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Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

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Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#331

Post by gary17the »

sphinxcdi wrote: post #319
gary17the wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that many Android apps require Google services to function properly. You can try two Android derivatives: CalyxOS[1] that implements a privacy-conscious subset of Google services allowing many Android apps to work properly, and GrapheneOS[2] that excludes Google services altogether at the cost of lower app compatibility[3]. Both require using Google Pixel hardware. [1] https://calyxos.org/ [2] https://…

> GrapheneOS[2] that excludes Google services altogether at the cost of lower app compatibility[3]. It now has https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-play-services providing broader app compatibility. That video is quite misleading and it's not the best source for accurate information about GrapheneOS.

Thank you for pointing this out, I will start linking to the updated material.

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#332

Post by makerofthings »

My phone is an extension of my brain, it is my most trusted companion. It holds my passwords, my mail, my messages, my photos, my plans and notes, it holds the keys to my bank accounts and my investments. I sleep with it by my bed and I carry it around every day. It is my partner in crime.

Now apple are telling me that my trusted companion is scanning my photos as they are uploaded to iCloud, looking for evidence that apple can pass to the authorities? They made my phone a snitch?

This isn't about security or privacy, I don't care about encryption or hashes here, this is about trust. If I can't trust my phone, I can't use it.

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#333

Post by simondotau »

0xy wrote: post #329
simondotau wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowhere have I claimed that the NCMEC databases are entirely devoid of miscategorised data. I am merely pushing back at your evidence-free claim that "it's full of false positives." Once again, you continue to assume that the MD5 collision cited was from a NCMEC corpus and not "other law enforcement sources". You're reading far more into your sources than they are saying. And now you are conflating claims of false po…

>Nowhere have I claimed that the NCMEC databases are entirely devoid of miscategorised data If NCMEC's databases have a false positive rate of 1 in 1,000, do you realise that means a false positive rate is substantially more likely than a hash collision? >I am merely pushing back at your evidence-free claim that "it's full of false positives." 1 in 1,000 is "full of false positives" by my own standards, to which I've…

Thorn isn't claiming that "the database is full of false positives." Once again you are conflating claims of false positives in the origin database with rates of false positives in a perceptual hashing algorithm. You are so catastrophically confused that ongoing dialogue serves no purpose. Goodbye.

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#334

Post by zabatuvajdka »

makerofthings wrote: post #332

My phone is an extension of my brain, it is my most trusted companion. It holds my passwords, my mail, my messages, my photos, my plans and notes, it holds the keys to my bank accounts and my investments. I sleep with it by my bed and I carry it around every day. It is my partner in crime. Now apple are telling me that my trusted companion is scanning my photos as they are uploaded to iCloud, looking for evidence tha…

Technically they could have been scanning the photos already to power some AI algorithms or whatever else.

I think this is a nudge for folks to wake up and see the reality of what it means to use the cloud. We are leasing storage space from Apple in this case.

Technically, it’s no different than a landlord checking up on their tenants to make sure “everything is okay.”

And technically, if you do not like iCloud, don’t use it and roll your own custom cloud storage! After all, it’s redundancy and access the cloud provides. And Apple provides APIs to build them.

Hell, with the new Files app on iOS i just use a Samba share with my NAS server (just a custom built desktop with RAID 5 and Ubuntu.)

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#335

Post by a012 »

zabatuvajdka wrote: post #334
makerofthings wrote: post #332

My phone is an extension of my brain, it is my most trusted companion. It holds my passwords, my mail, my messages, my photos, my plans and notes, it holds the keys to my bank accounts and my investments. I sleep with it by my bed and I carry it around every day. It is my partner in crime. Now apple are telling me that my trusted companion is scanning my photos as they are uploaded to iCloud, looking for evidence tha…

Technically they could have been scanning the photos already to power some AI algorithms or whatever else. I think this is a nudge for folks to wake up and see the reality of what it means to use the cloud. We are leasing storage space from Apple in this case. Technically, it’s no different than a landlord checking up on their tenants to make sure “everything is okay.” And technically, if you do not like iCloud, don’…

> Technically, it’s no different than a landlord checking up on their tenants to make sure “everything is okay.”

