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Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

blog.ericgoldman.org

381–390 of 597 posts

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#381

Maybe my perception is off, but it seems like there's a huge push by the legislature and some people to do anything and everything to prevent CSAM, yet almost nothing seems to be done to prevent CSA. For CSAM, there's all sorts of monitoring, scanning, identify capturing, etc. But it's all after abuse has taken place, and it seems that many of the people actually arrested are arrested for CSAM and not CSA. This has e…

Arresting for CSAM is easy and brings in a lot of money. It’s a slam dunk case for just possession. Investigating and prosecuting people for CSA takes a lot of manpower and time for single case and not nearly as profitable. As usual, follow the money.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#382
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the right to own firearms is very explicitly stated in our constitution The right to bear arms does not necessarily mean firearms. Arms doesn't necessarily even have to include firearms, and America is already pretty damn strict about certain armaments, such as sub-machine guns. Americans are allowed to have certain firearms, sometimes, in some places. I'm not sure how one squares that with the blanket statement fr…

The more… enthusiastic gun people among us think that the national firearms act (which strictly regulates automatic weapons) is an abomination. It’s unique in that it’s the only right that aligns with business marketing. Peddling fear, mostly to insecure men, has sold hundreds of millions of guns. The fetishized nature of modern gun culture killed, in addition to people, a lot of shooting sports and hunting.

What a strange take.

I grew up in a small hunting town (I'm in my early 30s), where most high school boys (most girls didn't hunt, but some did) had a rifle and/or shotgun in their truck, mounted against the inside back of the cab where you could see it plain view.

We had 0 homicides from guns in the 19 years I lived there, there was 1 suicide by gun that I know of.

Many of us grew up hunting to feed our family. This is in Colorado.

I shot my first pistol around the age of 5.

I accidentally went to 7th grade with ammo in my pocket because we were hunting that morning. I went to the principal, he told me just to put the ammo in my locker.

With that being said, you'd be hard pressed to find a group of townspeople more respectful of guns.

It's not a gun problem, it's a culture problem.

Not saying that there's not "insecure men" out there that are the victim of marketing, etc, but a lot of us grew up with guns and see them as a tool.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I recognize that there is zero chance of genuine effective age-appropriate sex education being mandated in the foreseeable future in the US, nor has there been any such chance at any time in the past. I'm merely noting some of the things that would actually be helpful measures in combating CSA if it were possible to implement them. You're absolutely right that, even if such a mandate had already existed,…

Yep, will end up right-wing groups, or same-sex groups.

To be even clearer, genuine effective age-appropriate sex education absolutely includes education on what it means to be trans, gay, bi, ace, and every other part of the queer rainbow, and that all of these things are just as good and normal as being straight, cis, etc.

Take your bigotry and stuff it.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#385

Maybe my perception is off, but it seems like there's a huge push by the legislature and some people to do anything and everything to prevent CSAM, yet almost nothing seems to be done to prevent CSA. For CSAM, there's all sorts of monitoring, scanning, identify capturing, etc. But it's all after abuse has taken place, and it seems that many of the people actually arrested are arrested for CSAM and not CSA. This has e…

The CSAM issue is both very real and abused by politicians. When I did some work with a police agency, it was explained to me that there’s a pattern of escalation with people and they tend to accumulate collections and many escalate to actual behavior. The detectives assigned to this work tend to not last long, and the horrific nature of the crime affects them. Like all rape, it’s a combo of control and dopamine. The…

> there’s a pattern of escalation with people and they tend to accumulate collections and many escalate to actual behavior

I was curious about this. I did find some research here: https://www.suojellaanlapsia.fi/en/post/csam-users-in-the-da... (2021)

That paper states

> Traditional research on individuals who use CSAM is often inherently biased as it has focused primarily on convicted and known offenders.

and appears to be directly trying to avoid that bias, which is good to see.

