Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#181

Post by drnick1 » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:35 PM UTC

SXX wrote: post #57

amazingamazing wrote: post #4

It is crazy people think apple isnt on the side of privacy. Are they perfect? Not even close, but compared to the rest of big tech theyre simply on another level. Apple could easily not do this stuff and it may even be easier to not.

Apple is very much like WhatsApp. Yes you cant perfectly trust their E2EE against state actors, but both in fact put some effort into making world have little bit more privacy. At least on Desktop we have usable Linux, but on the phones there is literally nothing usable because thanks to Google efforts switching to GrapheneOS mean tons of apps either not working or break every few months. Yes its possible to make And…

> thanks to Google efforts switching to GrapheneOS mean tons of apps either not working or break every few months.

Sometimes, all you need is a Web browser. I personally don't want any "apps" on my phone that aren't basic utilities.

I am aware some banks in Europe require 2FA on a mobile device. Short of switching banks, my answer to that is a cheap or e-waste Googled Android phone that stays at home and serves that sole purpose.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#182

Post by owisd » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:39 PM UTC

al_borland wrote: post #13

JSR_FDED wrote: post #7

The judge called the outcome disturbing, as it leaves victimized children as "collateral damage" of privacy protections. As sad as this is, end to end encryption means no CSAM scanning. As an alternative Apple previously tried to do scanning on the phones locally but caught hell for that too. This is one of those unfortunate tradeoffs but I see no alternative to privacy taking priority.

Children are often used as a weapon to erode freedoms, like privacy and speech. Those pushing it rarely actually care about the children.

Feels like this has gone completely meta and it's now way more common to see people who don't care about children refusing to support that any proposal that might benefit children under the assumption that nobody cares about children so there must be an ulterior motive.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#183

Post by kstrauser » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #143

kstrauser wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re right, but from another angle. In the state where I lived way back when, a state representative put forth a bill to explicitly make e-CSAM illegal. I guess it was already illegal for print media and this covered a gap in the law about cell phone pics, etc. Thing is, it had no allowance for the age of the picture taker, or even whether the picture taker was the photo subject. If a 16 year old girl took…

> I still don’t want to throw kids in prison or remove all traces of a right to privacy in our haste to sun-yeet them. The one messy corner of this is the "strict liability" for this type of material. An underage kid can take a nude photo, send it to an adult, and then the adult can criminally liable for just having it, even if he deleted it as soon as he saw it. Either both parties involved in handing something for…

IANAL, but the notion of "strict liability" horrified me when I first head of it, and I thought it had to be some kind of a misunderstanding. So we're tossing that "innocent until proven guilty" idea out the window, huh?

I'm sure smarter people than me have sussed this out and can explain why it's a good thing, but it sits wrong with me. We can put the subject matter aside for a second: I don't think I could convict someone for having something happen to them, regardless of what the law says. Let's say drug possession was a strict liability law (and maybe it is for all I know). Finding a baggy of meth on the corner of a farmer's lot would mean that, technically, he was guilty of possession and had to prove that it wasn't really is. That's nuts. And looping back to the subject at hand, if the only evidence that someone possessed CSAM was their email inbox, without proof that it was solicited? They want me on their jury.

There should never be a circumstance where someone can't report something that happened to them to the police without a legitimate fear of being arrested. That's bad for the person, and it's bad for society.

But if their hard drive has folders grouped by age or something, prepare the solar catapult.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#184

Post by pembrook » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:40 PM UTC

IncreasePosts wrote: post #174

pembrook wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it need to be said that by making all pornography easier to access the internet obviously makes rape pornography more prevalent and easier to access as well? Hence your theory should be easily visible in rape statistics, yet it’s the opposite.

It would be easily visible or not visible in the rape statistics if the world had a single variable. In any case, even if the world was extremely simple, 'rape porn' could increase rapes, and we could still observe a decrease in rapes if 'general porn' decreased the odds of rape to a larger degree than rape porn increased them relative to the population that consumed each.

Yes exactly my point...so it sounds like you're admitting this "availability of porn leading to action" theory isn't a very good one? And that in fact it leads to less action given it satisfies urges at much lower cost.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#185

Post by GeekyBear » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

letmevoteplease wrote: post #160

GeekyBear wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel that Apple open pandora's box with the client-side scanning. That box has been open for years now. Big brother is already watching what you do on your Android device. > A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

This is not client side. Images just sitting on your Android phone are probably safe (although Google could push an update at any time). Your images get scanned when you back them up, send them over RCS, etc. I have even seen criminal cases originating from reverse image search - anything that touche the servers of the big tech companies, except apparently Apple, will be scanned using questionable AI and against a se…

This is an image that he did not send off of his device to anyone except his doctor's office, yet Google reached into his private data and scanned it anyway.

