5 ms·

Do you think Google doesn't scan photos uploaded to its cloud services for CSAM?

aaomidi 5y ago
Do you understand how it's different when it's on their servers vs having the functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone? We don't need to have this discussion again. Please go research the hundreds of thousands of discussions and blog posts about how what apple is proposing to do is entirely different.
- 0des 5y ago
  > We don't need to have this discussion again. There's no need for this tone. People will disagree, and that's what makes this place great.
  - aaomidi 5y ago
    This isn't disagreeing. This is not doing basic reading before commenting.
    - concinds 5y ago
      This is not a case of "not doing basic reading". It's not a settled debate. The anti-CSAM scanning side has advanced a lot of spurious arguments and quite a lot of misinformation, some of which was spread by NGOs and orgs like the EFF (!!!) and more. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28176418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28176418
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Yes, I understand. When they scan it on my phone, they don't need to scan it in the cloud. They have one less reason to touch my stuff when it's on their servers. One step closer to full E2EE. Every major cloud provider is already scanning every photo you put up and in most cases without any human review. Your photo gets flagged and it's good bye account. Next step: HN front page to maybe get a human to look at your case.
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  > "Do you understand how it's different when it's on their servers vs having the functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone?" It's this kind of casual fearmongering which stops people from accurately understanding. What makes you think Apple doesn't already have the functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone, given that they built a phone content scanner a decade ago for the iTunes Match service and a photo tagger and analyser which does run on the phone, and they control everything about the software? What makes you think Google doesn't have the functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone, or couldn't add it if they wanted to? Have you the source code for the Google Play services? The internal chip firmwares? Have you studied Google's terms and conditions in enough detail to be certain they can't move any such checks client side without telling you? And they also do analyse photos on-device and tag their content for normal use. Why do you trust that Google isn't doing anything snitchy or on behalf of the authorities, but when Apple announces that they won't and designs a system which makes it hard for them to do that, then you assume they will? Not even quietly cynically suspect that they might, but spreading as a fact that they definitely will.
dopamean 5y ago
I don't understand replies like this one I keep seeing on HN. I thought the controversy around what apple wanted to do was that it was happening on device and not in the cloud. The user you're replying to made that distinction so what gives?
- godelski 5y ago
  A big thing too is that Apple sells itself as privacy preserving. Google doesn't. It's one thing if someone says something they aren't and another thing if someone never makes that promise.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Apple's solution was to scan stuff that was going to be uploaded anyway on-device before upload. Using that they could add multiple redundancies and they wouldn't need to look at your stuff on the cloud at all before getting multiple positive matches. And even then the first level is a human checking if it's an actual match or a false positive. This was somehow a huge invasion of privacy, when people were competing on who could misunderstand the very simple premise the most.
  - howinteresting 5y ago
    It is generally a good practice to steelman the opposing argument. In this case, the steelman is that Apple has turned a capability barrier (if your scanning is on the cloud, you simply cannot scan local photos) into a policy barrier (now you can scan all photos, there's just a flag in the software which means you don't do so.)
    - JimDabell 5y ago
      > a policy barrier (now you can scan all photos, there's just a flag in the software which means you don't do so.) This is not the case. People are guessing about how it works and getting it wrong. The device doesn’t know if there’s a match or not. The logic is not “if there’s a match, tell Apple”, the logic is “attach a safety voucher to every iCloud upload and let Apple figure it out on the server”. You can’t flip a switch and just run it against all photos on the device – the iCloud upload is a part of the design. If Apple wanted to scan all the photos on your device, they would have picked a different design for this. If Apple change their minds and want to do this in the future, they need to redesign how this works, it’s not just a policy decision.
isoprophlex 5y ago
Don't move the goal posts. On-device scanning has a qualitatively different privacy impact from scanning photos inside cloud storage.
- kaba0 5y ago
  What about on-device scanning just before syncing it up to the server?
- mvanbaak 5y ago
  Why do people prefer the scanning on the cloud storage? That means it will never be encrypted and stored unencrypted on HDD's in someone else's computer. 'scan -> encrypt -> upload' is in my opinion better than 'upload -> scan'
  - Deathmax 5y ago
    Which would justify Apple using on-device scanning more if iCloud is end-to-end encrypted, except that it isn't. Apple has the technical capability to decrypt photos stored on iCloud, so why risk the slippery slope and governments applying pressure to expand local scanning to more than just what is going to be uploaded.
CameronNemo 5y ago
The commenter implied that they plan to use a non stock ROM, presumably to get their data and device away from Google cloud services.
DCKing 5y ago
I'm aware of Google's scanning. I'm even inclined to support them doing that. What I like about the standard Google Photos/Dropbox/OneDrive approach is that it's no secret you upload your photos to their computers, where they process them. They process them for useful features, and they process them to catch child abuse. But I understand clearly I upload it from my device to another device, and that other device can process these photos. I'm not a Google Photos customer mind you (as stated, I prefer other services than Google's), but I understand the premise, value add and what they do with my stuff on their computers. It’s not my device incriminating me, it’s someone else’s device that does that, someone else’s device I chose to send my things to. I understand that relationship. I will not accept a relationship with a device I own, situated on my desk or in my pocket, where it try to start a process to incriminate me. That's not processing a personal device should be engaging in, even if this starts out gated behind the heavily pushed iCloud Photos (it’s technically opt in), even if the solution is technically sophisticated (it is), and even if there exist definitions of "privacy friendly" where this approach is more privacy friendly (you can argue that all day long). I just don't want a personal device to do this. If Apple wants to draw the line somewhere else than I want to draw it, that means I probably should not support that.
- KOTYAR 5y ago
  Fairphone 4 has 5 years of updates; and it's much more ethical and better for earth to buy phone made with Fairtrade, than another Pixel. You are guaranteed there were no forced or child labour put into your phone too.
- NotPractical 5y ago
  Precisely this. I don't care what happens in the cloud. What bothers me is the precedent that Apple sets by shipping iOS with `scanPhotoForIllegalContent()` and `reportUserToPolice()` functions. This code is working against the user's interests. As of now, these functions only run on photos that have already been iCloud synced, and they only look for CSAM, but they could easily expand this later on by changing a few lines of code or adding to the hash database. To be clear, I think CSAM is absolutely disgusting and I want those in possession of it to be prosecuted. But scanning local photos is crossing a line. (I'm sure they catch most pedos through server-side scanning already anyway.) Besides, the only reason Apple gets away with this is because iOS is closed source. If Google tried to pull this shit on a Pixel phone, you could just install a different ROM.

