Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 430 posts

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#151

Post by btown »

chrononaut wrote: post #130
RavlaAlvar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can’t be this stupid, right? They should know this has huge security implications. I can’t see how it can be justified for some political brownie point.

> They should know this has huge security implications. I've missed where this has security implications. Did you mean privacy implications?

There is now, as far as I can tell, a system that can flag any photo that matches a perceptual hash for manual review by Apple or by other parties as required by law. Have any screenshots of code or confidential operational documents? Or photos placing you at private events attended by political dissidents (as defined by authoritarian regimes)? You’re one no-code config change away from Apple being able to exfiltrate this content from your device and deliver it to a third party. Engineers at Apple might not even know this is happening to be canaries. It’s a dangerous backdoor waiting to happen.

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#152

Post by Animats »

Take a close look at the way this works. If there are enough hash matches, Apple apparently gets to look at all the pictures on the phone. The description says "threshold reached, all content visible and unlocked". "All", not "Matched".

Matches can be forced from the outside, by sending pictures to the phone. They don't even have to be from the known-bad image set. Using an adversarial system to try to create hash matches might allow generating innocuous pictures which trigger a phone dump.

Expect a toolset for doing that to be developed. Although it may take a while for word of it to leak out. This has applications for entrapment, swatting, political retribution, etc.

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#153

Post by toast0 »

midev wrote: post #100
eurasiantiger wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add hashes of police uniforms and now you cannot take pictures of law enforcement. Add hashes of politicians. Businessmen in suits. Army uniforms. At the end you have a weapon that can only shoot civilians.

Do you know how discovery works in court? I'm guessing not. Once a hash matches, law enforcement would need a subpoena to access the raw image. If a person were to be arrested, that evidence would be turned over to the defense. It would be very obvious that a picture of a police officer was not child pornography. Are you under the impression people are jailed for hash collisions? Because that's not the case at all...…

> Once a hash matches, law enforcement would need a subpoena to access the raw image.

Not if Apple provides it to them without a subpoena.

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#154

Post by geocar »

pseudalopex wrote: post #15

The NCMEC director claimed "many thousands of sexually exploited victimized children will be rescued" because of this system. It can't detect new abuse images if I understand correctly. And don't most arrests happen after a victim talks to another adult? Or someone notices signs? Are many thousands of active child molesters discovered through scanning online photos?

The NCEMC was created by a child abuser[1] and his victim whom he groomed, and they asked Apple to send them pictures of suspected abuse.

Pictures they can’t use as evidence, or use to “discover” evidence due to fourth-amendment protections.

[1]: In his book Tears of Rage, Walsh openly admits being in a relationship with 16-year-old Revé when Walsh was in his 20s and aware of the age of consent being 17 in New York. Critics of the Adam Walsh Act have pointed out that, had he been convicted, Walsh himself would have been subject to sex offender registration under the law which he aggressively promoted.

“But you know, she had this way about her. She had a certain presence. And after a while I just got over how young she was. She was way more sophisticated than anybody in her high school and she always dated older guys.”

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#155

Post by saurik »

dd36 wrote: post #84

Won’t predators simply learn not use iPhones?

To be fair, this sounds like something they would consider to be a strong branding position, and is totally something they would point out constantly? "Folks who want to be sexual preditors can buy an Android phone" (a slight modification of Steve Jobs saying "Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone.").

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#156

Post by midev »

Osiris wrote: post #149
midev wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> would be evidence that you broke that hypothetical law Hypothetical situations are not an argument to real world discussions. Sure, if that happened, it'd be terrible. But, that's not happening....

I think asking ourselves if this is a slippery slope is a valid part of discussing what's actually happening right now.

Appealing to the slippery slope is itself a fallacy.

"While this image may be insightful for understanding the character of the fallacy, it represents a misunderstanding of the nature of the causal relations between events. Every causal claim requires a separate argument. Hence, any "slipping" to be found is only in the clumsy thinking of the arguer, who has failed to provide sufficient evidence that one causally explained event can serve as an explanation for another event or for a series of events"

You need to argue things that are actually happening. Appealing to hypotheticals, especially when technically incorrect, serves no one.

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#157

Post by Animats »

Jtsummers wrote: post #9
bitexploder wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really did write that. And fall back to “think about the children”. I know the word dystopian gets overused, but it really fits here. Wow.

If by "They" you mean Apple, then they did not. As noted by jsnell, and properly attributed in the linked article, it was written by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Which is not a government agency. It's to some extent a lobbying group.[1]

[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary...

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#158

Post by adinisom »

midev wrote: post #134
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the suggestion is that a hash of a police uniform will be used to convict of CP but rather the idea that a new law will be passed that - in order to protect the police from 'harassment' - will outlaw taking pictures of the police. So in that case in discovery the picture of a police officer would be evidence that you broke that hypothetical law. The technology deployed to protect the children opens up t…

> would be evidence that you broke that hypothetical law Hypothetical situations are not an argument to real world discussions. Sure, if that happened, it'd be terrible. But, that's not happening....

I head over to my friend Midev's house with precursor chemicals for VX. You complain that having the precursors to VX lying around is not a good idea. I point out that creating VX is purely hypothetical. Sure, if that happened, it'd be terrible. But, that's not happening.

Apple is deploying a technology with few legitimate uses that makes terrible things not only possible but easy all without the voluntary consent of the device's owner.

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#159

Post by barsonme »

pseudalopex wrote: post #15

The NCMEC director claimed "many thousands of sexually exploited victimized children will be rescued" because of this system. It can't detect new abuse images if I understand correctly. And don't most arrests happen after a victim talks to another adult? Or someone notices signs? Are many thousands of active child molesters discovered through scanning online photos?

Yes: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/2016...

But also she’s a director at NCMEC. What else is she supposed to say? “Cool I guess, thanks Apple.”

Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features

#160

Post by midev »

toast0 wrote: post #153
midev wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how discovery works in court? I'm guessing not. Once a hash matches, law enforcement would need a subpoena to access the raw image. If a person were to be arrested, that evidence would be turned over to the defense. It would be very obvious that a picture of a police officer was not child pornography. Are you under the impression people are jailed for hash collisions? Because that's not the case at all...…

> Once a hash matches, law enforcement would need a subpoena to access the raw image. Not if Apple provides it to them without a subpoena.

That still doesn't change how discovery or the courts work.
Post reply on HN