Google reported him to the police based on a single false positive.

To add insult to injury, even after the police contacted Google to tell them that they had cleared him of wrongdoing, Google refused to restore access to his account.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#186

Post by Ardon » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:46 PM UTC

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #157

MichaelDickens wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is an argument that exists. But it's not supported by evidence. It's the same as the old "video game violence should be outlawed because it might cause real violence", which is just as unsubstantiated.

Yeah, that old canard is ridiculous! I mean, if there were any truth to it, surely our nation would have seen an uptick, in the past 30–40 years, of new generations picking up guns and just mercilessly mowing down soft targets as if playing GTA. Thankfully, that is all confined to fantasy in cyberspace!

Yeah, /your/ nation maybe. I wonder if there's any other reasons that could explain this, especially given the pretty uniform distribution of video games, and the extremely uneven distribution of violence.

Oh, and everywhere in your nation? At the same time?

Sorry, I think I have a button.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#187

Post by SXX » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:50 PM UTC

drnick1 wrote: post #181

SXX wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is very much like WhatsApp. Yes you cant perfectly trust their E2EE against state actors, but both in fact put some effort into making world have little bit more privacy. At least on Desktop we have usable Linux, but on the phones there is literally nothing usable because thanks to Google efforts switching to GrapheneOS mean tons of apps either not working or break every few months. Yes its possible to make And…

> thanks to Google efforts switching to GrapheneOS mean tons of apps either not working or break every few months. Sometimes, all you need is a Web browser. I personally don't want any "apps" on my phone that aren't basic utilities. I am aware some banks in Europe require 2FA on a mobile device. Short of switching banks, my answer to that is a cheap or e-waste Googled Android phone that stays at home and serves that…

A lot of banks in UK and EU simply dont offer web access at all.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#188

Post by fsflover » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

SXX wrote: post #187

drnick1 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> thanks to Google efforts switching to GrapheneOS mean tons of apps either not working or break every few months. Sometimes, all you need is a Web browser. I personally don't want any "apps" on my phone that aren't basic utilities. I am aware some banks in Europe require 2FA on a mobile device. Short of switching banks, my answer to that is a cheap or e-waste Googled Android phone that stays at home and serves that…

A lot of banks in UK and EU simply dont offer web access at all.

But you can switch to one that does.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#189

Post by izacus » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:54 PM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #185

letmevoteplease wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not client side. Images just sitting on your Android phone are probably safe (although Google could push an update at any time). Your images get scanned when you back them up, send them over RCS, etc. I have even seen criminal cases originating from reverse image search - anything that touche the servers of the big tech companies, except apparently Apple, will be scanned using questionable AI and against a se…

This is an image that he did not send off of his device to anyone except his doctor's office, yet Google reached into his private data and scanned it anyway. Google reported him to the police based on a single false positive. To add insult to injury, even after the police contacted Google to tell them that they had cleared him of wrongdoing, Google refused to restore access to his account.

Stop making stuff up man, the image was uploaded to Google Photos servers.

> The father uploaded photos of his son’s genitals, which were also backed up on his Google cloud, to the health care provider’s messaging system as requested.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#190

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 6:54 PM UTC

IncreasePosts wrote: post #130

pembrook wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it’s an argument but there’s zero data to support it, in fact the opposite. If this were true then widespread availability of pornography on the internet would have resulted in a massive increase in rape of adult females. When in fact, assault numbers have been on a steady decline for decades.

Why would general pornography lead to rape? Most pornography is not rape pornography. Would people watching a bunch of rape pornography lead to more rapes? I don't know, but that seems more likely than general pornography leading to rapes. 60% of respondents who were found looking for CSAM on the dark web stated that they were fearful that consuming CSAM would lead them to do something to a child in real life: https:…

> Most pornography is not rape pornography.

I'm not taking a position here, but the total amount of pornography is irrelevant to the argument. If the amount of rape pornography available has increased 500x as the total amount of pornography has increased 5000x, the proportion of pornography that was rape pornography has been reduced by 90%.

> 60% of respondents who were found looking for CSAM on the dark web stated that they were fearful that consuming CSAM would lead them to do something to a child in real life

Someone looking for child pornography is somebody looking for child pornography, so their opinion about what the search might lead to seems a bit worthless. There's no reason to assume that they have any insight into what will happen next, but we know for a fact what has already happened.

That out of the way, though, and assuming that child pornography leads to child abuse, the good pro-pornography case that has been made is that when pornography is suppressed rather than regulated, the 95% of people who are exclusively interested in adult pornography will have to go through the same underground channels that child pornography flows through, thus having the perverse effect of exposing more people to child pornography (or at least obtaining access to it.) If exposure to child pornography causes child abuse, then the suppression of adult pornography would then lead to more child abuse.