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The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

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Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#441

Post by shuckles »

FabHK wrote: post #164
zepto wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s silly. The design is so narrowly tailored to scan for CSAM that nobody can use it for anything else.

It all depends on what perceptual hashes you use. If Apple can institute a process whereby those are tied to the OS version, but not to the region, then it would be impossible to impose jurisdiction-specific exceptions.

They have said the mechanism is global in both their FAQ and in an interview with Tech Crunch. They have no way to target a database to a region or device.

Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#442

Post by nl »

silverpepsi wrote: post #375
markdown wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then where are the news reports or articles of these false positives that would have shown up within the past decade?... Is there even a single verifiable report of such a false positive? I feel that with the amount of attention brought to this issue, if there was such a report then it probably would have been brought up by now. Positives get reviewed by humans, at which point false positives are identified and dis…

>Positives get reviewed by humans, at which point false positives are identified and discarded. Let's not forget, this part only happens if you are lucky. You get the wrong photo reviewer and you catch your girlfriend with the wrong type of lighting that makes her look as if she could pass for 17 and you're going to have the police show up at your work and cuff you, demanding to know who this person of interest is. A…

But this isn't from automatic scanning. This is from dumb police work - one could actually argue that the scanning approach would have saved the person from this problem.

Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#443

Post by [deleted] »

heavyset_go wrote: post #439
fortenforge wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people responding to this seem to not understand how perceptual hashing / PhotoDNA works. It's true that they're not cryptographic hashes, but the false positive rate is vanishingly small. Apple claims it's 1 in a trillion [1], but suppose that you don't believe them. Google and Facebook and Microsoft are all using PhotoDNA (or equivalent perceptual hashing schemes) right now. Have you heard of some massive i…

> It's true that they're not cryptographic hashes, but the false positive rate is vanishingly small. What are you talking about? Ask anyone who has worked in this space: false positives are abound[1][2], especially when you're looking for fuzzy matches. And you have to look for fuzzy matches otherwise slight modifications to illegal images would bypass the detection system. > Photos of your own kids won't trigger it,…

[deleted]

Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#444

Post by ekianjo »

> The worst part is: how do I put my money where my mouth is? Am I going back to using Linux on the desktop (2022 will be the year of Linux on the desktop, remember), debugging wifi drivers and tirelessly trying to make resume-from-suspend work?

Oh come on. DOn't make it sound like it's that bad. Wifi is a solved problem for a long time now, and you can buy Lenovo, System76 or Tuxedo if you want to make sure 100% things work as expected. Don't be that guy.

Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#445

Post by heavyset_go »

emodendroket wrote: post #422
markdown wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then where are the news reports or articles of these false positives that would have shown up within the past decade?... Is there even a single verifiable report of such a false positive? I feel that with the amount of attention brought to this issue, if there was such a report then it probably would have been brought up by now. Positives get reviewed by humans, at which point false positives are identified and dis…

The privacy violation here is smaller than the one we all used to have to go through to get photos developed at all.

People could and did develop their own photos.

Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#447

Post by blendergeek »

fortenforge wrote: post #229
farmerstan wrote: post #219

Whoever controls the hash list controls your phone from now on. Period. End of sentence. Apple has not disclosed who gets to add new hashes to the list of CSAM hashes or what the process is to add new hashes. Do different countries have different hash lists? Because if the FBI or CIA or CCCP or KSA wants to arrest you, all they need to do is inject the hash of one of your photos into the “list” and you will be flagge…

There are numerous incorrect statements in your comment. First: Apple has disclosed who gets to curate the hash list. The answer is NCMEC and other child safety organizations. https://twitter.com/AlexMartin/status/1424703642913935374/ph... Apple states point-blank that they will refuse any demands to add non-CSAM content to the lists. Second: Why can't the FBI / CCCP inject a hash into the list. Here's a tweet thread…

> Apple states point-blank that they will refuse any demands to add non-CSAM content to the lists.

How would Apple know if non-CSAM was added to the list? Apple does not and cannot curate the list. Apple only receives hashes from NCMEC (and other unnamed government agencies). The government does not allow Apple to verify that this list only contains CSAM. This pledge from Apple is at best misguided at worst intentionally dishonest. Of course nobody can make Apple add non-CSAM to the list: Apple doesn't maintain the list.

Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#448

Post by heavyset_go »

simondotau wrote: post #353
hsn915 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people don't upload to facebook pictures of their kids taking a bath? But they more than likely store such pictures on their phones/laptops.

Sure, but none of those images will be a hash match to any material in NCMEC databases.

It's entirely possible for one innocuous picture to look like an illegal picture in that database, and if they do look similar, they'll have similar perceptual hashes. That's the point of perceptual hashing.

Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#449

Post by BiteCode_dev »

ekianjo wrote: post #446

> Am I getting a Pixel and putting GrapheneOS on it like a total nerd? FUCK. Thanks for depicting people who care about privacy and act on their beliefs as "total nerds", that's an encouraging attitude.

I'm a nerd and don't take it as an insult. Rather as "going full nerd on this" in the sense of giving a lot more importance and effort to a small detail in an already full life.

And even if it was not, let's not get upset for every quip, I don't want to live in a world where bloggers have to ponder every word because they are afraid of offending someone. A bit of spice is ok, the dose makes the poison.

Re: The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”

#450

Post by BiteCode_dev »

fortenforge wrote: post #137
querez wrote: post #2

I have a newborn at home, and like every other parent, we take thousands of pictures and videos of our newest family member. We took pictures of the very first baby-bath. So now I have pictures of a naked baby on my phone. Does that mean that pictures of my newborn baby will be uploaded to Apple for further analysis, potentially stored for indefinite time, shared with law enforcement?

Lots of people responding to this seem to not understand how perceptual hashing / PhotoDNA works. It's true that they're not cryptographic hashes, but the false positive rate is vanishingly small. Apple claims it's 1 in a trillion [1], but suppose that you don't believe them. Google and Facebook and Microsoft are all using PhotoDNA (or equivalent perceptual hashing schemes) right now. Have you heard of some massive i…

Youtube current censorship outrage with abusive video take downs is a proof that perceptual hash false positive are a massive problem.

Even if the tech has 1 in a trillion chance, it will happen a lot with billions of people generatin thousands of ilage every years. And of course, the hash database being abused.

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