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An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

appleprivacyletter.com

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Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#21

Post by donkeyd »

0xy wrote: post #7
donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

Evidently the episode you listened to was loaded with false information, because Kik has used PhotoDNA to scan for CSAM for 7 years. [1] [1] https://www.kik.com/blog/using-microsofts-photodna-to-protec...

> Doc: From what I can tell, it only starts looking in the rooms and looking at individual people if they are reported for something.

https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/93/

If I were Kik, I would also write a blog post about using something like this. Many, many things point at Kik only doing the bare minimum though. (If you're the type who supports moderation, apparently they're already doing too much according to much of HN.)

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#22

Post by toxik »

yunohn wrote: post #14
toxik wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a very deep and troublesome philosophical issue here. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. A picture of child abuse /is not/ child abuse. Let me ask you a counter-question. If I am able to draw child pornography so realistically that you couldn't easily tell, am I committing a crime by drawing?

What is this absurd counter? Who’s talking about surrealistic drawings? We’re talking about actual material in real life, being shared by users and abusers. To be clear, I’m not supporting surveillance, just stating facts.

You should maybe read about the work [0], or just read the rest of what I said. Surrealism has nothing to do with the argument I made, so why do you bring it up?

CSAM databases can by necessity not contain novel abuses, because they are novel. In fact, filtering by CSAM databases even indirectly /encourage/ novel abuses because these would not be caught by said filter.

Catching CP hoarders does little to help the children being exploited in the first place, and does a lot to harm our integrity and privacy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#23

Post by ianhawes »

toxik wrote: post #9
donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

I think there is a very deep and troublesome philosophical issue here. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. A picture of child abuse /is not/ child abuse. Let me ask you a counter-question. If I am able to draw child pornography so realistically that you couldn't easily tell, am I committing a crime by drawing?

Yikes, do not engage in a defense of child pornography in these types of arguments. The opposition is gunning for that.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#24

Post by quenix »

toxik wrote: post #9
donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

I think there is a very deep and troublesome philosophical issue here. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. A picture of child abuse /is not/ child abuse. Let me ask you a counter-question. If I am able to draw child pornography so realistically that you couldn't easily tell, am I committing a crime by drawing?

A picture of child abuse is child abuse in that the abuse of a child was necessary to take the picture in the first place.

If the picture had no grounds to spread, it would likely not have been made—no incentive. As such, the fact that the picture is able to spread indirectly incentivises further physical abuse to children.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#25

Post by simion314 »

donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

My personal opinion is if we could spy on all citizens all the time we could stop all or most of the crimes, do we want this? If you say Yes then stop reading here. Else if you say 100% surveillance is too much then what do you have against people discussing where the line should be drawn?

Some person that would sign that letter might be fine with video cameras in say a bank or some company building entrance but he is probably not fine with his own phone/laptop recording him and sending data to soem company or government without his consent.

So let's discuss where should the line be drawn, also if competent people in this domain are present let's discuss better ideas on preventing or catching criminals, or even for this method let's discuss if it can be done better to fix all the concerns.

What I am sure is that clever criminals will not be affected by this, so I would like to know if any future victim would be saved (I admit I might be wrong, so I would like to see more data from different countries that would imply the impact of this surveilance)

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#26

Post by ElFitz »

yunohn wrote: post #14
toxik wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a very deep and troublesome philosophical issue here. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. A picture of child abuse /is not/ child abuse. Let me ask you a counter-question. If I am able to draw child pornography so realistically that you couldn't easily tell, am I committing a crime by drawing?

What is this absurd counter? Who’s talking about surrealistic drawings? We’re talking about actual material in real life, being shared by users and abusers. To be clear, I’m not supporting surveillance, just stating facts.

> We’re talking about actual material in real life, being shared by users and abusers.

And, more importantly, material that has been and will be produced through the actual abuse of real children. The spreading of which encourages the production of more of it.

GP's counter is absurd.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#27

Post by donkeyd »

swiley wrote: post #10
donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

There's a difference a mile wide between moderating a service and moderating people's personal computers. Maybe the same thing that makes this hard to understand about iOS will be what finally kills these absolutely wretched mobile OSes.

> moderating people's personal computers

This is done client side because your data is encrypted in their cloud. It won't be done if you disable cloud sync. If you just keep your cp out of the cloud, you're fine.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#28

Post by toxik »

quenix wrote: post #24
toxik wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a very deep and troublesome philosophical issue here. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. A picture of child abuse /is not/ child abuse. Let me ask you a counter-question. If I am able to draw child pornography so realistically that you couldn't easily tell, am I committing a crime by drawing?

A picture of child abuse is child abuse in that the abuse of a child was necessary to take the picture in the first place. If the picture had no grounds to spread, it would likely not have been made—no incentive. As such, the fact that the picture is able to spread indirectly incentivises further physical abuse to children.

That does simply not follow from logic. Child abuse existed before cameras.

Edit: People are unhappy with this refutation, so a second one then. The claim, specifically, is that CP is CA because CP requires CA to happen. So a photo of theft is theft. A recording of genocide is genocide. Clearly absurd. Never mind the context that the pornography in my question is drawn, thus no actual child was hurt.

Edit 2: The point was made somewhere that CP is hurtful to the child that it depicts, and this is obviously true - but only if spread. Therefore, distributing CP should be illegal, but that does not mean that it's justified to scan every phone in the world for such images.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#29

Post by toolz »

toxik wrote: post #9
donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

I think there is a very deep and troublesome philosophical issue here. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. A picture of child abuse /is not/ child abuse. Let me ask you a counter-question. If I am able to draw child pornography so realistically that you couldn't easily tell, am I committing a crime by drawing?

I think it's very easy to get people to hate things that gross them out. It's always interesting to me how casually people joke about Epsteins death while simultaneously never talking about cp without a gross look on their face.

I'm not sure I fully understand how society can be more relaxed with actual pedophiles than they are with cp material.

Personally it bothers me to see the focus around things that gross people out rather than the actual child abuse.

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