party hands. I trust that far more than I trust Apple acting as a government spy on my own phone. Sure there are trade offs, but this one is well worth it. Your data isn't sitting unencrypted on apple servers. They have a key to open it but hackers who might steal that don't. I assure you it's as good as any encryption you would have applied to it.
    • erikpukinskis 5y ago
      Because, with the proposed system in place, if law enforcement wants to decrypt your data they have to subpoena you, not Apple. As long as Apple can’t do this client-side scanning scheme, they have to keep the keys to your data on their servers, which means law enforcement can subpoena them without you even being aware of it.
• mlindner 5y ago
  Good! Now expose fully how it works and open it up to bug bounties for people to show how easy it is to insert a backdoor image into the system.
• browningstreet 5y ago
  Well, nothing about this announcement yet changes the fact that I still won't be buying the next iPhone or Macbook this fall, like I'd intended. Without knowing what their refinements actually do, it's too uncertain.
• tremoloqui 5y ago
  Sadly, the cats out of the bag and Apple, Google and the rest of us will no longer have the plausible deniability that kept this sort of thing in check. Soon enough every tinpot dictator in the world will be demanding their particular flavour of device scanning inside and outside of their jurisdiction.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• tzs 5y ago
  What I find most interesting is that they have apparently delayed both the iCloud photo upload scanning and the Messages parental control scanning which uses a completely different mechanism. The latter when it flags something in a message to the child warns the child and asks if they want to view it. If the child says "yes" and is 13+ it shows it to them and that is the end of it. If the child is 12 or under, they are warned again and told that if they view it their parents will be notified. If they say "yes" again they are shown the image and their parents are notified. Note that no one is notified unless the recipient is an under 13 child and the child explicitly decides to allow their parents to be notified. I've seen much fewer objections to this. I don't see why they seem to be tying this and the iCloud scanning together in one release.
  • Klonoar 5y ago
    Likely because they made the mistake of doing them together to begin with - there’s no world where the public untangles it.
  • codezero 5y ago
    It helps them conflate the feature as “for the children” and not as a privacy violation, a general confusion about the coupling of these features is desirable for their marketing.
    • Ultimer 5y ago
      But this is a really useful feature!
    • RandyGoldy 5y ago
      I hope that Apple delays this function because they want to make it more thoughtful. To my mind, child safety is the most important thing for every parent. As for me, I always take care of the safety of my child. If you know how much time I spend just choosing a kindergarten. The best variant that I've found was Infant Day Care Brooklyn. I think that this place has all the needs. Check it out https://littlescholarsnyc.com/ https://littlescholarsnyc.com/ if you are faced with such a problem too.
• tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  In the news tomorrow: "Apple allowing child porn on their phones".
• midrus 5y ago
  I was going to buy an iPhone before they announced this, because I'm tired of all the Google tracking stuff. If they finally roll this out, I think my next phone will be a Nokia 1100. I don't have anything to hide, but I'm tired of everyone trying to track and sneak into your personal stuff, for whatever reason.
• saltedonion 5y ago
  I bet this had something to do with #AppleToo and the company didn’t want to fight 2 PR battles at once. My bet is this is just a delay tactic.
• kf6nux 5y ago
  I bet people would have had no problem with the CSAM on-device scanning if it involved neither Apple employees snooping on your photos nor government reporting. e.g. if they made it so their software simply refused to upload a photo and inform the user why it refused to upload it, then there's no privacy issue (at least not until they do add a backdoor later on).
  • CubsFan1060 5y ago
    Wouldn't this make it simply a way for the people who trade in these sorts of things to get more information about how to avoid them? i.e. my iphone told me this photo was in the database, so I'll start adjusting it until it 'passes', and them I'm free to share it without detection.
