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The difference is there is no not choosing to use client-side scanning. I could choose not to use apple cloud services for photos and therefore not participate
by FloatArtifact 3y ago
The difference is there is no not choosing to use client-side scanning. I could choose not to use apple cloud services for photos and therefore not participate in server side scanning. Essentially, client-side scanning assumes everybody's guilty until proven innocent. It's a slippery slope for scanning local content. Today the admirable goal of eliminating child pornography and maybe tomorrow FBI most wanted list, then pretty much anybody in the criminal system. Not to mention the political implications.
You see this as a simple trusting apple because they have complete control over the OS/Hardware. I see this as a culture shift that goes beyond trusting any particular company that fundamentally erodes privacy.
- FabHK 3y agoApple's plan was to scan only those photos going into iCloud on the client, so that they can send them to the server e2e encrypted. That is strictly better for privacy than scanning them in the cloud, as other providers do. Of course, they could lie and scan everything, but as others pointed out, they could do that already anyway.
- cassonmars 3y agoThey _do_ do that anyway for iCloud. The E2EE support was inherently better, as it significantly reduced the decrypted content exposure to Apple. The uproar over the feature and Apple’s relenting on the implementation resulted in no E2EE as the default. Allegedly advanced data protection does do E2EE for iCloud Photos though. I can understand the good intentions playing out poorly and being ripe for abuse.
- shuckles 3y agoApple confirmed they down scan iCloud for unwanted content, and it's pretty obvious doing that would be a huge privacy risk, and it's very debatable whether that actual risk is worse than the theoretical risk of scope creep in on-device assisted scanning.