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A Message to Our Customers (2016)

apple.com

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Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#11

Post by idunnoman »

snowwrestler wrote: post #6

What is the functional difference between the government demanding Apple add code to break device encryption, and the government demanding Apple add signatures that extend their on-device scanning beyond its intended scope of CSAM? Apple seems to get a lot of credit for opposing the former, but gets mocked when they say they would oppose the latter. But as far as I can tell, the legal argument is exactly the same for…

I mean this genuinely. Didn't we learn with Snowden why this argument isn't valid?

The government does break these laws to get what they want AND they silence the people that they force to break the laws.

Why are we pretending that anything has changed?

Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#12

Post by Causality1 »

zionic wrote: post #2

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Now I can’t help but wonder if this was all for show.

Of course it was. There's no such thing as a billion dollar company that isn't functionally psychopathic, let alone a trillion dollar company. Never forget these devices are made in factories with suicide nets.

Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#14

Post by GeekyBear »

There is a story that has information direct from the horses mouth on how Apple will approach this as opposed to how Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and the rest already do.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/10/interview-apples-head-of-p...

Highlights:

Unlike Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and the rest Apple has not been scanning your online data (iCloud) for the past decade.

When this is turned on, only images you attempt upload to iCloud will be scanned.

If you turn off photo synching to iCloud, nothing will be scanned.

If photo scanning shows that many images on your device match known kiddie porn images (not just one), a human will review the data to make sure passing it on to the authorities is called for or if there have been multiple false positives.

If multiple images do not match known kiddie porn images, nothing happens.

Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#15

Post by post_break »

mfer wrote: post #7

Our two mainstream options for mobile OS are one that stalks you everywhere you go and monitors what you do for the company behind it and one that will look on device at your pictures to possibly report to the government (with other governments likely licking their lips). This two party system is starting to stink. > "However mobile OS's may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and…

It's very similar when your ISP choices are Comcast and AT&T or insert other horrible ISP. If they don't do an about face on this I'm pretty much done with iPhone forever. Yes Google loves my location/search data, but what are my options? It's so frustrating.

Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#16

Post by snowwrestler »

idunnoman wrote: post #11
snowwrestler wrote: post #6

What is the functional difference between the government demanding Apple add code to break device encryption, and the government demanding Apple add signatures that extend their on-device scanning beyond its intended scope of CSAM? Apple seems to get a lot of credit for opposing the former, but gets mocked when they say they would oppose the latter. But as far as I can tell, the legal argument is exactly the same for…

I mean this genuinely. Didn't we learn with Snowden why this argument isn't valid? The government does break these laws to get what they want AND they silence the people that they force to break the laws. Why are we pretending that anything has changed?

If our starting belief is “the government will secretly force Apple to do things no matter what the law says,” then why do we care what Apple says or announces, at all?

Why get mad at Apple if we have already conceded that they are powerless before the government in general?

Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#17

Post by GeekyBear »

post_break wrote: post #15
mfer wrote: post #7

Our two mainstream options for mobile OS are one that stalks you everywhere you go and monitors what you do for the company behind it and one that will look on device at your pictures to possibly report to the government (with other governments likely licking their lips). This two party system is starting to stink. > "However mobile OS's may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and…

It's very similar when your ISP choices are Comcast and AT&T or insert other horrible ISP. If they don't do an about face on this I'm pretty much done with iPhone forever. Yes Google loves my location/search data, but what are my options? It's so frustrating.

Google has been scanning everything in your account for kiddie porn for the past decade.

>a man [was] arrested on child pornography charges, after Google tipped off authorities about illegal images found in the Houston suspect's Gmail account

https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/06/why-the-gmail-scan-that-le...

In the case of a false positive, that information lives on Google's server where it can be subpoenaed and misused to incriminate you.

We've seen it before with location data.

>Innocent man, 23, sues Arizona police for $1.5million after being arrested for murder and jailed for six days when Google's GPS tracker wrongly placed him at the scene of the 2018 crime

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7897319/Police-arre...

With Apple's system, a single false positive would never even leave the device. Multiple images have to be found to match known kiddie porn images before a human review is triggered.

Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#18

Post by mfer »

post_break wrote: post #15
mfer wrote: post #7

Our two mainstream options for mobile OS are one that stalks you everywhere you go and monitors what you do for the company behind it and one that will look on device at your pictures to possibly report to the government (with other governments likely licking their lips). This two party system is starting to stink. > "However mobile OS's may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and…

It's very similar when your ISP choices are Comcast and AT&T or insert other horrible ISP. If they don't do an about face on this I'm pretty much done with iPhone forever. Yes Google loves my location/search data, but what are my options? It's so frustrating.

PinePhone? https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

I'm frustrated, too.

Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#19

Post by snowwrestler »

slg wrote: post #10
snowwrestler wrote: post #6

What is the functional difference between the government demanding Apple add code to break device encryption, and the government demanding Apple add signatures that extend their on-device scanning beyond its intended scope of CSAM? Apple seems to get a lot of credit for opposing the former, but gets mocked when they say they would oppose the latter. But as far as I can tell, the legal argument is exactly the same for…

>What is the functional difference between the government demanding Apple add code to break device encryption, and the government demanding Apple add signatures that extend their on-device scanning beyond its intended scope of CSAM? Is this meant as a rhetorical question? Because they are pretty different from both a technical and policy perspective. Breaking encryption means the government can have access to everyth…

The case this 2016 letter is about was not a request to break phone encryption in general. The government asked Apple to assist only in getting into a few specific phones for a specific reason, under the authority of a valid warrant. And many folks thought Apple had a strong legal case to say no.

Apple can’t search phones under the technology they announced, so the government can’t ask Apple for information about what is on people’s phones.

The government could only ask Apple to add hashes to an operating system that Apple runs. Structurally, this is the same as asking them to add functionality, which is what they objected to in 2016.

There is also a scope issue; if every iPhone has the same hash list, then the government is essentially fishing in everyone’s phone for a file. This is typically illegal. The government has to be specific about why they think a certain person/people have a piece of data before they can get a warrant to go get it.

Remember that (as the Twitter thread reminds us) the entire CSAM scanning effort is voluntary. The government is not forcing Apple to scan for CSAM, so how would they force Apple to scan for anything else?

Re: A Message to Our Customers (2016)

#20

Post by idunnoman »

snowwrestler wrote: post #16
idunnoman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this genuinely. Didn't we learn with Snowden why this argument isn't valid? The government does break these laws to get what they want AND they silence the people that they force to break the laws. Why are we pretending that anything has changed?

If our starting belief is “the government will secretly force Apple to do things no matter what the law says,” then why do we care what Apple says or announces, at all? Why get mad at Apple if we have already conceded that they are powerless before the government in general?

This is a good point.

I do believe we should be skeptical of these companies stated positions unless we can see a profit motive. The previous stance that Apple said they had was "we value your privacy and you should pay us for that".

They also demonstrated in the case in 2016 with terrorists and the FBI that they meant it.

In this case, they have flipped entirely, and are now adding features without being compelled that subvert that stated goal.

Apple will scan your phone/data without a warrant AND report to the government now. This is their public opinion now. Forget their compelled and forced actions. Now they are proud to be the bad guys.

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