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WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

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Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#211

Post by kemayo »

monocularvision wrote: post #168
rahoulb wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it (and I've not spent too long on this, just picking at various articles) - there are two separate things at play here. Firstly - CASM scanning is done via fingerprinting - the image is fingerprinted on device and when uploaded to iCloud that fingerprint is compared with the "dodgy images" fingerprints and an alert raised if a threshold of matches is reached (what's the threshold and with whom?) Seco…

> the image is fingerprinted on device and when uploaded to iCloud that fingerprint is compared with the "dodgy images" fingerprints and an alert raised if a threshold of matches is reached (what's the threshold and with whom?) Nope. The comparison is done on the device and the threshold is set there as well. I am not sure how alarmed I am yet at this whole affair but I do know that maybe 50% of posts I read about th…

> Nope. The comparison is done on the device and the threshold is set there as well.

As I understand it the fingerprinting and comparison is done on device, but it only happens as part of the upload-to-iCloud process. So the grandparent's phrasing isn't unreasonable.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#212

Post by throwaway75 »

Componica wrote: post #164

Imagine taking a photo or have in your gallery a photo a dear leader doesn't want to spread. Ten minutes later there's a knock at your door.

Imagine now a young child being sexually abused in front of a camera for all its years of existence, and that there's no knock on the door.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#213

Post by amanaplanacanal »

nicce wrote: post #196
542458 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do mandatory reporter laws work like that? I was under the impression that you had to report something if you saw it , but you had no obligation to be actively scanning or to compromise encryption to do so. For example, I don’t think S3 does any active scanning and you can definitely shove any encrypted blob you want onto their servers with no obligation to give them a decryption key. IMO this appears to be Apple eit…

I think you have to be aware of what is happening, before you can say that nothing criminal happens. This is where scanning steps in. You can’t turn blind eye.

There is a big jump from reporting criminal activity if you happen to see it, to actively searching it out. It is the jump from police arresting you if they see you smoking a joint to police searching your rooms to make sure you don’t have any cannabis in there.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#214

Post by adventured »

avianlyric wrote: post #191
unionpivo wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is now every government knows too. They can't pretend they don't have the capability. And if they can scan for CP, why can't they scan for "whatever" else instead.

iOS has been running complex Neural Nets on all your images for years now. It powers all their social features and search. Apple have always had the capability, and have been advertising it as central selling point of new versions of iOS for years. That ship sailed along time ago.

What changed is Apple just signaled to the governments of the world what it's willing to do toward abusing user privacy and exactly how it can work. And hey, Apple, if you're willing to do that, why not just go a bit further and do this, because we're asking you to or else (and now we know you're obviously even more morally flexible than what you used to present yourself as).

Before that, Apple put up a front that they would fight for user privacy at every turn. They pitched that over and over and over again as a corporate ethos, a selling point. That was the facade at least, even if one is cynical and wants to pretend it was a lie. Now they're not even presenting the facade, which will open the flood gates dramatically. They went from a supposedly resisting agent, to a morally gray and willing agent at a minimum. Apple dumped an enormous vat of blood into the shark infested waters.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#215

Post by throwaway75 »

gigel82 wrote: post #207
throwaway75 wrote: post #107

Sometimes there are more important things than maintaining individual privacy and this is clearly one of them. Finding and protecting even a few children from becoming victims of pornography is clearly something that is well worth my not having 100% privacy. Even knowing that there might be false alarms. Despite what the strident discourse has been, individual privacy is not some sancrosanct idea that cannot ever be…

Politicians love this guy ^ ; that's the way to right-think citizen, carry on :)

Child pornographers love this guy ^ ; that's the way to right-think consumer, carry on :)

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#217

Post by wydfre »

What is going on with people - why on earth are people overreacting to this. Apple is doing something unconditionally good, and people are posting about how it is bad? I mean the people writing the opposition to this change just sound pants-on-head stupid, and obviously suffer from sort of mental health problem (such as this[0]). Imagine the poor NSA having to know this evil and doing nothing, and Apple is doing it's small bit to help. It sounds a lot better than the useless HUMINT divisions.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/p0i9vb/bought_my_fir...

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#218

Post by MomoXenosaga »

kemayo wrote: post #208
mandeepj wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't use iCloud Photo Library or sync photos to the iCloud, none of this will apply to you. Not true. They will be scanning your messages also for inappropriate content - https://www.apple.com/child-safety/

That's also opt-in, though it's opted in by the parent of the child you're communicating with. If you're talking to adults, or children whose parents don't want to use the service, you're not getting your photos scanned.

Interesting, time for American teens to switch to WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal. Kids have sex life finds a way.

Has Apple thought this through?

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#219

Post by adventured »

avianlyric wrote: post #189
viktorcode wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with this approach is that it introduces on-device scan for images. All what is needed to adopt it to scan for different kind of images is to connect it to different database, say, Winnie the Pooh memes featuring CCP chairman, and boom, jailed dissenters. And ability to scan all images is but a minor firmware update away. Server scanning makes it clear that the company running the servers has acces…

> All what is needed to adopt it to scan for different kind of images is to connect it to different database, say, Winnie the Pooh memes featuring CCP chairman, and boom, jailed dissenters. The CCP have already throughly demonstrated that they don’t need manufactures consent to build these systems. Look at the Uyghur population in China. They already have their phones scanned on device for dissident material, not by…

> The CCP have already throughly demonstrated that they don’t need manufactures consent to build these systems.

It was obviously merely an example for illustration purposes by the parent. To get a point across it's often very helpful to use a stark, clear example.

Few governments will ever have the extraordinary capabilities and resources of the CCP in China.

For the other ~190 governments that will never reach that level of capability, what they might have now is a globe-spanning billion-device corporation like Apple more willing to assist them.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#220

Post by ryandrake »

RHSeeger wrote: post #152
treesknees wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet I keep seeing this jump. There's no evidence this will happen. Apple can already technically do anything they want to compromise the security of your device in the next software update, so could Google or Samsung or any other company. But when in Apple's history have they done this? There is zero reason to believe this is the next step other than speculation and fear mongering.

> Apple can already technically do anything they want to compromise the security of your device in the next software update But they're making it easier for governments to come along and force them to do more. Or even for themselves, but I tend to think they're less of an issue. I know "it's a slippery slope" gets overused... but if you keep taking baby slips down that slope, it only gets slipperier. You should avoid…

Anyone can imagine a hypothetical future feature and oppose it. What if Apple one day replaces all my music with Best of ABBA? That would be terrible, but they haven't done or proposed it, so why argue about it?
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