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So far all the comments are predictably negative and imply that Apple will at some time in the future attempt to covertly implement the feature in secret. Anot

So far all the comments are predictably negative and imply that Apple will at some time in the future attempt to covertly implement the feature in secret. Another take would be that they took on-board the extensive public criticism, and changed their minds.

raxxorrax 5y ago
I would have thought they continue the practice but because of the bad publicity will remove all mentions of it. Is it confirmed they won't scan user files? Because I would assume that they still do. As for the negativity. That is based on experience with large tech companies.
gentleman11 5y ago
Somebody above found a quote saying that plans are still to go forward with it eventually
BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
If Apple would like us to believe they changed their mind, they might consider telling us they changed their mind. They haven't told us that, so why should we assume it?
- judge2020 5y ago
  They’re still a company with a PR and Legal team. Letting it die quietly means it stays out of the news cycle (as in, there are less articles about it being removed compared to if they publicly announced they were wrong).
  - BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
    > They’re still a company a PR and Legal team All the more reason to not give them the benefit of the doubt with shit like this. If they say something flat out, that has some weight since there could be legal repercussions for lying (in theory anyway.) But not saying anything and letting people infer whatever they want? That's how companies with PR and Legal teams like to cover their asses instead of outright lying. The company says nothing and lets their supporters invent whatever headcanon is most flattering. I don't go in for that. Edit: The same thing happened when they let Apple fans infer that this feature was preparation for enabling proper E2EE. As far as I'm aware Apple never actually said that and their supporters decided to believe it without evidence, just a lot of wishful thinking.
  - pzo 5y ago
    I would respect more company and people that can admit to mistake and apologize and commit not doing the same mistake again. In this case Apple simply keeps people in limbo - you cannot be sure what they are planning to do with it without any public statement. They might as well tweak it a little bit, rebrand with different name and push it again as wrapped with different package.
ItsBob 5y ago
I don't believe that they'll slip it under the radar at all. I think they'll brand it as something awesome and magical and just add it anyway. People, for the most part, don't scratch the surface EVER, so they'll just think it has a cool scanning feature built-in now.
- disgu 5y ago
  They already scan your photos but the reason for scanning is important. Type 'cat' into the search and they'll show you the pictures you've taken of cats. However, they can't just go through your photos and use it for any purpose they want. They have to give a specific reason.
  - ItsBob 5y ago
    I meant that they won't hide what it will do. It will be called something benign and fluffy and it will be "for your protection". That's what I meant.
klodolph 5y ago
Another possibility (or way to look at it) is that it worked poorly enough, and it was poorly received enough, that the internal factions within Apple that opposed it had enough leverage to kill it. Sometimes, the right way to kill a project (politically) is to let it publicly fail. Killing a project before it fails requires much more of a fight. It could also mean that the very public failure of this project gave Apple leverage over whichever spooks were pushing for it in the first place.
- zionic 5y ago
  >Sometimes, the right way to kill a project (politically) is to let it publicly fail. I feel this is definitely true most of the time, but in this case the cost to their public image/perception among the tech crowd was so high it was a mistake.
  - klodolph 5y ago
    It may have been a mistake for Apple as a company to make this decision, but I think we can understand why the individuals within Apple might choose to let decisions like this play out and fail in public, even if they know it is going to fail.
    - ksec 5y ago
      Well Craig Federighi seems to be happy with it. Their software engineers leads of the features seems to be happy with it. i.e I dont believe there were significant objection to the feature within Apple. At least not those in power. And that is why they went with it. The objection obviously came later after it was reviewed to the public.
      - klodolph 5y ago
        > The objection obviously came later after it was reviewed to the public. Why is this obvious? Normally, when you have an objection to a company policy, you voice those objections in private to people within the company. This seems "obvious" to me, but to explain--(1) it's against company policy and often considered a fireable offense, (2) employees have an interest in presenting a united front, (3) those who want the project to fail publicly want it to happen without interference from inside the company.
Macha 5y ago
This is the reaction the tech industry has bred with the only options ever being "Yes, now" or "Later". People are used to the industry not taking no for an answer, and so this pattern matches to every other time the industry has "backed off for now" (see also: MS pushing edge as default browser, Apple boiling the frog with gatekeeper, Whatsapp/Facebook data sharing, Google+ account migrations for YouTube accounts)
- pzo 5y ago
  I have been literally spammed in the last month on my iPhone (even though still using iOS 14) with apple notifications asking me "Do you agree to new terms of agreements? <Yes> <We will ask you later>" (that's regarding new iCloud terms). I was always careful not to miss click and not to agree. No matter what few days later I kept giving the same notification. The stopped for some reason after few months and now I don't know if: 1) I agree by accident 2) They thankfully stopped nagging me 3) Or they buggy implemented it and even though I kept cancelling after few tries they assumed I agreed.
  - AlexandrB 5y ago
    I'm still tapping "later" on WhatsApp's ToS changes. I wonder how much longer I can get away with it.
    - najqh 5y ago
      A few weeks ago I was forced to accept or I couldn't keep using the app at all.
      - skinkestek 5y ago
        What have you switched to now?
        najqh 5y ago
        I haven't switched, I accepted them because I don't really care. I just wanted to see for how long I could push it.
DenisM 5y ago
It’s easy to tell which - is E2E still there? Then scanning is still there too.
- judge2020 5y ago
  Well, it’s mostly easy to tell since we still have researchers decompiling and scrubbing through the OS to see what’s in it and what it does[0]. https://github.com/AsuharietYgvar/AppleNeuralHash2ONNX https://github.com/AsuharietYgvar/AppleNeuralHash2ONNX
momenti 5y ago
What does it help if the creepy intelligence services are in the hardware?
- wholinator2 5y ago
  I'd venture to say ease of use. I mean AT&T had everyone's emails but still Facebook makes it much easier to infer and understand and expand surveillance. Getting targeted information might be doable in hardware, but mass surveillance might be much easier if implemented a little higher up, by a dedicated dev team which issues bug fixes and feature extensions, which can turn over a request by you in a fraction of the time and whos capabilities are far more mutable. Hardware is more capable but it's a lot more work
skoskie 5y ago
I don’t think Apple has much choice in the matter, and I really wish more people understood why they did this in the first place. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/senate-judiciary-committee-wants-everyone-know-its-concerned-about-encryption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/senate-judiciary-commi...
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Apple has stood up to unreasonable government invasions of privacy before. And won. They have the means. They have the skill. They have the incentive (their entire brand is arguably built around privacy) and their users have been pretty clear in voicing their opposition to CSAM. Some nebulous political references in opposition to encryption aren't the reason Apple did this in the first place. They had and continue to have plenty of choice in the matter.
  - coolspot 5y ago
    > Apple has stood up to unreasonable government invasions of privacy before. And won. Only when they knew they would win, as with Bernandino Shooter PR spectacle. They didn’t stand up against iCloud CN being hosted by Chinese government, they didn’t stand up against unencrypted iCloud backups.
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      Apple is in it for Apple. As a corporation, they have no intrinsic morals at all, and privacy is nothing but a marketing term to them. They don't want to lose China and $$, and they couldn't use and profit from people's data if iCloud backups were encrypted. Companies are not your friends.
bigyellow 5y ago
It's closed source software - what makes anyone think it isn't already implemented?
matheusmoreira 5y ago
It's proprietary software. There's no way to know what it's doing. Better to assume the worst.
mdoms 5y ago
You can't be that naïve? > Update: Apple spokesperson Shane Bauer told The Verge that though the CSAM detection feature is no longer mentioned on its website, plans for CSAM detection have not changed since September, which means CSAM detection is still coming in the future.
kingcharles 5y ago
This. There is absolutely no requirement for Apple to tell you they are checking the signatures of all your files.

