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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

#261

Post by hutzlibu »

dylan604 wrote: post #149
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…

>phone with facebook app preinstalled and unremovable I've never used a phone like this, but are you also forced to provide FB credentials during initial setup? If not, then is the FB app just being installed a privacy threat if it is never used? Is it still accessing information on the phone without being tied directly to you?

" Is it still accessing information on the phone without being tied directly to you? "

I don't know. I do not have FB. But the fact, that I still have to have the app no matter what I want, illustrates my point, that I really do not own or controll this phone. But it works reliable, was affordable - AND I can remove the batterie.

And I do it regulary, because then I can be sure, it is really turned off.

Otherwise I kind of assume everything I do with it or around it, is potentially recorded.

So yes, I really, really want a phone that I can trust, even if it is turned on.

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

#262

Post by hutzlibu »

shadowoflight wrote: post #195
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…

If one is okay with less-open hardware, the F(x)tec Pro 1 X seems to be a good higher-end smartphone that has a decent camera sensor, slide-out keyboard, AMOLED display, and can be ordered with either Ubuntu Touch or Lineage preinstalled. It's at the top of my if-I-ever-jump-ship-from-Apple list of phones.

That sounds quite good too. I like pragmatic approaches.

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

#263

Post by sneak »

zepto wrote: post #230
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Their actions speak louder than their words.

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

#264

Post by Fnoord »

shadowoflight wrote: post #195
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…

If one is okay with less-open hardware, the F(x)tec Pro 1 X seems to be a good higher-end smartphone that has a decent camera sensor, slide-out keyboard, AMOLED display, and can be ordered with either Ubuntu Touch or Lineage preinstalled. It's at the top of my if-I-ever-jump-ship-from-Apple list of phones.

Yeah, I'm going for Astro Slide instead. I have used a keyboard similar to F(x)tec in past (the Pro 1 X is just a rebrand, btw) with Nokia N900 and Nokia E71. It simply does not type comfortably on such a keyboard, the keys are too small (there's always a learning curve with regards to layout as it is never 100% standard qwerty). If the Astro wouldn't be available I'm better off with touch type with a second screen as keyboard. Though, do see the Pinephone hardware keyboard link posted elsewhere in this thread. It seems to be akin to the Astro Slide. At least in spirit.

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

#265

Post by asddubs »

hughrr wrote: post #11
zpeti wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fortunately mine are teenagers now so that bit of my life is over mostly. I only get photos of them lurking, hiding and giving me the middle finger and that’s about it :)

well make sure to take plenty of pictures, you will cherish the memories of them lurking, hiding and giving you the middle finger for the rest of your life

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

#266

Post by nicce »

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.

Neural Net might be overkill as an example. Antivirus software has existed since 1980s[1].

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antivirus_software

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

#267

Post by GeekyBear »

hef19898 wrote: post #255
GeekyBear wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that is changing here is that the images are scanned on the device before being uploaded to the cloud, instead of being scanned on the server after they are uploaded to the cloud. If it hasn't been a problem that Google has been scanning your cloud data for the last decade, it didn't suddenly become a problem now.

The scanning was already a problem. A lesser one, as not using Google or iCloud avoided it. Now I can't, because technically Apple can now look directly at the phone. No idea hey it is so hard to get that difference.

Technically, Google can look directly into Android phones.

There is no difference.

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

#268

Post by dylan604 »

hutzlibu wrote: post #261
dylan604 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>phone with facebook app preinstalled and unremovable I've never used a phone like this, but are you also forced to provide FB credentials during initial setup? If not, then is the FB app just being installed a privacy threat if it is never used? Is it still accessing information on the phone without being tied directly to you?

" Is it still accessing information on the phone without being tied directly to you? " I don't know. I do not have FB. But the fact, that I still have to have the app no matter what I want, illustrates my point, that I really do not own or controll this phone. But it works reliable, was affordable - AND I can remove the batterie. And I do it regulary, because then I can be sure, it is really turned off. Otherwise I k…

I can assure you I'm not asking as an advocate for accepting FB to be pre-installed. I'm asking to know truly how vile it really is. At this point, I assume FB knows enough about everyone to be able to ID them without confirmation via logged in FB app.

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

#269

Post by nicce »

hef19898 wrote: post #255
GeekyBear wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that is changing here is that the images are scanned on the device before being uploaded to the cloud, instead of being scanned on the server after they are uploaded to the cloud. If it hasn't been a problem that Google has been scanning your cloud data for the last decade, it didn't suddenly become a problem now.

The scanning was already a problem. A lesser one, as not using Google or iCloud avoided it. Now I can't, because technically Apple can now look directly at the phone. No idea hey it is so hard to get that difference.

You should note the fact that everything on closed systems is based on trust. Apple has had always the opportunity to look directly on your phone. That does not simply change overnight when they add some feature. And currently they scan only those images on-device, which would end up into the cloud. You can avoid this scanning by not using iCloud.

The feature what everyone is afraid of (scan all in my device), is super trivial to add generally. Company like Apple can push it to public in less like week regardless if this Child Safety came first.

This new feature is actually really hard to develop, because they try to create E2EE system with backdoor. And they want to lock themselves out of this backdoor to prevent misuse.

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

#270

Post by ratww »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #218
kemayo wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Interesting observation. This might be more damaging to Apple than anything else.

Without iMessage/Facetime, a large part of the peer pressure teens get for having an iPhone is gone. Now they might start asking for a Galaxy or something like that.

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