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About communication safety in Messages

162 points by komape 4y ago

dusted 4y ago
'murican led neo-puritanism ftl.. I don't own any iDevices but it kinda bothers me that the world seems to close in on itself while at the same time breaking its own back bending over backwards to include _EVERY_ONE_[1]. [1] Except the ones who are wrong.
- deleted 4y ago
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Claude_Shannon 4y ago
Well, Discord once thought that my message containing a breadboard was nudity. I fully expect similar things to happen here.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Discord's detector is a bit weird, yeah, but it can be turned on or off by the server administrator. I turned it off because we don't get much abuse and we got some false positives.
- heavenlyblue 4y ago
  Dirty you sharing photos of electronics without the cover
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  Did you put the male plugs into the female sockets? Perhaps it was even pornographic material instead of just nude pictures.
- napolux 4y ago
  well, a breadboard is actually naked... :P
  - Claude_Shannon 4y ago
    I guess I cannot argue with that :D
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  You expect to get warnings that your phone will optionally blur your breadboard photos, unless you prefer it doesn't? Do you expect this will be a frequent problem? Not exactly a thin end of the wedge problem here.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
- tobr 4y ago
  Opt-in, on-device. Sounds very reasonable.
  - notRobot 4y ago
    Opt-in, for now. On-device, for now. Slippery slopes. Privacy erosion is gradual, that's why they keep getting away with it (well, that and "think of the children!").
    - olliej 4y ago
      Ok, so you couldn’t be bothered reading the article and rather just slippery slope argument the feature blindly. It’s an opt in feature, that’s part of the parental controls settings, and it does all processing on device. Apple is not Google or Facebook, and has demonstrated that it has no desire to access your images or data. Your slippery slope argument is so pointlessly stupid it’s equivalent to arguing that the addition of speed limits is a slippery slope towards not being allowed to drive. Eg meaningless to the point where it erodes the meaning of the term in contexts where it actually matters.
- vletal 4y ago
  > Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo appears to contain nudity. The feature is designed so that Apple doesn’t get access to the photos. LGTM
- seper8 4y ago
  This isn't written on the page linked. Where are you finding this? For other people who only read the comments and don't read source material: "Turn on communication safety to help protect your child from viewing or sharing photos that contain nudity in the Messages app. If Messages detects that a child receives or is attempting to send this type of photo, Messages blurs the photo before it’s viewed on your child’s device and provides guidance and age-appropriate resources to help them make a safe choice, including contacting someone they trust if they choose. Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo appears to contain nudity. The feature is designed so that Apple doesn’t get access to the photos."
hericium 4y ago
That's so American. Ban every nipple and every inch of other "prohibited" body parts. At the same time in Europe you go to a nude beach and there are whole families with kids and literally nobody has problems with it. Clothing is optional. No one bothers nude people, no one bothers clothed ones. In Germany or Sweden you can get your [banned by Apple] out in a public place not designated for nudity per se and this just normal. But yeah, lets ban more normal/natural stuff.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Children sharing nude photos of themselves, or being sent unsolicited nudes, is not normal / natural. As an adult you can just turn this feature off, if you use messages for this kind of thing.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Children taking photos is not natural.
    - Hackbraten 4y ago
      Taking photos is not natural.
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  - ilikehurdles 4y ago
    Photos are not natural. From that basic fact you can extend any activity surrounding them to be unnatural. Kids seeing themselves or each other nude is pretty normal. Kids are curious. That being said, luckily none of the awkward curiosities we entertained when I was a kid had any chance of ending up on some kind of iCloud permanent record, so maybe this is for the better.
- 4y ago
Erikun 4y ago
"Messages now includes tools that warn children and provide helpful resources if they receive or attempt to send photos that may contain nudity. [...] Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo appears to contain nudity. The feature is designed so that Apple doesn’t get access to the photos."
- drdaeman 4y ago
  This. If a device I own (even if just nominally) does something I've instructed it to, and nothing more - that's fine by me. Computers doing their job, honestly. If a device is programmed to report on me to someone and I haven't explicitly asked it for this - that's not fine, no matter the intent.
HidyBush 4y ago
>naked photos and videos show the private body parts that are usually covered by underwear or bathing suits sweet, now the iPhone (which a child shouldn't use in the first place) is nannying the kid and doing "the talk" instead of the parents. how soon until your phone makes your son sit trough an entire sex-ed class on his first NSFW internet search?
- dereg 4y ago
  This is the least charitable perspective you could adopt. If you looked at the prompts, it's clear that this system is to help initiate a healthy conversation with your parents/trusted entities about how to deal with and understand these types of photos. 1:1 conversation couldn't be more different from NSFW internet searches. A malicious party can use coercive tactics to have the child send them compromising photos.
  - HidyBush 4y ago
    I am tired of being charitable to these companies. Children shouldn't drive cars, they shouldn't do drugs and they shouldn't use smartphones. Would you be fine with a beer company making a "safe" version of beer for kids so they get hooked and once they turn 21 they switch to the real stuff and become alcoholics? Making these devices more "child friendly" is the wrong solution to the problem. Actually, it's the absolute BEST solution if you are Apple and want to calm the parents down and sell more phones and services at the same time. Unfortunately I'm not Apple and my objective regarding my kids is not to maximize profits and push complex technology to people down to the last semi-conscious toddler
    - dereg 4y ago
