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Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

reuters.com

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Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#431

Post by AnonC »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #223
whoisjuan wrote: post #132

This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. Imagine investing hundreds of millions of dollars in pro-privacy programs, privacy features, privacy marketing, etc... just to pull this reverse card. Of course this is going to spark concern within their own ranks. It's like working for a food company that claims to use organic, non-processed, fair-trade ingredi…

I actually think something else happened, and to be honest I think many at Apple behind this decision are likely pretty surprised by the blowback. That is, it seems like Apple really wanted to preserve "end-to-end" encryption, but they needed to do something to address the CSAM issue lest governments come down on them hard. Thus, my guess is, at least at the beginning, they saw this as a strong win for privacy. As th…

> …to be honest I think many at Apple behind this decision are likely pretty surprised by the blowback.

If Apple is surprised by the blowback, it’s entirely Apple’s fault because it didn’t engage with many outside experts on the privacy front.

I recall reading either in Alex Stamos’s tweets or Matthew Green’s tweets that Apple was invited before for discussions related to handling CSAM, but it didn’t participate.

Secretiveness is helpful to keep an advantage, but I can’t believe that Apple is incapable of engaging with knowledgeable people outside with legal agreements to keep things under wraps.

This blowback is well deserved for the way Apple operates. And I’m writing this as a disappointed Apple ecosystem user.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#432

Post by AnonC »

foobiekr wrote: post #409
whoisjuan wrote: post #132

This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. Imagine investing hundreds of millions of dollars in pro-privacy programs, privacy features, privacy marketing, etc... just to pull this reverse card. Of course this is going to spark concern within their own ranks. It's like working for a food company that claims to use organic, non-processed, fair-trade ingredi…

To me the issue is that it makes no sense: if it's just scanning iCloud photos, ___why does this feature need to exist at all__? Apple is saying this: "we need to scan your phone because we need to look for this material, and by the way, we're only scanning things _we've been scanning for years already_" Basiclaly, everything else aside, in the current state of things, this feature makes no sense. They are not scanni…

> A bunch of people are making speculative claims that Apple is doing this to enable encryption of data in iCloud, but there's no reason to believe that's true. Apple certainly hasn't mentioned it.

There is nothing surprising here. Apple never mentions things unless it’s ready for release or is just about to be released. It’s just how Apple works.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#433

Post by amaajemyfren »

I'm not an expert here but it may be time for white box no name mobile phones that come with nothing that we have to set up ourselves. My second computer was the first time I downloaded from both kernel and kerneli and rolled my first Linux Kernel based gnu system....

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#434

Post by robertoandred »

thevagrant wrote: post #364
zepto wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the most honest take on this that I’ve seen. The slippery slope arguments don’t make sense, nor does the risk of false positives. But the idea of being suspected even in this abstract way, because of something other people do , is at the very least distasteful, bordering on offensive.

I would not say the slippery slope take doesn't make sense. It is perfectly possible that had no one cried out about this change then the next change would have been: Large government to Apple: "Please now also create a hash on each photo metadata field including date/time and location. Let us query these. AND BTW, this change must be kept secret. Thanks."

That’s not at all how hashes work here.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#435

Post by adolph »

dmix wrote: post #384
adolph wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And all the while: Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE KCSG (/ˈsævɪl/; 31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011) was an English DJ, television and radio personality who hosted BBC shows including Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It. He raised an estimated £40 million for charities and, during his lifetime, was widely praised for his personal qualities and as a fund-raiser. After his death, hundreds of allegations of sexual ab…

There's never been any indication that there has been any more difficulty in catching these guys with better smartphone privacy features. It's easier than ever largely because the police have become better at investigations involving the internet. Asking the police to put some investigative effort in rather than a dragnet sweep of every photo on every persons device is not too much to ask. Importantly this should be…

Maybe I should add more text in support of the parent comment's point. When I read "UK and Australian governments are just two prime examples of waving terrorism and pedobear banners," my first thought was: all the while _protecting_ monsters like Savile.

I see push for CSAM as an alignment of powers in the form of "The Baptist and Bootlegger." The well meaning moral campaigners are a tool for folks who seek to surveil and control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#436

Post by alfalfasprout »

arn wrote: post #340
wonderwonder wrote: post #327

I assume this is some sort of machine learning algorithm. How did they get the data set to train it on? That seems really strange. How did they test it? Seems like any engineers involved on this would come out with PTSD. Whatever they used to test it and train it with is illegal to possess and could only be used with some sort of massive government cooperation.

It's not. It's a specific database of image hashes they are comparing against. Not AI, Not ML.

That's not... entirely clear actually. Well rather, what exactly the hash is based on. They call it "neural hash" which implies there's maybe some kind of embedding being used?

It's one thing to compute a simple hash. It's another entirely if they're using some type of locality sensitive hash since that very much has the possibility of false positives and would be a major invasion of privacy (which it already is).

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#437

Post by rossjudson »

istingray wrote: post #245
busymom0 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I knew that the "privacy" stance from Apple in prior years was always a marketing facade to sell more devices, I still continued to believe that they would keep sticking up for privacy as much as possible. It's kind of funny how I am very suspicious of governments and politicians but when it comes to a trillion dollar corporation, I was giving them more of benefit of doubt. I was wrong.

I appreciate you saying this, I felt the same way. I was delighted when Apple started selling privacy hard, and hoped it would persist. Their "Mind your own business" [1] ad was a delight - only 2 months ago. Now my question is, which of the annoying characters in the ad is Apple? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4qPUSG17Y

So few people realize this!

Say, what is Apple's advertising policy? Hmm. It looks very familiar, doesn't it?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#438

Post by [deleted] »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #337
tshaddox wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that they obviously already have the capability to send software updates that add new on-device capability, this seems like a meaningless distinction. It’s already “just policy” preventing them from sending any conceivable software update to their phones.

I disagree, strongly. Let's say you're authoritarian government EvilGov. Before this announcement, if you went to Apple and said "we want you to push this spyware to your iPhones", Apple would and could have easily pushed back both in the court of public opinion and the court of law. Now though, Apple is already saying "We'll take this database of illegal image hashes provided by the government and use it to scan you…

[deleted]

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#439

Post by unityByFreedom »

Good. I would be furious if I worked there. After the San Bernardino case, I viewed them as the paragon of privacy and security, to the extent I ignored most criticisms, including their lack of support for right-to-repair and concerns over App Store rejections. All of that is back on the table for me after this decision.

It is out-of-step with everything they've been doing up to this point, and it makes me wonder who has something over the head of Apple that we aren't hearing about. The stated benefits of this tech are far outweighed by the potential for harm, in my view.

If Apple pushes forward on this, I want to hear a lot more from them, and I want it to be a continuing conversation that they bear until we all understand what's going on.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#440

Post by AnonC »

What’s going to be sad to note over the next few months is yet another record breaking year and another record breaking first quarter for Apple (this is as per Apple’s financial calendar).

All these concerns and outrage don’t seem to matter to most people, and a few boycotts here for Apple, a few more boycotts there for Facebook, and some more for aren’t making any difference to their bottomline.

To say I’m seriously disappointed and frustrated is putting it very mildly.

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