    • kf6nux 5y ago
      Since Apple shared the algo, people who trade in these things already know how to get around it (just adjust the image so the fingerprint changes). People who trade in these things will probably turn off icloud too. Similarly, governments could take a known image they want banned (say of a national embarrassment), grab some CSAM, tweak the signature on the CSAM to match the photo they want banned, and add the tweaked photo to the CSAM DB.
  • short_sells_poo 5y ago
    I respectfully disagree. In my mind, the fact that Apple employees do first level filtering is a minor problem. The main problem is the precedent this sets: on device scanning is now possible. Before this, if a government asked Apple to scan all the phones for something, Apple could say "we're sorry but we don't have the capability " and they could not be compelled by legal means. Now, a large part of that argument has been eroded. Apple may have added in a few hurdles, but the first crucial step of on-device surveillance capability has been installed and is on path to being normalized. It doesn't matter that they don't do this yet. We are undeniably closer to direct phone surveillance than we have been before.
    • 5y ago
• SergeAx 5y ago
  See what you did? Chirdren will not be safe now. (it is not a sarcastic rant, just a heads up on Apple's PR wording)
• beezischillin 5y ago
  I fully expect them to eventually go ahead with it, I just wonder if they'll turn this on via a flip of a switch when the device phones home or it will be a software update. So basically: will upgrading to iOS 15 be safe for now?
• istingray 5y ago
  The big takeaway for me: Linux isn't a viable alternative yet for most people. We have no alternative to being stuck with Apple. I had always thought I chose Apple. But it wasn't a choice really because there are no other viable alternatives. I'm typing this from a new Linux machine I purchased in response to Apple's surveillance announcement. The hardware and support is terrific. But Linux falls short. - For a casual user, Linux doesn't support bluetooth headphones, and the mic is basically impossible to get it to work. That means I can't have video calls. - To get my mouse to work I have to clone a github from some random person. - To install Brave I have to use the CLI and copy and paste a blob of commands I don't understand (https://brave.com/linux/ https://brave.com/linux/). I'm not a developer. I need to work. I just need a computer to work on and have video calls with a bluetooth mic. Not doable on Linux after spending $1500 on a new computer. That said, open source, end to end encryption is the only path forward. Linux must be viable. If you work on Linux, thank you. Please continue to be empathetic to users who have no idea what a CLI is and have no interest in learning and just want to work using open source systems. If you are a regular person who wants to use Linux, be vocal about it. Donate money, file bug reports, complain and let people know what you need. Buy from companies leading the way like System76 and Purism. (I bought from System76, highly recommended) Linux has been built and used by brilliant mechanics, but it is time for Linux to be used by all.
  • sho_hn 5y ago
    > Linux doesn't support bluetooth headphones for example. This is not generally correct. I've been using bluetooth headphones with my Linux desktop computer at work all day, and probably over a decade in total. Closer to two. I don't doubt your negative experience or that it's an interesting data point, but let's not stick to factually incorrect things, either.
    • okl 5y ago
      I use them regularly as well, never had a problem, not even when setting them up the first time.
      • 5y ago
• kerng 5y ago
  Strange that they do this delay so late... the damage is already done, so why bother now? Apple's leadership must be quite confused.
  • JohnFen 5y ago
    I wonder if the issue isn't that they've been living in their own insular world for so long that they really thought they were doing something that would pass muster in the real world. There does seems to be an increasing tendency of FAANG companies to do that.
• TheRealPomax 5y ago
  "critically important child safety features"? Heinous as those crimes may be, no numbers means no ground to stand on.
• s1artibartfast 5y ago
  I wonder how such a feature could even distinguish legitimate use. What if I want to take pic pictures of a strange vaginal discharge to send to my child's pediatrician? Am I now on a list? What if I want family photos of my happy naked baby playing?
  • Klonoar 5y ago
    This comment is proof that the discourse surrounding this is so badly misunderstood that Apple couldn’t possibly hope to fight it. ;P
  • CubsFan1060 5y ago
    What feature are you talking about? The iCloud photo scans for known photos, it doesn't detect random images. The iMessage feature only allows parents to see images that their children are sharing. As you described, nothing would flag that at all.