Isn't there still some bias here though? They only got answers from 1. people who were using a dark web search engine with ads, 2. felt the need to click a "Help us to help you" link, 3. were willing to discuss the topic with strangers on the web. Only (3) was (almost) acknowledged in the Limitations section.

They concluded that "Many CSAM users are not just viewers" and, while "many" could mean any number, I think readers would probably take it to mean something like 30% (shown in graphs) which isn't indicated by their data.

Furthermore, the "not just viewers" conclusion is from a question about "seeking direct contact with children through online platforms". I'm not sure why they didn't more directly ask if respondents took action towards abusing children, with the inspecific "direct contact" qualifier and very specific qualifier "through online platforms". I wonder what the results would have been if they removed "direct" and "through online platforms" from the question.

Admittedly I don't know a lot about statistical techniques! Has there been other research, or do you know what the police agency was basing their explanation on?

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#386

Maybe my perception is off, but it seems like there's a huge push by the legislature and some people to do anything and everything to prevent CSAM, yet almost nothing seems to be done to prevent CSA. For CSAM, there's all sorts of monitoring, scanning, identify capturing, etc. But it's all after abuse has taken place, and it seems that many of the people actually arrested are arrested for CSAM and not CSA. This has e…

The CSAM issue is both very real and abused by politicians. When I did some work with a police agency, it was explained to me that there’s a pattern of escalation with people and they tend to accumulate collections and many escalate to actual behavior. The detectives assigned to this work tend to not last long, and the horrific nature of the crime affects them. Like all rape, it’s a combo of control and dopamine. The…

This is correct. Also, the people who produce CSAM usually don't just stop, so tracking down material, especially new and unknown, is one of the most important ways to stop active abuse. Also because the material is actual proof and many (C)SA cases fail due to lack of exactly that.

This doesn't mean I agree with active scanning of things like iCloud, effectively making everyone a suspect, but counter to what people here seem to think it really might help prevent CSA.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#387
post #350
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time imagining any significant number of people objecting based on the sender's privacy. An adult sending explicit images to a child is a crime in most jurisdictions. A child doing it with a recipient under 13 is a concerning behavior the parents need to address. Notifying the parents even requires that the child acknowledge that's what's going to happen.

Presumably they were worried about misclassified images, or images sent by other kids.

The above proposed system could get ugly...

Family A enables system.

Kid B sends dick pic to Kid A.

Kid A decides to view it, Apple notifies and makes it viewable to Parents A.

Parents A are now guilty of possessing CSAM. (Distributed by Apple for extra fun)

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#388
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm taking a guess at what the OP meant, but people focus on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Supposedly most incidents and deaths are caused by handguns. They're more affordable, and easy to discretely keep on your person. A data-driven policy would focus on them first, but it's easier to rile up the public about AR-15s so we keep doing the less-effective thing.

Things that feel useful instead of are useful. We're not allowed to use data or experts. They’re untrustworthy and out to trick us.

Everyone loves the experts that repeat what they like to hear. The ones that don't are obviously quacks.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#389

Maybe my perception is off, but it seems like there's a huge push by the legislature and some people to do anything and everything to prevent CSAM, yet almost nothing seems to be done to prevent CSA. For CSAM, there's all sorts of monitoring, scanning, identify capturing, etc. But it's all after abuse has taken place, and it seems that many of the people actually arrested are arrested for CSAM and not CSA. This has e…

It is not about CSAM, it's about scanning our data. If it were about kids safety there would be lots of people in jail

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The claim is we will restrict/license/outlaw xyz for the kids, but really, a data-drive approach would have focused on different things entirely (eg additional behavioral health services for kids, suicide prevention etc) Well, most of Europe simply has banned guns in the hands of civilians instead, so that's some data as well. The only reason why the US is so extremely lax on firearms is because people keep blather…

> Vote in a literal tyrant. Tyrant? You may disagree with him, but he got in through the system. Now if he doesn't get out that is another story.

Hitler was elected too (not saying he is Hitler)
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