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Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

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Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#171

Post by res0nat0r »

shuckles wrote: post #120
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > The automated system would proactively alert a team of human reviewers if it believes illegal imagery is detected, who would then contact law enforcement if the material can be verified. The scheme will initially roll out only in the US. This is dystopian and needs to be opposed, not applauded.

This is how every single cloud service has worked for a decade. You’ll need to elaborate on how, exactly, you believe it’s dystopian. The article is clearly wrong, because Apple cannot know which jurisdiction to forward a report to. That is NCMEC’s responsibility.

AWS doesn't do any automatic fingerprinting of files being uploaded to S3 and never has. The only time I've heard of anything like this was briefly when Microsoft was doing it, and I don't know if that was shutdown long ago due to outrage or not.

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#172

Post by Retric »

cronix wrote: post #124
partiallypro wrote: post #14

I really don't see how this is going to end well, there could be perfectly innocent photos on someone's phone of their own children doing perfectly normal things that kids do. Like a kid running butt naked around the house, or a photo of something like a rash that is sent to a nurse friend for advice on what it is etc. I'm all for protecting children from being abused, but how are they going to filter what is normal…

Don't worry, AI is very good at these things and never makes mistakes. It is so advanced it even understands nuance and complex communication mechanisms like sarcasm in text, even if it's only a single sentence to contrast! It will be able to know exactly the context of each image and it will affect only the sickos. We're also working on watching your face through the camera to see your true expression when viewing t…

There is zero AI classification involved, it’s a lookup vs hashes of known child porn images. You would need a hash collision, misidentified photo in the dataset, or legitimate use case to end up with a false positive.

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#173

Post by babyshake »

mm983 wrote: post #161
cronix wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, AI is very good at these things and never makes mistakes. It is so advanced it even understands nuance and complex communication mechanisms like sarcasm in text, even if it's only a single sentence to contrast! It will be able to know exactly the context of each image and it will affect only the sickos. We're also working on watching your face through the camera to see your true expression when viewing t…

This is painful to read with the arrogant undertone while you don't actually know how CSAM scanning works. It's fuzzy hash, not ""AI"", based. Cloudflare uses it too, and last time i checked the web is still functional. https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/36004610611... How about we turn the tables and have the complainers suggest a solution. Because every single time an approach to targeted child porn t…

So this means it is checking if you are sharing known CP images? That does seem to be much less invasive and problematic as there is likely no good reason to be sharing these images.

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#174

Post by jeffdn »

cm2187 wrote: post #153
partiallypro wrote: post #14

I really don't see how this is going to end well, there could be perfectly innocent photos on someone's phone of their own children doing perfectly normal things that kids do. Like a kid running butt naked around the house, or a photo of something like a rash that is sent to a nurse friend for advice on what it is etc. I'm all for protecting children from being abused, but how are they going to filter what is normal…

What I don't understand is how is it even constitutional in the US. Isn't it a warrant-less search? It's not like scanning content on a cloud. The cloud owns the device on which you store your data. But you own your mobile.

The Constitution applies only to the government. A user's relationship with Apple is not in any way governed by the Constitution, just like how Twitter banning people who violate the terms of service is not a violation of the first amendment to the Constitution.

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#175

Post by em500 »

mrkramer wrote: post #40

Imagine if Microsoft does this with Windows, lots of people would get arrested rightly so. But like some people say this can be dangerous because evidence can be planted on your device. I remember reading articles how through torrent clients files could be planted but I never actually saw it in the wild.

No need to imagine, it's already done in OneDrive which comes with Windows 10 by default: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoDNA

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#176

Post by cm2187 »

shuckles wrote: post #163
cm2187 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I don't understand is how is it even constitutional in the US. Isn't it a warrant-less search? It's not like scanning content on a cloud. The cloud owns the device on which you store your data. But you own your mobile.

The constitution constrains what the Federal government can do, not what private companies can do.

Not that I am qualified to hold a legal debate, but as far as I know, if Apple implements this under the pressure from the state, and that it reports what it findings to the state, it is effectively an agent of the state and it should apply.

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#177

Post by judge2020 »

Macha wrote: post #86
JKCalhoun wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't someone that motivated come up with a dozen other ways to frame someone? This seems a little alarmist to me.

They could come up with a dozen other ways apart from swatting too, but swatting still happens and we generally agree that it's a problem where actions should be taken. Political debates over whether that means the police should act in a less militarised fashion, or harsher sentences for culprits are ongoing, but cutting down on avenues for life ruining abuse is generally supported. So why would we open up new ones?

SWATing is actually the absolute cheapest option - if you want to ruin someone's week from across the nation (or across the ocean), your best bet is a burner phone calling the person's local 911 with a threat that warrants a SWAT team response (I am of course not advocating for anyone to do this, just explaining the process malicious actors currently use to trigger these). Outside of that, you'd need to pay a lot of money for something like a PI or obfuscated malware to steal PII or credentials from the victim.

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#178

Post by Spooky23 »

1-6 wrote: post #144
jtbayly wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's silly. You're in public. Your photo (and your kids') are being taken all the time.

It's not the case when you're inside Costco. I'd also argue that it's not open to the public because you're required to have a membership to go in.

The point is, Costco is taking many pictures of you, including possibly correlating with events or actions.

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#179

Post by __blockcipher__ »

shuckles wrote: post #140
__blockcipher__ wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will be scanning the photos on your phone and cross-referencing them against photoDNA for a government database. You don't see how that's not a huge potential for abuse right there? The government decides the images. And you best believe they're not going to release the images publicly to verify what's in the db, for [many] obvious reasons. This is a horrible idea, a massive regression in Apple (and therefore t…

The article says Apple will have your phone generate safety vouchers for images you upload into iCloud, and when enough of those vouchers are for photos that match a government-supplied blacklist, they will access the photos you’ve given them. How is this worse than what Google Photos and Facebook already do?

You think Facebook and Google Photos should be the goal for privacy standards? You and I are practically in different universes then, philosophically.

You're also being naive by swallowing the "it's only iCloud" justification. There is a clear intent to progress to scanning all local photos. After all, if photos must be match those of a government child abuse database, and any matches trigger manual review, what would an innocent person possibly have to hide? By that logic it'd be absurd to not scan just because it's only locally. After all, you're only catching bad guys! This is about protecting the children after all! /s

I oppose government-supplied blacklists. Doubly so when we can't even see what's in the database, but I would oppose them either way.

Re: Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery

#180

Post by sigzero »

cronix wrote: post #124
partiallypro wrote: post #14

I really don't see how this is going to end well, there could be perfectly innocent photos on someone's phone of their own children doing perfectly normal things that kids do. Like a kid running butt naked around the house, or a photo of something like a rash that is sent to a nurse friend for advice on what it is etc. I'm all for protecting children from being abused, but how are they going to filter what is normal…

Don't worry, AI is very good at these things and never makes mistakes. It is so advanced it even understands nuance and complex communication mechanisms like sarcasm in text, even if it's only a single sentence to contrast! It will be able to know exactly the context of each image and it will affect only the sickos. We're also working on watching your face through the camera to see your true expression when viewing t…

I think this is sarcasm given the last bit.
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