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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

#151

Post by shuckles »

slownews45 wrote: post #131
shuckles wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think we’re on the same page and just wanted to provide more detail about how far-fetched their argument seems when you examine the details of what was built.

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

#152

Post by shuckles »

HWR_14 wrote: post #148
shuckles wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were never in a world where Apple was unable to do what the government was asking. Nothing impossible has been made possible, and Apple has made a stand against small changes - like changing constants - before.

It's not "impossibility". It's cost. The FBI cannot force Apple to do free work to circumvent security. Can they force them to add one more hash? Is that work?

I’m not a lawyer, but at the very least Apple would have to train its reviewers to recognize new image types, redact or update all statements where they explicitly drew a line in the sand about what the feature searched for, likely produce a custom build of iOS, update its knowledge base to distinguish between the root hash of the CSAM database and FBI Imagery database, perhaps re-present consent, add code to target this new database (or subset of the full database) to US users, etc. I’m not a product manager either, but superficially simple changes are often quite complex!

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

#153

Post by slownews45 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #140
slownews45 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

This is just such a crazy position.

If I buy a car it doesn't matter that I own it? If I rent it to you I can't set the terms of that rental?

This is just nuts from the EFF.

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

#154

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

CompuHacker wrote: post #143
650 wrote: post #136

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.

Apple will then have a list of all the people who have an iDevice but disabled iCloud in August, 2021.

That is not evidence, that is inference (of what I am not even sure... prudence perhaps).

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

#155

Post by sennight »

dwaite wrote: post #149
sennight wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never been a customer of Apple but I'll try and imagine the experience... I might trust them to assemble hardware and write software for my consumer needs - but that doesn't mean I trust them to competently reason about me potentially being a pedo. That is only a small part of a much larger point, but it is reason enough alone.

Apple's responsibility ends with notifying law enforcement, at which point presumably there would be a subpoena for evidence and a trial. The concern people have is logic on their phone snitching on them, with scenarios based on authoritative regimes setting the baseline of what is scanned/reported. Apple is not serving as judge, jury and executioner (unless there is an electric shock delivery system being added to t…

That could be the most obnoxious nitpick I've ever heard, do you honestly think anybody is worried about Apple doing anything beyond submitting a false report - and that you are being helpful by pointing out that they can only do that very thing? Do you think that might be why I said "competently reason about" instead of "send the Apple genius death squad"?

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

#157

Post by noptd »

dwaite wrote: post #150
amadeuspagel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither Google nor Microsoft scan pictures people have on their devices running Android or Windows. I'm not sure how that's even applicable to Facebook and Dropbox.

Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Dropbox, etc. all scan photos which are cloud hosted for CSAM. Apple's new system scans only photos which are cloud hosted for CSAM. This would be the source of the inconsistency - that the code to do scanning is on the client side of the uploader rather than the server side of the uploader does not change any abuse scenarios, but exclusively serves "slippery slope" arguments of full on-d…

>does not change any abuse scenarios

It absolutely does. When the scanning is server-side, companies can only scan the files you choose to send to their servers but with a client-side system in place, all it takes is a change in company policy and a few simple directory config changes to result in ANY file on your device being scanned.

Slippery slope or not, the client-side system massively lowers the bar for abuse and that cannot be ignored.

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

#158

Post by noptd »

azinman2 wrote: post #65
sennight wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I don't expect it from third party cloud platforms - in the same way I wouldn't expect accountability from a garbage man who reports to the police after finding evidence of crime in my garbage. Apple is, for some insane reason, trying to establish the precedent that the contents of your Apple product are now part of the public space - where expectation of privacy isn't a thing.

But that isn’t true. This is only photos uploaded to iCloud.

And all it would take is a confidential change in policy before all photos are scanned, and the same "save the children" argument would be used to save face if the decision ever leaks.

"Pedophiles are taking pornographic photos of kids on their phones and then sharing them outside of iCloud. But wait, you don't want us to compare each photo you capture against ML models capable of identifying child porn? Why are you defending and siding with pedophiles?"

The only surefire way to avoid a slippery slope is to keep away from the edge.

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

#159

Post by noptd »

simondotau wrote: post #101
nullc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every step you've described is unfalsifyable: You just have to blindly trust that Apple is doing these things, and that e.g. authoritarian regemes haven't compromised Apple staff with access to the data. > They have to come from the intersection of two databases from two jurisdictions. My message directly answered that. A state actor can modify an apparent childporn image to match an arbitrarily hash and hand that im…

> A state actor can modify an apparent childporn image to match an arbitrarily hash and hand that image to other agencies who will dutifully include it in their database. Even if a state actor constructs an image that is an NeuralHash collision for the material they wish to find, that only gets them through one of the three barriers Apple has erected between your device and the images being reported to a third party.…

>This has been true of all closed source operating systems since forever. Functionally, nothing has changed.

And that whatabout argument is supposed to justify the creation of a client-side scanning system that would massively lower the bar for abuse?

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

#160

Post by odessacubbage »

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…

once given a device, a child's technical literacy will quickly surpass that of their guardian and as such, any form of 'protection' will be just as quickly circumvented. there is no technological panacea that will keep your child safe because that is not how predation happens in the real world.
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