42 ms·

It of course does not self-report to any authorities.

by robertoandred 5y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
So how would you describe the actions of this system when it think it's detected illicit pictures?
- robertoandred 5y ago
  If the phone and the server agree that enough CSAM matches have been detected, the matches get reviewed by Apple. If Apple agrees with the phone and the server, the matches get reviewed by the NCMEC. If the NCMEC agrees with Apple and the phone and the server, the NCMEC may get law enforcement involved. Bad-faith actors want people to think that taking a picture of your baby in the tub will bring a SWAT team to your door the next day.
  - Gareth321 5y ago
    You just described reporting to authorities.
    - turdnagel 5y ago
      I guess we're splitting hairs over "reporting" and "self-reporting." I think the idea is that there is a layer - yes, a fallible, human one - between detection and reporting.
  - genewitch 5y ago
    That's just self-reporting to the authorities with a bunch of extra fallible human steps
    - robertoandred 5y ago
      No, it's self-reporting to Apple.
      - stjohnswarts 5y ago
        lol who are at this point just a proxy for the police intelligence.
    - hannasanarion 5y ago
      In what ways do you think those human steps can fail? The method only returns positive on a hash-match with a known piece of CSAM from NCMEC. The human process is looking at a picture somebody has already been convicted of child abuse for having, and comparing it with yours to see if they're the same.
  - jmull 5y ago
    Excuse me, but that is reporting to the authorities. You’re simply describing some of the details of how it happens. It’s nice that there are some manual review steps, but that hardly changes what’s happening. Especially since the human reviewers are almost surely going to pass the case through to the next step if there is any ambiguity.
    - robertoandred 5y ago
      It absolutely changes what's happening. The phone is not self-reporting to the authorities. Simply false.
      - noptd 5y ago
        Let's not be pedantic. In the parent's example, this is a distinction without a difference.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    There is nothing "bad faith" about pointing out the mentality behind this of total device surveillance. Most people who are angered about this aren't worried about false positives of baby's first bath. They are worried about Apple scanning stuff on your phone as a proxy for police. What's next? Copyright infringement? combing through texts for drug activity? thought crimes against the CCP? It's not slipery slope as all through history governments have Always wanted more power over their citizens and to not even have your phone be safe from arbitrary scanning is just too damn far.
    - oreilles 5y ago
      It's not Apple scanning your device. It's your device scanning itself, and you sharing the results of those scans to Apple with iCloud if you decide to use it. Don't want Apple to see your data ? Just don't send it to them, it's that simple.
      - malwrar 5y ago
        Look, I'll just say it directly because (slippery-slope fallacy aside) we all know this is how things will play out in a few years after this gets rolled out: gov: "hey Apple, pedophiles are rampant rn, do you really need to wait before the devices upload photos to icloud before you use that on-device scanning? here's some cool proposed legislation to motivate the conversation. oh also here's some more images that are illegal." This conversation will happen behind closed doors with much better wording and probably with real stakes for Apple. They've built a dream technology for control freaks in government across the world, something that we in the technology sphere have traditionally fought against for decades. All it just needs is a honest day's work to scan all the time vs on upload. This is the fight to fight if you'd rather just not deal with a future when, surprise, the scope creeped but now its too normal to oppose. People will get vanned by less benign government who interpret things far more mundane than pedophilia as undesirable.
        oreilles 5y ago
        If Apple wanted to make the iPhone a sandwich, we could eat it. But until then you can't. Apple could read your whole phone content and send it to governments without your consent if they wanted to, on device-scanning or not. Util they do, there is no breach of privacy. If you believe Apple can implement one-party consent snitching on iPhone without telling anyone, then you shouldn't use closed source software in the first place, because there is zero reason to believe that they haven't already implemented this.
  - Piskvorrr 5y ago
    And learned-from-history actors think of all the previous "think of the kids" campaigns, and their subsequent scope creep: Oh, we sorta kinda extended the hash database to also include, say, Bitcoin. Because we can. No, there's nothing really wrong with it, and anyway, the innocent have nothing to fear, right? And also Winnie the Pooh and the tankman; the Chinese government asked very nicely. Oh, and the Afghan government also had some requests on what hashes they need reported. Yeah, that's the Taliban, but if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear, right? Brb, there's an email from Lukashenka asking for detections of anything white-red-white...
    - jodrellblank 5y ago
      > "And learned-from-history actors think of all the previous "think of the kids" campaigns, and their subsequent scope creep:" You say, and then go on to give as examples /things which haven't happened, but you fantasised might happen/. That isn't learning from history.
    - robertoandred 5y ago
      Expand the hash database to include Bitcoin? What? I really don't think you understand how this works.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    So if a creep amasses a database of those even though individually they aren't "illegal", what do you do? You can't call it CP for one but not for the other. Especially if they're made publicly available on facebook. It's a lame slippery slope argument but it's gonna get hashed out in criminal defense cases where Apple is calling someone a pedophile.
- oreilles 5y ago
  If your phone were to detect illicit pictures, nothing would happen unless you send them those files to Apple, in which case they would have know that you had them anyway. There is nothing even remotely close to the truth with saying that your phone `self reports` to the authorities. Not only Apple has no idea about what photos you have on your phone nor what they are scanned against unless you send them your photos with iCloud, but it also isn't your phone reporting to the authorities but Apple, once they know for sure that you have illegal content on their servers.

