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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

#31
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's awful. do you have a source on this?

See https://european-pirateparty.eu/child-protection-through-sca... . > Not only searches for known pictures and videos are to be legalised, but also error-prone “artificial intelligence”, for example to automatically search text messages for “luring” of minors. If an algorithm reports a suspected message, message content and customer data could be automatically forwarded to law enforcement agencies and non-governmen…

It will only take a few false-positive images shared on WhatsApp by everyone to take down that initiative.

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

#33

What are people switching too that is not susceptible to the same thing?

I’m considering a switch to GrapheneOS on a Pixel. I’m not sure if it’s an overreaction but I feel like I’ve lost what little trust I had remaining in Apple. It’s really unfortunate as they make quality products, but I guess everything sours eventually.

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

#34
post #9
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…

> It’s too late either way. The fact that it even got this far through implementation says the vendor is not on my side. Can Apple force people to install this even on devices they already sold?

If you don't use iCloud Photo Library or sync photos to the iCloud, none of this will apply to you.

https://daringfireball.net/2021/08/apple_child_safety_initia...

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

#35
So I was ignorant on the issue and completely against the approach of Apple.

Then HN taught me that any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government.

At this point, the approach taken by Apple seems like the best one to me, if you don't want to store pictures in clear on your servers.

What other technical approach are people advocating for?

Another point it is to try to change the law, but this is beyond the scope of the conversation.

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

#36
post #34
post #9

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. Can Apple force people to install this even on devices they already sold?

If you don't use iCloud Photo Library or sync photos to the iCloud, none of this will apply to you. https://daringfireball.net/2021/08/apple_child_safety_initia...

If this technology is that easily circumvented then why is there an expectation that it will be effective at all?

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

#37
post #7

Tim Cook is one of the best managers in the world but this is one of very few instances where Apple completely forgot about their mission as a company under his leadership. I'm surprised he went ahead with this considering how much privacy goodwill they have built up over the years.

> Tim Cook is one of the best managers

What my SO says that he's just the manager of sales interested in selling their products and nothing else; the "else" is done by others - with marketing and pr and actual work.

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

#38
With the noble excuse of "protecting the children" they are just opening the vector that will allow them to go for other stuff in the future. I think this is just the first step and the intention is to make it "cognitively acceptable" for the majority of us later on.

At this point, I have no doubt that in the future, a more ambiguous excuse such as "hate speech" will be used and under that umbrella, the elites will have a huge margin for pursuing any kind of "dissidence".

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

#39
post #35

So I was ignorant on the issue and completely against the approach of Apple. Then HN taught me that any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government. At this point, the approach taken by Apple seems like the best one to me, if you don't want to store pictures in clear on your servers. What other technical approach are people advocating for? Another point…

>What other technical approach are people advocating for?

Reduce user data stored in cloud data centres as much as possible. This is the approach taken by Whatsapp, so not surprised they are the ones most vocal against it.

And at the risk of appearing to be supportive of a Facebook product, I think this is the right way to take computing. We don't need a central place to put stuff or to do compute when we can do it on our own devices. We just need orchestration.

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

#40
post #35

So I was ignorant on the issue and completely against the approach of Apple. Then HN taught me that any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government. At this point, the approach taken by Apple seems like the best one to me, if you don't want to store pictures in clear on your servers. What other technical approach are people advocating for? Another point…

> any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government

Ones they know of…

> What other technical approach are people advocating for?

Apple already has a technical solution, encryption.

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