    • s1artibartfast 5y ago
      Really? Can you point me to a better description than in the article? >The planned features include scanning users' iCloud Photos libraries for Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), Communication Safety to warn children and their parents when receiving or sending sexually explicit photos This description seems to cover scanning original content. Database comparison seems to be one tool of many, and insufficient to meet the core functionality of stopping OC. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/business/apple-child-safety.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/busi... Edit: after looking around, The CSAM hash compare is one of two tools. The other is using on-device machine learning to analyze message image attachments and determine if a photo is sexually explicit https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ https://www.apple.com/child-safety/
      • CubsFan1060 5y ago
        Yup, I think you found it. The on-device one only applies to people under 13, and only reports to parents. And, IIRC, lets the child know that it'll be reported to parents before the child views it. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/05/apple-communication-safety-children-only/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/05/apple-communication-saf...
• ubermonkey 5y ago
  Came here to post this. It is VERY uncharacteristic of Apple to pause or walk back policy changes, so I wasn't very hopeful about this one. I'm glad they're at least re-evaluating.
  • smoldesu 5y ago
    They aren't re-evaluating, they're just postponing the rollout until after the holiday season.
• encryptluks2 5y ago
  A new job recently sent me a Mac after I've been using Linux for the last 5+ years. I couldn't believe all the things that I had to agree too. I don't think Apple has ever been about privacy. It is one thing to say you support privacy, but another thing to actually do it. Apple appears to only say they do, but their actions show otherwise.
• subdane 5y ago
  Seems like the unspoken story here isn't really about Apple, it's that the govts of the world want access to your phone data and its backups. They're already getting some of it from exploits, telcos and the cloud. They'll be back and will keep coming and it's hard to imagine any company will have the ability to stand up to them without seriously impacting their business.
• nickjj 5y ago
  Does anyone have a success story of using a non-Android / non-iOS smartphone as their main phone? I've been on a flip phone and never owned a smartphone but a recent role I'm taking requires having a smartphone for email / Slack access. I know it's a matter of picking between 2 lesser evils but has anyone avoided both and went with an open Linux based phone that has a really nice user experience and decent battery life? All of the research I've done leads to Linux / open phones just not being there yet, even phones that cost $900 like the Purism Librem 5. The Librem 5 looks like it came a long way in the last year and I am really rooting for them to succeed, but is anyone using a current one as of today or know of a viable alternative?
  • CubsFan1060 5y ago
    The best way to root for them to succeed would be to support them.
  • stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Get a pixel 4a and put CalyxOS on it and you're good. Only use it for work and keep your flip phone for personal stuff for maximum security I guess. Going from a flip phone to ANY smart phone is going to be a massive upgrade in terms of capability, even the librem phone, so I don't really know what you're going on about there.
  • unethical_ban 5y ago
    I've considered trying, since I'm buying a second line as a "distraction-free tool" for the daytime hours. I think the easiest thing to do (aka the #1 method of de-Googling) is to run certain versions of Android that have the play store removed, that has a version of android built from the AOSP with an alternate store like F-Droid enabled. If you search "AOSP phone" or "de-google android" you could get places. The other thing I have thought about is getting a Pine phone.
    • livueta 5y ago
      "AOSP Treble GSI" is another good top-of-the-rabbit-hole search term. tldr if you have an even somewhat recent unlock(ed)/(able) android device, you can probably drop a very pure AOSP build on it pretty easily.
• roody15 5y ago
  Apple “Lets wait another 3-4 months and work on a better PR campaign” No plans to drop these features
• cletus 5y ago
  [Insert Picard meme of "Mild Shock"] This is good but not good enough. Why? Because delayed means it might still happen. What we're aiming for is "cancelled". Scanning your phone and your content is a terrible capability to exist and precedent to set. It's a small step to extend that system to, say, scanning for DMCA violations, pirated content, etc. And those will be justified by those activities supporting terrorism.
• MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  ...So they're still doing it. Yeah no thanks. I've seen what the Stasi and KGB did. We don't need a tech company like Apple to tattle on our behalf for what their AI interpreted as illegal but was not. The last thing the average American wants to do is to talk to police and lawyers.
• viktorcode 5y ago
  The on-device CSAM scan must be canceled, not delayed. It is a dangerous payload, future backdoor if you will, bundled with more friendly offline opt-in features and wrapped in "think of the children" paper
• buu700 5y ago
  Great news! Now let's see if we can also get Google to reverse course on backdooring every new Android app: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27695486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27695486
• uptownfunk 5y ago
  I completely cancelled apple Icloud as a result..
• thehappypm 5y ago
  I used to work on a system with a heavy amount of UGC (gaming network). We had a big team of people doing moderation of reported content, and the amount of stuff they had to deal with was monstrous. Lots of death threats, racism, evil images, SWAT-ing. They'd invite people to do ride-alongs to see the types of things that were reported, and it was brutal. A very tough job. A lot of those folks were ex-military, we needed really tough people. They were kind of a weird org, the police of the network, and they kind of kept to themselves but carried a ton of weight. When they were looped into a meeting for a new feature -- for example, "Should we let users send videos to each other?" -- they'd list out the evil ways people would use them, and then list out the various CSAM scans we'd be obligated to do if we hosted the content on our servers. They didn't have the means to block features, but they did put a healthy fear-of-God into us, and made it so we didn't have a lot of big public debacles of kids seeing porn on the home screen of the device, or things like that. I can imagine that Apple has a similar group. I can imagine they went to some executive, told them that this would be their best way to comply with the law, of course you don't need to access the images themselves, that would be a privacy violation and we don't do that! We just need the hashes, may we remind you this is CSAM we're talking about? Then it went up the chain and people were excited to "protect the kids" and protect the brand, hashes != user data, everyone wins! I'm guessing this move was mostly misaligned priorities, and possibly some genuine incompetence or perhaps people not speaking up when they saw the potential here.
  • belter 5y ago
    So this group of good hardened souls...That from the description could exist at Apple...and went to speak to their management about all the good thinks they need to do. Do they also speak up to their management about all the activities Apple is complicit with, so as to keep their presence in the Chinese market?
    • spicybright 5y ago
      I doubt it. If they did apple would just find "stronger" people.
    • thehappypm 5y ago
• Zenst 5y ago
  So a feature for child safety, delayed due to public peer-pressure. How much of the public pee-pressure was from children? An odd question but equally, does highlight how many things are done in the "think of the children" vein that never even asks a single child for their thoughts. Whilst we all admit there are many things to protect children from and even some questions, but imagine if Apple countered with an advert showing lots of children saying how it's good how Apple is protecting their safety. How would that sit with public opinion then?
  • klipklop 5y ago
    A child's choice or thoughts (within reason) we rarely take into consideration because they do things like shove raisins up their noses. Kid's should be allowed to be kids and not be dragged into this discussion. This is a complex issue and there is a good reason why we don't let children consent to various things or sign legally binding contracts. Kid's are not just "little adults." I will admit if apple did that it would be a pretty effective, but really sleazy.
• akomtu 5y ago
  Translating this to plain English using the corp/gov lingo: Child = authoritarian Safety = control/censorship (depends on context) Features = restrictions
• walshemj 5y ago
  Mac rumors has really drunk the cool aid with that headline and not actually call out what apple was trying to do.
• amelius 5y ago
  Apple still monitors executable files when you try to run them. Who says they aren't using this as a fingerprint, or worse, as a way to correlate your behavior with that of a CP offender, or other types of criminal.
• krsdcbl 5y ago
  This reaks of "WhatsApp ToS update". Taking some time to let the news wave blow ove... errr reconsider and make improvements, i mean
• zzo38computer 5y ago
  > The (unauditable) database of processed CSAM images will be distributed in the operating system (OS) How much disk space will this require?
