Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#161

Post by hx8 » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:40 PM UTC

FredPret wrote: post #151

gnfargbl wrote: post #9

> “Scanning every user’s privately stored iCloud data would create new threat vectors for data thieves to find and exploit," Neuenschwander wrote. "It would also inject the potential for a slippery slope of unintended consequences. Scanning for one type of content, for instance, opens the door for bulk surveillance and could create a desire to search other encrypted messaging systems across content types.” Both of th…

No, no, no. There is no parallel to be drawn between better encryption and worse outcomes for kids. Should we also outlaw high-performance cars because these sometimes serve as effective getaway vehicles for criminals? CSAM producers and consumers should be found and punished via old-fashioned methods. How was this done in the past? Did we just never catch any human traffickers / rapists? No, we had detectives who we…

I think it's a pretty hardline opinion to state law enforcement should be confined to "old-fashioned" methods. Tech is changing the world. Let's not let it be a de-facto lawless world.

Yea, LE/IC clearly have gone too far in many modern tactics.

Yea, it's possible to build a surveillance/police state much more efficiently than ever before.

Yea, we should be vigilant against authoritarianism.

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#162

Post by phpisthebest » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

gnfargbl wrote: post #97

bigDinosaur wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extreme hysteria created by anything related to children often seems to be carte blanche to destroy privacy and implement backdoors in applications. Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be solved at the source), and the ultra extreme cases simply make awful law (doing away with E2EE or instituting mass surveillance to catch an incredibly small minority is absurd). Much like other 'tough on crime…

> Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be solved at the source) Yes. Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a moment, part of the solution must be making access to CSAM much harder. > And no, we are not 'condoning' it when we declare E2EE an overall good thing. Agreed. I'm sorry if I worded things in a way that caused you to see an implication which was not intended. To be clear: E2EE is a go…

>>That position says that to achieve privacy, I must tolerate CSAM. I want both privacy and for us not to tolerate CSAM.

I want to have more money than Elon Musk..... sometimes life is not fair and we can not always get what we want...

Any "backdoor" or "frontdoor" in encryption is a total failure of encryption. That is a immutable truth, more fixed in reality than the speed of light is in physics.

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#163

Post by matwood » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:44 PM UTC

_m8fo wrote: post #16

I’m not sure I understand Apple’s logic here. Are iCloud Photos in their data centers not scanned? Isn’t everything by default for iCloud users sent there automatically to begin with? Doesn’t the same logic around slippery slope also apply to cloud scans? This is not to say they should scan locally, but my understanding of CSAM was that it would only be scanned on its way to the cloud anyways, so users who didn’t use…

You are correct, the original method would only have scanned items destined to iCloud and only transmitted some hash of matching hashes. And yes, similar slippery arguments exist with any providers that store images unencrypted. They are all scanned today, and we have no idea what they are matched against.

I speculated (and now we know) when this new scanning announced, that it was in preparation for full E2EE. Apple came up with a privacy preserving method of trying to keep CSAM off their servers while also giving E2EE.

The larger community arguments swayed Apple from going forward with their new detection method, but did not stop them from moving forward with E2EE. At the end of the day they put the responsibility back on governments to pass laws around encryption - where they should be, though we may not like the outcome.

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#164

Post by kafrofrite » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

gnfargbl wrote: post #9

> “Scanning every user’s privately stored iCloud data would create new threat vectors for data thieves to find and exploit," Neuenschwander wrote. "It would also inject the potential for a slippery slope of unintended consequences. Scanning for one type of content, for instance, opens the door for bulk surveillance and could create a desire to search other encrypted messaging systems across content types.” Both of th…

My two cents reg. this.

Creating backdoors that allow encryption schemes to be subverted is _fundamentally_ going to cause harm on the internet, and eventually fail the weakest users/those that need privacy/security the most.

A mechanism that can subvert cryptographic protocols can be used by any party, including oppressive regimes, private entities etc. that have the resources/will/knowledge to use the backdoor etc. Backdoors harm both the trust on the web (which can have an impact on economic transactions among many others) and the people that need security/privacy the most. In the meantime, criminals will wise up and move their operations elsewhere where no backdoors exist.

We basically end up with a broken internet, we are putting people in harm's way and the criminals we are targeting are probably updating their OPSEC/MO not to rely on E2EE.

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#165

Post by BLKNSLVR » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

gnfargbl wrote: post #97

bigDinosaur wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extreme hysteria created by anything related to children often seems to be carte blanche to destroy privacy and implement backdoors in applications. Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be solved at the source), and the ultra extreme cases simply make awful law (doing away with E2EE or instituting mass surveillance to catch an incredibly small minority is absurd). Much like other 'tough on crime…

> Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be solved at the source) Yes. Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a moment, part of the solution must be making access to CSAM much harder. > And no, we are not 'condoning' it when we declare E2EE an overall good thing. Agreed. I'm sorry if I worded things in a way that caused you to see an implication which was not intended. To be clear: E2EE is a go…

> Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a moment, part of the solution must be making access to CSAM much harder.

In my opinion CSAM is a symptom, not a cause.

It's difficult to "stumble across" that kind of material unless you're already actively looking for it, which means some amount of "damage" is already done.

I also highly doubt that someone with no proclivities in that direction would 'turn' as a result of stumbling across CSAM. I'd guess they'd go the other way and be increasingly horrified by it.