      There's no censorship/prohibition of content going on, unless you consider opt-ins censorship. I do not. I'm curious about how you feel about Google Image's SafeSearch being turned on by default. Is it also worthy of such ire?
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      Is there anyone alive that had their first drink at 21?
tibbydudeza 4y ago
I used to backup all family photos taken by my wife/kids to my NAS until one day I browsed the gallery looking for something and found a nude full frontal my daughter (17) received from her boyfriend. I said nothing - stopped the archiving and deleted everything except for my own photos. They deserve their privacy and do whatever on their devices without snooping - if we go away on vacation I now ask them if they want to share any pics they want so I can keep it. Apple is turning out to be big brother.
- teekert 4y ago
  I think you did the right thing. But still, I think it could also be used as moment for education. For the boyfriend: “You have 0 control over where the image ends up when you send it to someone, perhaps even before you send it.” For the Daughter: “You are in possession of nude material from a minor. This carries some risk, you should be aware of it.” But I get the struggle, I also turned of logging in my AdGuard home instance, at least for my wife’s phone. But it was also a lesson for her when I jokingly told here the website she was on right now… The ISP and Google probably know this too. And, I can find it in my Router without AdGuard, and that Router can be hacked. It’s also a good time for education imho. Modern tech is so interesting. When I can’t get a hold of my wife I sometimes find myself checking the hallway’s motion sensor, seeing it just registered movement, the unify network reports to Home Assistant that indeed her phone is connected right now. Ah, gas usage, bathroom lighting and moisture sensors indicate she’s taking a shower (boy it seems to be a long one, 0.4 m3 of gas!). I’ll just wait 10 min and if she doesn’t pick up I’ll flash some lights or let the Sonos speak: “Pick up your Phone”. Yeah it’s pretty creepy but sometimes I don’t even think about it… But writing it down like this I could write a “state” sensor for my wife that could, with high probability, tell me what she’s doing and log it.
  - tibbydudeza 4y ago
    We had that talk about the Internet with my kids due to some incidents at school and that made the news but fortunately NOT (oops corrected) involving them - racist remarks on Facebook - oversharing of details - stalking - posting bikini photos on Insta - accepting friend requests from only people they know - privacy settings - cover your laptop camera - don't click links you receive - spam - the usual. Friends of ours came to me how to deal with nude photos taken by their underage daughter sent to her boyfriend - told them to contact the parents and go to his house immediately - watch him in the act of deleting the photos. Fortunately he was not stupid to share it with his mates. Also told them kids do stuff without thinking through the consequences and not to be too hard on them - think she only lost phone privilege's for a week. I do have a IP camera in the house but it is angled and to watch our parrot when he is on top his cage and alert us if he decides to take a walk.
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Gareth321 4y ago
I don't love it but at least it's not that disastrous on-device "CSAM" scanning they were planning to roll out with this. That must have been one of Apple's biggest blunders in history. Apple announcing they would scan our phones for government banned content. Pants on head crazy.
- threeseed 4y ago
  > Apple announcing they would scan our phones for government banned content Until you realise Apple has been scanning your iCloud photos for government banned content for years. And that the on device option was better for your privacy not worse.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    >>And that the on device option was better for your privacy not worse. No it wasn't. Previously pictures weren't scanned directly on my phone, then they were about to be. That was a downgrade of privacy, not an improvement. The fact that it was only going to be applied to photos due to be uploaded to iCloud is irrelevant - you are still using my own device to scan my own photos, and if it fails some completely opaque check that I have no control over, you will report me to law enforcement(who will then do god knows what). Not to mention that during the analysis process my pictures will be shown directly to a human in a centre somewhere who will judge them if they are legal or not. Again, I'm really struggling to see how this is an improvement in privacy. >>Until you realise Apple has been scanning your iCloud photos for government banned content for years. Source? Apple has maintained for years that they don't scan pictures already uploaded to iCloud, since they are encrypted and Apple doesn't have access to them.
    - GeekyBear 4y ago
      >Previously pictures weren't scanned directly on my phone, then they were about to be. That was a downgrade of privacy, not an improvement. Absolutely not true. When you scan on the server, like Google does, that information is open to abuse by anyone who issues a warrant, and I wouldn't be willing to bet that the warrant is a hard requirement. >Google’s Nest Will Provide Data to Police Without a Warrant https://petapixel.com/2022/07/27/googles-nest-will-provide-data-to-police-without-a-warrant/ https://petapixel.com/2022/07/27/googles-nest-will-provide-d...
cft 4y ago
That means they have not given up on the whole direction of on-device image scanning, the idea of clandestinely reporting your device images [1], that they (temporarily) abandoned due to a backlash. There must be an internal censorship struggle within Apple, and it's unclear which group will win. I personally skipped their M1 laptops when the news of [1] came out. Was waiting for M2 14" pro after they abandoned it, but now will probably go with an XPS13 1. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/15/apple-nixes-csam-references-website/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/15/apple-nixes-csam-refere...
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  No, it doesn't not mean that. Only the images being sent, from a child's phone, with the optional feature turned on, are scanned and when approved for that message, blurred. There is nothing about clandestinely reporting your images to anyone. Just read the article.
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olliej 4y ago
So it’s an opt in part of parental controls - if parental controls are involved we’re already talking about devices that are under the control someone’s parents. The analysis is done on device, and no data is sent to Apple, and no data is decryptable by Apple (presumably this also applies to SMS but SMS is unencrypted and routed through carriers). If the device does decide that a message contains nudity it blurs the image and provides “age appropriate prompts” which sounds like suggestions to contact their parents.
