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

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 860 posts

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

#461

Post by underseacables »

What worries me most is that hackers and others with ulterior motives, will engineer a situation creating a false positive, or worse. If you want to absolutely destroy someone, accuse them of possessing pornographic material of children. Even if it turns out to be absolutely false, the stain is still there, the bell cannot be unrung. Damage both in the short and long-term to reputations, careers, the lives, will be devastating. None of us are safe from this.

“yeah but there was that one time Apple thought she had kid porn on her phone.. she said it was a false positive, police investigated never prosecuted etc., but…better to not hire, etc..you know..just in case”

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

#462

Post by new_realist »

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…

Authoritarian governments have never needed preexisting technical gizmos in order to abuse their citizens. Look at what Russia and the Nazis did with no magic tech at all. Privacy stems from valuing human rights, not easily disproven lies about it being difficult to actually implement the spying.

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

#463

Post by Ceiling »

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…

Here's my hope: E2E encryption. Maybe the government is throwing a fit about Apple harboring potential CP on its server if it's E2E encrypted, so apple says, "fine well review it prior to upload, and then E2E encrypt the upload itself"

I can hope, I guess...

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

#464

Post by brandon272 »

As I see people straining to defend Apple, coming up with all types of reasons about on-device image checking will not be abused or expanded, about how people shouldn't really expect to not be scanned, I can't help but just think of Apple's own words and current public position on privacy.

Here's their privacy page: https://www.apple.com/privacy/

First sentence:

"Privacy is a fundamental human right."

Apple has adopted this as a "core value". Their executives use this exact phrasing.

It is an extraordinary claim. They don't say, "We think privacy is important". They claim it as a fundamental human right (i.e. applying to everyone, unconditionally) and wrap themselves in the banner of it.

How anyone can square that with statement, that self-described "core value" with their recent on-device image checking announcement, I really have no idea.

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

#465

Post by adrianN »

emodendroket wrote: post #411
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Could they though? An authoritarian government could just as easily say "if you do not implement this feature, we will not allow you to operate in this country" and refuse to entertain legal challenges.

Apple is a fairly large company, that gives them some monetary leverage over governments. It's not as simple as you make it seem, I think.

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

#466

Post by [deleted] »

nullc wrote: post #96
syshum wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acting as a agent, used to anyway, mean the 4th amendment attached to the company if they WERE NOT acting as an agent then the 4th would not apply. I think they way they get around that is not do not report to the FBI but instead to NCMEC a "non-profit"

> I think they way they get around that is not do not report to the FBI but instead to NCMEC a "non-profit" No. The courts have already explicitly rejected the entity that NCMEC is a private entity. NCMEC can only handle child porn via special legislative permission and is 99% funded by the government. The searches here are lawful because Apple searches out of their own free will and commercial interest and when ther…

[deleted]

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

#467

Post by new_realist »

shakezula wrote: post #386
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are methods for dealing with CP that would maintain privacy, not subject humans to child pornography, and would jive with their end to end encryption goals. But we’ll never know what they’re doing under the hood and I think that’s the concerning part.

Please elaborate on these magical methods.

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

#468

Post by azinman2 »

DarkmSparks wrote: post #277
azinman2 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that’s not the proposed design. Browser cache isn’t getting advanced. It’s photos for iCloud. I’m not asking if people do bad things, I’m saying over and over again this is getting coverage on Hn and people are pointing to this hypothetical issue — yet this hypothetical issue has been possible for years on many more devices.

As far as I have read its scanning any images and messages on the device, as well as text entered into Siri. So accidentally stick a w in your siri teen porn search and you'll be seeing https://www.apple.com/v/child-safety/a/images/guidance-img__... If it was photos taken on the device there would be no existing hash for the image to match.

https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_...

"Does this mean Apple is going to scan all the photos stored on my iPhone?

No. By design, this feature only applies to photos that the user chooses to upload to iCloud Photos, and even then Apple only learns about accounts that are storing collections of known CSAM images, and only the images that match to known CSAM. The system does not work for users who have iCloud Photos disabled. This feature does not work on your private iPhone pho- to library on the device."

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

#469

Post by brandon272 »

spenvo wrote: post #388

Many people take the following maximalist stance: "Apple can't save users' privacy in China, nor can it push back against laws, so therefore it's unreasonable to ask them to hold the privacy line." But for every China there is a Brazil, Hungary, or India. For every "completely authoritarian" regime, you have handfuls of (historically democratic) governments on their way toward authoritarianism. In these countries, it…

Also bear in mind that Apple makes the spectacular statement they they consider privacy a "fundamental human right" and that it's one of their core values. [0]

It's mind boggling to imagine that a company comes up with that stance and advertises it so proudly without ever having considered that it is at odds with what governments around the world will want.

"I know we said privacy is a fundamental human right but that was before the U.S. government asked us to give them your data"

0. https://apple.com/privacy

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

#470

Post by brandon272 »

emodendroket wrote: post #411
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Could they though? An authoritarian government could just as easily say "if you do not implement this feature, we will not allow you to operate in this country" and refuse to entertain legal challenges.

Who wants to be the government who shuts down Apple? These are politicians we are talking about.
Post reply on HN