Do you understand how it's different when it's on their servers vs having the functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone? We don't need to have this discussion again. Please go research the hundreds of thousands of discussions and blog posts about how what apple is proposing to do is entirely different.

0des 5y ago
> We don't need to have this discussion again. There's no need for this tone. People will disagree, and that's what makes this place great.
- aaomidi 5y ago
  This isn't disagreeing. This is not doing basic reading before commenting.
  - concinds 5y ago
    This is not a case of "not doing basic reading". It's not a settled debate. The anti-CSAM scanning side has advanced a lot of spurious arguments and quite a lot of misinformation, some of which was spread by NGOs and orgs like the EFF (!!!) and more. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28176418 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28176418
theshrike79 5y ago
Yes, I understand. When they scan it on my phone, they don't need to scan it in the cloud. They have one less reason to touch my stuff when it's on their servers. One step closer to full E2EE. Every major cloud provider is already scanning every photo you put up and in most cases without any human review. Your photo gets flagged and it's good bye account. Next step: HN front page to maybe get a human to look at your case.
jodrellblank 5y ago
> "Do you understand how it's different when it's on their servers vs having the functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone?" It's this kind of casual fearmongering which stops people from accurately understanding. What makes you think Apple doesn't already have the functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone, given that they built a phone content scanner a decade ago for the iTunes Match service and a photo tagger and analyser which does run on the phone, and they control everything about the software? What makes you think Google doesn't have the functionality to scan for anything they want on your phone, or couldn't add it if they wanted to? Have you the source code for the Google Play services? The internal chip firmwares? Have you studied Google's terms and conditions in enough detail to be certain they can't move any such checks client side without telling you? And they also do analyse photos on-device and tag their content for normal use. Why do you trust that Google isn't doing anything snitchy or on behalf of the authorities, but when Apple announces that they won't and designs a system which makes it hard for them to do that, then you assume they will? Not even quietly cynically suspect that they might, but spreading as a fact that they definitely will.

dopamean 5y ago

I don't understand replies like this one I keep seeing on HN. I thought the controversy around what apple wanted to do was that it was happening on device and not in the cloud. The user you're replying to made that distinction so what gives?

