Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#631

Post by amelius » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #504

amelius wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no doubt that Apple makes good hardware. But you can find decent hardware elsewhere, even at lower cost and with better configurability. Everyone betting on the same horse is usually a bad strategy. By the way, here's what Linus Torvalds (the creator of Linux) thinks about using the M1: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linus-torvalds-would-like-to-u...

> But you can find decent hardware elsewhere, even at lower cost and with better configurability. The problem is, you pay the same price for a Thinkpad/Elitebook and you get ridiculous gotchas like missing wireless antennas (at most you can find 2x2, if you're lucky). Or the configuration you like doesn't come to your country, or the vendor doesn't allow custom configuration for your country unless you buy 10+, etc.…

Maybe so. Anyway, talking about Apple's hardware specs completely misses the point that started this entire subthread.

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#632

Post by kop316 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #528

relax88 wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could run Mobian or similar on a phone from Purism/Pine/etc. Problem is you end up with a vastly inferior hardware device that costs nearly as much as an iPhone. I’m still waiting for my Librem 5 preorder. Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it.

This is clearly a good thing to do and supporting those projects is great. So far though, they do nothing to solve the problems we are talking about. The software is not anywhere near audited, and even if it were, you are still interacting with people and services who are using unaudited software.

> The software is not anywhere near audited

Many of the projects leverage a well known OS as their base (e.g. pmOS uses Alpine Linux, Mobian uses Debian), and actively ensure that anything that can be upstreamed is upstreamed. So it's not like you're downloading some random ROM off of XDA.

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#633

Post by orangegreen » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #47

I'm really conflicted about this. For context, I deeply hate the abuse of children and I've worked on a contract before that landed 12 human traffickers in custody that were smuggling sex slaves across boarders. I didn't need to know details about the victims in question, but it's understood that they're often teenagers or children. So my initial reaction when reading this Twitter thread was "let's get these bastards…

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#634

Post by xvilka » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:49 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #569

Bjartr wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The warning: "Don't buy Apple products, their locked down hardware and walled garden is going to be trouble" People: Ignore warning, buy iPhone You: "Don't buy Apple products" isn't an action.

The alternative is? Google phone? This is not an alternative if you care about privacy. The allegory presented sounds insane (growing your own food) but honestly if you're not rolling your own flashed ROM on a 'droid then your privacy is dead already; I understand throwing all your eggs in one basket is a terrible idea but Apples walled garden and heavy sandboxing was at least somewhat protective.

Alternative is crowdfunding to create something like Pinephone, etc.

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#635

Post by Xamayon » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

Isn't there the potential for abuse of this to track things like who you talk to in private? Even if the images on your phone do not contain CSAM, the hashes of all your images would need to be shared with Apple, the NCMEC, and who knows what other quasi-gov't agencies. All it would take to build massive graphs of who talks to who, etc is to match up those hashes. It doesn't matter if they have no idea what image the hashes correspond to... If they then take the simple step of generating hashes for common images found online, they could even track what sites you browse and such. Ignoring the potential for false positives and other negative side effects of the main goal, this is a horrific breach of privacy. If you honestly think the gov't won't abuse any and all data they collect this way, I don't know what to say...

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#636

Post by kop316 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #628

kop316 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Problem is you end up with a vastly inferior hardware device that costs nearly as much as an iPhone. The Pinephone is $150/$200. > Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it. I have one, and I throughly enjoy it! One of the neatest things about it, and I still have to wrap my head around it, is that it can do anything you can do on a desktop. SSH? No problem? Dev environment? "apt…

> One of the neatest things about it, and I still have to wrap my head around it, is that it can do anything you can do on a desktop. SSH? No problem? Dev environment? "apt install build-essentials". Want to install XFCE? Knock yourself out! You can do all these things with a $10 raspberry pi-w. It’s not obvious why it helps with having security and privacy.

Respectfully, I think you missed the point of my reply.

The person asked: "Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it."

...so I responded about what I enjoy about using a "Linux Phone". A "$10 raspberry pi-w" is not a Linux Phone.

The question didn't address "security and privacy", so I didn't add it. Though, since you brought it up, I will answer how the Pinephone "helps with having security and privacy".

- I have hardware (cut physical power) switches to kill the Microphone, cameras (independent for front and back), and Wifi/Bluetooth.