By this logic, you don't own your phone but rent it from Apple?

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#336

Post by makerofthings »

zabatuvajdka wrote: post #334
makerofthings wrote: post #332

My phone is an extension of my brain, it is my most trusted companion. It holds my passwords, my mail, my messages, my photos, my plans and notes, it holds the keys to my bank accounts and my investments. I sleep with it by my bed and I carry it around every day. It is my partner in crime. Now apple are telling me that my trusted companion is scanning my photos as they are uploaded to iCloud, looking for evidence tha…

Technically they could have been scanning the photos already to power some AI algorithms or whatever else. I think this is a nudge for folks to wake up and see the reality of what it means to use the cloud. We are leasing storage space from Apple in this case. Technically, it’s no different than a landlord checking up on their tenants to make sure “everything is okay.” And technically, if you do not like iCloud, don’…

They do scan the photos on my device, to provide useful functionality to me. All good. If they scan photos in iCloud, that's up to apple, I can use it or not. No problem. With this new setup, my device can betray me.I think that is different and crosses a line.

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#337

Post by Retric »

sneak wrote: post #295
mmastrac wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is a trillion dollar company with a lot of smart people. You could probably get them to design a system of N of M parts for recovery, or an apple branded key holder that you can store in your bank vault and friends houses. If they wanted to they'd do it.

More than that: Apple already designed and partially implemented such a "trust circles" system. Apple legal killed the feature, because of pressure from the US government. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv... They also run iCloud (mostly not e2e) on CCP-controlled servers for users in China. They can decrypt ~100% of iMessages in real-time due to the way iCloud Backup (on by default, not e2…

That’s not what the article says, they simply don’t know.

“However, a former Apple employee said it was possible the encryption project was dropped for other reasons, such as concern that more customers would find themselves locked out of their data more often.”

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#338

Post by matwood »

Despegar wrote: post #206
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #92

In other HN comments on this subject I've (hopefully) made it clear that I'm not really in favor of this project of Apple's, and that there's a legitimate "slippery slope" argument to be made here. So I hope people will entertain a contrarian question without downvoting me into oblivion. :) Here's the thing I keep circling around: assume that bad actors, government or otherwise, want to target political dissidents us…

>Apple is treating CSAM as an engineering problem. No they're treating it as a political and legal problem (with the UK and the EU being the furthest along on passing legislation). Their implementation is the compromise that preserves end-to-end encryption, given those political winds.

Agree. I think a lot of HN is seeing it as strictly an engineering problem while completely ignoring the blowing political winds.

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#339

Post by matwood »

kelnos wrote: post #220
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #92

In other HN comments on this subject I've (hopefully) made it clear that I'm not really in favor of this project of Apple's, and that there's a legitimate "slippery slope" argument to be made here. So I hope people will entertain a contrarian question without downvoting me into oblivion. :) Here's the thing I keep circling around: assume that bad actors, government or otherwise, want to target political dissidents us…

> For instance, the "it only scans photos uploaded to iCloud" element isn't just an arbitrary limitation that can be flipped with one line of code, as some folks seem to think; as Erik Neuenschwander, head of Privacy Engineering at Apple, explained in an interview on TechCrunch[1]: > > Our system involves both an on-device component where the voucher is created, but nothing is learned, and a server-side component, wh…

> There's no reason why that restriction couldn't be removed.

The problem is there's no reason Apple couldn't do anything. All the ML face data gathered on device would be way more valuable than these hash vouchers.

Re: Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf]

#340

Post by tsjq »

makerofthings wrote: post #332

My phone is an extension of my brain, it is my most trusted companion. It holds my passwords, my mail, my messages, my photos, my plans and notes, it holds the keys to my bank accounts and my investments. I sleep with it by my bed and I carry it around every day. It is my partner in crime. Now apple are telling me that my trusted companion is scanning my photos as they are uploaded to iCloud, looking for evidence tha…

of all the items in the list, this is what the govt is interested in :

> It is my partner in crime.

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