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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

#181

Post by istingray »

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.

I disabled iCloud the day of the announcement. This feature will be used to attack journalists, whistleblowers, and the vulnerable in our society.

I then bought a System76 laptop to move away from my Macboom.

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

#182

Post by tekknik »

azalemeth wrote: post #165
odessacubbage wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't agree with this more. As a child, my technology skills were several orders of magnitude greater than my parents -- and the horrible spyware the school installed on its computers was a red rag saying "crack me" to a rapidly growing bull. These measures, arguably well-intentioned though they are, fundamentally teach kids that they don't own their devices and it's okay to spy on people. Good parenting is fundame…

Somewhat related.

In my HS computer science class all it took was asking the teacher to use her computer to format a floppy because “my floppy drive was broken” and i needed a new disk. She agreed and not 15 mins later i had my workstation booting with no management or oversight.

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

#183

Post by istingray »

nullc wrote: post #119

I wrote a message explaining why I won't be posting any more neuralhash preimages and an index/summary of my posts on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28261147 Unfortunately it got flagged after getting 41 upvotes. :(

Thank you for all that you did here.

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

#184

Post by tekknik »

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 !

How does this work if you buy your spouse/SO a device? Or a parent/grandparent? Even a gift for a friend?

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

#185

Post by websites2023 »

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.

One would hope, but this severely overestimates the common user’s awareness of such features or their implementation on their devices. Check out this survey from 2019, where a majority of iPhone users of all stripes could not identify the phone they use:

https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-users-survey-201...

To put it bluntly, this fantasy that any significant portion of people who live east of Tahoe even knows, much less cares, about CSAM scanning is plainly absurd. All the headlines and breathless coverage about the fatal mistake Apple is making has resulted in… Apple’s stock soaring to record highs.

Some creeps will get caught. Some will switch to another way of sharing that material. Apple will get shielded from liability for hosting this content in iCloud.

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

#186

Post by istingray »

slownews45 wrote: post #43
stingraycharles wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s important to distinguish the comments from the submission. I agree the comments are mostly repetitive, but the submissions do, in fact, cover newsworthy facts that should not be dismissed.

This is the forth or more piece about the EFF objecting to Apple's work. I was just mentioning - maybe it's worth reading the comments on the FOUR prior articles about this EXACT entity complaining about Apple (ignoring the other 30+ HN posts on this) for this specific issue. This is not "suppressing the news".

Your question is valid. People out of the loop need a way to catch up.

I create this account explicitly because of this new feature. I've been posting constantly about it. If there's a new article on this I will try (and encourage others) to post such a summary as you did at the top of the article for anyone who hasn't been following.

Open to any questions you have about this from a "how do I catch up" perspective.

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

#187

Post by istingray »

dessant wrote: post #5
slownews45 wrote: post #2

I feel list this story keeps on showing up on HN. Does anyone have a link to previous discussion on this topic? Might help avoid endless re-hashes of the same arguments and misinformation.

This is a new development, please don't try to suppress news.

Dessant, this is a bad take. Encourage others out of the loop by pointing them in the right direction. Done properly it will improve and enable new discussion.

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

#188

Post by istingray »

contingencies wrote: post #156

Screw Apple. Walked in to Huaqiangbei with an Ubuntu USB stick yesterday to test a bunch of laptops and ensure all the hardware worked. Bought a Lenovo. Screw Apple.

Nice! For others not in the artery of electronics, System76 and Purism offer Linux-first laptops, rather than stuff that just happens to be compatible. Support them!

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

#189

Post by el_ravager »

slownews45 wrote: post #46
mlosgoodat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the human element to this story was “cat gifs”, you might have a point. The human element here is “world governments and multinational corps beholden to nobody want to insert the first of possibly many back doors into your emotional life” Sit down. You’re just looking for attention for your ability to notice a basic pattern.

I find it very ironic that the people complaining about "suppressing news" or "violation of rights" are writing comments along the lines of sit down and shut up.

Your comments aren't news and we aren't the government suppressing your speech, so I'm not sure what you're going on about.

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

#190

Post by HWR_14 »

shuckles wrote: post #152
HWR_14 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think once Apple has established a pipeline for adding content in a known pattern and at a known cost, it lowers the legal bar (although I am not a lawyer). The government can take your stuff, they just have to pay you for it. I'm not sure if adding the N+1 image to the next dataset is similar to that or not.
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