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#166

Post by Manuel_D » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

gnfargbl wrote: post #9

> “Scanning every user’s privately stored iCloud data would create new threat vectors for data thieves to find and exploit," Neuenschwander wrote. "It would also inject the potential for a slippery slope of unintended consequences. Scanning for one type of content, for instance, opens the door for bulk surveillance and could create a desire to search other encrypted messaging systems across content types.” Both of th…

> The other side of the coin is that criminals are using E2EE communication systems to share sexual abuse material in ways and at rates which they were not previously able to.

...regardless of whether Apple rolls out E2EE right? End to end encryption is available through a whole host of open-source tools, and should Apple deploy CSAM scanning the crooks will just migrate to a different chat tool.

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#167

Post by techsupporter » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

FredPret wrote: post #151

gnfargbl wrote: post #9

> “Scanning every user’s privately stored iCloud data would create new threat vectors for data thieves to find and exploit," Neuenschwander wrote. "It would also inject the potential for a slippery slope of unintended consequences. Scanning for one type of content, for instance, opens the door for bulk surveillance and could create a desire to search other encrypted messaging systems across content types.” Both of th…

No, no, no. There is no parallel to be drawn between better encryption and worse outcomes for kids. Should we also outlaw high-performance cars because these sometimes serve as effective getaway vehicles for criminals? CSAM producers and consumers should be found and punished via old-fashioned methods. How was this done in the past? Did we just never catch any human traffickers / rapists? No, we had detectives who we…

> Should we also outlaw high-performance cars because these sometimes serve as effective getaway vehicles for criminals?

What if we change the last bit after the "because" to "these sometimes are used at unsafe speeds and, intentionally or not, kill people who are not in cars?"

Because, at least for me, the answer is an unambiguous yes.

I agree that privacy and security should be available to everyone. But we also shouldn't count on being able to find people who are doing vile things--to children or adults--because the person messed up their opsec. I think Apple is correct here but as an industry we have to be putting our brains to thinking about this. "To outlaw large sections of mathematics" is hyperbole because we use mathematics to do a lot of things, some useful and some not.

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#168

Post by kylehotchkiss » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

maxhille wrote: post #154

sneak wrote: post #13

The vast majority (99%+) of iCloud Photos are not e2ee and are readable to Apple. You can rest assured that they are scanning all of it serverside for illegal images presently. The kerfuffle was around clientside scanning, something that it has been reported that they dropped. I have thus far seen no statements from Apple that they actually intended to stop the deployment of clientside scanning. Serverside scanning h…

Apple has full control over their customers devices, so they can access all encryption keys and device local files anyway. That e2ee setting seems pretty pointless to me...

You can enable device wipe after 10 wrong passcodes, and E2EE gives Apple pretty broad cover to deny government requests to your data. The appeal to that for me isn't US government (who have easy access to everything else about you), but other governments around the world with worse human rights records. It's terrifying that while traveling a policeman could make up something and get details about your home life they aren't entitled to.

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#169

Post by Guvante » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

gnfargbl wrote: post #97

bigDinosaur wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extreme hysteria created by anything related to children often seems to be carte blanche to destroy privacy and implement backdoors in applications. Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be solved at the source), and the ultra extreme cases simply make awful law (doing away with E2EE or instituting mass surveillance to catch an incredibly small minority is absurd). Much like other 'tough on crime…

> Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be solved at the source) Yes. Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a moment, part of the solution must be making access to CSAM much harder. > And no, we are not 'condoning' it when we declare E2EE an overall good thing. Agreed. I'm sorry if I worded things in a way that caused you to see an implication which was not intended. To be clear: E2EE is a go…

Your logic is flawed fundamentally.

Should we disallow encrypted traffic between machines because that encrypted traffic could be CSAM?

Saying "X is bad so we should be rid of it" requires a method to get rid of it.

Obviously giving up privacy and allowing more surveillance can reduce something but that isn't necessarily the right choice.

Like what do you do if they start sharing in files the user encrypts?

Re: Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos

#170

Post by Manuel_D » Fri, Sep 01, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

gnfargbl wrote: post #97

bigDinosaur wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extreme hysteria created by anything related to children often seems to be carte blanche to destroy privacy and implement backdoors in applications. Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be solved at the source), and the ultra extreme cases simply make awful law (doing away with E2EE or instituting mass surveillance to catch an incredibly small minority is absurd). Much like other 'tough on crime…

> Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be solved at the source) Yes. Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a moment, part of the solution must be making access to CSAM much harder. > And no, we are not 'condoning' it when we declare E2EE an overall good thing. Agreed. I'm sorry if I worded things in a way that caused you to see an implication which was not intended. To be clear: E2EE is a go…

> Yes. Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a moment, part of the solution must be making access to CSAM much harder.

This is a very big assumption. Sexual abuse of minors has existed long before the internet, and long before photography. The notion that less availability of CSAM leads to less real-world abuse is not at all clear.

> If that's the best we can do, I'm very disappointed. That position says that to achieve privacy, I must tolerate CSAM. I want both privacy and for us not to tolerate CSAM. I don't know what the solution is, but that is what I wish the industry were aiming for. At the moment, the industry seems to be aiming for nothing but a shrug of the shoulders.

As other commenters have pointed out, the solution is to prevent children from being abused in the first place. Have robust systems in place to address abuse, and give kids effective education and somewhere to speak out if it happens to them or someone they know.