An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology • Hacker News Board

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#321

Post by conception » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:48 PM UTC

vladharbuz wrote: post #291

> To help address this, new technology in iOS and iPadOS* will allow Apple to detect known CSAM images stored in iCloud Photos. After reading OP, my understanding had been that this update will cause _all_ photos on Apple devices to be scanned. However, the above quote from Apple's statement seems to indicate that only photos uploaded to iCloud Photos are scanned (even though they are technically scanned offline). Th…

And this has always been Apple’s stance because of the government. We lock down the phone and don’t let the government in but if you use cloud service that doesn’t have the same rights because it’s not stored on your property.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/apple-drops-plans-...

This sounds like them trying to find a way to encrypt your data and remove the fbi from having a “what about the children excuse”. They scan the image on upload and then store it on iCloud and encrypt it.

It’s of course a slippery slope but the FBI has been trying to have back doors everywhere since forever.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#322

Post by robertoandred » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

juniperplant wrote: post #305

robertoandred wrote: post #293

This letter fundamentally misunderstands how this technology works. Or intentionally misunderstands. It’s sad that it’s being spread by people claiming to be tech-minded.

How so?

The letter implies a false positive can ruin your life, which ignores the facts that a false positive is incredibly unlikely, that you’d need many such false positives to flag an account, and the following manual review would immediately catch the error.

Then it goes on to scare you about WHAT IF OTHER PEOPLE USE THE DATABASE? What if they EXPAND the database?? This database isn’t Apple’s it belongs to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and companies like Google and Facebook have been using it for a decade.

And then it talks about how this will get queer kids thrown out of their homes, and I don’t even know where to start with this. How they got from warning an 8-year-old to not open a dick pic to this, I have no idea.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#323

Post by sdoering » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

ipodopt wrote: post #162

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #105

I know the privacy approach Apple has been pushing was just marketing, but I didn't care too much because I enjoyed my iPhone and M1 macbook. Because of this decision (and the fact that my iPhone more-or-less facilitates poor habits throughout my life), I'm considering moving completely out of the Apple ecosystem. Does anyone have any recommendations for replacements? * On laptops: I have an X1 carbon extreme running…

Laptop | Desktop: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem... Router: https://www.turris.com/en/omnia/overview/ Media Center: https://osmc.tv/vero/ Cloud (Use TrueNAS Scale): https://www.truenas.com/systems-overview/ Phone: https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ Watch: https://pine64.com/product/pinetime-smartwatch-sealed/ Smart Thermostat: https://hestiapi.com/product/hestiapi-touch-one-free-shippin..…

Laptop: Dell XPS 13 and very happy. Maxed out specs and clearly higher price range.

Or: Lenovo Yoga Convertible. My second device. I just don't do games. Or bigger data stuff on this machine. Some design work. Some photo and smaller video stuff. I love the flexibility of the convertible when working with PDF and doing annotations by hand.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#324

Post by bambax » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

juniperplant wrote: post #292

bambax wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I applaud the goal Really? What is the goal? It's not to prevent child abuse, since passively looking at images is not, per se, abuse. It's also not to limit the making of child pornography, since this will only search for already existing and already known images that already exist in government databases. If you make new images that are not yet in said databases, you're fine. I'm not sure what the actual go…

> It's not to prevent child abuse, since passively looking at images is not, per se, abuse. Consumption feeds production.

Or the opposite: consumption prevents people from acting out.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#325

Post by jazzyjackson » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

brasscodemonkey wrote: post #227

FabHK wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> direct access to everyone's data and messages. From what I understand, only to Chinese customers 's data and messages (bad enough, sure, but not as bad as you say).

Depends on the company. If it’s a Chinese company like TikTok, data is stored in China and therefore property of the state. Things are about to get worse and they crack down on private companies in China. And it’s not just Americans who worry about this. When word got out that Line was storing user data in China servers, it blew up in the news in Japan and Taiwan and went into immediate investigation. Line ended up m…

TikTok is run by a US-based subsidiary of ByteDance

They have insisted “that TikTok U.S. user data is stored in Virginia, with a back-up in Singapore and strict controls on employee access.”

https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/17/tiktok-launches-a-new-info...

