Apple’s device surveillance plan is a threat to user privacy – and press freedom • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s device surveillance plan is a threat to user privacy – and press freedom

#141

Post by TimTheTinker » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #140

TimTheTinker wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is total and utter bullshit. It is a complete misunderstanding of how the system works. No it's not. It's an extrapolation based on known facts. Governments can and will coerce companies into changing things about their systems, but the main limitation is that at least in the US, the government can't coerce creative work. But that's just the thing - flipping a bit here or there, or adding non-CSAM image hashes…

> It's an extrapolation based on known facts. No it’s not. It’s bullshit based on a complete lack of understanding of the system. Read any of the public documentation on how it works, and you’d know it’s completely wrong. There are multiple good reasons to oppose this system. But this: > All it takes is a wiretap warrant and Apple would have to scan on-device pictures and iMessages for whatever the wiretap says. Is s…

If you have any specifics as to why that's not true, please do share.

Re: Apple’s device surveillance plan is a threat to user privacy – and press freedom

#142

Post by zepto » Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

TimTheTinker wrote: post #141

zepto wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's an extrapolation based on known facts. No it’s not. It’s bullshit based on a complete lack of understanding of the system. Read any of the public documentation on how it works, and you’d know it’s completely wrong. There are multiple good reasons to oppose this system. But this: > All it takes is a wiretap warrant and Apple would have to scan on-device pictures and iMessages for whatever the wiretap says. Is s…

If you have any specifics as to why that's not true, please do share.

As I said, it’s in public documentation you could easily check.

Here:

https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Security_Threat_Model...

Re: Apple’s device surveillance plan is a threat to user privacy – and press freedom

#143

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

kemayo wrote: post #44

JohnFen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you still need to imagine a scenario where Apple is deliberately complicit Which is very easy to imagine. All I have to do is imagine a national security letter.

Isn't that no greater risk than the status quo, though? Apple already has all these photos uploaded to their servers and knows the keys as iCloud Photos isn't end-to-end encrypted, so if a government can coerce them into cooperating with running scans like that, this new system doesn't seem to make any difference. (If the argument is that they can be coerced into changing the new system to scan non-uploaded photos an…

> Isn't that no greater risk than the status quo, though?

I don't have an issue with Apple scanning the stuff they're keeping on their servers, in accordance with their ToS. Have at.

The problem here is that they're doing the scanning on your device.

Re: Apple’s device surveillance plan is a threat to user privacy – and press freedom

#144

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Aug 23, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

simondotau wrote: post #110

greyface- wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you receive an unconstitutional National Security Letter, you can't just ignore it. You must endure a lengthy, expensive, and stressful legal battle. And due to the nondisclosure requirement in the NSL, you also have to do this in secret, without going to the public for support. Or you can fold and comply.

In this hypothetical scenario, the NSL would have to go to Apple the corporation, not to any individual. There isn't any individual at Apple that could implement the demand. There probably isn't even a group of ten individuals at Apple that could do it without other employees finding out. And as smart as you think the US Government is, there's no way they could possibly know who those ten people were. So the letter g…

> There isn't any individual at Apple that could implement the demand. There probably isn't even a group of ten individuals at Apple that could do it without other employees finding out.

Sure there is. A number of different executives could do that. The CEO, if nobody else. The government sends the letter to the company's legal department. It's on the company to deal with it appropriately.

There's no need to prevent employees who will actually do the work from finding out.

Apple, like most other such companies, have complied with NSLs before, and they will in the future. The consequences for failing to do so are too extreme for it to be otherwise.

Re: Apple’s device surveillance plan is a threat to user privacy – and press freedom

#145

Post by TimTheTinker » Thu, Aug 26, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #142

TimTheTinker wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have any specifics as to why that's not true, please do share.

As I said, it’s in public documentation you could easily check. Here: https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Security_Threat_Model...

Quoting from Edward Snowden: "I intentionally wave away the technical and procedural details of Apple’s system here, some of which are quite clever, because they, like our man in the handsome suit, merely distract from the most pressing fact—the fact that, in just a few weeks, Apple plans to erase the boundary dividing which devices work for you, and which devices work for them."

Reference: https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/all-seeing-i

So the details really don't matter as much as the fact that this creates a huge precedent. And, quoting Snowden again, "There is no fundamental technological limit to how far the precedent Apple is establishing can be pushed, meaning the only restraint is Apple’s all-too-flexible company policy, something governments understand all too well." (emphasis mine)

So I might read through that PDF, I might even understand it, but what it can't dissuade me from is a persuasion that yes, governments can and will take advantage of this turn of events, and no, there is no technological or legal barrier that can keep them from doing so once this is in place.