unnouinceput 4y ago
So, a kid receives a message containing nudity. How does Apple knows that the viewer is a child and not an adult? Because the only logical answer I come up to this question is that Apple is using phone's camera to see who's using it at that very moment. Which raises the question of "isn't this an invasion of privacy from Apple?". Also, yeah, all the people working at Apple are all saints and they would never abuse this. /s
- wonderbore 4y ago
  Have you ever bought a smartphone? You have to register to use it, you must enter your date of birth. Unless your parents are technologically illiterate, they will set it up as a device part of a family. That’s how they know. This has its flaws, but that’s what we got now. > using phone's camera to see who's using it Most definitely not going to happen. Even if it did, it’s no worse than Face ID.
- angulardragon03 4y ago
  Please read the linked article before making baseless claims: > The communication safety feature [...] is available to child accounts signed in with their Apple ID and part of a Family Sharing group. This feature is off by default. In Family Sharing you can designate AppleIDs in your family as being child accounts. An AppleID is mandatory to use iMessage, so thats how Apple "knows".
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  "the only logical answer I come up to" says everything.
pdpi 4y ago
If they're going to do this at all, "It's your choice but make sure you feel safe" is probably the right tone to hit here. It's all carefully worded to remain non-judgmental while still saying "We've got your back if you don't feel comfortable". Also, I have to respect that it's an opt-in feature by the parents/guardians, but the feature still allows the kid to view whatever the image was without actually alerting the parents. In a way, that tradeoff is the best-case scenario for this sort of automated scanning — it allows parents to put safeguards in place while still giving kids their privacy and not blocking anything. Curious to see if that becomes leverage to normalise scanning in general.
AndrewDucker 4y ago
Very few people seem to have actually read the post. Apple aren't banning anything. They're detecting nudity, and asking you if you're sure. And that's only if you've turned this on! I can think of several women I know who would quite like to have had a warning about incoming nudity before it appeared. More information is better than less. I don't see a problem here at all.
- kemayo 4y ago
  Yeah, I'm actually surprised that there's not a way to turn this on for non-child accounts. I've definitely known people who're in the dating scene who'd like to have a choice before seeing a nude picture from someone who has their number. For that matter, I could see the appeal of just the blurring feature in general. Checking your texts in public might be a risky proposition even if the photo is totally wanted.
  - lazerpants 4y ago
    The invisible ink screen effect (blurs the message/photo until you touch it) in iMessage is essential if you're in a long distance relationship or away from your partner and still trying to have some fun!
avidphantasm 4y ago
Why does my phone care that my preferred attire for writing iMessages is none?
- ezfe 4y ago
  It doesn't unless your 10 and your parents turned the feature on
st-keller 4y ago
Why is nudity such a big thing? Sorry, but I don‘t get it. Maybe i do not understand this, because i am german? My children (as they were little) got in contact with content that distrubed them a lot. The most troubling of them videogame- and movie-previews with violent and gruesome content, that got to them were the enviornment was somehow unconstraint. Sometime they could’nt sleep! Darn - i myself really hate that stuff i have to look at everyday - and i am 52! Maybe nudity is a problem - ok - do something against it! But the other stuff - we don’t care? Really?
- kemayo 4y ago
  This feature isn't really aimed at nudity-in-general, but rather at specifically sexual targeting of minors. The scenario it's most totally thinking of is "a creepy older person tries to trade naked picture of themselves with your 8 year old". Though also "before you share this picture of yourself with your boy/girlfriend, think for a second first". Can't speak for Germany, but in the US there's been a lot of furor around school-aged people having some pretty severe troubles after nude photos they shared with a partner got shared more widely -- suicides, etc. We could certainly argue that the fact they're facing trouble because of such things is itself a symptom of a problem in American society, but a first-level solution of warning people before they get into the situation seems like something Apple can do, whereas broad cultural changes are outside their power.
iammjm 4y ago
USA ad 2022 is still so puritan it blows my mind. Nipples seem to frighten people more than semi automatic guns
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_odey 4y ago
M-x story-mode. When you are together with a significant other, sometimes you video call them, and sometimes they're in the bathroom, or shower, when they answer (what are they supposed to do, not answer a call from their beloved?). And during these calls they tease eachother, shift the camera in a non conventional angle, private parts exposed. Or they send naughty pictures to eachother, starting small scale, maybe escalating a bit. All of this is normal, natural, playfully, I would even say: innocent fun. Nobody plans for it, maybe not even asking each other to do it, it naturally evolves with the relationship, partners doing it out of their own free will. Adults do it, teenagers do it. Again, it's normal! Whenever this happes through a system that is not fully E2E encrypted, those pictures/videos get stored, analysed, accessed by employees, or even 3rd party contractors that label them for text to speech ML purposes. My advice, use Signal (since it's always e2e encrypted) to avoid the creepy 3rd party eyes, and carry on with your life. As for the presented "nudity filter" and it's functionality... you can't stop a determined teenager from doing what they aim to do. Assume they're smarter and more tech savy than you are, and this will just be a barrier they will find a way to overcome. Better to keep them safe (give them Signal e2e encrypted) rather than giving them prohibition (this never worked, and it most likely never will).
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Unless your significant other is a literal child and marked as such on their iCloud account, this'll never affect you in any way. No data is sent to anyone anywhere. > Messages now includes tools that warn children and provide helpful resources if they receive or attempt to send photos that may contain nudity. > Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo appears to contain nudity. The feature is designed so that Apple doesn’t get access to the photos.