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#326

Post by sf_rob » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

Outside of the privacy debate on this, I cannot overstate how dumb it was of Apple to announce this and sexual image ML in the same press release. It's resulting in an errant and vastly exagerated understanding of it by members of the public.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#327

Post by jjcon » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:53 PM UTC

robertoandred wrote: post #269

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #82

I'm waiting for orthodox authorities to do stuff like reporting pictures of people (not just girls) without head coverings. or dressed in bikinis, thongs, or underwear (like a significant number of "influencers" do, every day). There are already places in this world, where a couple can be arrested for kissing in public. I suspect that the folks enforcing those laws, would have some real interest in this capability. N…

That’s not at all how this works. It doesn’t scan for images of arbitrary subjects. It scans for exact matches of known CP. Your vacation pics are in no danger of being flagged.

Scans for exact matches of hashes of photos provided by the government. Apple is not controlling the hash database.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#328

Post by syshum » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

defaultname wrote: post #233

syshum wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not a slippery slope; that’s a fully built system just waiting for external pressure to make the slightest change. Apple’s changes would enable such screening, takedown, and reporting in its end-to-end messaging. The abuse cases are easy to imagine: governments that outlaw homosexuality might require the classifier to be trained to restrict apparent LGBTQ+ content, or an authoritarian regime might demand the c…

We can carry every single element back to its inception and make identical arguments. That's the problem with slippery slopes. Apple - creates messaging platform. Slippery slope - governments can force Apple to send them all messages. Apple - creates encrypted messaging platform. Slippery slope - governments can force Apple to send them the keys and all messages Apple - Adds camera to device (GPS, microphone, acceler…

That is because you are incorrectly using the the charge of the Slippery slope fallacy to hand wave away legitimate concerns by reducing them to an absurdity which is itself a logical fallacy

The legitimate concerns here are not a slippery slop, they are real and self evidence born from countless examples through out history of these types of survelence systems being abused. EFF points to a coulple, other artiles point to other examples

It takes a person an extremely dense person (or intellectually dishonest) to simply hand wave all of these concerns away as "well that is just a slippery slope so I can ignore you"

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#329

Post by sdoering » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #256

ipodopt wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laptop | Desktop: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem... Router: https://www.turris.com/en/omnia/overview/ Media Center: https://osmc.tv/vero/ Cloud (Use TrueNAS Scale): https://www.truenas.com/systems-overview/ Phone: https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ Watch: https://pine64.com/product/pinetime-smartwatch-sealed/ Smart Thermostat: https://hestiapi.com/product/hestiapi-touch-one-free-shippin..…

The dell and lenovo laptops are nowhere the quality of the apple machines, sadly. I have a maxed out xps and it is a downgrade in all respects but privacy. :/

I can't complain. But can't compare it to the M1. I had a 2020 MBPro and am currently using a XPS 13 with maxed out specs.

The camera on the XPS is some leagues below. The microphone had driver issues from the start and it cost me two days for a software workaround.

Other than that I am in every way more happy. Keyboard, track pad and resolution. Performance even with crappy corporate spy-and crapware is definitely way better.

I thought I would miss the Mac more. Not looking back once the mic was fixed.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#330

Post by fsflover » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

ipodopt wrote: post #315

fsflover wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I take it you have the v3 with the standard boot drive? Yes, v3. What do you mean by "standard boot drive"? Using SSD if that's what you mean.

The v4 updated the screen which burned more power. I remember telling them my real life results and them proceeding to not update their product marketing page while admitting it was based on the v3. I feel like they were already stretching it to begin with with v3 but you would know. I also got the fastest SSD they had in checkout. Which I think contributed to the booting race condition. I never got a link to an upst…

This looks like a similar problem to yours. They fixed that, even though it affected SSDs that they did not themselves sell: https://forums.puri.sm/t/support-with-booting-from-nvme-ssd/....