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Good riddance to a system that would have provided precedent for client-side scanning for arbitrary other things, as well as likely false positives. > I wanted

Good riddance to a system that would have provided precedent for client-side scanning for arbitrary other things, as well as likely false positives. > I wanted there to be a reasonable debate on it I'm reminded of a recent hit-piece about Chat Control, in which one of the proponent politicians was quoted as complaining about not having a debate. They didn't actually want a debate, they wanted to not get backlash. They would never have changed their minds, so there's no grounds for a debate. We need to just keep making it clear the answer is "no", and hopefully strengthen that to "no, and perhaps the massive smoking crater that used to be your political career will serve as a warning to the next person who tries".

JimDabell 1y ago
I don’t think you can accurately describe it as client-side scanning and false positives were not likely. Depending upon how you view it, false positives were either extremely unlikely, or 100% guaranteed for practically everybody. And if you think the latter part is a problem, please read up on it! > I'm reminded of a recent hit-piece about Chat Control, in which one of the proponent politicians was quoted as complaining about not having a debate. They didn't actually want a debate, they wanted to not get backlash. They would never have changed their minds, so there's no grounds for a debate. Right, well I wanted a debate. And Apple changed their minds. So how is it reminding you of that? Neither of those things apply here.
- mixmastamyk 1y ago
  Forgot about the concept of bugs have we? How about making Apple vulnerable to demands from every government where they do business? No thanks. I'll take a hammer to any device in my vicinity that implements police scanning.
  - JimDabell 1y ago
    > Forgot about the concept of bugs have we? No, but I have a hard time imagining a bug that would meaningfully compromise this kind of system. Can you give an example? > How about making Apple vulnerable to demands from every government where they do business? They already are. So are Google, Meta, Microsoft, and all the other giants we all use. And all those other companies are already scanning your stuff. Meta made two million reports in 2024Q4 alone.
    - mixmastamyk 1y ago
      Imagine harder. Apple has had several high profile security bugs in the last few years, and their OS is decried here as a buggy mess every release. QA teams went out of fashion. The onus is on you to prove perfection before ruining lives on hardware they paid for. 100x worse on the vulnerability front, as the tech could be bent to any whim. Importantly, none of what you described is client-side scanning. Even I consider abiding rules on others’ property fair.
btown 1y ago
This. No matter how cool the engineering might have been, from the perspective of what surveillance policies it would have (and very possibly did) inspire/set precedent for… Apple was very much creating the Torment Nexus from “Don’t Create the Torment Nexus.”
- JimDabell 1y ago
  > from the perspective of what surveillance policies it would have (and very possibly did) inspire/set precedent for… I can’t think of a single thing that’s come along since that is even remotely similar. What are you thinking of? I think it’s actually a horrible system to implement if you want to spy on people. That’s the point of it! If you wanted to spy on people, there are already loads of systems that exist which don’t intentionally make it difficult to do so. Why would you not use one of those models instead? Why would you take inspiration from this one in particular?
  - JoshTriplett 1y ago
    > I can’t think of a single thing that’s come along since that is even remotely similar. What are you thinking of? Chat Control, and other proposals that advocate backdooring individual client systems. Clients should serve the user.
    - JimDabell 1y ago
      > Chat Control, and other proposals that advocate backdooring individual client systems. Chat Control is older than Apple’s CSAM scanning and is very different from it. > Clients should serve the user. Apple’s system only scanned things that were uploaded to iCloud. You missed the most important part of my comment: > I think it’s actually a horrible system to implement if you want to spy on people. That’s the point of it! If you wanted to spy on people, there are already loads of systems that exist which don’t intentionally make it difficult to do so. Why would you not use one of those models instead? Why would you take inspiration from this one in particular?
  - btown 1y ago

JimDabell 1y ago

I don’t think you can accurately describe it as client-side scanning and false positives were not likely. Depending upon how you view it, false positives were either extremely unlikely, or 100% guaranteed for practically everybody. And if you think the latter part is a problem, please read up on it! > I'm reminded of a recent hit-piece about Chat Control, in which one of the proponent politicians was quoted as complaining about not having a debate. They didn't actually want a debate, they wanted to not get backlash. They would never have changed their minds, so there's no grounds for a debate. Right, well I wanted a debate. And Apple changed their minds. So how is it reminding you of that? Neither of those things apply here.

mixmastamyk 1y ago
Forgot about the concept of bugs have we? How about making Apple vulnerable to demands from every government where they do business? No thanks. I'll take a hammer to any device in my vicinity that implements police scanning.
- JimDabell 1y ago
  > Forgot about the concept of bugs have we? No, but I have a hard time imagining a bug that would meaningfully compromise this kind of system. Can you give an example? > How about making Apple vulnerable to demands from every government where they do business? They already are. So are Google, Meta, Microsoft, and all the other giants we all use. And all those other companies are already scanning your stuff. Meta made two million reports in 2024Q4 alone.
  - mixmastamyk 1y ago
    Imagine harder. Apple has had several high profile security bugs in the last few years, and their OS is decried here as a buggy mess every release. QA teams went out of fashion. The onus is on you to prove perfection before ruining lives on hardware they paid for. 100x worse on the vulnerability front, as the tech could be bent to any whim. Importantly, none of what you described is client-side scanning. Even I consider abiding rules on others’ property fair.

btown 1y ago

This. No matter how cool the engineering might have been, from the perspective of what surveillance policies it would have (and very possibly did) inspire/set precedent for… Apple was very much creating the Torment Nexus from “Don’t Create the Torment Nexus.”

JimDabell 1y ago
> from the perspective of what surveillance policies it would have (and very possibly did) inspire/set precedent for… I can’t think of a single thing that’s come along since that is even remotely similar. What are you thinking of? I think it’s actually a horrible system to implement if you want to spy on people. That’s the point of it! If you wanted to spy on people, there are already loads of systems that exist which don’t intentionally make it difficult to do so. Why would you not use one of those models instead? Why would you take inspiration from this one in particular?
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  > I can’t think of a single thing that’s come along since that is even remotely similar. What are you thinking of? Chat Control, and other proposals that advocate backdooring individual client systems. Clients should serve the user.
  - JimDabell 1y ago
    > Chat Control, and other proposals that advocate backdooring individual client systems. Chat Control is older than Apple’s CSAM scanning and is very different from it. > Clients should serve the user. Apple’s system only scanned things that were uploaded to iCloud. You missed the most important part of my comment: > I think it’s actually a horrible system to implement if you want to spy on people. That’s the point of it! If you wanted to spy on people, there are already loads of systems that exist which don’t intentionally make it difficult to do so. Why would you not use one of those models instead? Why would you take inspiration from this one in particular?
- btown 1y ago