raxxorrax 5y ago

I would have thought they continue the practice but because of the bad publicity will remove all mentions of it. Is it confirmed they won't scan user files? Because I would assume that they still do. As for the negativity. That is based on experience with large tech companies.

gentleman11 5y ago

Somebody above found a quote saying that plans are still to go forward with it eventually

BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago

If Apple would like us to believe they changed their mind, they might consider telling us they changed their mind. They haven't told us that, so why should we assume it?

judge2020 5y ago
They’re still a company with a PR and Legal team. Letting it die quietly means it stays out of the news cycle (as in, there are less articles about it being removed compared to if they publicly announced they were wrong).
- BrazzVuvuzela 5y ago
  > They’re still a company a PR and Legal team All the more reason to not give them the benefit of the doubt with shit like this. If they say something flat out, that has some weight since there could be legal repercussions for lying (in theory anyway.) But not saying anything and letting people infer whatever they want? That's how companies with PR and Legal teams like to cover their asses instead of outright lying. The company says nothing and lets their supporters invent whatever headcanon is most flattering. I don't go in for that. Edit: The same thing happened when they let Apple fans infer that this feature was preparation for enabling proper E2EE. As far as I'm aware Apple never actually said that and their supporters decided to believe it without evidence, just a lot of wishful thinking.
- pzo 5y ago
  I would respect more company and people that can admit to mistake and apologize and commit not doing the same mistake again. In this case Apple simply keeps people in limbo - you cannot be sure what they are planning to do with it without any public statement. They might as well tweak it a little bit, rebrand with different name and push it again as wrapped with different package.

ItsBob 5y ago

I don't believe that they'll slip it under the radar at all. I think they'll brand it as something awesome and magical and just add it anyway. People, for the most part, don't scratch the surface EVER, so they'll just think it has a cool scanning feature built-in now.

disgu 5y ago
They already scan your photos but the reason for scanning is important. Type 'cat' into the search and they'll show you the pictures you've taken of cats. However, they can't just go through your photos and use it for any purpose they want. They have to give a specific reason.
- ItsBob 5y ago
  I meant that they won't hide what it will do. It will be called something benign and fluffy and it will be "for your protection". That's what I meant.

klodolph 5y ago

Another possibility (or way to look at it) is that it worked poorly enough, and it was poorly received enough, that the internal factions within Apple that opposed it had enough leverage to kill it. Sometimes, the right way to kill a project (politically) is to let it publicly fail. Killing a project before it fails requires much more of a fight. It could also mean that the very public failure of this project gave Apple leverage over whichever spooks were pushing for it in the first place.

