An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by cwizou » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:08 PM UTC

new299 wrote: post #77

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 were already doing it on the cloud: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/01/09/apples-scanning-... So now they’re doing it on device too. This feels like it’s putting in place the foundation to scan all offline content.

Thanks for the link, I had assumed that Apple was already doing it on servers (like all other online services providers), which makes the announcement even more terrible.

Moving it on device will show 0 improvement to the original goal, while opening a door that quite frankly I never expected Apple to be the one to open (I would have bet on Microsoft).

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

#122

Post by marcan_42 » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

calgoo wrote: post #114

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #105

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…

From what I understand, you can use Linux on the M1 now, so at least as a stopgap. For nas, synology is always a good brand.

Linux on M1 isn't ready yet for daily use, but we're working on it. Expect things to move pretty quickly in the next few months.

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

#123

Post by caskstrength » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #105

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…

> 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 have X1C (not extreme) and it has excellent battery life with Linux. Consider using TLP (https://linrunner.de/tlp/), if you want to significantly improve your laptop power consumption.

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

#124

Post by syshum » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

defaultname wrote: post #66

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.

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…

I think you are massively under estimating what this change means if you think it is "pretty tame change"

Clearly you do not understand the full ramification of what is happening here.

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

#125

Post by donkeyd » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

stevenicr wrote: post #104

donkeyd wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I believe millions more nudes are sent via snap/watsap/etcetc every day then are sent in the mail in a year.

I know for sure this is true, but this BS scenario was still used as a rebuttal against my comment, so I figured I'd give them an actual answer.

> when they open mail with drugs and weapons it's most likely not ... other private pic stuff that no one else should be peering at.

People order a lot of stuff that is very private online. From self help books, to dilos (which show up clearly on x-ray), to buttless chaps. If anything, packages are probably more private than mail these days, since people only mail postcards and bills.

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

They would. But this is completely incomparable to what's happening on iOS devices now.

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

#126

Post by game_the0ry » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:11 PM UTC

dannyw wrote: post #95

game_the0ry wrote: post #85

Disappointing. While moderating CP distribution and storage is obviously the right thing to do, I do not think this approach will be a worthwhile endeavor for apple and governments. Let me explain: imagine you are bad guy with bad stuff on your iphone, and you hear apple will be scanning your phone. What is the next logical thing you would do? Migrate your stuff to something else, obviously. Encrypting a usb stick do…

It is not the role of infrastructure providers to reach into private, on device content. That is like the USPS opening every letter and scanning what is inside. Even if it's done with machine learning, that is absolutely not okay, no matter what it is for.

Agreed, but not like we have a choice with that matter.

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

#127

Post by calmworm » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:11 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #103

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.

Suddenly?

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

#128

Post by browningstreet » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:11 PM UTC

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 are reasonable measures to take against child abuse, and there are unreasonable ones. If we can’t agree on that, there’s no discussion to be had.

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

#129

Post by sundvor » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:12 PM UTC

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.

The privacy implications are fucking horrible.

As an Android user I'd love to gloat, after all Apple have really had the upper edge on privacy so far, and their users have not been shy about telling us. Again and again.

However any pleasure would be as short lived as peeing your pants to keep warm in winter, because if Apple proceeds, Google is bound to follow.

A user monitoring system like this is just ripe for abuse of the most horrific kinds. It must die.

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

#130

Post by dijit » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 1:12 PM UTC

d--b wrote: post #116

You guys can get outraged all you want. It's pretty clear that Apple debated this internally and decided that the backlash was worth whatever they got from this deal... By today, it's pretty clear than privacy is not the top priority of most people. See how much data people are giving fb/google every second...

This defeatist attitude is not helpful.

The louder people are about this, the more it hurts and the more likely the policy is reversed.

if the policy is not reversed, then at least the community has been loud enough that people took notice and understood that this is happening, giving them a chance to vote with their wallet; for most people what happens on a computer or a phone is a complete mystery.