  - _odey 4y ago
    This obviously does not affect me but that was not the purpose of my post. What my message is: if you have something that is normal for adults and you try to forbid it to teenagers, you will lose. They will have their revenge on you, and they will find a way to circumvent it. For example, if I was still a teenager and had to deal with this, first thing I would do: search and download a collection of thousands of "Harambee nipples" pictures that trigger this filter, send them back and forward between me and my mates non stop to annoy the crap out of my parents and generate noise. Second, I would try to add a "sticker" into one of the pictures until I find a shape, size, and position that will bypass the filter, without hiding the nudity. When such a discovery is made that person will be a hero among teens and it will spread like wildfire. I don't believe this feature will have the intended effect and I estimate it will take less than 2 hours before it's "broken". My conclusion is that if you want to keep them safe, you have to think vastly outside the "inquisition" box and try education, not prohibition.
kevincox 4y ago
It would be interesting if you could opt into this for all conversations. I know people who get a high enough amount of unsolicited dick pics that they would consider turning it on. Of course the controls and messaging would probably need to be different (for example add "Always allow from this sender" and less emotional support)
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sholladay 4y ago
This feature appears to be off by default, which is good. Helicopter parents will undoubtedly turn it on, but without this feature, perhaps those parents wouldn’t even let the child use the device.
Sporktacular 4y ago
The quality of some of the comments here are really poor. If you're an adult, one is forcing this feature on you. No one is scanning your photos against known CP. No one is receiving or looking at your photos, or flagging you as a freedom-fighting, enemy of the state aggitator. This isn't their Anti-CSAM rollout. It comes with no cost to you and may help warn some kids before making a mistake. There's no room for subtlety in some discussions, downvote to prove it.
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  As an adult I want this feature. I’ve received dick pics unsolicited. Sometimes I want to see, sometimes I don’t. I’d like blurring by default for those moments when I’m screen sharing or looking at my phone in public. Kids receiving unsolicited pornographic content is sexual harassment and nobody regardless of age should be subjected to that. Giving people tools to opt in seems great to me. But that would be censorship so Apple=bad.
- Zamiel_Snawley 4y ago
  I completely agree. Sending or receiving is explicit images is dangerous for children. "Think of the children" is often just a cover for ulterior motives, but it is sometimes an adequate or even excellent reason to do something. This feature from Apple is great. It seems to respect privacy, is fully controlled by the user or their parent, and will increase safety for those who choose to use it. A common tactic used by child predators is to catfish a child, get the child to send explicit images of themselves, and then blackmail them with those images into doing much worse things. I think this feature will make it less likely for this to happen, and has practically zero downside.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > There's no room for subtlety in some discussions, downvote to prove it. It would be more satisfying to downvote for ignoring site guidelines. > Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies, generic tangents, and internet tropes. > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
danbruc 4y ago
Why always only nudity? Why not everything violence, for example weapons, dead people, whatever? Children should eventually have good sex when they grow up but they should not kill people. Still they get exposed to a lot of violence and comparatively little healthy sexuality. Why can they drop anvils onto each other's heads in cartoons but not fuck each other?
- corrral 4y ago
  Worst-case for both as far as the effect of seeing the image(s) per se is very similar, which is that maybe you have an image in your head you wish you could forget. OK, not ideal, but also not the end of the world, and sure, the two are similar in that regard. The difference is that images of violence aren't as strongly associated with things like sharing of personal images that haunt a person later, with really disgusting and effective forms of bullying, or with efforts to get kids to do something harmful IRL. Could they be? Can I concoct such a scenario? Sure, but these other things are in-fact happening a lot (ask any teacher or other person who works with kids ages ~12 and up) That's why specifically when it comes to Internet messaging services and kids, nudes are a bigger problem than images of violence. I agree with you more broadly, but the context is important here, and is why in this narrow case the two things are meaningfully different, and nudity is the bigger problem.
peheje 4y ago
Sorry for off topic but I’m concerned in reading these discussions by the generalization of a Europe v. America. Countries in Europe are so different. I’m guessing the same can be said of the countries in the Americas, as well as states and provinces even.
izhak 4y ago
So, this article is not about using Messages in a way that could get you safe through Russian filtration camps (in case you haven't manage to evacuate before your city was occupied) where you phone is thoroughly examined and both having some suspicious messages and not having them at all could get you into trouble (meaning torture/death). It's about nude photos.
Sporktacular 4y ago
There is another angle to consider here as well. Before the whole Anti-CSAM debacle, one legitimate concern was that iPhones are more commonly used for CSAM than other platforms and there was a perception that Apple wasn't doing enough about it. Their stance on privacy was opening them up to attacks by the 'think of the children' types, weakening both its brand and political capacity to withstand pressure to weaken encryption, create backdoors etc. This feature is an impressive counter volley in that space. It doesn't compromise security or privacy of normal users, it's optional and should be reasonably effective. But in creating this, Apple insulates itself from the suggestion it is doing nothing to help protect children. So this feature could actually give Apple a face saving way to discard the creepy Anti-CSAM idea altogether and win it enough clout to keep fighting government pressure generally. It's a net win for privacy. We need to pick our battles and not reflexively go after Apple with 'this is a dry run for on device scanning/police state' type baseless accusations.

