WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by voidnullnil » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

The most annoying thing is that everyone denouncing Apple's action still agree that "CSAM" is a problem that needs action by technology companies (and thus decentralized stuff should be illegal). While "CSAM" is a problem, just like any crime, it's completely overblown and much more rare than they pretend it is. NO. The internet doesn't need regulation. Never.

- Most instances of "child abuse" involve something that matches the legal term, but involves teenagers and is almost certainly not abuse

- Lots of conservatives want to punish said teens and anyone involved for sexuality and go along with the sophistry of calling people abuse victims when they have consensual sex or post their nude photos online

- Naturally, there is no incentive to look at naked 5 year olds, because that's not how the human body works. This is an edge case and is what the media makes out to be the norm

Stop pretending to have a "mature perspective". Companies should literally never touch your data unless there is a search warrant. Now that I read this article I'm concerned about what WhatsApp is doing.

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

#222

Post by amanaplanacanal » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #210

zepto wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because once that functionality is there it affects everyone, not just in the US. The functionality to detect CSAM uploaded to Apple’s servers or sent to pre-teens? > And it basically means we sell out our democratic principles What democratic principle is being sold out?

The right to secret communication. The right of not being under surveillance. The government cannot open letters without a warrant, but somehow Apple, Google, MS and co can sniff through electronic communication as they see fit because of a clause in an EULA. No idea how came there, but maybe the days when Stasi surveillance was the poster child of government intrusion into private life are too long gone to be rememb…

Might as well make it legal for police to search our houses at will, as long as they are looking for child abuse images. Doesn’t sound much like the US any more at that point.

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

#223

Post by amanaplanacanal » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #181

sneak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they could, as iCloud Photos is not e2e (Apple can read all of it) and they turn over the user data on over 30,000 users per year to the USG without even a warrant. This is just farce.

> But they could, as iCloud Photos is not e2e Client side scanning is a prerequsite to making it e2e if you also want countermeasures against CSAM.

Has Apple said this is what they are going to do, or are people just guessing?

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

#224

Post by amanaplanacanal » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

jgaa wrote: post #184

pyaamb wrote: post #161

does anyone know if there has been studies showing rise in child sexual exploitation that would warrant something so drastic? I would have imagined it would be lower as society progresses but i do not know. I dont see enough people asking if giving up our personal privacy is really warranted or if we are being mislead. People should be asking for hard proof.

Child porn was, as far as I remember, made illegal because 2 million children was used in it's production. Now that number is 5 million.

Is that five million a year, or five million total, including the original two million? This isn’t saying anything about whether more children are being abused now.

Given how ubiquitous cameras are, I can fully imagine more pictures being taken, though.

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

#225

Post by amanaplanacanal » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

throwaway75 wrote: post #212

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.

So if the camera goes away, the child abuse won’t happen? Somehow I doubt that.

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

#226

Post by fsflover » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #72

Fnoord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's like three major options if you want to run a FOSS smartphone, and I'll sum them up. Pinephone: Cheap. The device isn't very powerful. With people coming from an Apple device, that's a problem. Fairphone 3: Fair. The hardware isn't very powerful either, and the device is more expensive, but the product is better for the people who assembled it and the environment. Librem 5: Open. Even more expensive than Fair…

"Fairphone" It is nice the the fairphone trys to be nice and fair, but I would rather have a focus of a actual open phone under my control and they do not deliver this (not to blame them, the issue is hard). Fixing the global exploitive economy is a different issue and trying to solve everything at once is not working usually. "Librem 5" How useful is a microphone killswitch, if there is no killswitch for the speaker…

> And it would be news to me, that it is now completely free of binary blobs and their claims always felt a little bit dishonest to me.

It's the only phone running FSF-endorsed OS without binary blobs, PureOS. It's recommended by the FSF [0]. More details here [1].

[0] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/

[1] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

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

#227

Post by zepto » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #206

zepto wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you claiming that China will force Apple to scan the phones of US citizens now?

Not necessarily, but I jave no reason to believe China, Saudi, Turkey, the UAE or other countries with some kind of leverage won't try. Especially with their own citizens living abroad.

I’m sure they will try, but I don’t see how this mechanism will help them.

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

#228

Post by fsflover » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #142

hutzlibu wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fairphone" It is nice the the fairphone trys to be nice and fair, but I would rather have a focus of a actual open phone under my control and they do not deliver this (not to blame them, the issue is hard). Fixing the global exploitive economy is a different issue and trying to solve everything at once is not working usually. "Librem 5" How useful is a microphone killswitch, if there is no killswitch for the speaker…

Pinephone is a certainly a good bang for the buck, but the hardware is nothing special, and the killswitches are DIP (better than nothing, like Fairphone's current iterations). If you want a cheap solution, this one's the one to opt for. Especially a good option for people who live in (relatively) poorer countries/regions than US or North/West-Europe. A lot of people in our world simply cannot afford a Fairphone. I c…

> I believe that, for me, this (hardware keyboard smartphone) is going to be the ultimate usability dream, if the keys are large enough.

https://xnux.eu/log/#043

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

#229

Post by HNisBaizuo » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

okokwhatever wrote: post #153

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…

No sir, not at all. The basement of all individual rights is freedom. If police can't do their job in a proper way we shouldn't abandone our right to not be monitored in our private life to supplant their ineffectiveness.

[dead]

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

#230

Post by zepto » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #223

zepto wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they could, as iCloud Photos is not e2e Client side scanning is a prerequsite to making it e2e if you also want countermeasures against CSAM.

Has Apple said this is what they are going to do, or are people just guessing?

They haven’t announced this, but they invest a lot in encryption and privacy, and have stated that user privacy is a value of theirs. They have also expressed that they don’t want access to be able to be forced by law enforcement.