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Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

reuters.com

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Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#201

Post by inkyoto »

nitrogen wrote: post #147
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The practical difference is that with on-device scanning, the system is just a few bit flips away from scanning every photo on your device, instead of just the ones that are about to be uploaded. With server-side scanning, the separation is clear—what's on Apple's server can be scanned, and what's only on your phone cannot. This all plays so perfectly into my long-time fears about the locked down nature of the iPhone…

With server-side scanning, the separation is clear In all these threads everyone is coming close to the crux of the issue, but I want to restate it in clearer terms: There is a sacrosanct line between "public" and "private," "mine" and "yours." That line cannot be crossed by Western governments without a warrant. Cloud computing has deliberately blurred this line over time. This on-device scanning implementation blow…

> There is a sacrosanct line between "public" and "private," "mine" and "yours." That line cannot be crossed by Western governments without a warrant.

This is a self-delusion, I am afraid. The line has been crossed more than once, and it will be crossed again. UK and Australian governments are just two prime examples of waving terrorism and pedobear banners as a pretext to get invasive with each new legislation, and the Oz government already has a new legislation draft to make it a crime to refuse cooperation with law enforcing services when they request access to the encrypted content (think Signal messages). Also, refer to the Witness K case to see how cases that are unfavourable to the standing government completely bypass a «trustworthy» Western judicial system, including the Minister of Justice.

CSAM is guaranteed to be abused under whatever new pretext politicians can come up with, and we won't even know that Apple has been quietly subjugated to comply with it in those jurisdictions. There will be even less transparency and even more abuse of CSAM in «non-Western» countries. That is the actual worry.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#202

Post by gjs278 »

gbrown wrote: post #32
travoc wrote: post #7

Can someone explain how Apple being coaxed or coerced into searching all of our personal devices for illegal files by federal law enforcement is not an unconstitutional warrantless search?

Simple - our laws haven't evolved with technology. That's why your mail has about a million times more protection than your email.

they used to use candles to unseal mail all the time

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#203

Post by Covzire »

baggy_trough wrote: post #157
whoisjuan wrote: post #132

This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. Imagine investing hundreds of millions of dollars in pro-privacy programs, privacy features, privacy marketing, etc... just to pull this reverse card. Of course this is going to spark concern within their own ranks. It's like working for a food company that claims to use organic, non-processed, fair-trade ingredi…

Hey it's still private... unless you have content that matches an opaque, government controlled list of forbidden content... what could go wrong?

Antifa or BLM or Burger King will never demand that they add certain content to the burn list. Don't worry. Be happy.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#204

Post by stjohnswarts »

jpxw wrote: post #62
jonplackett wrote: post #5

In their attempt to make this extra private by scanning 'on device', I think they've managed to make it feel worse. If they scan my iCloud photos in iCloud, well lots of companies scan stuff when you upload it. It's on their servers, they're responsible for it. They don't want to be hosting CSAM. It feels much worse them turning your own, trusty iPhone against you. I know that isn't how you should look at it, but tha…

In reality, the fact that they do the scanning on-device is actually better privacy-wise. But I can see how instinctually it “feels” wrong.

Turning your own device against you is better? There is no way that is better for you as a user. It's great for governments and police forces but it doesn't do anything for you as a user but spy on you without getting a warrant.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#205

Post by zepto »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #39
jonplackett wrote: post #5

In their attempt to make this extra private by scanning 'on device', I think they've managed to make it feel worse. If they scan my iCloud photos in iCloud, well lots of companies scan stuff when you upload it. It's on their servers, they're responsible for it. They don't want to be hosting CSAM. It feels much worse them turning your own, trusty iPhone against you. I know that isn't how you should look at it, but tha…

The practical difference is that with on-device scanning, the system is just a few bit flips away from scanning every photo on your device, instead of just the ones that are about to be uploaded. With server-side scanning, the separation is clear—what's on Apple's server can be scanned, and what's only on your phone cannot. This all plays so perfectly into my long-time fears about the locked down nature of the iPhone…

How is it any more ‘bit flips’ away from scanning every photo on your device than it was before?

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#206

Post by thefourthchime »

jonplackett wrote: post #5

In their attempt to make this extra private by scanning 'on device', I think they've managed to make it feel worse. If they scan my iCloud photos in iCloud, well lots of companies scan stuff when you upload it. It's on their servers, they're responsible for it. They don't want to be hosting CSAM. It feels much worse them turning your own, trusty iPhone against you. I know that isn't how you should look at it, but tha…

I agree. While the difference is slight, one feels almost expected, the other is creepy and invasive.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#207

Post by _23sd »

DarkmSparks wrote: post #61

There are two things that make me think this will be walked back. Firstly, and most importantly, this kind of backdoor is the kind of thing that makes big corps prohibit the use/purchases of devices. Secondly, it seems rife for abuse: dont like someone who uses an ios device, msg them some cp and destroy their entire life.

>dont like someone who uses an ios device, msg them some cp and destroy their entire life.

For this to work one would have to send multiple photos and convince the other person to save the photos to their library.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#208

Post by heavyset_go »

busymom0 wrote: post #166
akiselev wrote: post #158

> It's a complete change of narrative and there's no easy way to explain it and still defend Apple's Privacy narrative, wihout doing extreme mental gymnastics. Everyone who took Apple at their word was already doing extreme mental gymnastics because Apple's privacy stance was a farce on borrowed time to begin with. Now it's just blatantly obvious to everyone.

While I knew that the "privacy" stance from Apple in prior years was always a marketing facade to sell more devices, I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. It's kind of funny how I am very suspicious of governments and politicians but when it comes to a trillion dollar corporation, I was giving them more of benefit of doubt. I was wrong.

> I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible.

Considering how often Apple gives up customer data without a fight when requested to by the government, I don't really believe that.

According to Apple, they respond to government data requests with customers' data ~85% of the time, and 92% in cases of "emergencies"[1].

Apple gave customer data from over 31,000 users/accounts based on FISA requests and National Security Letter requests in the first half of 2020 alone[1].

During that same 6 month period, Apple provided customers' data to the government's data requests (not FISC related) about 9,000 times[1].

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#209

Post by ZFH »

"Apple says it will scan only in the United States and other countries to be added one by one, only when images are set to be uploaded to iCloud, and only for images that have been identified by the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children and a small number of other groups."

First reference I read about adding other countries as a done deal, and especially about an incredibly opaque "small number of other groups" being involved as well.

Man, after all they've said about being obsessed with privacy they're really not doing themselves any favors here. What a tragedy.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#210

Post by stjohnswarts »

travoc wrote: post #7

Can someone explain how Apple being coaxed or coerced into searching all of our personal devices for illegal files by federal law enforcement is not an unconstitutional warrantless search?

Because it's a contract between you and apple. You don't have to use their phones and they're a corp not the government. Personally I see it as an underhanded attempt for the government to use apple as a police force in everything but actually deputizing them. They're using a loop hole in the 4th amendment to spy on you without a warrant.
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