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An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

appleprivacyletter.com

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Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#111

Post by ls65536 »

donkeyd wrote: post #76
ianhawes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people share photos of child pornography via the mail. There has been criticism that the USPS does not open all mail and scan them for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who do not sign this letter how they think about that.

I think it would be horrible if they opened all mail... However, if they had a system that could detect CSAM in unopened mail with an extremely low false negative rate, then I'd be fine with it. With many packages this already happens in the search for drugs and weapons and I have no problem with that either.

I suppose one important distinction here, if this makes any difference, is that drugs and weapons (to use your examples) are physical items, and these could arguably cause harm to people downstream, including to the postal system itself and to those working in it. In contrast, photos, text, written letters, and the transmissions of such are merely information and arguably not dangerous in this context (unless one is pro-censorship).

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#113

Post by defaultname »

new299 wrote: post #77
defaultname wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who engaged in such a discussion with a non-technical person is going to defacto seem like an advocate for child pornography, similar to how advocating for encryption can easily be twisted to being pro-crime. Having said that, there is an enormous amount of misinformation and fear-mongering about a pretty tame change. This seems like so much ado about very close to nothing. a) They optionally scan messaged pho…

They were already doing it on the cloud: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/01/09/apples-scanning-... So now they’re doing it on device too. This feels like it’s putting in place the foundation to scan all offline content.

Scanning on device (albeit only of photos shared off device) seems like an ill-considered PR move for a whole child safety push (perhaps with a "look at how powerful our iPhone chips are" angle). As you mentioned, they've already been doing these checks for some time on their servers, and people concerned about false positives should realize that Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon et al are doing identical checks with a very similar process.

I imagine there are some frantic meetings at Apple today. However the grossly misleading claims people have been making to fear-monger aren't helpful.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#114

Post by calgoo »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #105

I know the privacy approach Apple has been pushing was just marketing, but I didn't care too much because I enjoyed my iPhone and M1 macbook. Because of this decision (and the fact that my iPhone more-or-less facilitates poor habits throughout my life), I'm considering moving completely out of the Apple ecosystem. Does anyone have any recommendations for replacements? * On laptops: I have an X1 carbon extreme running…

From what I understand, you can use Linux on the M1 now, so at least as a stopgap.

For nas, synology is always a good brand.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#115

Post by inanutshellus »

toxik wrote: post #5
dancemethis wrote: post #2

Why do people still think they have _any_ power over user-hostile corporations and its proprietary code? Apple can (and likely will) say they won't do it and then do it anyway. It's a proprietary platform. They already have it, now. All they are claiming is an excuse not to be caught in a certain way they wouldn't like at a later point.

This seems fatalist and goes against what we have learned from internet society: making a ruckus is exactly how you sway large companies.

I'm with you bud. Fatalism is how bad things survive.

"Oh, nothing will happen to this [corrupt politician|naughty rich guy|corporation doing a thing I don't like], because they're all [bad thing]. It's all over already." :facepalm:

(Also, I couldn't read the original article because my work thinks it's spreading malware or something so I'm really only referring to the fatalism thing here, not Apple.)

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#116

Post by d--b »

You guys can get outraged all you want. It's pretty clear that Apple debated this internally and decided that the backlash was worth whatever they got from this deal...

By today, it's pretty clear than privacy is not the top priority of most people. See how much data people are giving fb/google every second...

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#117

Post by schnable »

defaultname wrote: post #66
toxik wrote: post #3

Please talk to non-tech people around you about this. This overreach simply cannot stand, and from a company that sees success from touting itself as a privacy-centric alternative? These really are some dark times. I imagine that if the world had Stasi fresher in its mind, this would never have happened.

Anyone who engaged in such a discussion with a non-technical person is going to defacto seem like an advocate for child pornography, similar to how advocating for encryption can easily be twisted to being pro-crime. Having said that, there is an enormous amount of misinformation and fear-mongering about a pretty tame change. This seems like so much ado about very close to nothing. a) They optionally scan messaged pho…

Apple does a lot of the ML and personalization stuff on user devices for privacy reasons as well, keeping your data out of the cloud, and that is a good thing.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#119

Post by jll29 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #82

I'm waiting for orthodox authorities to do stuff like reporting pictures of people (not just girls) without head coverings. or dressed in bikinis, thongs, or underwear (like a significant number of "influencers" do, every day). There are already places in this world, where a couple can be arrested for kissing in public. I suspect that the folks enforcing those laws, would have some real interest in this capability. N…

Or manipulating photos a little so the classifier deems them dangerous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXy6oX1iNoA

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#120

Post by stevenicr »

dannyw wrote: post #98
sandworm101 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. People have been convicted for possession of hand-drawn and computer-generated images. Editing a child's image to make it pornographic is also illegal. So some "deepfake" videos using faces from young celebs are in all likelihood very illegal in many jurisdictions. Images can be illegal if all people are of age, but are portrayed as underage. Many historical dramas take legal advice about this when they have adu…

Not sure where you get your advice from. Supreme court has ruled loli as legal. You can find it on 4chan in about 30 seconds.

"Supreme court has ruled loli as legal." - proof of this?

Had not heard that change.

the US arrested some diplomat like guy some years ago for having sexualized bathing suit models underage on a device. all non nude I believe.

I think most of what gp saying is mostly true - some places cartoons can be / have been prosecuted.

Just cuz its on 4chan every day - doesn't mean it's legal - I thought 4chan deletes it all with in 24 hours (?) - so that if they got a warrant to do something about it, it would already be gone before the warrant printed much less signed and served.

However charges are going to vary by jurisdiction - I don't think many prosecutors are trying to get cartoon porn convictions as a top priority these days, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

I don't think gp is accurate in saying that american porn avoids cheer and high for these reasons. the market forces have changed many times over the past so many years and depending on which porn portals one might peruse they will see more or less of cheer and such. With some portals the whole incest titling is used for clickbait - it just depends on the portal, and much of what is not seen on portals is not there because of dmca / non-rights.. not because things aren't being produced and made available elsewhere.

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