162 points by komape 4y ago

'murican led neo-puritanism ftl.. I don't own any iDevices but it kinda bothers me that the world seems to close in on itself while at the same time breaking its own back bending over backwards to include _EVERY_ONE_[1]. [1] Except the ones who are wrong.

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Claude_Shannon 4y ago

Well, Discord once thought that my message containing a breadboard was nudity. I fully expect similar things to happen here.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Discord's detector is a bit weird, yeah, but it can be turned on or off by the server administrator. I turned it off because we don't get much abuse and we got some false positives.
heavenlyblue 4y ago
Dirty you sharing photos of electronics without the cover
raxxorraxor 4y ago
Did you put the male plugs into the female sockets? Perhaps it was even pornographic material instead of just nude pictures.
napolux 4y ago
well, a breadboard is actually naked... :P
- Claude_Shannon 4y ago
  I guess I cannot argue with that :D
Sporktacular 4y ago
You expect to get warnings that your phone will optionally blur your breadboard photos, unless you prefer it doesn't? Do you expect this will be a frequent problem? Not exactly a thin end of the wedge problem here.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

tobr 4y ago
Opt-in, on-device. Sounds very reasonable.
- notRobot 4y ago
  Opt-in, for now. On-device, for now. Slippery slopes. Privacy erosion is gradual, that's why they keep getting away with it (well, that and "think of the children!").
  - olliej 4y ago
    Ok, so you couldn’t be bothered reading the article and rather just slippery slope argument the feature blindly. It’s an opt in feature, that’s part of the parental controls settings, and it does all processing on device. Apple is not Google or Facebook, and has demonstrated that it has no desire to access your images or data. Your slippery slope argument is so pointlessly stupid it’s equivalent to arguing that the addition of speed limits is a slippery slope towards not being allowed to drive. Eg meaningless to the point where it erodes the meaning of the term in contexts where it actually matters.
vletal 4y ago
> Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo appears to contain nudity. The feature is designed so that Apple doesn’t get access to the photos. LGTM
seper8 4y ago
This isn't written on the page linked. Where are you finding this? For other people who only read the comments and don't read source material: "Turn on communication safety to help protect your child from viewing or sharing photos that contain nudity in the Messages app. If Messages detects that a child receives or is attempting to send this type of photo, Messages blurs the photo before it’s viewed on your child’s device and provides guidance and age-appropriate resources to help them make a safe choice, including contacting someone they trust if they choose. Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo appears to contain nudity. The feature is designed so that Apple doesn’t get access to the photos."

hericium 4y ago

That's so American. Ban every nipple and every inch of other "prohibited" body parts. At the same time in Europe you go to a nude beach and there are whole families with kids and literally nobody has problems with it. Clothing is optional. No one bothers nude people, no one bothers clothed ones. In Germany or Sweden you can get your [banned by Apple] out in a public place not designated for nudity per se and this just normal. But yeah, lets ban more normal/natural stuff.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Children sharing nude photos of themselves, or being sent unsolicited nudes, is not normal / natural. As an adult you can just turn this feature off, if you use messages for this kind of thing.
- adrianN 4y ago
  Children taking photos is not natural.
  - Hackbraten 4y ago
    Taking photos is not natural.
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- ilikehurdles 4y ago
  Photos are not natural. From that basic fact you can extend any activity surrounding them to be unnatural. Kids seeing themselves or each other nude is pretty normal. Kids are curious. That being said, luckily none of the awkward curiosities we entertained when I was a kid had any chance of ending up on some kind of iCloud permanent record, so maybe this is for the better.
4y ago

Erikun 4y ago

"Messages now includes tools that warn children and provide helpful resources if they receive or attempt to send photos that may contain nudity. [...] Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo appears to contain nudity. The feature is designed so that Apple doesn’t get access to the photos."

drdaeman 4y ago
This. If a device I own (even if just nominally) does something I've instructed it to, and nothing more - that's fine by me. Computers doing their job, honestly. If a device is programmed to report on me to someone and I haven't explicitly asked it for this - that's not fine, no matter the intent.

HidyBush 4y ago

>naked photos and videos show the private body parts that are usually covered by underwear or bathing suits sweet, now the iPhone (which a child shouldn't use in the first place) is nannying the kid and doing "the talk" instead of the parents. how soon until your phone makes your son sit trough an entire sex-ed class on his first NSFW internet search?

dereg 4y ago
This is the least charitable perspective you could adopt. If you looked at the prompts, it's clear that this system is to help initiate a healthy conversation with your parents/trusted entities about how to deal with and understand these types of photos. 1:1 conversation couldn't be more different from NSFW internet searches. A malicious party can use coercive tactics to have the child send them compromising photos.
- HidyBush 4y ago
  I am tired of being charitable to these companies. Children shouldn't drive cars, they shouldn't do drugs and they shouldn't use smartphones. Would you be fine with a beer company making a "safe" version of beer for kids so they get hooked and once they turn 21 they switch to the real stuff and become alcoholics? Making these devices more "child friendly" is the wrong solution to the problem. Actually, it's the absolute BEST solution if you are Apple and want to calm the parents down and sell more phones and services at the same time. Unfortunately I'm not Apple and my objective regarding my kids is not to maximize profits and push complex technology to people down to the last semi-conscious toddler
  - dereg 4y ago
    There's no censorship/prohibition of content going on, unless you consider opt-ins censorship. I do not. I'm curious about how you feel about Google Image's SafeSearch being turned on by default. Is it also worthy of such ire?
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Is there anyone alive that had their first drink at 21?

