6 ms·

You are completely correct from a computer science perspective - unfortunately, this is not a computer science discussion. As far as the FBI are concerned, “sto

You are completely correct from a computer science perspective - unfortunately, this is not a computer science discussion. As far as the FBI are concerned, “storing encrypted child porn on behalf of people with the keys to decrypt it” still counts as “storing child porn”. You can disagree with that (and there are many good reasons to do so) - but “it’s encrypted so it’s fine” isn’t going to convince anybody who matters.

mulmen 5y ago
This is the part where we need laws to protect privacy. This is arguably an overreach by the FBI in the first place and if it is legal it shouldn’t be.
- lazide 5y ago
  Since Congress folks seem happy to threaten Apple too with changing the law to do what the FBI wants, I wouldn’t assume it would go the way you are thinking it will.
aidenn0 5y ago
It's not even the just FBI; if the majority of your competitors claim to prevent child-porn from being stored on their servers and you don't, the reputational damage is real. Apple doesn't want to be the "Child Porn friendly cloud service."
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  You're the customer of a cloud service. Do you want the one that does or does not scan your own files so that a false positive could cause you to be arrested, incur thousands of dollars in legal fees and suffer severe and permanent reputational damage yourself?
  - lazide 5y ago
    Considering that using a service which is known by all to not scan, and is therefore the place the media says is ‘child molester friendly’ could cause the same reputational damage? Might just throw my phone in a campfire.
    - passerby1 5y ago
      I'm not a lawyer, so may be wrong, but am I the only one to think that the presumption of innocence principle does not exist anymore? As there are areas where is does not, and there are "gray" areas that effectively are the same.
      - lazide 5y ago
        Presumption of innocence never applied to SOCIAL judgement. It would be nice if it did, but that was never what happened. It’s why minors information isn’t supposed to be pasted all over the evening news too, so if they make a mistake it isn’t ‘permanent’ and they have some plausible deniability. It’s always been the case that your neighbors or friends or employers or whatever would judge you as they saw fit for whatever they might see or find out about, or even overhear from the local loudmouth/busybody. Regardless of what was found in a court of law. The challenge now is our ‘neighbors’ are now whichever nosy random person in the entire world that cares to look instead of just the local gossip circle, and the gossip is recorded nearly permanently and is indexed in an easy to find way decades later. :s As to if this means people will stop being less judgmental since everyone is likely to have something shitty posted about them at some point? History or the current circumstances don’t seem to be pointing to ‘yes’ right now. But at some point, either everyone is going to stop sharing the smell of their farts every morning, or folks are going to have to stop caring, or we’ll literally not be able to be friends with or employ anyone.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      > Considering that using a service which is known by all to not scan, and is therefore the place the media says is ‘child molester friendly’ could cause the same reputational damage? Even putting aside how much of a stretch that is, how is anybody else supposed to know which service you use? It's your personal files. That nobody else should have access to them is the point. It's not as if Apple or whomever should be providing anyone with a list of their customers, as that should cause you to not use them too. As far as I know they don't currently make their customer list public.
vondur 5y ago
I agree with you, but if the FBI wanted to serve a warrant to search my device, they can compel me to do so. Failure to unlock that device could put you into jail until you comply with the warrant.
- Zak 5y ago
  US case law is not settled on that matter, and some courts have concluded that disclosing a password is testimonial and therefore covered by the fifth amendment. Courts that have ruled the other way have usually done so under narrow exceptions.
  - lazide 5y ago
    Generally, most lawyers would advise their clients to Stay away from an area or activities that can be described this way - because it’s a really good way to be ‘right but dead’ (really, bankrupt or in jail or whatever).
Zak 5y ago
In the US, a service provider incurs legal obligations when it has actual knowledge that it is hosting something that appears to be CSAM. A provider hosting encrypted data with no knowledge of what it decrypts to does not have such obligations. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A
- judge2020 5y ago
  While that's the law, the big factor here is actual regulatory and agency pressure to scan for CSAM for the images they harbor, given they were previously only doing so when CSAM was manually reported to them by users (as in, probably, given they only submitted 265 reports to NCMEC in 2020[0]). Think "we regulate a second iOS app-store or you fix your CSAM problem". 0: https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-One-Bad-Apple.html#:~:text=In%20those%20same%20years%2C%20Apple%20submitted%20205%20and%20265%20reports%20(respectively) https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-On....

