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EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

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Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#131

Post by slownews45 »

shuckles wrote: post #110
slownews45 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are coming at this from the view that because iMessage was one of the first actual E2E encrypted products, showing the pic to the parent (after picture has reached end user device and been decrypted and is ready to display) should require consent. Ie, the encryption has been "broken". That said - I don't find it very compelling. Parent paid for device. Parent is responsible for child. Parent should be al…

The picture is not sent to the parent. They are notified that the child viewed a sensitive photograph, after warning the child, and the parent can view the photograph on the child’s device.

Right, but sender just wanted to send the photo to the kid, and now apple is providing a path for parent to see the picture.

Listen - I don't get the EFF argument any more than you do.

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#132

Post by slownews45 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #117
simondotau wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, I consider myself the "end user" of my child's device, not my child. That I might be looped in on any messages sent or received by this device is not at all a leak, it's a convenience—much like how I can receive messages sent to me on my phone and my laptop.

When someone sends a message to your child, the message is for your child, not for you. Your child is the "end point" and you are an evesdropper. This is a case where I think it is justified, as long as your child is a minor and you are his legal guardian. But as acceptable as it is, you are still a spy and the app is spyware. The fears, justified or not, is that the same feature that can be used for parental control…

The parent paid for the device, don't they then own it? Or can kids sign up for phone plans and buy $1,200 devices these days? Normally, if I buy a device, I want control. If I chose to get alerted to porn being sent to my 10 year old - that should be permitted.

I don't care if the sender hasn't given consent, I don't give them consent to send porn or naked photos to my kids !

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#133

Post by slownews45 »

shuckles wrote: post #33
tpush wrote: post #18

> [...] and the parental notification system is a shift away from strong end-to-end encryption. That particular statement doesn't make much sense to me. The parental notification system is just a frontend action (one of many, like link previews and such). What does that have to do with iMessage's encryption? I can see an argument about a shift away from privacy (though it only pertains to minors under 13 receiving se…

EFF would probably argue that technologies like safe browsing are also a shift away from E2E encryption. They were strongly against email spam protection in the 90s for this reason.

I remember those arguments against spam filtering!

Now we all accept it as annoying but necessary?

My guess is this may meet a similar fate.

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#134

Post by radlad »

simondotau wrote: post #125
GuB-42 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone sends a message to your child, the message is for your child, not for you. Your child is the "end point" and you are an evesdropper. This is a case where I think it is justified, as long as your child is a minor and you are his legal guardian. But as acceptable as it is, you are still a spy and the app is spyware. The fears, justified or not, is that the same feature that can be used for parental control…

> But as acceptable as it is, you are still a spy and the app is spyware. I vehemently disagree that a feature could be classed as spyware if it clearly and unambiguously declares exactly what it's going to do prior offering a choice whether or not to do it. By that logic, the mere presence of a "report phishing" button in any cloud email service would be sufficient to declare it as spyware. But fine, whatever. You'r…

When I was a child, my mother refused to buy me any computers. I had to earn money mowing lawns and raking leaves to buy a laptop.

Once I had a laptop, she told me she wished there was software she could install on all of her children's computers that would allow her to view what each of us was doing on her TV.

I considered that spying - even if it was intentional on her part. I detested how few rights I had as a child.

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#135

Post by nullc »

azinman2 wrote: post #53
nullc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’d have to not only have over 30 hash collisions That's trivial. If the attacker can get one image onto your device they can get several. It's very easy to construct preimages for Apple's neural hash function, including fairly good looking ones (e.g. https://github.com/AsuharietYgvar/AppleNeuralHash2ONNX/issue... ) > collide with another secret hash function The supposed other 'secret' hash function cannot be se…

If this really was such a problem, then as I said, we’d have been getting reports of this over the past 10+ years it’s already been in place at big cloud providers. So where is all of this ruining of peoples lives by uploading CP on their devices? Also if you’re a gov actor trying to frame someone, why bother with a pre-image when you could put the real images on it? None of that is new today — all that’s new is Appl…

> it’s already been in place at big cloud providers.

I think the big cloud providers scanning your private data is of dubious ethics, but it's like complaining that your mail carrier is reading the content of your postcards.

So long as you send unencrypted data to a third party your privacy will be limited, regardless of what our laws or norms say. People usually know this, and so many do avoid uploading things to these places or encrypt what they upload.

