Super easy way to convince Apple they might want to re-think things. Buy something other than Apple products, starting with the iPhone.
In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
411–420 of 430 posts
Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pictures is just a pretense. Step #2 will be URLs of pictures that users send each other using the phone's keyboard. Step #3 will quietly expand the definition of a URL to any keyboard input. At that point, Apple will have a god's eye view into all communications of their users, be it over WhatsApp, Signal, SMS or an online forum. Imagine having a dashboard that shows in realtime with gps coordinates how many text me…
If there ever is a showcase of the slippery slope fallacy this comment would be on it. Step back for a second and think about why perhaps falling for the ‘but the children’ trap tells you Apple wants to go in the absurd direction you are pointing. Think about if it makes any sense at all they would want to go that way, think about why they would even let you know and think about how plausible it is for these steps to…
It's not fallacy. There's huge demand for such monitoring and few countries are as competent as China to do it themselves. Apple already works closely with CCP, so it won't face any moral dilemmas. The only obstacle is damage to reputation in the US and Apple is assessing the scope of this damage right now.
Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
the imessage scanning is just to provide on-device warnings and blurring of photos that are suspected of being inappropriate. nothing is transmitted off the phone — parents are only given a notification (and only if their child is under 13, and only then if the child sends or replies to nude photos after being warned by the system)
Not according to [1]. > Apple’s second main new feature is two kinds of notifications based on scanning photos sent or received by iMessage. > To implement these notifications, Apple will be rolling out an on-device machine learning classifier designed to detect “sexually explicit images”. > According to Apple, these features will be limited (at launch) to U.S. users under 18 who have been enrolled in a Family Accoun…
yeah, not sure where they’re getting that info from. neither apple’s child safety landing page nor the pdf info sheet they released mentioned anything about photos being saved. the eff say that the image will be saved on the child’s device for the parent to view later, but i can’t find a source for that.
from the eff page:
>…if the under-13 user accepts the image, the parent is notified and the image is saved to the phone. … once sent or received, the “sexually explicit image” cannot be deleted from the under-13 user’s device.
apple’s info sheet:
https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...
Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#414I really don’t understand why apple is doing this. What point are they trying to score and from whom ? Do they think implementing a spyware in iPhone would boost sales? Or does it bring revenue from charging government agency to use this feature? I just don’t get it.
Why are you looking so hard for an "evil" reason or ulterior motives for it? Companies doing good things brings good PR. That could just be it.
“Good” “PR”? You’re even more tone deaf than the memo.
Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#415Apple's mistake is that they seemingly believe there is pushback because people misunderstand how it works. The reality is more nuanced: People understand exactly how it works, and how it works is that it is turn-key onboard spyware, that Apple pinky-swears isn't being used wrong today . For example if the scope/mission expands (e.g. foreign governments), suddenly you've created a drag-net for whatever "badness" is o…
>"A cryptographic hash + file size combo" SHA already uses the length in the output hash. Having the explicit length is quite superfluous
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Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Having the explicit length is quite superfluous Not entirely. It makes it so that, to achieve a "full" collision, you have to ensure that the sets of data collide both in SHA hash and in length, helping to prevent attacks that rely on appending/prepending/removing data (for example, "length extension attacks" involve manipulation of the hash by appending data). TL;DR: It is harder to find a collision SHA(B) for SHA…
This is completely wrong . The known collision attacks for the MD-family and SHA-1 all in fact produce collisions with the exact same length. The method used necessarily does this.
> This is completely wrong.
Which part? The fact that storing "length" along with a hash is not superfluous?
You can probably find many things which have a SHA hash of "ca978112ca1bbdcafac231b39a23dc4da786eff8147c4e72b9807785afee48bb" (infinite things, if we assume arbitrary-sized inputs), but you can only find ONE thing which has that hash and has length 1. I just made it impossible (not just unlikely) for you to find a collision.
> The known collision attacks for the MD-family and SHA-1 all in fact produce collisions with the exact same length.
Emphasis mine. And note that I did not claim otherwise in my comment.
Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#417Imagine an attack where bots send suspicious photos to every phone in the planet.
To get this quashed would be easy. Use a Pegasus-like software and throw some known CP images onto their phone. After Cook and co have this happened, they'll rethink this program real quick.
The CEOs of the largest corporations in the world have additional human-in-the-loop evaluation steps in the chain before swatting, unlike people like you and I.
Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#418Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#419Apple's mistake is that they seemingly believe there is pushback because people misunderstand how it works. The reality is more nuanced: People understand exactly how it works, and how it works is that it is turn-key onboard spyware, that Apple pinky-swears isn't being used wrong today . For example if the scope/mission expands (e.g. foreign governments), suddenly you've created a drag-net for whatever "badness" is o…
A good way to think about any potential law like this is to imagine your worst enemy or most hated politician was given power to abuse said law, and then think about all the ways they could use it to make your life miserable always think about the worst case scenario when it comes to privacy, because that will be the end result
To me we don't even consider the actual worse case scenario.
Is there any doubt 50 years from now all this will be on algorithmic autopilot for digital authoritarianism? All societies will have Chinese style monitoring but to an unimaginable degree even to people in China right now.
People outside IT were barely even using the internet 25 years ago. We are at the very start of this and already too far gone. You just have to enjoy these times and what we still have.
Re: In internal memo, Apple addresses concerns around new Photo scanning features
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. I think it's the first step towards enabling e2ee on iCloud photos. This system will replace the server side CSAM they have done for years.
I think this is highly unlikely, everything points to Apple ditching the idea altogether : https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51207744 Many foreign countries have also clearly stated that they do not want this (E2EE) to happen and would legislate against it (the UK comes to mind first). I do believe that you are correct with the idea that this technology was initially developed as a compromise to E2EE. But while E2E…
I read that article and see this new method as work around for the FBI complaints, and once again allowing E2EE to move forward.
Technology doesn't live in a vacuum. Given the calls from the government for backdoors to encryption, I think it's safe to assume this is Apple getting out in front of what could likely be heavy handed legislation to add actual backdoors like master keys.
But, we'll have to wait and see if Apple starts adding more services to E2EE again. It also may all be moot if legislation gets passed that forces companies to be able to break the encryption for warrants.