• justinzollars 5y ago
  Still on the fence about this brand now. Privacy is the last thing I think about when I think apple.
• mulmen 5y ago
  Honestly the trust damage is already done. They announced it, the genie is out of the bottle. I can never trust Apple as much as I did before. They are no longer the benevolent dictator of the walled garden. They have proven their judgement is fallible. They have proven that their customers interests do not matter to them as much as their own agenda. I'm not sure how they can ever fully recover from this, or even promote themselves as a privacy focused brand. That will always ring hollow. This reminds me a bit of the DNS-over-HTTPS hand wringing as well. DoH points out that applications can run their own DNS and you can't easily control that behavior at a network level like with conventional DNS. That is pretty troubling from a technically literate user perspective but it's not actually new. Applications could always hard-code DNS. DNS-over-HTTPS just made us think about it. Similarly Apple has complete control of your device. They always have, it's actually part of the value proposition. There has been a lot of debate about what Apple should or shouldn't do here but the fact is they could have pushed this out silently and it could be scanning your entire device right now, we just don't know. We have to trust Apple at their word and after their announcement that they would push this kind of capability I'm not sure how we can ever trust them again.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • eric__cartman 5y ago
    As many have been saying for decades, the only way to have privacy when computing is by using publicly auditable open source software. No amount of pinky promises made by the marketing department can change that. It doesn't matter if the end user doesn't audit everything themselves, that's impossible to do in a reasonable manner, but the constant auditing and testing by many independent entities gives, in my opinion, a better assurance of privacy than some marketing material saying they deeply care about me. Somehow a large subset of the general public doesn't seem to understand this. And act all surprised when Apple, Google, Microsoft or whatever screws them over.
  • athrowaway3z 5y ago
    You don't deserve this personally, and I'm genuinely interested if you have more insight, but I feel the need to vent: Really? What the fuck did Apple do, that you gave them total control to dictate _your_ walled garden in the first place? I just don't get it. My best guess is Sunk-cost-color glasses,. From the moment they launched itunes (which is 15y old for me) I understood their value was a walled garden as a platform. Users as a commodity. Valuation as overlords. What ever gave you a different idea?
• dehrmann 5y ago
  Did they really announce this the Friday before a three-day weekend?
• leptoniscool 5y ago
  Apple is required by law to do this correct?
  • __warlord__ 5y ago
    According to them, no. Source: https://youtu.be/OQUO1DSwYN0?t=398 https://youtu.be/OQUO1DSwYN0?t=398 Side note, I like the quote: Interviewer: Who owns this phone? Craig Federighi: I think our customers own their phones... aaah for sure :P
• tlynchpin 5y ago
  Apple is well regarded for their strategy. I don't find it very credible that Apple is reacting here, it seems apparent that they would anticipate substantial negative reception. So this delay is preordained in the strat, right? But Apple is only human and has had its share of monumental wtf, so this is just a huge gaffe? The spyware team didn't know about iphone 13 launch? This seems incredible. There is some n-dimensional chess at play here. I feel like a popcorn munching audience member who is actually a pawn in another dimension.
  • BugWatch 5y ago
    It's a corporation, not a human. (Corporations should never have been given "bodies" at all, IMO.)
• skinkestek 5y ago
  ok folks, like I told you it was possible to get Apple to turn around. Maybe now is the time for the American part of HN to start applying the same pressure towards your politicians. We have an election coming up and I've been quite vocal to the people on stand about how my people (the conservatives) sold us out by rubber stamping the surveillance bill last year. I've also sent email and have sent one and will be sending one or more tweets the next few days.
• intricatedetail 5y ago
  They want people to buy new Macs that will be coming soon and then they'll switch the feature. I hope I am wrong.
