Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#41

Post by threeseed » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:11 AM UTC

unityByFreedom wrote: post #39

carom wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why didn't Apple do this without announcing it? The answer is Apple risks a whistleblower on their hands if they do it secretly, regardless of the targeted country. Remember Google's project Dragonfly? Plus, software needs to be maintained. I don't see how they could do that in perpetuity without a major risk to their valuation. So all moves do need to be made public while the software is created in countries that ha…

So why wouldn't that same whisteblower complain if Apple expands their CSAM detection system to other use cases ?

And iOS is a modular operating system. They could easily swap out the Photos.framework for different state actors and support that in perpetuity. They were already doing this when cross-building for ARM/x86.

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#42

Post by threeseed » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:13 AM UTC

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #40

carom wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that prevents Apple, Microsoft, or Ubuntu from executing arbitrary code on your system is their promise to keep the scope of updates limited. You already operate under this trust model.

> 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 furt…

If you are not compiling your operating system, every library and every application from scratch then you are blindly trusting third parties.

And if you are assuming Apple can't be trusted when they say they won't expand this to non-CSAM use cases then not sure why you would then trust Microsoft, Ubuntu etc.

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#43

Post by unityByFreedom » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:15 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #41

unityByFreedom wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't Apple do this without announcing it? The answer is Apple risks a whistleblower on their hands if they do it secretly, regardless of the targeted country. Remember Google's project Dragonfly? Plus, software needs to be maintained. I don't see how they could do that in perpetuity without a major risk to their valuation. So all moves do need to be made public while the software is created in countries that ha…

So why wouldn't that same whisteblower complain if Apple expands their CSAM detection system to other use cases ? And iOS is a modular operating system. They could easily swap out the Photos.framework for different state actors and support that in perpetuity. They were already doing this when cross-building for ARM/x86.

> So why wouldn't that same whisteblower complain if Apple expands their CSAM detection system to other use cases ?

I assume Apple could make it very difficult, if not impossible, to detect what they're searching for when they are using hashes created and transmitted by all their own hardware and software.

But, even if they did publish the hashes and those were somehow verified in free-press countries by a trusted 3rd party, that does nothing for countries with no free press. Such places would have no knowledge of what's being searched for, and that's the whole point. I won't support an American company that helps oppressive countries stymie what little freedom their people have left to connect via the internet. To the extent they are successful, the results of those tools will eventually be aimed at us, either via uninformed people or by using the tools themselves on us.

> And iOS is a modular operating system. They could easily swap out the Photos.framework for different state actors and support that in perpetuity. They were already doing this when cross-building for ARM/x86.

Sure. And I expect if there were something nefarious there working on behalf of foreign governments then we would eventually hear about it, one way or another. It's a terrible idea that would be abused, and humans are natural pattern recognizers.

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#44

Post by tzs » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:18 AM UTC

shuckles wrote: post #7

hmsshagatsea wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did they get wrong?

About 2/3rds of their original letter was spent characterizing the system to warn kids about dick pics with on-device inference as an iMessage backdoor, which literally nobody serious believes.

More astounding was the privacy issue they raised with it, which I've not seen raised by anyone else.

Let's review how this feature works. It is only on if parent's explicitly enable it for their child's phone when they set up the child's phone for parental controls.

If it is on, images sent to the child's phone are scanned using a ML system to recognize sex images. When such an image is found, the child is given a screen that warns that the image contains content that may be harmful to the child, and may be an image of someone who did not consent to having it sent.

The child is asked if they want to reject the image or view it.

If the child elects to view it and is 13-17 they are shown a blurred version of the image and that is the end of it.

If the child elects to view it and is under 13, they get another screen that says that if they view it their parents will be notified because the parents want to be able to check to make sure the child is safe. They are again asked if they want to reject it or view it.

If they reject it, that's the end of it. If they view it they get a blurred version and the parents are notified.

The privacy issue the EFF has with this? If I send your 12 or under child a dick pic and they elect to view it knowing that their parents will be notified and see a copy of the image, my privacy might be violated because I did not consent to the child's parents being told I'm sending their child dick pics or to the parents seeing my dick pic.

I wonder what the EFF's opinion would be if I sent a dick pic to a 12 year old whose device does not have parental controls, but the kid decided to show it to the parents. Has the child violated my privacy? If we are in a state that has a civil law against nonconsensual image sharing would the EFF help me sue the child?

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#45

Post by Barrin92 » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:19 AM UTC

carom wrote: post #14

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. EFF lost a lot of credence to me after the Best Buy case. They made this big fuss about how Geek Squad employees were agents of the state for reporting CSAM on a customers hard drive, while doing a requested file recovery. When searched, the defend…

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

yeah with the small difference that the virus scanner reports to you, whereas this scanner reports to Apple or authorities.

The virus scanner's purpose is to alert you of viruses on your machine, the purpose of apple's scanner is to engage in blanket surveillance and treat ordinary users like potential consumers of CSAM by default.

Nothing about this is privacy preserving. Privacy would be preserved if Apple refrains from touching any of the information that belong to me and doesn't treat their customers like potential criminals. Imagine you rent parking space for your car and at random intervals, with no reason at all, nothing suspicious has ever happened, the owner comes up, opens your trunk, and rummages through it to check for child porn. That's what Apple is doing.

