Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child abuse imagery • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

analyte123 wrote: post #162

Things that would reduce child sexual abuse more than scanning everyone's phones on a daily basis: - Encourage marriage and remove benefits penalties for two-parent households, as children are substantially more likely to be abused when their biological father is not in the household - Fund undercover police work and informants, which is how most large busts already happen now. Ideally highly independent from existin…

Enforce obscenity laws against incest and other extreme forms of pornography

How would you go about enforcing this, and how does that differ from existing proposals about child porn?

Institute the death penalty for child sexual abuse and make sure it is performed swiftly and publicly

All the worries about people being framed or wrongly convicted apply equally well to that proposal.

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

#232

Post by skinkestek » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

trasz wrote: post #203

marderfarker2 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will initially roll out only in the US. Ok so they’re planning to eventually roll out this spyware worldwide. I do not know how Americans can think China is bad in this while allowing this to happen.

Never ceases to amaze how people believe that China is somehow more oppressive than the the country with world highest incarceration rate.

You forget that death sentences are carried out much more swiftly in China.

Also, while there's a lot to be said about court systems, public defenders etc in US I wouldn't compare the two.

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

#233

Post by midev » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #223

mm983 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you don't appear to know how this works. Look up fuzzy hash, i even mentioned it in the comment.

I have a hard time believing that this algorithm will be able to resist simple image manipulations while still being sensitive enough to avoid false positives.

What algorithm are they using?

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

#234

Post by piyh » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #226

Retric wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Zero AI involved? Simple hashes? Source needed. From what I read, you are making false claims.

The concern is less false positives, and more if the Chinese government tells Apple "find everyone who has this picture on their phone in Hong Kong"

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

#235

Post by colinmhayes » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #215

colinmhayes wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fifth amendment holds that the state can't compel someone to give up their password.

But you can be jailed for 18 months for not giving it up

Not if your lawyer is any good.

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

#236

Post by HWR_14 » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

cdolan wrote: post #95

HWR_14 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be false testimony, not hearsay. Hearsay ("John Smith told me he heard MeinBlut kidnapped the Lindbergh baby") is not allowed. Witnesses lying about what they saw and or participated in is allowed, although it can be lies. Sorry, and as for "what is abuse", these are looking for exploited children. There are a lot of questions here, the morality of mass surveillance, the risk factors due to hash collisions…

I don't think society can function without harsh penalties for child abuse, and I think thats a widely held belief everyone agrees with. I do think your comment is conflicting though. The fuzziness of 'is this abuse' is real because collisions can occur, mass surveillance never goes in reverse, etc.

Huh, I specifically said "concerns about collisions" is a real concern. I said that "mass surveillance" is a real concern.

What is not a real concern is fuzziness in the question "is this image of child abuse". And I really don't want to continue a discussion where you try to come up with gray areas. A computer may not be able to tell the difference, but humans can.

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

#237

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #172

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…

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.

If they're using perceptual hashes, which they almost certainly are at least some of the time, then there's a huge space for false positives for each perceptual hash.

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

#238

Post by fallingknife » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

midev wrote: post #233

fallingknife wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time believing that this algorithm will be able to resist simple image manipulations while still being sensitive enough to avoid false positives.

What algorithm are they using?

I don't know. If they made that public it would be completely ineffective.

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

#239

Post by elzbardico » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

mlac wrote: post #102

1-6 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will happen is that criminals who actually had bad intent will move off of the platform and the ones who get the brunt of the blame are the innocent who had no ill intent.

The process is described above, but it’s very hard to “innocently” end up with one of those images that they are looking for from the database. And the way it’s being done (hashes), a collision is highly unlikely. If it does occur it doesn’t mean it’s similar in nature (e.g. innocent picture of own child in bath). The hash isn’t looking at the image content in the sense of “what’s in the picture”, just the bits of th…

It would be trivial for a bad intentioned actor to send those images to a target that he wanted to incriminate if the target is not tech savvy.

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

#240

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

piyh wrote: post #234

jtbayly wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero AI involved? Simple hashes? Source needed. From what I read, you are making false claims.

The concern is less false positives, and more if the Chinese government tells Apple "find everyone who has this picture on their phone in Hong Kong"

[deleted]