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An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

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Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#281

Post by fragileone »

bottled_poe wrote: post #224
bArray wrote: post #41

Honestly I'm glad to see a non-insignificant amount of people in tech take this seriously, especially when the goal Apple announces appears to be for the greater good. It can be hard to stand on the side that doesn't immediately appear to be correct. We have already lost so many freedoms for 'national security' and other such blanket terminology. Just be warned, there will be those that unfairly try to cast this as h…

> 1. Vote with your feet - Put your money in the pockets of the people aligned to your values. This is impossible. Just like modern democratic voting, you don’t get to vote on an individual policy. You vote on a bundle and that bundle almost certainly includes policies (or in this case “features”) that you don’t agree with.

So? If a corporation (or political party) does a shockingly egregious thing that doesn't align with your values then you absolutely should switch to an alternative that supports your values.

Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#282

Post by lovemenot »

nbzso wrote: post #249
lovemenot wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The empowerment that you feel you once lent to Apple may no longer be part of their growth plan. Whether or not it actually mattered at the time.

The empowerment at the time was a honest and professional assessment of using MacOS X vs Windows. Apple embraced PC vs Mac marketing as I can remember. The empowerment today is the same professional stance. Explaining the technical facts to my customers. Nobody will like the idea that their phone or personal computer will actively police on the behalf of big brother. Serious business people don't have to "follow" tec…

Your professionalism is admirable. In this context, perhaps that's all it counts for.

Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#283

Post by natdempk »

0xy wrote: post #96
tcldr wrote: post #87

So, if I understand correctly, the NCMEC provides a bunch of hashes of CSAM for Apple to match. This way Apple doesn’t get exposed to the content of images themselves? Then Apple will provide a user’s details plus the IDs of matching content. This identifies the direction of travel for any CSAM content? So, now NCMEC and any local NCMEC can provide new hashes and identify – possibly even historically – the epicentre…

NCMEC's database already contains non-CSAM. What you suggest is not theoretical, it's reality today. I really think people are missing this point. NCMEC's database is not an infallible, audited and trustworthy source of despicable imagery. It's a mess contributed to by thousands of companies, individuals and police. It's also so intertwined with the FBI that I don't think it's truly correct to call NCMEC independent,…

Can you provide more context for this? I could definitely believe this possibility but it’s a big claim to make.

Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#285

Post by nicce »

ksec wrote: post #252
bArray wrote: post #41

Honestly I'm glad to see a non-insignificant amount of people in tech take this seriously, especially when the goal Apple announces appears to be for the greater good. It can be hard to stand on the side that doesn't immediately appear to be correct. We have already lost so many freedoms for 'national security' and other such blanket terminology. Just be warned, there will be those that unfairly try to cast this as h…

I actually view this as not a good sign. That many are still in the very very early stage of shock, what Apple is doing does not align with their perceived values. Deducting points from Apple in their own mental model. They write these letter because they think Apple is still mostly good and hope they could have a change of heart. What would happen as some others have pointed out, people will forget about it. Apple w…

It might be hard to understand, but iOS is a blackbox. Based on what they add and say, we still don't know what exactly is happening. All we have is trust. We can speculate that with "what ifs", but same "if" is applying already.

Once we take other big platforms on account, Apple is actually trying to note privacy. Other platforms just scan everything you put in cloud, but Apple tries to limit the information what they acquire, by scanning it on device. And based on their specification, they scan locally only what is going into the cloud. It took me a while to realize, but this is improvement for what has been happening in the industry for years already.

Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#286

Post by parasubvert »

busymom0 wrote: post #260
ksec wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually view this as not a good sign. That many are still in the very very early stage of shock, what Apple is doing does not align with their perceived values. Deducting points from Apple in their own mental model. They write these letter because they think Apple is still mostly good and hope they could have a change of heart. What would happen as some others have pointed out, people will forget about it. Apple w…

Fair point and you are probably right. However, this is getting them a ton of bad press from pretty major players in the privacy world (Edward Snowden for example). This has high chances of a lot of people abandoning Apple products (I'll no longer purchase new apple products and already switching over to de-googled Android). Privacy is obviously just a marketing play by Apple but this time, they can't hide it and it…

I actually expect most to support Apple’s approach here. But it is early.

Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#287

Post by CSAECop »

lovemenot wrote: post #246
CSAECop wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably don't realise it, because you're coming from a perspective that has been heavily influenced in a particular way, but some of these questions are kind of insulting and don't really assume good faith (or even basic decency) on my part. > "does the CP protection end justify any means?" Like, is this legitimately a question you think I might answer "yes" to? This is the equivalent of "do you support the rape…

I apologise if you you genuinely felt my questions were assuming bad faith. It was not my intention. > "does the CP protection end justify any means?" It's a style of argumentation. Not personal. When trying to find where to draw a line in the sand, one way is to draw a line that almost certainly encompasses us both. We are obliged to consider: if not this line (obviously) then what line? My intent was to find your l…

How are you expecting me to describe this limit?

I think it's legitimate for companies to implement automated systems, such as CSAM and spam filtering, to limit the amount of unwanted material on their networks. I don't have any problem with Apple, Google, and Microsoft, checking the hashes of files I upload (or attempt to upload, in Apple's case) to their servers against ICSE. I would have an issue if employees of those companies had unfettered, unaudited access to users files.

Outside of giving my opinion of a specific proposal I don't know what you expect me to say.

Perhaps you could describe your own "limit" to how much avoidable suffering is acceptable to you before you would support automated scanning of uploads. I don't personally believe it's possible to precisely explain an overarching "limit" in situations that balance competing moral and philosophical concerns.

---

I'm being rate limited now due to downvotes, might not be able to respond further

Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#288

Post by queuebert »

swiley wrote: post #176
sillysaurusx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a non-insignificant amount of people in tech take this seriously We're all here to make ourselves feel good saying we Took A Stand. In reality, four weeks from now, do you think anybody will still be talking about it? I made this same mistake. I was pretty convinced that people were taking Copilot seriously, and that there was possibly going to be ramifications for Microsoft. I wasn't particularly looking forward t…

I completed my move to the Pinephone and formatted my iPhone over this. I'm probably not alone.

I would love to read some first-hand experiences of the Pinephone or Librem phones on here.

Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#289

Post by justinclift »

fsflover wrote: post #277
ksec wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually view this as not a good sign. That many are still in the very very early stage of shock, what Apple is doing does not align with their perceived values. Deducting points from Apple in their own mental model. They write these letter because they think Apple is still mostly good and hope they could have a change of heart. What would happen as some others have pointed out, people will forget about it. Apple w…

> I mean for pete sake is Microsoft or Google even trying to compete? Forget the evil monopolies. Consider GNU/Linux phones, Librem 5 and Pinehone. They may not be ready for an average user, but the HN audience can take advantage of them and help their develoment.

If open phones actually do get market traction (and I'm hoping they do), then I'm pretty sure that Apple/Google/etc will attempt to get laws passed banning them.

There are all sort of avenues that could be taken for such laws unfortunately. :/

Re: An open letter against Apple's new privacy-invasive client-side content scanning

#290

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Wasn't this covered, yesterday? It seems to be a GitHub Pages site that links to the same resource that was posted here yesterday.

But I think it def deserves a lot of scrutiny, and I support the effort, so I'm not really complaining.

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