tibbydudeza 4y ago

I used to backup all family photos taken by my wife/kids to my NAS until one day I browsed the gallery looking for something and found a nude full frontal my daughter (17) received from her boyfriend. I said nothing - stopped the archiving and deleted everything except for my own photos. They deserve their privacy and do whatever on their devices without snooping - if we go away on vacation I now ask them if they want to share any pics they want so I can keep it. Apple is turning out to be big brother.

teekert 4y ago
I think you did the right thing. But still, I think it could also be used as moment for education. For the boyfriend: “You have 0 control over where the image ends up when you send it to someone, perhaps even before you send it.” For the Daughter: “You are in possession of nude material from a minor. This carries some risk, you should be aware of it.” But I get the struggle, I also turned of logging in my AdGuard home instance, at least for my wife’s phone. But it was also a lesson for her when I jokingly told here the website she was on right now… The ISP and Google probably know this too. And, I can find it in my Router without AdGuard, and that Router can be hacked. It’s also a good time for education imho. Modern tech is so interesting. When I can’t get a hold of my wife I sometimes find myself checking the hallway’s motion sensor, seeing it just registered movement, the unify network reports to Home Assistant that indeed her phone is connected right now. Ah, gas usage, bathroom lighting and moisture sensors indicate she’s taking a shower (boy it seems to be a long one, 0.4 m3 of gas!). I’ll just wait 10 min and if she doesn’t pick up I’ll flash some lights or let the Sonos speak: “Pick up your Phone”. Yeah it’s pretty creepy but sometimes I don’t even think about it… But writing it down like this I could write a “state” sensor for my wife that could, with high probability, tell me what she’s doing and log it.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  We had that talk about the Internet with my kids due to some incidents at school and that made the news but fortunately NOT (oops corrected) involving them - racist remarks on Facebook - oversharing of details - stalking - posting bikini photos on Insta - accepting friend requests from only people they know - privacy settings - cover your laptop camera - don't click links you receive - spam - the usual. Friends of ours came to me how to deal with nude photos taken by their underage daughter sent to her boyfriend - told them to contact the parents and go to his house immediately - watch him in the act of deleting the photos. Fortunately he was not stupid to share it with his mates. Also told them kids do stuff without thinking through the consequences and not to be too hard on them - think she only lost phone privilege's for a week. I do have a IP camera in the house but it is angled and to watch our parrot when he is on top his cage and alert us if he decides to take a walk.

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Gareth321 4y ago

I don't love it but at least it's not that disastrous on-device "CSAM" scanning they were planning to roll out with this. That must have been one of Apple's biggest blunders in history. Apple announcing they would scan our phones for government banned content. Pants on head crazy.

threeseed 4y ago
> Apple announcing they would scan our phones for government banned content Until you realise Apple has been scanning your iCloud photos for government banned content for years. And that the on device option was better for your privacy not worse.
- gambiting 4y ago
  >>And that the on device option was better for your privacy not worse. No it wasn't. Previously pictures weren't scanned directly on my phone, then they were about to be. That was a downgrade of privacy, not an improvement. The fact that it was only going to be applied to photos due to be uploaded to iCloud is irrelevant - you are still using my own device to scan my own photos, and if it fails some completely opaque check that I have no control over, you will report me to law enforcement(who will then do god knows what). Not to mention that during the analysis process my pictures will be shown directly to a human in a centre somewhere who will judge them if they are legal or not. Again, I'm really struggling to see how this is an improvement in privacy. >>Until you realise Apple has been scanning your iCloud photos for government banned content for years. Source? Apple has maintained for years that they don't scan pictures already uploaded to iCloud, since they are encrypted and Apple doesn't have access to them.
  - GeekyBear 4y ago
    >Previously pictures weren't scanned directly on my phone, then they were about to be. That was a downgrade of privacy, not an improvement. Absolutely not true. When you scan on the server, like Google does, that information is open to abuse by anyone who issues a warrant, and I wouldn't be willing to bet that the warrant is a hard requirement. >Google’s Nest Will Provide Data to Police Without a Warrant https://petapixel.com/2022/07/27/googles-nest-will-provide-data-to-police-without-a-warrant/ https://petapixel.com/2022/07/27/googles-nest-will-provide-d...

cft 4y ago

That means they have not given up on the whole direction of on-device image scanning, the idea of clandestinely reporting your device images [1], that they (temporarily) abandoned due to a backlash. There must be an internal censorship struggle within Apple, and it's unclear which group will win. I personally skipped their M1 laptops when the news of [1] came out. Was waiting for M2 14" pro after they abandoned it, but now will probably go with an XPS13 1. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/15/apple-nixes-csam-references-website/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/15/apple-nixes-csam-refere...

Sporktacular 4y ago
No, it doesn't not mean that. Only the images being sent, from a child's phone, with the optional feature turned on, are scanned and when approved for that message, blurred. There is nothing about clandestinely reporting your images to anyone. Just read the article.