godelski 5y ago
A big thing too is that Apple sells itself as privacy preserving. Google doesn't. It's one thing if someone says something they aren't and another thing if someone never makes that promise.
theshrike79 5y ago
Apple's solution was to scan stuff that was going to be uploaded anyway on-device before upload. Using that they could add multiple redundancies and they wouldn't need to look at your stuff on the cloud at all before getting multiple positive matches. And even then the first level is a human checking if it's an actual match or a false positive. This was somehow a huge invasion of privacy, when people were competing on who could misunderstand the very simple premise the most.
- howinteresting 5y ago
  It is generally a good practice to steelman the opposing argument. In this case, the steelman is that Apple has turned a capability barrier (if your scanning is on the cloud, you simply cannot scan local photos) into a policy barrier (now you can scan all photos, there's just a flag in the software which means you don't do so.)
  - JimDabell 5y ago
    > a policy barrier (now you can scan all photos, there's just a flag in the software which means you don't do so.) This is not the case. People are guessing about how it works and getting it wrong. The device doesn’t know if there’s a match or not. The logic is not “if there’s a match, tell Apple”, the logic is “attach a safety voucher to every iCloud upload and let Apple figure it out on the server”. You can’t flip a switch and just run it against all photos on the device – the iCloud upload is a part of the design. If Apple wanted to scan all the photos on your device, they would have picked a different design for this. If Apple change their minds and want to do this in the future, they need to redesign how this works, it’s not just a policy decision.

isoprophlex 5y ago

Don't move the goal posts. On-device scanning has a qualitatively different privacy impact from scanning photos inside cloud storage.

kaba0 5y ago
What about on-device scanning just before syncing it up to the server?
mvanbaak 5y ago
Why do people prefer the scanning on the cloud storage? That means it will never be encrypted and stored unencrypted on HDD's in someone else's computer. 'scan -> encrypt -> upload' is in my opinion better than 'upload -> scan'
- Deathmax 5y ago
  Which would justify Apple using on-device scanning more if iCloud is end-to-end encrypted, except that it isn't. Apple has the technical capability to decrypt photos stored on iCloud, so why risk the slippery slope and governments applying pressure to expand local scanning to more than just what is going to be uploaded.

CameronNemo 5y ago

The commenter implied that they plan to use a non stock ROM, presumably to get their data and device away from Google cloud services.

DCKing 5y ago

I'm aware of Google's scanning. I'm even inclined to support them doing that. What I like about the standard Google Photos/Dropbox/OneDrive approach is that it's no secret you upload your photos to their computers, where they process them. They process them for useful features, and they process them to catch child abuse. But I understand clearly I upload it from my device to another device, and that other device can process these photos. I'm not a Google Photos customer mind you (as stated, I prefer other services than Google's), but I understand the premise, value add and what they do with my stuff on their computers. It’s not my device incriminating me, it’s someone else’s device that does that, someone else’s device I chose to send my things to. I understand that relationship. I will not accept a relationship with a device I own, situated on my desk or in my pocket, where it try to start a process to incriminate me. That's not processing a personal device should be engaging in, even if this starts out gated behind the heavily pushed iCloud Photos (it’s technically opt in), even if the solution is technically sophisticated (it is), and even if there exist definitions of "privacy friendly" where this approach is more privacy friendly (you can argue that all day long). I just don't want a personal device to do this. If Apple wants to draw the line somewhere else than I want to draw it, that means I probably should not support that.

KOTYAR 5y ago
Fairphone 4 has 5 years of updates; and it's much more ethical and better for earth to buy phone made with Fairtrade, than another Pixel. You are guaranteed there were no forced or child labour put into your phone too.
NotPractical 5y ago
Precisely this. I don't care what happens in the cloud. What bothers me is the precedent that Apple sets by shipping iOS with `scanPhotoForIllegalContent()` and `reportUserToPolice()` functions. This code is working against the user's interests. As of now, these functions only run on photos that have already been iCloud synced, and they only look for CSAM, but they could easily expand this later on by changing a few lines of code or adding to the hash database. To be clear, I think CSAM is absolutely disgusting and I want those in possession of it to be prosecuted. But scanning local photos is crossing a line. (I'm sure they catch most pedos through server-side scanning already anyway.) Besides, the only reason Apple gets away with this is because iOS is closed source. If Google tried to pull this shit on a Pixel phone, you could just install a different ROM.