Since when has renting storage space ever entitled anyone to check what the customer puts in the storage? Do you expect the bank clerk to crawl through your personal safe deposit box as well to prevent crime?

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#46

Post by gefhfff » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:21 AM UTC

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #13

88840-8855 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be that guy, but for this job there were lining up 300 more people. Nobody except of a tiny group of nerdy guys (including myself, ofc) is against this apple csam move. Just ask your parents or your non-tech friends if it's "ok" to scan people's phones to find those "bad pedophiles" in order to jail then up for the rest of their life. You will be surprised how much support Apple's initiative has in th…

> Nobody except of a tiny group of nerdy guys I think you oversimplify this by a lot. No, Apple reputation won't be severely damaged by this move immediately. But I do believe that those "nerdy guys" did a lot to push the Apple brand, and a big part of that push was due to security and privacy. Until recently Apple was always the "privacy brand" and it was hard to argue against it without going the full FSF route of…

No nerdy guy pushes apple for security and privacy. It is all closed source with data leaking by default - partially not possible to turn off.

They rather push devices like librem 5, Pine phone, Fairphone with /e/os, but not Apple...

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#47

Post by oarsinsync » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:22 AM UTC

2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote: post #13

88840-8855 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be that guy, but for this job there were lining up 300 more people. Nobody except of a tiny group of nerdy guys (including myself, ofc) is against this apple csam move. Just ask your parents or your non-tech friends if it's "ok" to scan people's phones to find those "bad pedophiles" in order to jail then up for the rest of their life. You will be surprised how much support Apple's initiative has in th…

> Nobody except of a tiny group of nerdy guys I think you oversimplify this by a lot. No, Apple reputation won't be severely damaged by this move immediately. But I do believe that those "nerdy guys" did a lot to push the Apple brand, and a big part of that push was due to security and privacy. Until recently Apple was always the "privacy brand" and it was hard to argue against it without going the full FSF route of…

> But I do believe that those "nerdy guys" did a lot to push the Apple brand

We sure did. We're also ignoring all the celebrities that helped to push the Apple brand (remember the iPod and it's terrible but iconic white headphones?).

Popular culture has a much stronger influence on Apple's standing with non-nerds, than nerds do. We like to think we're important, and that people value our opinions, but increasingly that's not true. as the differences between the options diminish to 'probably bad for the world long term' (big tech) and 'probably bad for you today' (open source / pinephone / etc, they're just not usable enough yet), the value of our opinions drops, because there's no real choice between bad or badder.

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#48

Post by the_other » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:25 AM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #18

bathtub365 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This analogy only works at a superficial, technical level. When a virus scanner finds a virus, it alerts me and I can either quarantine or delete it. It’s up to me to decide if what it’s found is actually a virus, or a false positive. When Apple's tool thinks it’s found the material it’s looking for, the assumption is that I am a pedophile who collects CSAM.

Rather than oppose a measure to protect children because of the fear of a few false positives, why can't you accept the fact that the societal benefit outweighs the potential risk? A few innocent men might be condemned to rot -- or be murdered -- in prison, but Apple has developed a system that mostly protects your privacy and could save the lives of potentially millions of children around the world. The rights of a…

> why can't you accept the fact that the societal benefit outweighs the potential risk?

Because a shit technical solution (which opens the doors to other abuses) isn’t the fix. Because Apple are not the government.

A meaningful scheme to protect the children would need: - better sex ed in schools - better education for parents and people who would like to become parents as to the risks and signs - publicly announced meaningful support for people who self-identify with dangerous thoughts and seek help before their thoughts become behaviours - better support for people from abusive homes as they mature - (probably) two or three generations to pass through before you could measure statistically sound improvement

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#49

Post by xunn0026 » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:26 AM UTC

88840-8855 wrote: post #9

daenz wrote: post #6

An Apple recruiter recently reached out to me. I am in a fortunate position to turn down opportunities, so I made sure to explain that I am not interested in working for a company that is at the forefront of enabling further infringement on people's privacy. If you are able to push back, do it in any small way that you can.

I don't want to be that guy, but for this job there were lining up 300 more people. Nobody except of a tiny group of nerdy guys (including myself, ofc) is against this apple csam move. Just ask your parents or your non-tech friends if it's "ok" to scan people's phones to find those "bad pedophiles" in order to jail then up for the rest of their life. You will be surprised how much support Apple's initiative has in th…

Luckily Apple is trying to hire nerdy guys. Though, they try very hard to expand their hiring reach to other groups which might also be less displeased about such moves.

Remember Apple was convicted of colluding to keep programmer salaries low just as the mobile revolution was started. I think the impact of what they did on the world is undercounted (though, it was visible in the market capitalisation they reached in time).

Re: Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

#50

Post by hypertele-Xii » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 7:28 AM UTC

hamburgerwah wrote: post #4

Guarantee they will begin scanning your devices for unauthorized copyright material very soon if they have not already.

Didn't iMusic or whatever upload users' personal high quality files to cloud, to stream them back in lower quality, and then deleted the originals from the users devices? I remember something like that making the news.

Imagine being a musician and Apple deletes your originals to stream your own music back to you in low quality.