- I am running a full GNU/Linux distro that I have a lot more confidence in their want to protect users security/privacy.

- I can run software of my choosing on it (the Pinephone actually defaults to booting on an SD card! so it encourages you to experiement with OSes).

- There is serious effort to run the mainline Linux kernel on it, so it will not be artifically obsolete in 3-5 years (or be sutck on running some ancient swiss cheese kernel in 5 years like my old Pixel/Nexus devices).

- I don't have to install/link to some opaque binaries to even boot the system.

I'm sure I can think of more, but that's all I have for now.

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#637

Post by _23sd » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #625

_23sd wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple thought this kind of dragnet was a losing political fight that tells me they've become too weak to stand up to unreasonable government demands. Where is the company that won the public opinion battle over unlocking a mass shooter's phone?

This isn’t a government demand . This is something the public cares deeply about, and Apple is solving it their own way. Public opinion is not in favor of giving safe harbor to pedophiles and child pornographers, and I can’t see why anyone would even want Apple to fight that battle.

Not sure where you got that information. I haven't seen any official announcements, so I assumed based on it being US-only and rolled out with no fanfare (except critical press stories citing unnamed sources) that it's something the FBI asked for.

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#638

Post by zepto » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

kop316 wrote: post #636

zepto wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One of the neatest things about it, and I still have to wrap my head around it, is that it can do anything you can do on a desktop. SSH? No problem? Dev environment? "apt install build-essentials". Want to install XFCE? Knock yourself out! You can do all these things with a $10 raspberry pi-w. It’s not obvious why it helps with having security and privacy.

Respectfully, I think you missed the point of my reply. The person asked: "Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it." ...so I responded about what I enjoy about using a "Linux Phone". A "$10 raspberry pi-w" is not a Linux Phone. The question didn't address "security and privacy", so I didn't add it. Though, since you brought it up, I will answer how the Pinephone "helps with having…

Fair enough - I fully agree it would be enjoyable for a Linux enthusiast. I have had one on my shopping list for some time, but I want to use it as a daily driver and since most people say it isn’t ready for that, slightly lower level projects keep winning out.

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#639

Post by lijogdfljk » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #592

lijogdfljk wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, Apple's incentive seems to be hardware from the outside more than Software, imo. They tend to sell the hardware by the software for a lot of people, but given that they're so concerned with keeping their software on their hardware i suspect they don't have much reason to push their software over your software. What would concern me is if we see a big revenue stream from their software. Then i'd question them no…

Are you kidding? After getting a taste of the revenue-potential of software in the App Store, it is inevitable that Apple wants more of it. In fact, I predict that Apple will at one point start selling software as a subscription, like SaaS. Other OSes don't fit in that model.

I'm not. Because for years Apple didn't want it's OS anywhere but on it's hardware.

The day apple wants it's OS anywhere it can get it, because it brings in money independent of just it's hardware is the day i actually believe Apple cares about the software revenue.

Right now Apple's software is hardware locked. Google by comparison cares much more about the software side than Apple, imo.

Re: Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow

#640

Post by zepto » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

_23sd wrote: post #637

zepto wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t a government demand . This is something the public cares deeply about, and Apple is solving it their own way. Public opinion is not in favor of giving safe harbor to pedophiles and child pornographers, and I can’t see why anyone would even want Apple to fight that battle.

Not sure where you got that information. I haven't seen any official announcements, so I assumed based on it being US-only and rolled out with no fanfare (except critical press stories citing unnamed sources) that it's something the FBI asked for.

Not sure where you got that - seems like you’ve just made up an explanation that it’s an FBI demand out of whole cloth.

What we do know is that it is a proprietary solution using a proprietary hash which only applies to Apple products and that Apple has always presented themselves as a family friendly company that doesn’t support criminal use cases.

Everything points to this being something Apple thinks needs to be solved before the public asks why they haven’t.

If it was a government demand, we’d presumably see Google responding to it too.

You still haven’t explained why not working to deter pedophiles and child pornographers, is an important battle for them to fight.

They might think it’s a problem they want to solve on their own terms, and that would seem to be what they have done here.

Not solving a problem people care about just because the government also cares about it seems illogical. I think a lot of people like the idea of corporations taking responsibility for the social problems they cause without needing to be forced to do so by the government.