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>Why is it worse to do on device (where it’s private) instead of on Google’s server (where you have to give them a plaintext copy of the photo)? Suppose you go

>Why is it worse to do on device (where it’s private) instead of on Google’s server (where you have to give them a plaintext copy of the photo)? Suppose you go to a public restroom and someone has installed a camera in there to perv on the people using it. That would be an invasion of your privacy, right? Now suppose someone installed a camera in your bathroom at your house. Would you say that's an equivalent invasion of your privacy?

MBCook 4y ago
So you’re against all scanning?
- deadbeeves 4y ago
  No, the analogy isn't perfect. It was just intended to show how both types of scanning are different. If someone agrees that installing a secret camera in a private bathroom is worse than in a public one, they should also agree that scanning files in someone's personal device is worse than scanning files in one's own server. I think once you give someone else your unencrypted data, anything that happens to it afterwards is fair game. I assume at some point a human will snoop around my files.
JohnBooty 4y ago
Your analogy is way off base. First: this was all, quite literally, about Apple wanting to NOT have access to your unencrypted photos. In Apple's proposed plan, we would only be talking about hashes of pictures, and the comparison would be done by your device. A fitting analogy would be if the "public restroom camera" snapped a Polaroid of you and asked you to compare it to a binder of known child porn, except somehow did this in a way that did not expose you to child porn and would not inconvenience you in any way and was guaranteed not to transmit the Polaroid somewhere else, and you had opted in to the whole process and there was another bathroom right next to it that required no such participation. It's important to understand that Apple's on-device scanning plan was in the service of allowing E2E encryption. The idea was to create a path by which they could comply with various current and upcoming CSAM legislation while still maintaining an E2E encryption flow.
- cma 4y ago
  If they were going to enable e2e wouldnt that have to mean no manual review before reporting people to authorities?
- deadbeeves 4y ago
  You're taking the analogy too literally. I was merely responding to the question posed by MBCook in general, not in this particular case. Performing an operation in the user's device is inherently more intrusive than performing the exact same operation in the server. Incidentally, this scanning using hashes is indistinguishable from malware. Someone other than the user is instructing the device to perform operations that under no circumstances will benefit the user. Would this be tolerated if the list of hashes included copyrighted files, or prohibited books? I'm constantly disappointed by how effective "won't somebody please think of the children" is.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    > Performing an operation in the user's device is inherently more intrusive than performing the exact same operation in the server. Why? That’s the part I don’t get. People state that like it’s obvious on its face and it’s not to me. If you perform an identical operation on a server, why is it better than performing the same operation on my device? The result is identical. The inputs are identical.
    - deadbeeves 4y ago
      Well, because that's what "intrusive" means. Your property is being intruded into in order to use it for the benefit of someone other than you. Your property is yours. It's in your possession because you paid for it. It should only do something because you tell it to or because it will help it to better respond to your commands later. It should never act against your interests. You would not buy a microphone that eavesdropped on you, right? It should be equally unacceptable that your computers read your files, perform some computation on them, and send the results to some remote location without your intervention. On the other hand, when you transfer your data to someone else's computer, you're relinquishing some control over it. Just like how your computer should serve you, that computer will serve its operator, and that operator's interests may be adversarial to you.

MBCook 4y ago

So you’re against all scanning?

deadbeeves 4y ago
No, the analogy isn't perfect. It was just intended to show how both types of scanning are different. If someone agrees that installing a secret camera in a private bathroom is worse than in a public one, they should also agree that scanning files in someone's personal device is worse than scanning files in one's own server. I think once you give someone else your unencrypted data, anything that happens to it afterwards is fair game. I assume at some point a human will snoop around my files.

JohnBooty 4y ago

Your analogy is way off base. First: this was all, quite literally, about Apple wanting to NOT have access to your unencrypted photos. In Apple's proposed plan, we would only be talking about hashes of pictures, and the comparison would be done by your device. A fitting analogy would be if the "public restroom camera" snapped a Polaroid of you and asked you to compare it to a binder of known child porn, except somehow did this in a way that did not expose you to child porn and would not inconvenience you in any way and was guaranteed not to transmit the Polaroid somewhere else, and you had opted in to the whole process and there was another bathroom right next to it that required no such participation. It's important to understand that Apple's on-device scanning plan was in the service of allowing E2E encryption. The idea was to create a path by which they could comply with various current and upcoming CSAM legislation while still maintaining an E2E encryption flow.

cma 4y ago
If they were going to enable e2e wouldnt that have to mean no manual review before reporting people to authorities?
deadbeeves 4y ago
You're taking the analogy too literally. I was merely responding to the question posed by MBCook in general, not in this particular case. Performing an operation in the user's device is inherently more intrusive than performing the exact same operation in the server. Incidentally, this scanning using hashes is indistinguishable from malware. Someone other than the user is instructing the device to perform operations that under no circumstances will benefit the user. Would this be tolerated if the list of hashes included copyrighted files, or prohibited books? I'm constantly disappointed by how effective "won't somebody please think of the children" is.
- MBCook 4y ago
  > Performing an operation in the user's device is inherently more intrusive than performing the exact same operation in the server. Why? That’s the part I don’t get. People state that like it’s obvious on its face and it’s not to me. If you perform an identical operation on a server, why is it better than performing the same operation on my device? The result is identical. The inputs are identical.
  - deadbeeves 4y ago
    Well, because that's what "intrusive" means. Your property is being intruded into in order to use it for the benefit of someone other than you. Your property is yours. It's in your possession because you paid for it. It should only do something because you tell it to or because it will help it to better respond to your commands later. It should never act against your interests. You would not buy a microphone that eavesdropped on you, right? It should be equally unacceptable that your computers read your files, perform some computation on them, and send the results to some remote location without your intervention. On the other hand, when you transfer your data to someone else's computer, you're relinquishing some control over it. Just like how your computer should serve you, that computer will serve its operator, and that operator's interests may be adversarial to you.