4 ms·

You’re not wrong, it could be as simple as that. What’s got some people up in arms isn’t that. The police in America have proven repeatedly that they will igno

You’re not wrong, it could be as simple as that. What’s got some people up in arms isn’t that. The police in America have proven repeatedly that they will ignore individual freedoms to look indiscriminately for people doing bad things. Apple creates a tool that enables pattern matching without consent. But they promise they won’t use it for more than CSAM, and that only they will hold the keys. Okay so imagine that your HOA enacts a rule they’re now allowed to review all of your purchases by comparing known hashes used by drug lords to determine if you are cooking meth in your basement. And if they find a match, without your knowledge, they will report you to the police who will have a defensible justification for a warrant to come enter your house and look for meth lab stuff. Sounds fine as long as you have nothing worth hiding right? Might as well let them just go through everyone’s house preemptively looking for meth labs and skip the hash checking right? Oh you don’t support that leap? Don’t worry, others do.

Grustaf 5y ago
The police will only be involved after their scanner has found 30 matches and Apple’s reviewer has manually concluded that it actually is CSAM, so I don’t see how the police is really relevant? If HOA means home owners association, I don’t see the connection. They can’t influence Apple either.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Its the thin end of the wedge argument, and the fact that your property 'the phone' is spying on you and reporting you to the police.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > * Apple’s reviewer has manually concluded that it actually is CSAM* There is no manual review of the image by Apple employees. What is viewed is a derivative image, which is scaled down and blurred. It would be trivial for someone to use legal pornographic images and put it through a NeuralHash collision generator, which upon viewing the scaled down derivative image, would look like CSAM.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    If that’s what you’re worried about, then if people have physical control over your phone they could just upload CSAM to your FB or Google photos from it.
    - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
      There's a world of difference between someone creating a NeuralHash collision and spamming people's iMessage with false positives and actually taking the device and uploading CSAM to the cloud.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        Well yes, spamming your iMessages would be pointless.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      I said nothing about physical control. WhatsApp and other apps automatically download images that are sent to them. Scammers and those who commit fraud or phishing attempts don't have physical access to their victims electronic, yet they're able to get victims to download and run malicious code all of the time. There's also the fact that iOS exploits are so plentiful that they're cheaper than Android exploits.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        Still, why not send actual CSAM then, so that they are actually caught? Getting them into review just causes them inconvenience. Remember, only the flagged images will be reviewed, and only they could ever be sent to law enforcement, so it wouldn't even reveal their private photos or anything like that.
        heavyset_go 5y ago
        > Still, why not send actual CSAM then, so that they are actually caught? Getting them into review just causes them inconvenience. Because that requires possessing illegal images, while legal pornography that also happens to cause a hash collision with NeuralHash doesn't. Again, no one at Apple is reviewing the source image. They're reviewing obfuscated derivative images, and then informing law enforcement if they suspect they're illegal images. What law enforcement then does is get warrants for all of the accused's electronic devices and raids their home and workplace in order to collect evidence. It's another version of SWATing. Sure, eventually the authorities might find out that the accused isn't actually a mass shooter or holding hostages, but by then the damage is already done.

Grustaf 5y ago

The police will only be involved after their scanner has found 30 matches and Apple’s reviewer has manually concluded that it actually is CSAM, so I don’t see how the police is really relevant? If HOA means home owners association, I don’t see the connection. They can’t influence Apple either.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Its the thin end of the wedge argument, and the fact that your property 'the phone' is spying on you and reporting you to the police.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> * Apple’s reviewer has manually concluded that it actually is CSAM* There is no manual review of the image by Apple employees. What is viewed is a derivative image, which is scaled down and blurred. It would be trivial for someone to use legal pornographic images and put it through a NeuralHash collision generator, which upon viewing the scaled down derivative image, would look like CSAM.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  If that’s what you’re worried about, then if people have physical control over your phone they could just upload CSAM to your FB or Google photos from it.
  - brendoelfrendo 5y ago
    There's a world of difference between someone creating a NeuralHash collision and spamming people's iMessage with false positives and actually taking the device and uploading CSAM to the cloud.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Well yes, spamming your iMessages would be pointless.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    I said nothing about physical control. WhatsApp and other apps automatically download images that are sent to them. Scammers and those who commit fraud or phishing attempts don't have physical access to their victims electronic, yet they're able to get victims to download and run malicious code all of the time. There's also the fact that iOS exploits are so plentiful that they're cheaper than Android exploits.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Still, why not send actual CSAM then, so that they are actually caught? Getting them into review just causes them inconvenience. Remember, only the flagged images will be reviewed, and only they could ever be sent to law enforcement, so it wouldn't even reveal their private photos or anything like that.
      - heavyset_go 5y ago
        > Still, why not send actual CSAM then, so that they are actually caught? Getting them into review just causes them inconvenience. Because that requires possessing illegal images, while legal pornography that also happens to cause a hash collision with NeuralHash doesn't. Again, no one at Apple is reviewing the source image. They're reviewing obfuscated derivative images, and then informing law enforcement if they suspect they're illegal images. What law enforcement then does is get warrants for all of the accused's electronic devices and raids their home and workplace in order to collect evidence. It's another version of SWATing. Sure, eventually the authorities might find out that the accused isn't actually a mass shooter or holding hostages, but by then the damage is already done.