mulmen 5y ago

This is the part where we need laws to protect privacy. This is arguably an overreach by the FBI in the first place and if it is legal it shouldn’t be.

lazide 5y ago
Since Congress folks seem happy to threaten Apple too with changing the law to do what the FBI wants, I wouldn’t assume it would go the way you are thinking it will.

aidenn0 5y ago

It's not even the just FBI; if the majority of your competitors claim to prevent child-porn from being stored on their servers and you don't, the reputational damage is real. Apple doesn't want to be the "Child Porn friendly cloud service."

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
You're the customer of a cloud service. Do you want the one that does or does not scan your own files so that a false positive could cause you to be arrested, incur thousands of dollars in legal fees and suffer severe and permanent reputational damage yourself?
- lazide 5y ago
  Considering that using a service which is known by all to not scan, and is therefore the place the media says is ‘child molester friendly’ could cause the same reputational damage? Might just throw my phone in a campfire.
  - passerby1 5y ago
    I'm not a lawyer, so may be wrong, but am I the only one to think that the presumption of innocence principle does not exist anymore? As there are areas where is does not, and there are "gray" areas that effectively are the same.
    - lazide 5y ago
      Presumption of innocence never applied to SOCIAL judgement. It would be nice if it did, but that was never what happened. It’s why minors information isn’t supposed to be pasted all over the evening news too, so if they make a mistake it isn’t ‘permanent’ and they have some plausible deniability. It’s always been the case that your neighbors or friends or employers or whatever would judge you as they saw fit for whatever they might see or find out about, or even overhear from the local loudmouth/busybody. Regardless of what was found in a court of law. The challenge now is our ‘neighbors’ are now whichever nosy random person in the entire world that cares to look instead of just the local gossip circle, and the gossip is recorded nearly permanently and is indexed in an easy to find way decades later. :s As to if this means people will stop being less judgmental since everyone is likely to have something shitty posted about them at some point? History or the current circumstances don’t seem to be pointing to ‘yes’ right now. But at some point, either everyone is going to stop sharing the smell of their farts every morning, or folks are going to have to stop caring, or we’ll literally not be able to be friends with or employ anyone.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    > Considering that using a service which is known by all to not scan, and is therefore the place the media says is ‘child molester friendly’ could cause the same reputational damage? Even putting aside how much of a stretch that is, how is anybody else supposed to know which service you use? It's your personal files. That nobody else should have access to them is the point. It's not as if Apple or whomever should be providing anyone with a list of their customers, as that should cause you to not use them too. As far as I know they don't currently make their customer list public.

vondur 5y ago

I agree with you, but if the FBI wanted to serve a warrant to search my device, they can compel me to do so. Failure to unlock that device could put you into jail until you comply with the warrant.

Zak 5y ago
US case law is not settled on that matter, and some courts have concluded that disclosing a password is testimonial and therefore covered by the fifth amendment. Courts that have ruled the other way have usually done so under narrow exceptions.
- lazide 5y ago
  Generally, most lawyers would advise their clients to Stay away from an area or activities that can be described this way - because it’s a really good way to be ‘right but dead’ (really, bankrupt or in jail or whatever).

Zak 5y ago

In the US, a service provider incurs legal obligations when it has actual knowledge that it is hosting something that appears to be CSAM. A provider hosting encrypted data with no knowledge of what it decrypts to does not have such obligations. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A

judge2020 5y ago
While that's the law, the big factor here is actual regulatory and agency pressure to scan for CSAM for the images they harbor, given they were previously only doing so when CSAM was manually reported to them by users (as in, probably, given they only submitted 265 reports to NCMEC in 2020[0]). Think "we regulate a second iOS app-store or you fix your CSAM problem". 0: https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-One-Bad-Apple.html#:~:text=In%20those%20same%20years%2C%20Apple%20submitted%20205%20and%20265%20reports%20(respectively) https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/929-On....