When its your device itself doing the scanning, ahead of any encryption-- then that protection goes out the window.

Sometimes the same violation of privacy is made more acceptable by a clear boundary that you can stay on one side of to protect your privacy. Your devices vs someone elses devices is the most clear historical boundary in this case, and apple is breaking it.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the erosion of the private boundary to have an effect. And we can't say that the scanning by providers does nothing, -- the convictions prove otherwise. We can only hope that all those convictions were deserved, the nature of this crime is such that its hard to prove someone wasn't framed.

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#136

Post by 650 »

With all the news of CSAM going to be scanned on iPhones, which people are even going to keep such content on iPhones anymore? The news of this has been so prominent in the media, people not even in tech have heard about it plenty. If you are a Person of Interest that consumes/distributes such content and are a tad aware of the news, you aren't going to use iPhones/iCloud storage anymore.

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#137

Post by mycall »

slownews45 wrote: post #132
GuB-42 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone sends a message to your child, the message is for your child, not for you. Your child is the "end point" and you are an evesdropper. This is a case where I think it is justified, as long as your child is a minor and you are his legal guardian. But as acceptable as it is, you are still a spy and the app is spyware. The fears, justified or not, is that the same feature that can be used for parental control…

The parent paid for the device, don't they then own it? Or can kids sign up for phone plans and buy $1,200 devices these days? Normally, if I buy a device, I want control. If I chose to get alerted to porn being sent to my 10 year old - that should be permitted. I don't care if the sender hasn't given consent, I don't give them consent to send porn or naked photos to my kids !

If you buy the device, you own the device. Software too. It is just the OS can disable itself for a string of reasons.

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#138

Post by vermilingua »

simondotau wrote: post #130
nonlocutor wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/legal-tetris-and-fbis-anom-progr... “ The Australian Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 (TOLA) allows government agencies to issue “technical assistance” and “technical capability” notices to providers of communications services. The notices require that the providers give the authorities help in conducting criminal enforcement intercepts, a…

None of that explains how Australia could ever successfully coerce Apple into performing widespread surveillance of US citizens. The fact that Australia is a "five eyes" country doesn't make it any more plausible than if the demand came from China or Russia.

It explains how Australia could coerce Apple into performing widespread surveillance of Aus citizens. Then it’s trivial for the US to coerce Apple into switching that functionality on in the US.

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#139

Post by mkl »

azinman2 wrote: post #29
sennight wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...if you have CP or photos in a CP database... Which database? I get the impression that people think there is a singular repository for thoroughly vetted and highly controlled CP evidence submission. No such thing exists.

It’s an intersection between a US db and a not yet chosen non-US db, which then will have a human reviewer verify its CP before sending off to the authorities.

> which then will have a human reviewer verify its CP

No, it won't. The human reviewer only sees very low resolution thumbnails, to check there's a "match". The content is not verified, so the two DBs could contain anything.

Re: EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

#140

Post by GuB-42 »

slownews45 wrote: post #132
GuB-42 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone sends a message to your child, the message is for your child, not for you. Your child is the "end point" and you are an evesdropper. This is a case where I think it is justified, as long as your child is a minor and you are his legal guardian. But as acceptable as it is, you are still a spy and the app is spyware. The fears, justified or not, is that the same feature that can be used for parental control…

The parent paid for the device, don't they then own it? Or can kids sign up for phone plans and buy $1,200 devices these days? Normally, if I buy a device, I want control. If I chose to get alerted to porn being sent to my 10 year old - that should be permitted. I don't care if the sender hasn't given consent, I don't give them consent to send porn or naked photos to my kids !

The one who pays doesn't matter. Unchecked and applied to adults that line of thinking gives right to terrible things, including slavery.

Children are a different story, they are not free, they are under the control and responsibility of their legal guardians. In fact, the status of a child and the status of a slave are not so different, that's why there are very strict laws regarding child labor, because otherwise it could easily end up in actual slavery.

Here the problem is not parental control, that is fine, the problem is that the backdoor is now in place and could be potentially used against adults with all the nasty implications. Again, I think the fears are overblown, but I understand that it makes people uncomfortable, especially since they may have bought an overpriced device on the premises of privacy. Most of the most egregious privacy violations start with "think of the children", even more than terrorists and covid.

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