• TedShiller 5y ago
  Apple doing this to users' phones is like the police entering every house in the city (or in this case, the COUNTRY), just in case someone has something illegal in their basement. Nothing to worry about if you have nothing to hide, right? The presumption of guilt is the problem. Freedom means that I shouldn't even be suspected, and certainly not searched or monitored, unless there is a clear reason. If there is a reason to suspect me, all of these tactics are fair game. But not before that.
  • mikehearn 5y ago
    This analogy doesn't accurately represent the technology, at least as I understand it. In Apple's implementation, the device never knows if a particular picture is a CSAM match. That determination is made in iCloud when the server attempts to decrypt the safety voucher. Until that point, it's just an encrypted payload that the device can't interpret one way or the other. In your analogy, where "your home" is the equivalent of "your device", the police never enter the home to determine whether you have anything illegal. Instead, there's some process that boxes up all your stuff into nondescript, anonymous boxes that can only be opened if someone has the key. To determine illegality, you'd have to voluntarily send them off to the police (police = iCloud), where they only have a handful of keys - they have a "gun" key, a "knife" key, and a few other keys for boxes containing illegal items. But the boxes are nondescript, so the police don't know whether you have anything illegal until they insert the key and turn it. If the "gun" key successfully opens the box, the box contains a gun, and you are reported. If all the police's keys fail on a particular box, then whatever is inside must not be illegal and the police never learn its contents. Needless to say, this analogy is tortured because it's hard to apply Apple's tech to a physical process, but the point is that whether something is "illegal" isn't able to be determined until you voluntarily ship it off to an entity that has the keys to unlock it.
    • noptd 5y ago
      >In Apple's implementation, the device never knows if a particular picture is a CSAM match. That's a distinction without a difference w.r.t the end result but I'll offer a more apt analogy regardless. A better analogy would be the police installing a device in your house that's capable of seeing or hearing anything that happens and then claiming there's nothing to worry about. The device is only watching a specific door in your house and forwarding a hash of that information to their servers. Nevermind that it would only take a policy change and an OTA update that you have no visibility into, or chance of blocking, before it's watching your entire house in real-time. But hey, you have several other doors to enter or exit your house from, and it's not like the camera actually knows anything, only the people on the other end do, so what's the big deal right? Would you trust the police in that scenario?
• m0zg 5y ago
  Really makes you think why a trillion dollar corporation would want to severely undermine its most important asset, its brand, over something like this. It ain't "children" I can tell you that.
• twodave 5y ago
  Man, they really stepped in it didn’t they? Who would have thought “safe for kids” and “respectful of my privacy” could be enemies? But this is the position Apple has put itself in. There isn’t really a graceful way out of this.
• ithkuil 5y ago
  It never ceases to astonish me how people keep reacting to this while apparently not really caring to understand how the thing actually works and how it fits into the existing workflows and thus what are the alternatives. I mean, I'm not surprised this whole thing backfired and that there was a strong uncanny valley reaction to the prospect of having parts of the workflow happening in your device ("a policeman in my pocket" I read somewhere). I am surprised though that it seems impossible to resolve the issue (or at least making progress in the framing of) this with a honest and nuanced conversation.
  • R0b0t1 5y ago
    I don't want a conversation. I don't want it, and I don't want to compromise. Plenty of people think the same.
    • ithkuil 5y ago
      How can you be sure to know what is it what you don't want if you want to have a conversation?
      • gigel82 5y ago
        I don't want any functionality capable of scanning photos on my device for "illegal" content; I simply don't want that code living on my device no matter how restricted its (initially planned) use is.
        • ithkuil 5y ago
          Fair enough. Framing it like that it seems like a small step from a dystopia. But let's face it, we're feet deep in it already: unless you control what code runs on your device you're never safe from code that scans data on your device. I not sure I really buy the slippery slope argument. If in the future Apple wanted to be more intrusive, they would just be more intrusive and scan your photos on your device for real, not with a convoluted and probabilistic fingerprint method. What is the weak point? To get people accustomed to being scanned? Aren't people already? Your content is already scanned the moment it reaches to the cloud. What does this extra client-side scanning add to the dystopia that we're not already experiencing?
