Security Threat Model Review of the Apple Child Safety Features [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#341

Post by jlokier » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 12:45 PM UTC

jolux wrote: post #84

LexGray wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have any idea how the NCMEC database is curated? Are there cartoons from Hustler depicting underage girls in distress? Green text stories stating they are true about illegal sexual acts? CGI images of pre-pubescent looking mythical creatures? Manga/Anime images which are sold on the Apple Store? Legitimate artistic images from books currently sold? Images of Winnie the Pooh the government has declared pornograp…

Apple is manually reviewing every case to ensure it’s CSAM. You do have to trust them on that. But if your problem is with NCMEC, you’ve got a problem with Facebook and Google who are already doing this too. And you can’t go to jail for possessing adult pornography. So even if you assume adult porn images are in the database, and Apple’s reviewers decide to forward them to NCMEC, you would still not be able to be pro…

> Ditto for pictures of Winnie the Pooh.

References to Winnie the Pooh in these discussions are about China, where images of Winnie are deemed to be coded political messages and are censored.

The concern is that Apple are building a system that is ostensibly about CSAM, and that some countries such as China will then leverage their power to force Apple to include whatever political imagery in the database as well. Giving the government there the ability to home in on who is passing around those kinds of images in quantity.

If that seems a long way indeed from CSAM, consider something more likely to fit under that heading by local government standards. There's a country today, you may have heard of, one the USA is busy evacuating its personnel from to leave the population to an awful fate, where "female teenagers in a secret school not wearing a burqa" may be deemed by the new authorities to be sexually titillating, inappropriate and illegal, and if they find out who is sharing those images, punishments are much worse than mere prison. Sadly there are a plethora of countries that are very controlling of females of all ages.

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

#342

Post by tehabe » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 12:50 PM UTC

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…

The issue is, it is all software settings. The iMessage filter is only active for acconts held by minors, that can be changed by Apple. Might not even be a client side setting. Also the code which can scan uploaded images can be used anywhere, scan every picture which is being stored on the device. It is all software and everything which is needed is one update.

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

#343

Post by sneak » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 12:55 PM UTC

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…

This is the thing Apple doesn't realize: our phone's OS vendor has one job: not to betray us.

They have betrayed us.

I have purchased my last iPhone.

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

#344

Post by arthur_sav » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 12:58 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #327

arthur_sav wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. We've seen this time after time where the 3 letter agencies give companies an ultimatum: either comply or get shut down. The worse part is that nobody can do anything about it. Under the cloak of secrecy and threats a faceless government is shaping major policy, breaking laws etc... My only hope is that the biggest companies can speak up since they have a bit of a leverage. They can rally people behind th…

"either comply or get shut down' I think if a three letter agency 'shuts down' Apple, the political blowback will be nuclear. The agency will get put on a leash if they pull some shit like tthat

That's why i said big companies have some leverage. People will notice.

If they don't speak up then nobody else can.

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

#345

Post by BostonEnginerd » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

dwaite wrote: post #260

new299 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a legitimate "slippery slope" argument The slippery slope argument is the only useful argument here. The fundamental issue with their PSI/CSAM system is that they already were scanning iCloud content [1] and that they're seemingly not removing the ability to do that. If the PSI/CSAM system had been announced along side E2E encryption for iCloud backups, it would be clear that they were attempting to act in…

> The fundamental issue with their PSI/CSAM system is that they already were scanning iCloud content This scanning was of email attachments being sent through an iCloud-hosted account, not of other iCloud hosted data (which is encrypted during operation.)

I don’t think that photos are encrypted as you can view them from the iCloud website.

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

#346

Post by matwood » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #129

g42gregory wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point you have to trust your OS vendor. Yes, and we were trusting Apple. And now this trust is going away.

> now this trust is going away Is it really? There are some very loud voices making their discontent felt. But what does the Venn diagram look like between 'people who are loudly condemning Apple for this' and 'people who were vehemently anti-Apple to begin with'? My trust was shaken a bit, but the more I hear about the technology they've implemented, the more comfortable I am with it. And frankly, I'm far more worri…

> I'm far more worried about gov't policy than I am about the technical details. We can't fix policy with tech.

Yeah. I don't really understand the tech utopia feeling that Apple could simply turn on e2ee and ignore any future legislation to ban e2ee. The policy winds are clearly blowing towards limiting encryption in some fashion. Maybe this whole event will get people to pay more attention to policy...maybe.

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

#347

Post by matwood » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

gpm wrote: post #170

shuckles wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of it is to make sure iCloud Photos remains a viable service in light of real and perceived regulatory threats, and possibly leave the door open to end to end encryption in the future.

There is no regulatory threat within the US that could require this happen, if this was demanded by the government it would be a blatant violation of the 4th amendment. Apple should have stood their ground if this was in response to perceived government pressure.

There are two gov. issues. One is if the FBI comes knocking and the other is new laws. The government could absolutely write a law banning e2ee so that when the FBI does knock with a warrant they can get access.

In the past, Apple has done what they can to stand their ground against the first, but they (like any other company) will have to comply with any laws passed.

Whether the 'if a warrant is obtained the gov. should be granted access' law is a violation of the 4th amendment remains to be seen.

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

#348

Post by nearbuy » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 1:28 PM UTC

makecheck wrote: post #139

I don’t like the idea of stuff running on my device, consuming my battery and data, when the only point is to see if I am doing something wrong? An analogy I can come up with is: the government hires people to visit your house every day, and while they’re there they need your resources (say, food, water, and electricity). In other words, they use up some of the stuff you would otherwise be able to use only for yourse…

A lot of things work this way. The government is quite literally taxing some of your income and using it to check if you're doing anything wrong.

When a cop is checking your car for parking violations, they're using some of your taxpayer dollars to see if you're doing something wrong. You don't benefit at all from your car getting checked. But you probably benefit from everyone else's cars being checked, which is why we have this system.

Or similarly, you don't benefit from airport security searching your luggage. It's a waste of your time and invasion of your privacy if you don't have anything forbidden and even worse for you if you do have something forbidden. But you help pay for airport security anyway because it might benefit you when they search other people's luggage.

You don't benefit at all from having your photos scanned. But you (or someone else) might benefit from everyone else's photos being scanned (if it helps catch child abusers or rescue abused children). It's just a question of whether you think the benefit is worth the cost.

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

#349

Post by mschuster91 » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 1:31 PM UTC

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…

> The entire point of having a liberal democracy is that we are the government, and we can pull it back from authoritarianism.

The counterpoint: we (as in, the Western-aligned countries) don't have a true liberal democracy and likely never had. Not with the amount of open and veiled influence that religion (and for what it's worth, money) has in our societies - ranging from openly Christian centrist/center-right parties in Europe to entire communities in the US dominated by religious sects of all denominations.

And all of these tend to run on a "think about the children" mindset, especially regarding anything LGBT.

The result? It is very hard if not outright impossible to prevent or roll back authoritarian measures that were sold as "protect the children", since dominant religious-affiliated people and institutions (not just churches, but also thinktanks, parties and media) will put anyone in their crosshairs. Just look at how almost all blog pieces and many comments on the CSAM scanner debacle have an "I don't like pedophilia" disclaimer...

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

#350

Post by newbamboo » Sat, Aug 14, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

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…

“never doing anything with computers again, which admittedly will probably be effective.”

Increasingly I believe this is the right and probably only answer. How do we collectively accomplish this, that’s the real problem. It has to be financially and economically solved. Political, social and asymmetric solutions won’t work.