zionic 5y ago
>Sometimes, the right way to kill a project (politically) is to let it publicly fail. I feel this is definitely true most of the time, but in this case the cost to their public image/perception among the tech crowd was so high it was a mistake.
- klodolph 5y ago
  It may have been a mistake for Apple as a company to make this decision, but I think we can understand why the individuals within Apple might choose to let decisions like this play out and fail in public, even if they know it is going to fail.
  - ksec 5y ago
    Well Craig Federighi seems to be happy with it. Their software engineers leads of the features seems to be happy with it. i.e I dont believe there were significant objection to the feature within Apple. At least not those in power. And that is why they went with it. The objection obviously came later after it was reviewed to the public.
    - klodolph 5y ago
      > The objection obviously came later after it was reviewed to the public. Why is this obvious? Normally, when you have an objection to a company policy, you voice those objections in private to people within the company. This seems "obvious" to me, but to explain--(1) it's against company policy and often considered a fireable offense, (2) employees have an interest in presenting a united front, (3) those who want the project to fail publicly want it to happen without interference from inside the company.

Macha 5y ago

This is the reaction the tech industry has bred with the only options ever being "Yes, now" or "Later". People are used to the industry not taking no for an answer, and so this pattern matches to every other time the industry has "backed off for now" (see also: MS pushing edge as default browser, Apple boiling the frog with gatekeeper, Whatsapp/Facebook data sharing, Google+ account migrations for YouTube accounts)

pzo 5y ago
I have been literally spammed in the last month on my iPhone (even though still using iOS 14) with apple notifications asking me "Do you agree to new terms of agreements? <Yes> <We will ask you later>" (that's regarding new iCloud terms). I was always careful not to miss click and not to agree. No matter what few days later I kept giving the same notification. The stopped for some reason after few months and now I don't know if: 1) I agree by accident 2) They thankfully stopped nagging me 3) Or they buggy implemented it and even though I kept cancelling after few tries they assumed I agreed.
- AlexandrB 5y ago
  I'm still tapping "later" on WhatsApp's ToS changes. I wonder how much longer I can get away with it.
  - najqh 5y ago
    A few weeks ago I was forced to accept or I couldn't keep using the app at all.
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      What have you switched to now?
      - najqh 5y ago
        I haven't switched, I accepted them because I don't really care. I just wanted to see for how long I could push it.

DenisM 5y ago

It’s easy to tell which - is E2E still there? Then scanning is still there too.

judge2020 5y ago
Well, it’s mostly easy to tell since we still have researchers decompiling and scrubbing through the OS to see what’s in it and what it does[0]. https://github.com/AsuharietYgvar/AppleNeuralHash2ONNX https://github.com/AsuharietYgvar/AppleNeuralHash2ONNX

momenti 5y ago

What does it help if the creepy intelligence services are in the hardware?

wholinator2 5y ago
I'd venture to say ease of use. I mean AT&T had everyone's emails but still Facebook makes it much easier to infer and understand and expand surveillance. Getting targeted information might be doable in hardware, but mass surveillance might be much easier if implemented a little higher up, by a dedicated dev team which issues bug fixes and feature extensions, which can turn over a request by you in a fraction of the time and whos capabilities are far more mutable. Hardware is more capable but it's a lot more work

skoskie 5y ago

I don’t think Apple has much choice in the matter, and I really wish more people understood why they did this in the first place. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/senate-judiciary-committee-wants-everyone-know-its-concerned-about-encryption https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/senate-judiciary-commi...

elliekelly 5y ago
Apple has stood up to unreasonable government invasions of privacy before. And won. They have the means. They have the skill. They have the incentive (their entire brand is arguably built around privacy) and their users have been pretty clear in voicing their opposition to CSAM. Some nebulous political references in opposition to encryption aren't the reason Apple did this in the first place. They had and continue to have plenty of choice in the matter.
- coolspot 5y ago
  > Apple has stood up to unreasonable government invasions of privacy before. And won. Only when they knew they would win, as with Bernandino Shooter PR spectacle. They didn’t stand up against iCloud CN being hosted by Chinese government, they didn’t stand up against unencrypted iCloud backups.
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    Apple is in it for Apple. As a corporation, they have no intrinsic morals at all, and privacy is nothing but a marketing term to them. They don't want to lose China and $$, and they couldn't use and profit from people's data if iCloud backups were encrypted. Companies are not your friends.

bigyellow 5y ago

It's closed source software - what makes anyone think it isn't already implemented?

matheusmoreira 5y ago

It's proprietary software. There's no way to know what it's doing. Better to assume the worst.

mdoms 5y ago

You can't be that naïve? > Update: Apple spokesperson Shane Bauer told The Verge that though the CSAM detection feature is no longer mentioned on its website, plans for CSAM detection have not changed since September, which means CSAM detection is still coming in the future.

kingcharles 5y ago

This. There is absolutely no requirement for Apple to tell you they are checking the signatures of all your files.