• spfzero 5y ago
  "Critically important features" Well,I guess if they can wait a few months, were they really "critical"? I mean, maybe use a word like "important"? Can Apple please stop using max adjective in every situation? It just waters down the meaning of these words to the point that we no longer have a word that means "critical" anymore.
• leetrout 5y ago
  "child safety features" ... forced invasion of privacy more like it
• shrimpx 5y ago
  The most botched and nonsensical feature announcement ever. > Here's an extremely sophisticated mechanism that has insane negative potential ramifications for our users and our brand, but that's ok because it's all in the name of catching pedos. > PS: And pedos can turn off this mechanism with one toggle. Since this sounds too idiotic to be real, people conclude it must be evil, by Occam's Razor. I have a deeper fear: That it's actually that idiotic.
• robertwt7 5y ago
  Delay is a strong word here. The question is until when? It's like a time bomb. Apple is giving us mixed feelings here starting by the privacy features, giving option for app not to track us, then this. Damn I'm still confused why person like Tim who has earned everyone's respect for privacy is doing this kind of thing. It's hard to move from apple honestly at this point and it's annoying
• ekianjo 5y ago
  "Delays", not cancel.
• tehjoker 5y ago
  Why would macrumors characterize this unsafe and highly prone to nation state abuse security system on Apple's terms? Could they be protecting their institutional arrangement with Apple's PR arm and leakers? Anyone reading that headline alone will think, man that's crazy. Why would Apple delay something that protects children?
• bigger_inside 5y ago
  calling it "child safety features" in a report ON it is its own kind of propaganda collaboration
• stevenalowe 5y ago
  “Child safety features” because only a monster would be against such a thing. I seem to recall gun trigger locks being pushed with the exact same phrase (because “self-defense obstacles” would be too accurate) “For the children” is the last refuge of politicians and conmen. So what’s the bottom line? i’m guessing that scanning (for many things) is mandated by multiple governments, and on-device scanning is orders of magnitude cheaper than server-side scanning. I hope this PR nightmare for Apple continues until the full extent of mandated surveillance is exposed But it probably won’t - Apple’s mistake was in thinking that people would blindly accept this as a desirable feature, instead of just quietly implementing it. Or, maybe Apple did it this way on purpose to expose the issue to public scrutiny.
• cannabis_sam 5y ago
  I genuinely hope that Apple will eventually realize that they have burned decades of goodwill on this evil fascist idiocy.. I’ve been buying Macs exclusively for 15 years, but sadly it’s apparently time to change.. Every single executive at Apple should be figuratively “raked over the coals” by shareholders for pushing this kind of insane totalitarianism under a vague veil of “protecting children”.
• AHappyCamper 5y ago
  Facebook also "delayed" their surveillance plan for WhatsApp.... and eventually implemented it. Apple is now copying Facebook. Apple must abandon this feckless, evil plan, or face losing their user-base. This contradicts Apple's core values.
• raylad 5y ago
  EFF petition here. Numbers do count. https://act.eff.org/action/tell-apple-don-t-scan-our-phones https://act.eff.org/action/tell-apple-don-t-scan-our-phones
• crb002 5y ago
  It was in response to my motion for injunction in Apple's racketeering case for bribing the City of Waukee $100m to abate $177m. I pointed out they were spying on Judges' iOS devices and iCloud accounts - Judges don't like to be spied on.
• citizenpaul 5y ago
  As I see this it is the same tactic as reintroducing a bill until it is finally approved due to opponent exhaustion. Since this is a government operation that apple is carrying out it seems reasonable to think they will follow the same tactics. I also don't like that they keep referring to this as "Child Safety" instead of what it is. Irremovable government spyware, that has no visible oversight.