It of course does not self-report to any authorities.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

So how would you describe the actions of this system when it think it's detected illicit pictures?

robertoandred 5y ago
If the phone and the server agree that enough CSAM matches have been detected, the matches get reviewed by Apple. If Apple agrees with the phone and the server, the matches get reviewed by the NCMEC. If the NCMEC agrees with Apple and the phone and the server, the NCMEC may get law enforcement involved. Bad-faith actors want people to think that taking a picture of your baby in the tub will bring a SWAT team to your door the next day.
- Gareth321 5y ago
  You just described reporting to authorities.
  - turdnagel 5y ago
    I guess we're splitting hairs over "reporting" and "self-reporting." I think the idea is that there is a layer - yes, a fallible, human one - between detection and reporting.
- genewitch 5y ago
  That's just self-reporting to the authorities with a bunch of extra fallible human steps
  - robertoandred 5y ago
    No, it's self-reporting to Apple.
    - stjohnswarts 5y ago
      lol who are at this point just a proxy for the police intelligence.
  - hannasanarion 5y ago
    In what ways do you think those human steps can fail? The method only returns positive on a hash-match with a known piece of CSAM from NCMEC. The human process is looking at a picture somebody has already been convicted of child abuse for having, and comparing it with yours to see if they're the same.
- jmull 5y ago
  Excuse me, but that is reporting to the authorities. You’re simply describing some of the details of how it happens. It’s nice that there are some manual review steps, but that hardly changes what’s happening. Especially since the human reviewers are almost surely going to pass the case through to the next step if there is any ambiguity.
  - robertoandred 5y ago
    It absolutely changes what's happening. The phone is not self-reporting to the authorities. Simply false.
    - noptd 5y ago
      Let's not be pedantic. In the parent's example, this is a distinction without a difference.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  There is nothing "bad faith" about pointing out the mentality behind this of total device surveillance. Most people who are angered about this aren't worried about false positives of baby's first bath. They are worried about Apple scanning stuff on your phone as a proxy for police. What's next? Copyright infringement? combing through texts for drug activity? thought crimes against the CCP? It's not slipery slope as all through history governments have Always wanted more power over their citizens and to not even have your phone be safe from arbitrary scanning is just too damn far.
  - oreilles 5y ago
    It's not Apple scanning your device. It's your device scanning itself, and you sharing the results of those scans to Apple with iCloud if you decide to use it. Don't want Apple to see your data ? Just don't send it to them, it's that simple.
    - malwrar 5y ago
      Look, I'll just say it directly because (slippery-slope fallacy aside) we all know this is how things will play out in a few years after this gets rolled out: gov: "hey Apple, pedophiles are rampant rn, do you really need to wait before the devices upload photos to icloud before you use that on-device scanning? here's some cool proposed legislation to motivate the conversation. oh also here's some more images that are illegal." This conversation will happen behind closed doors with much better wording and probably with real stakes for Apple. They've built a dream technology for control freaks in government across the world, something that we in the technology sphere have traditionally fought against for decades. All it just needs is a honest day's work to scan all the time vs on upload. This is the fight to fight if you'd rather just not deal with a future when, surprise, the scope creeped but now its too normal to oppose. People will get vanned by less benign government who interpret things far more mundane than pedophilia as undesirable.
      - oreilles 5y ago
        If Apple wanted to make the iPhone a sandwich, we could eat it. But until then you can't. Apple could read your whole phone content and send it to governments without your consent if they wanted to, on device-scanning or not. Util they do, there is no breach of privacy. If you believe Apple can implement one-party consent snitching on iPhone without telling anyone, then you shouldn't use closed source software in the first place, because there is zero reason to believe that they haven't already implemented this.
- Piskvorrr 5y ago
  And learned-from-history actors think of all the previous "think of the kids" campaigns, and their subsequent scope creep: Oh, we sorta kinda extended the hash database to also include, say, Bitcoin. Because we can. No, there's nothing really wrong with it, and anyway, the innocent have nothing to fear, right? And also Winnie the Pooh and the tankman; the Chinese government asked very nicely. Oh, and the Afghan government also had some requests on what hashes they need reported. Yeah, that's the Taliban, but if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear, right? Brb, there's an email from Lukashenka asking for detections of anything white-red-white...
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    > "And learned-from-history actors think of all the previous "think of the kids" campaigns, and their subsequent scope creep:" You say, and then go on to give as examples /things which haven't happened, but you fantasised might happen/. That isn't learning from history.
  - robertoandred 5y ago
    Expand the hash database to include Bitcoin? What? I really don't think you understand how this works.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  So if a creep amasses a database of those even though individually they aren't "illegal", what do you do? You can't call it CP for one but not for the other. Especially if they're made publicly available on facebook. It's a lame slippery slope argument but it's gonna get hashed out in criminal defense cases where Apple is calling someone a pedophile.
oreilles 5y ago
If your phone were to detect illicit pictures, nothing would happen unless you send them those files to Apple, in which case they would have know that you had them anyway. There is nothing even remotely close to the truth with saying that your phone `self reports` to the authorities. Not only Apple has no idea about what photos you have on your phone nor what they are scanned against unless you send them your photos with iCloud, but it also isn't your phone reporting to the authorities but Apple, once they know for sure that you have illegal content on their servers.