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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

#101

Post by rvz »

XorNot wrote: post #50

Fixed: Chinese Government: Here is the NeuralHash for some child abuse imagery, please scan this user's phone and tell us if it's found. Apple: Sure we found it. Chinese Government: this user has unpermitted winnie the pooh memes. Send them to an internment camp.

Google: 'Sharing is caring'. Thanks for sharing all of this with us Apple Inc! [0]

Amazon: Don't forget us too! [0]

To Downvoters: Are you telling me that this is false? Even worse for the Gmail users. [1] I guess the outrage was already overdue with these tech giants.

[0] https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/06/29/apple-is-now-goog...

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/5/5970141/how-google-scans-y...

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

#102

Post by donkeyd »

toxik wrote: post #53
donkeyd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> am I committing a crime by drawing That really depends on the law in the country where you're doing that. According to the law in my country, yes, you are. None of this actually answers my question though, it's just a separate discussion. I would appreciate an actual answer.

Right, my question is of course a rhetorical one. If I similarly draw other crimes being committed, the same does not apply. Why is that? And to address your explicit question, it is far too complex and specific to a given community to answer in any meaningful way here. I can tell you what isn't the answer though: deploying spyware on phones worldwide.

> If I similarly draw other crimes being committed, the same does not apply. Why is that?

The answer is much more simple than you seem to think it is. Because the law doesn't say it is. I can only go by the law in my country, which is that (loosely translated) 'ownership of any image of someone looking like a minor in a sexually suggestive position' is a crime. Since a drawing is an image, it's a crime. Having an image of someone breaking into a home is not a crime according to law in my country. That's why you can have a drawing of that.

Your question is like asking "why don't I get a fine for driving 60 on the highway, but I do get a fine for driving 60 through a school zone?" Well, because one is allowed and the other isn't.

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

#103

Post by xyst »

sathackr wrote: post #42

US Government: We suspect the person in this photo of committing a crime. Here is your subpoena, Apple. You are directed to scan all iPhone and iCloud storage for any pictures matching this NeuralHash and report to us where you find them. Chinese Government: Here is the NeuralHash for Tienanmen square. Delete all photos you find matching this or we will bar you from China. Apple has at this point already admitted thi…

Selfies are suddenly going to be used as surveillance tools by the govt, or maybe a bad actor at Apple wants to find/track down their ex.

This system has so much potential for abuse with very little upside.

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

#104

Post by stevenicr »

donkeyd wrote: post #76
ianhawes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people share photos of child pornography via the mail. There has been criticism that the USPS does not open all mail and scan them for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who do not sign this letter how they think about that.

I think it would be horrible if they opened all mail... However, if they had a system that could detect CSAM in unopened mail with an extremely low false negative rate, then I'd be fine with it. With many packages this already happens in the search for drugs and weapons and I have no problem with that either.

I believe millions more nudes are sent via snap/watsap/etcetc every day then are sent in the mail in a year.. with "extremely low false negative rate" - if that means there are a bunch of geeks and agents staring at your wife/gf.. your daughter/ etc.. is that okay? Some people will say yes - but I don't think those people should get to decide that all the other people in the world have to hand over all the nudes and dick pics everyone else has taken.

when they open mail with drugs and weapons it's most likely not a sculpture of your wife's genitals / daughter's tits, pics of your hemorrhoids / erectile implant - whatever other private pic stuff that no one else should be peering at.

If they were opening and reading every written word sent and received - I can guarantee you people would be up in arms about it.

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

#105

Post by SirensOfTitan »

I know the privacy approach Apple has been pushing was just marketing, but I didn't care too much because I enjoyed my iPhone and M1 macbook.

Because of this decision (and the fact that my iPhone more-or-less facilitates poor habits throughout my life), I'm considering moving completely out of the Apple ecosystem.

Does anyone have any recommendations for replacements?

* On laptops: I have an X1 carbon extreme running linux, but it's entirely impratical to take outside of the house: it has terrible battery life and runs quite hot. I also cannot stand its trackpad. Is there any linux-capable device with an okay trackpad?

* On phones: are there any capable phones out there that aren't privacy nightmares? All I want is a phone with a long lasting battery that I can use with maps, a web browser, and texting.

* On cloud: I've considered executing on a NAS forever, but I'm unsure where to start.

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

#106

Post by trashtester »

XorNot wrote: post #50

Fixed: Chinese Government: Here is the NeuralHash for some child abuse imagery, please scan this user's phone and tell us if it's found. Apple: Sure we found it. Chinese Government: this user has unpermitted winnie the pooh memes. Send them to an internment camp.

Fixed further: Chinese Government: Here is the NeuralHash for some child abuse imagery, please scan this user's phone and tell us if it's found.

Apple: Sure we found it.

Chinese Government to some western company/instititution: We have detected unacceptable behavior from your employee/student/client/vendor. Please cancel them, or we will stop funding you.

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

#108

Post by bombcar »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #35
toxik wrote: post #3

Please talk to non-tech people around you about this. This overreach simply cannot stand, and from a company that sees success from touting itself as a privacy-centric alternative? These really are some dark times. I imagine that if the world had Stasi fresher in its mind, this would never have happened.

Talking about this with non-tech people might make the distrust in anything they don’t understand worse. Think vaccines.

"See what Apple is doing is basically vaccinating your iPhone against child porn. That's bad because there's the possibility of side effects, though rare, and you should have the decision yourself as to whether you vaccinate your phone."

Wait, no, that's not the argument ...

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

#109

Post by krapp »

shoulderchipper wrote: post #47
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…

> Should the internet be a free for all place without moderation? The better question would be: do you want an arbitrary person (like me) to decide whether you have a right to send an arbitrary pack of bytes? Neither "society" nor "voters" nor "corporations" make these decisions. It is always an arbitrary person who does. Should one person surrender his agency into the hands of another?

>Neither "society" nor "voters" nor "corporations" make these decisions. It is always an arbitrary person who does.

Except in this case, a corporation (Apple) is making the decision relative to the sexual mores of modern Western society and the child pornography laws of the United States. It's unlikely this decision was made and implemented randomly by a single "arbitrary" individual. Contrary to your claim, it's never an arbitrary person.

And yes, I believe Apple has the right to decide how you use their product, including what bytes can and cannot be sent on it.

>Should one person surrender his agency into the hands of another?

We do that all the time, that's a fundamental aspect of living in a society.

But in this specific case, no one is forcing you to use an Apple phone, so you're not surrendering your agency, you're trading it in exchange for whatever convenience or features lead you to prefer an Apple product over competitors. That's still your choice to make.

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

#110

Post by sumeno »

roenxi wrote: post #87
defaultname wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who engaged in such a discussion with a non-technical person is going to defacto seem like an advocate for child pornography, similar to how advocating for encryption can easily be twisted to being pro-crime. Having said that, there is an enormous amount of misinformation and fear-mongering about a pretty tame change. This seems like so much ado about very close to nothing. a) They optionally scan messaged pho…

"They're going to scan your phone and probably have someone review any photos with a lot of human flesh in them" would be enough to get a lot of non-technical users to take notice. That would get a lot of people nervous. Let alone anyone smart who thinks through the implications here of how far the line is being pushed on how public your phone is.

It would, but luckily that's not what's happening
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