Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

appleprivacyletter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 713 posts

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

#401

Post by rantwasp »

skybrian wrote: post #339
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…

Alternatively, if you don’t use iMessage or iCloud then I don’t think these changes affect you.

lol. nope. trust is binary. you either trust apple or not. after peddling their privacy marketing for so long and doing this, they literally lost my trust.

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

#402

Post by shuckles »

websites2023 wrote: post #384
shuckles wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iCloud Photos aren’t E2E encrypted, but it’s unlikely they’re scanned for CSAM today because Apple generates effectively 0 references to NCMEC annually.

I also believe Apple doesn't really want to scan your photos on their servers. I believe their competitors do, and they consider this compromise (scan on device with hashes) is their way of complying with CSAM demands while still maintaining their privacy story.

Yes. Scope creep is much easier when implemented as scanning on plaintext data.

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

#404

Post by snowwrestler »

zibzab wrote: post #46
jackvezkovic wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can always be leaks, anonymous sources that confirm something is still ongoing, despite what was publicly announced. Brand image is important.

Are you sure? Here is a true story for you: Company X claimed users voice commands never left their devices. Then someone leaked recordings of people having sex, commiting crimes, etc recorded from X devices. This was brought up by media. For every concerned user there were ten apologist trying to justify this behaviour and a week later everyone forgot this ever happened.

If you’re talking about Amazon, those stories did affect Echo sales, and the trajectory of the category overall. When was the last time you read a breathless article about how smart speakers will change everything?

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

#405

Post by geekles »

sathackr wrote: post #42

US Government: We suspect the person in this photo of committing a crime. Here is your subpoena, Apple. You are directed to scan all iPhone and iCloud storage for any pictures matching this NeuralHash and report to us where you find them. Chinese Government: Here is the NeuralHash for Tienanmen square. Delete all photos you find matching this or we will bar you from China. Apple has at this point already admitted thi…

As if this will be limited to "iThings". If you don't think this tech is coming to all devices, you're not paying attention to the state of the world.

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

#406

Post by rubyn00bie »

So the M1 has turned me off of Apple products because, quite frankly, I don't want to spend (more) of my time fixing shit a trillion dollar company broke and doesn't care to fix.

This though, this will be the nail in the coffin with my 25 year relationship to Apple. I probably wouldn't even have batted an eye at it to be honest, iff, Apple hadn't been selling me on the idea that their platform is "private and secure." But... they have... And this has made it quite clear, they will absolutely destroy that security/privacy the moment they want/need to. So I have been paying, a hefty premium, to be lied to and that makes me fucking cross. I have previously supported Apple because it seems like they typically do "the right thing" but this is so fucking insane to me I have to permanently question the judgement of those in charge.

Do not sell privacy and security if you're going to completely violate that security and privacy.

In 25 years or less this bullshit will be made illegal, because there is ZERO chance nefarious actors won't learn how to create benign images that match the hash of a heinous photo to destroy people. I can almost guarantee, right now, nation-state sponsored hackers and affiliated groups are attempting to get those hashes and do exactly that. It's just too fucking easy to manipulate once you're in and has absolutely zero chance of being detected once you're generating the hashes until too many lives are ruined.

May hell have no mercy for the souls who made this...

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

#407

Post by snowwrestler »

donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

The conversation today is not really about PhotoDNA (checking image hashes against known bad list). That ship has sailed and most large tech companies already do it. Apple will do it one way or another. It’s a good way to fight the sharing of child porn, which is why it is so widely adopted.

The question is whether it is worse to do it on-device, than on the server. That’s what Apple actually announced.

I suspect Apple thought doing it on-device would be better for privacy. But it feels like a loss of control. If it’s on the server, then I can choose to not upload and avoid the technology (and its potential for political abuse). If it’s on my locked and managed mobile device, I have basically no control over when or which images are getting checked, for what.

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

#408

Post by dwaite »

sathackr wrote: post #231
brasscodemonkey wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn’t Google been parsing Google Photos images, email content, and pretty much everything else since forever? Do you just stay off of smartphones and cloud platforms entirely?

They scan things I send them. They don't (publicly announce that they) scan things on my device.

The Apple feature discussed here is for photos being synched to iCloud Photos. It does not scan arbitrary local content.

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

#409

Post by katbyte »

guitarbill wrote: post #300
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…

As someone else mentioned, for a NAS using TrueNAS (used to be FreeNAS) is easy enough and quite satisfying. You can find plenty of guides. In general, you need to balance budget, capacity requirements, and form factor. Old servers are often great. Big disks seem like a good idea, but for rebuild times going over 4TB is horrible. However, unfortunately HDD prices right now are horrible...

define horrible? i have a 8x18tb raid-6 array and it rebuilds in 2-3 days.

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

#410

Post by sdoering »

sneak wrote: post #361
sdoering wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Speakers. Apple finally fixed laptop speakers. Nobody else has figured out how to copy it yet. :/

OK. Not my use case. I have never really listened that intensely.

But totally understand when the milage varies.

Post reply on HN