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olliej 4y ago

So it’s an opt in part of parental controls - if parental controls are involved we’re already talking about devices that are under the control someone’s parents. The analysis is done on device, and no data is sent to Apple, and no data is decryptable by Apple (presumably this also applies to SMS but SMS is unencrypted and routed through carriers). If the device does decide that a message contains nudity it blurs the image and provides “age appropriate prompts” which sounds like suggestions to contact their parents.

unnouinceput 4y ago

So, a kid receives a message containing nudity. How does Apple knows that the viewer is a child and not an adult? Because the only logical answer I come up to this question is that Apple is using phone's camera to see who's using it at that very moment. Which raises the question of "isn't this an invasion of privacy from Apple?". Also, yeah, all the people working at Apple are all saints and they would never abuse this. /s

wonderbore 4y ago
Have you ever bought a smartphone? You have to register to use it, you must enter your date of birth. Unless your parents are technologically illiterate, they will set it up as a device part of a family. That’s how they know. This has its flaws, but that’s what we got now. > using phone's camera to see who's using it Most definitely not going to happen. Even if it did, it’s no worse than Face ID.
angulardragon03 4y ago
Please read the linked article before making baseless claims: > The communication safety feature [...] is available to child accounts signed in with their Apple ID and part of a Family Sharing group. This feature is off by default. In Family Sharing you can designate AppleIDs in your family as being child accounts. An AppleID is mandatory to use iMessage, so thats how Apple "knows".
Sporktacular 4y ago
"the only logical answer I come up to" says everything.

pdpi 4y ago

If they're going to do this at all, "It's your choice but make sure you feel safe" is probably the right tone to hit here. It's all carefully worded to remain non-judgmental while still saying "We've got your back if you don't feel comfortable". Also, I have to respect that it's an opt-in feature by the parents/guardians, but the feature still allows the kid to view whatever the image was without actually alerting the parents. In a way, that tradeoff is the best-case scenario for this sort of automated scanning — it allows parents to put safeguards in place while still giving kids their privacy and not blocking anything. Curious to see if that becomes leverage to normalise scanning in general.

AndrewDucker 4y ago

Very few people seem to have actually read the post. Apple aren't banning anything. They're detecting nudity, and asking you if you're sure. And that's only if you've turned this on! I can think of several women I know who would quite like to have had a warning about incoming nudity before it appeared. More information is better than less. I don't see a problem here at all.

kemayo 4y ago
Yeah, I'm actually surprised that there's not a way to turn this on for non-child accounts. I've definitely known people who're in the dating scene who'd like to have a choice before seeing a nude picture from someone who has their number. For that matter, I could see the appeal of just the blurring feature in general. Checking your texts in public might be a risky proposition even if the photo is totally wanted.
- lazerpants 4y ago
  The invisible ink screen effect (blurs the message/photo until you touch it) in iMessage is essential if you're in a long distance relationship or away from your partner and still trying to have some fun!

avidphantasm 4y ago

Why does my phone care that my preferred attire for writing iMessages is none?

ezfe 4y ago
It doesn't unless your 10 and your parents turned the feature on

st-keller 4y ago

Why is nudity such a big thing? Sorry, but I don‘t get it. Maybe i do not understand this, because i am german? My children (as they were little) got in contact with content that distrubed them a lot. The most troubling of them videogame- and movie-previews with violent and gruesome content, that got to them were the enviornment was somehow unconstraint. Sometime they could’nt sleep! Darn - i myself really hate that stuff i have to look at everyday - and i am 52! Maybe nudity is a problem - ok - do something against it! But the other stuff - we don’t care? Really?

kemayo 4y ago
This feature isn't really aimed at nudity-in-general, but rather at specifically sexual targeting of minors. The scenario it's most totally thinking of is "a creepy older person tries to trade naked picture of themselves with your 8 year old". Though also "before you share this picture of yourself with your boy/girlfriend, think for a second first". Can't speak for Germany, but in the US there's been a lot of furor around school-aged people having some pretty severe troubles after nude photos they shared with a partner got shared more widely -- suicides, etc. We could certainly argue that the fact they're facing trouble because of such things is itself a symptom of a problem in American society, but a first-level solution of warning people before they get into the situation seems like something Apple can do, whereas broad cultural changes are outside their power.

iammjm 4y ago

USA ad 2022 is still so puritan it blows my mind. Nipples seem to frighten people more than semi automatic guns

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_odey 4y ago

M-x story-mode. When you are together with a significant other, sometimes you video call them, and sometimes they're in the bathroom, or shower, when they answer (what are they supposed to do, not answer a call from their beloved?). And during these calls they tease eachother, shift the camera in a non conventional angle, private parts exposed. Or they send naughty pictures to eachother, starting small scale, maybe escalating a bit. All of this is normal, natural, playfully, I would even say: innocent fun. Nobody plans for it, maybe not even asking each other to do it, it naturally evolves with the relationship, partners doing it out of their own free will. Adults do it, teenagers do it. Again, it's normal! Whenever this happes through a system that is not fully E2E encrypted, those pictures/videos get stored, analysed, accessed by employees, or even 3rd party contractors that label them for text to speech ML purposes. My advice, use Signal (since it's always e2e encrypted) to avoid the creepy 3rd party eyes, and carry on with your life. As for the presented "nudity filter" and it's functionality... you can't stop a determined teenager from doing what they aim to do. Assume they're smarter and more tech savy than you are, and this will just be a barrier they will find a way to overcome. Better to keep them safe (give them Signal e2e encrypted) rather than giving them prohibition (this never worked, and it most likely never will).

