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

#231

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

squarefoot wrote: post #52

hutzlibu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Might look into pinephone or something similar." Pinephone is my hope, too, but do not expect anything stable soon. That will take some time, probably years. It does not happen on its own, though, they need support now to make it a real alternative and not just a tinker toy.

They have other interesting products on their site. I'm also waiting to decide if getting this Pinephone or waiting for a beefier one with more battery life (1), but I can wait since I'm not into smartphones. In the meantime I supported them by purchasing their solder iron, plus tips and other add ons, which works surprisingly good for the price, and I'll probably buy one of their SBCs. So if anyone wants to support…

> I would absolutely love a 2cm thick Pinephone if that allowed some more speed and serious battery life.

This is exactly what the keyboard mod is for. The keyboard has 6000 mHa battery (although it does not make Pinephone run faster).

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

#232

Post by zepto » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:14 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…

> Apple, … can sniff through electronic communication as they see fit

Except that they can’t and don’t.

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

#233

Post by micromacrofoot » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #8

hughrr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too late either way. The fact that it even got this far through implementation says the vendor is not on my side. Not only that once capability is revealed it can be required by governments and manipulated under warrant. Particularly in some regimes, mine included, the vendor can be compelled to do something and not say anything. My comment doesn’t even cover how monumentally flawed the entire thing is either. S…

Great to hear someone else is doing the same. For me the biggest issue is I have young kids and the convienence of quick photo taking is good on a smartphone. Might look into pinephone or something similar.

I understand that fear, but honestly this can not move me because I will unequivocally get worse or less candid photos of my kids if I switch to anything else. Apple has created the best portable camera I've ever used; it's not even close (this is coming from someone who used to make a living with photography). I really hate this situation but I'm clinging to the fact that I don't use iCloud and my kids are too young for iMessage.

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

#234

Post by detaro » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #226

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…

> 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...

Note that the FSF takes the position that binary blobs that are in non-writable memory and executed by secondary processors are part of the hardware and thus not relevant for judging the openness under RYF criteria. Which is how the Librem5 achieves that status, by deliberately picking components that do not use firmware upload from the host CPU but rather ship with the firmware in non-writable memory, and by adding read-only memory that is only used in the pre-boot environment. The OS is blob-free because the thing is engineered to make the blobs inaccessible to the OS. Which is a valid choice, since entirely blob-free would be impossible to make and ship, but I also see why people disagree that "blob-free" is a good description for the device.

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

#235

Post by zepto » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

ianmiers wrote: post #201

zepto wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then, once you are scanning encrypted data, They aren’t. > iMessage is next whether you want it or not. Is there some evidence you have of this plan? Sounds like this is just a fear you have.

>Is there some evidence you have of this plan? Sounds like this is just a fear you have. The EARN IT act. It may not be Apple's plan, Apple's plan, as you suggest, might only be for doing scanning on encrypted iCloud and excluding encrypted iMessage. But what Apple will be pushed to do after that is pretty clear.

If the government passes a law mandating that encrypted messages be scanned, it won’t be done using this CSAM mechanism, and it won’t only be Apple doing it.

In short, you might be right to be afraid of this outcome, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with CSAM countermeasures.

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

#236

Post by detaro » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #92

dahfizz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if there is no killswitch for the speakers, that can be used as a microphone, too? I know that physically / electronically, a speaker is a microphone, but is there any way for someone to actually record sound through the speakers on the librem? There is a lot more to a microphone than just the diaphragm...

Not easy probably, but likely doable, when someone think it is worth the effort. When the goal is security, because you feel (rightfully or not) targeted by state level intelligence, false sense of security can be dangerous: https://www.hackread.com/hackers-steal-data-air-gapped-pcs-m...

The work in that link has some pretty far-reaching requirements to claim that, that do not generalize to random phone hardware.

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

#237

Post by nicce » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #214

avianlyric wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

I think I disagree. Current move was improvement for user privacy, compared to what it used to be. Abuse is only on speculation, not on what has actually been done.

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

#238

Post by zepto » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #203

zepto wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple already has a technical solution, encryption. How does encryption help prevent porn being sent to pre-teens?

That’s a completely different feature than the one we’re discussing. These things were announced together, but they are not the same. Nobody is objecting to opt-in clientside content filtering.

Both of the features involve opt-in client side content filtering.

The only objections are to that.

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

#239

Post by ryanlol » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #238

ryanlol wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a completely different feature than the one we’re discussing. These things were announced together, but they are not the same. Nobody is objecting to opt-in clientside content filtering.

Both of the features involve opt-in client side content filtering. The only objections are to that.

The CSAM scanning is not opt-in.

Sure, you could stop using iCloud. That’s opt-out.

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

#240

Post by hef19898 » Mon, Aug 09, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #232

hef19898 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Apple, … can sniff through electronic communication as they see fit Except that they can’t and don’t.

Google is checking, apparently, Gmail for cp. Apple is doing it, soon, on your phone. Checking your mail for analog cp requires a warrant and can only be done by police. See the difference?