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Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
921–930 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#922Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may also be shocked to learn that Spotlight looks through every single file on your Mac.
I was. First by the md_worker processes that mysteriously started pinning all of my CPU cores after a git clone. Then by the realization that MacOS had built a full-text index of millions of lines of source code (it only took a few hours of my Mac being too hot to touch). A lot of Apple's defaults are just plain bizarre. Why the hell is Spotlight seeing source code mimetypes and feeding it to the search index?
Mad worker.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#923Earlier quoted context omitted.
That whole incident was so misinformed. CSAM scanning takes place on the cloud with all the major players. It only has hashes for the worst of the worst stuff out there. What Apple (and others do) is allow the file to be scanned unencrypted on the server. What the feature Apple wanted to add was scan the files on the device and flag anything that gets a match. That file in question would be able to be decrypted on th…
Apple sells their products in oppressive regimes which force them to implement region specific features. E.g. China has their own iCloud, presumeably so it can be easily snooped on. If they were to add this anti-CSAM feature, it is not unreasonable to think that Apple would be forced to add non-CSAM stuff to the database in these countries, e.g. anything against a local dictatorship/ etc. Adding the feature would onl…
Apple and others already scan peoples pictures/videos for this stuff, so your argument can be applied to what it is now.
Apples suggestion would have meant your data would be more protected as even they would not have been able to unencrypt your data.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#924Earlier quoted context omitted.
That whole incident was so misinformed. CSAM scanning takes place on the cloud with all the major players. It only has hashes for the worst of the worst stuff out there. What Apple (and others do) is allow the file to be scanned unencrypted on the server. What the feature Apple wanted to add was scan the files on the device and flag anything that gets a match. That file in question would be able to be decrypted on th…
"It only has hashes for the worst of the worst stuff out there." [citation needed] I know someone whose MS account was permabanned because they had photos of their own kid in the bathtub. I mean, I guess the person could have been lying, but I doubt they would even have been talking about it if the truth was less innocuous.
> [citation needed]
It is actually detailed in Apples paper. Also:
https://www.interpol.int/en/Crimes/Crimes-against-children/I...
It works by generating a hash on known materials. Those hashes are shared with other companies so they can find that material without having to see the horrific stuff. The chance of a hash collision was also detailed in the paper which is so low to be non-existent. Even if a clash occurs a human still reviews the materials, and it normally needs a couple of hits to trigger an audit (again according to apples paper on it).
> I know someone whose MS account was permabanned because they had photos of their own kid in the bathtub
So you ask me for a citation and then give me anecdotal evidence?
Even if that happened it has nothing to do with CSAM.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#925Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and they do that because Microsoft's CSAM detection product (which other providers like Google supposedly use) operates by having unencrypted data access to your files in the cloud. What Apple wanted to do is do those operations using homomorphic encryption and threshold key release so that the data was checked while still encrypted, and only after having a certain number of high likelihood matches would the po…
I'm just refuting what the person I responded to said, because apparently these services have hashes for more than just "the worst of the worst stuff" or whatever.
> because apparently these services have hashes for more than just "the worst of the worst stuff" or whatever.
Do you have a citation for that as well? I linked you what CSAM is. Where are you getting your information from?
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#926Earlier quoted context omitted.
That whole incident was so misinformed. CSAM scanning takes place on the cloud with all the major players. It only has hashes for the worst of the worst stuff out there. What Apple (and others do) is allow the file to be scanned unencrypted on the server. What the feature Apple wanted to add was scan the files on the device and flag anything that gets a match. That file in question would be able to be decrypted on th…
That technology of perceptional hashes could have failed in numerous ways, ruining lives of law-abiding users along the way.
The chance of a hash colliding is near 0%. The hashes are for some of the worst content out there, its not trying to detect anything else.
Even so a human is in the loop to review what got a hit. Which is exactly currently happens now.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#927Earlier quoted context omitted.
That whole incident was so misinformed. CSAM scanning takes place on the cloud with all the major players. It only has hashes for the worst of the worst stuff out there. What Apple (and others do) is allow the file to be scanned unencrypted on the server. What the feature Apple wanted to add was scan the files on the device and flag anything that gets a match. That file in question would be able to be decrypted on th…
> The intent was to protect data, children and reduce the amount of processing done on the server end to analyse everything. If it’s for the children, then giving up our civil liberties is a small price to pay. I’d also like to give up liberties in the name of “terrorism”. When we willingly give up our rights out of fear, these evil people have won.
> If it’s for the children, then giving up our civil liberties is a small price to pay.
All your pictures and videos are currently scanned. What civil liberty did their approach change in that?
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#928Users of my (free, open-source) app seem surprised to learn that we've got zero insight into usage patterns. There are situations where a small amount of anonymous telemetry would be extremely helpful but I'm not going to touch it with a barge-pole. Opt-in makes the data useless - not just in terms of the huge drop in quantity but because of the fact it introduces a huge bias in the data selected - the people that wo…
I can't remember where I saw this before. However, there was a site that collected analytics data client side in a circular buffer (or something), and there was a menu in the settings to send it back one-time or always, or download it yourself. If you experienced an error, they would pop up in a toast to share the analytics data with them so they could help fix the problem. You could, of course, decline. That was pro…
On macos (maybe tiger or leopard era), apple used to pop up a crash dialog, with a "send to apple?" prompt. And you could say no.
they did away with that.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#929Earlier quoted context omitted.
That whole incident was so misinformed. CSAM scanning takes place on the cloud with all the major players. It only has hashes for the worst of the worst stuff out there. What Apple (and others do) is allow the file to be scanned unencrypted on the server. What the feature Apple wanted to add was scan the files on the device and flag anything that gets a match. That file in question would be able to be decrypted on th…
> Everyone lost their mind yet it was clearly laid out in the papers Apple released on it. And people working with CSAM and databases of CSAM have said it was a very bad idea.
Citation needed. As the latest news suggests the opposite.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#930Earlier quoted context omitted.
"It only has hashes for the worst of the worst stuff out there." [citation needed] I know someone whose MS account was permabanned because they had photos of their own kid in the bathtub. I mean, I guess the person could have been lying, but I doubt they would even have been talking about it if the truth was less innocuous.
Sure, and they do that because Microsoft's CSAM detection product (which other providers like Google supposedly use) operates by having unencrypted data access to your files in the cloud. What Apple wanted to do is do those operations using homomorphic encryption and threshold key release so that the data was checked while still encrypted, and only after having a certain number of high likelihood matches would the po…
> while the pessimistic perspective was that your phone was now acting as a snitch on your behavior
The actual auditing doesn't happen until the file hits the cloud though. Which is what happens now.
Thanks for some voice of reason. I'm still amazed at how many are still upset about this but clearly never actually read the paper on it.