theshrike79 4y ago
Unless your significant other is a literal child and marked as such on their iCloud account, this'll never affect you in any way. No data is sent to anyone anywhere. > Messages now includes tools that warn children and provide helpful resources if they receive or attempt to send photos that may contain nudity. > Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo appears to contain nudity. The feature is designed so that Apple doesn’t get access to the photos.
- _odey 4y ago
  This obviously does not affect me but that was not the purpose of my post. What my message is: if you have something that is normal for adults and you try to forbid it to teenagers, you will lose. They will have their revenge on you, and they will find a way to circumvent it. For example, if I was still a teenager and had to deal with this, first thing I would do: search and download a collection of thousands of "Harambee nipples" pictures that trigger this filter, send them back and forward between me and my mates non stop to annoy the crap out of my parents and generate noise. Second, I would try to add a "sticker" into one of the pictures until I find a shape, size, and position that will bypass the filter, without hiding the nudity. When such a discovery is made that person will be a hero among teens and it will spread like wildfire. I don't believe this feature will have the intended effect and I estimate it will take less than 2 hours before it's "broken". My conclusion is that if you want to keep them safe, you have to think vastly outside the "inquisition" box and try education, not prohibition.

kevincox 4y ago

It would be interesting if you could opt into this for all conversations. I know people who get a high enough amount of unsolicited dick pics that they would consider turning it on. Of course the controls and messaging would probably need to be different (for example add "Always allow from this sender" and less emotional support)

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sholladay 4y ago

This feature appears to be off by default, which is good. Helicopter parents will undoubtedly turn it on, but without this feature, perhaps those parents wouldn’t even let the child use the device.

Sporktacular 4y ago

The quality of some of the comments here are really poor. If you're an adult, one is forcing this feature on you. No one is scanning your photos against known CP. No one is receiving or looking at your photos, or flagging you as a freedom-fighting, enemy of the state aggitator. This isn't their Anti-CSAM rollout. It comes with no cost to you and may help warn some kids before making a mistake. There's no room for subtlety in some discussions, downvote to prove it.

n8cpdx 4y ago
As an adult I want this feature. I’ve received dick pics unsolicited. Sometimes I want to see, sometimes I don’t. I’d like blurring by default for those moments when I’m screen sharing or looking at my phone in public. Kids receiving unsolicited pornographic content is sexual harassment and nobody regardless of age should be subjected to that. Giving people tools to opt in seems great to me. But that would be censorship so Apple=bad.
Zamiel_Snawley 4y ago
I completely agree. Sending or receiving is explicit images is dangerous for children. "Think of the children" is often just a cover for ulterior motives, but it is sometimes an adequate or even excellent reason to do something. This feature from Apple is great. It seems to respect privacy, is fully controlled by the user or their parent, and will increase safety for those who choose to use it. A common tactic used by child predators is to catfish a child, get the child to send explicit images of themselves, and then blackmail them with those images into doing much worse things. I think this feature will make it less likely for this to happen, and has practically zero downside.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
> There's no room for subtlety in some discussions, downvote to prove it. It would be more satisfying to downvote for ignoring site guidelines. > Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies, generic tangents, and internet tropes. > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

danbruc 4y ago

Why always only nudity? Why not everything violence, for example weapons, dead people, whatever? Children should eventually have good sex when they grow up but they should not kill people. Still they get exposed to a lot of violence and comparatively little healthy sexuality. Why can they drop anvils onto each other's heads in cartoons but not fuck each other?

corrral 4y ago
Worst-case for both as far as the effect of seeing the image(s) per se is very similar, which is that maybe you have an image in your head you wish you could forget. OK, not ideal, but also not the end of the world, and sure, the two are similar in that regard. The difference is that images of violence aren't as strongly associated with things like sharing of personal images that haunt a person later, with really disgusting and effective forms of bullying, or with efforts to get kids to do something harmful IRL. Could they be? Can I concoct such a scenario? Sure, but these other things are in-fact happening a lot (ask any teacher or other person who works with kids ages ~12 and up) That's why specifically when it comes to Internet messaging services and kids, nudes are a bigger problem than images of violence. I agree with you more broadly, but the context is important here, and is why in this narrow case the two things are meaningfully different, and nudity is the bigger problem.

peheje 4y ago

Sorry for off topic but I’m concerned in reading these discussions by the generalization of a Europe v. America. Countries in Europe are so different. I’m guessing the same can be said of the countries in the Americas, as well as states and provinces even.

izhak 4y ago

So, this article is not about using Messages in a way that could get you safe through Russian filtration camps (in case you haven't manage to evacuate before your city was occupied) where you phone is thoroughly examined and both having some suspicious messages and not having them at all could get you into trouble (meaning torture/death). It's about nude photos.

Sporktacular 4y ago

There is another angle to consider here as well. Before the whole Anti-CSAM debacle, one legitimate concern was that iPhones are more commonly used for CSAM than other platforms and there was a perception that Apple wasn't doing enough about it. Their stance on privacy was opening them up to attacks by the 'think of the children' types, weakening both its brand and political capacity to withstand pressure to weaken encryption, create backdoors etc. This feature is an impressive counter volley in that space. It doesn't compromise security or privacy of normal users, it's optional and should be reasonably effective. But in creating this, Apple insulates itself from the suggestion it is doing nothing to help protect children. So this feature could actually give Apple a face saving way to discard the creepy Anti-CSAM idea altogether and win it enough clout to keep fighting government pressure generally. It's a net win for privacy. We need to pick our battles and not reflexively go after Apple with 'this is a dry run for on device scanning/police state' type baseless accusations.