Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

> This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported. Your Windows desktop has Windows Defender.

1) I don't run Windows.

2) The principle of antivirus software is different: the software scans your files but does everything locally and with the end user in full control over what happens next, and of their data. Windows Defender does not report you to the fuzz when it finds a match -- yet. Given that it is apparently now enforcing copyright laws in addition to protecting the end user against viruses, that may change.

> The case was dismissed on a technicality.

If the cops want to catch chomos and bring them to justice, they can assiduously avoid bringing the fruit of the poisoned tree into the courtroom. The societal risks of allowing them to bring ill-gotten evidence to trial are too great, no matter how evil we think the defendant is.

> It scans your photos, for known CSAM images, when you are using iCloud backups, in order to comply with the law that they must scan their hosting services for CSAM.

The USA has no such law (yet). Service providers have a duty to report if they find CSAM, not a duty to scan for it. Even if they had such a duty, they could scan the copy that lives on their servers, rather than pushing spyware to users' devices and blatantly breaking the trust that a user's device implicitly serves the user's needs.

> We seem to have taken the idea that sometimes bad things are promoted through "think of the children" to mean we must oppose anything involving the protection of children.

That's a disingenuous strawman. No one is objecting to laws that punish child abusers, or to legitimate forensic techniques to catch them. We're objecting to companies -- and now end-user devices -- being deputized to participate in law enforcement dragnets likely in violation of the U.S. Constitution, other national constitutions, and the principles of a free society (the applicable one being: LE doesn't get to search you without a damned good reason signed off by a judge on a warrant, and by extension they don't get to twist OEMs' arms to build devices to search you on their behalf).

Why has that state actor not already forced Apple to deploy a special firmware image to all citizens via software update functionality? Yes, this can be used to search for banned memes, but if a country has that flex, they would already be doing so.

Sarcasm doesn't land well here, especially when it's a long comment.

Thinking about false positives is the wrong thing to focus on. The point is the technology could be applied to any image such as Tiannanmen Square, Hong Kong, depictions of God, Muhammad, or Jesus, etc.

Sorry, but I do not believe that is what the leak revealed.

There was a slide that indicated that data from Apple and other companies was now part of the PRISM program.

I am not trying to deny or refute Snowden's whistleblowing. I think it is highly likely that PRISM exists. What I dispute are the speculations that the companies listed are complicit.

The 2012 date is quite suspicious - it is precisely the same year that a new Apple datacenter in Prineville came online. Facebook also has a datacenter. Literally next door. Facebook also appears on those slides. I am not sure who else is also now in the area.

I wonder where all of the network cables go?

I personally think that PRISM works by externally intercepting data communication lines running to these facilities. Similar to the rumors that international comms links have been tapped. The companies themselves have not participated, but the data path has been compromised.

The NSA has previously tapped lines (AT&T), but they made the mistake of doing it inside the AT&T building. Google "Room 641A at 611 Folsom Street, SF". That is where "beam splitting" was done. This eventually leaked out. The NSA isn't stupid, I doubt they wanted to repeat that sort of discovery. The best way to keep something from being discovered is to not let people know. This is why I think it is believable and likely that the companies listed on the slides have no idea what has been done.

I will also note that PRISM and "beam splitting" are a rather cosy coincidence.

I think it is most likely that PRISM is implemented without the knowledge of anyone except the NSA and in Prineville there is some "diversion" of network cabling to a private facility that is tapping the lines.

> You already operate under this trust model.

Do I? Can you elaborate? Do you notice a difference between a company (potentially) doing this behind closed doors and as quietly as possible and doing this in a public official way?

What if I tell you I don't use any of the operating systems you listed? Does your answer change?

I have a question: Would you welcome such a move? Do you believe that taking things a bit further would be nice because "we might catch a few criminals"?