Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#51

Post by djoldman » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:50 PM UTC

I am not a lawyer.

There is something ironic about US laws that attempt to prevent crime A by outlawing action B. For example:

  * A: physical sexual abuse of children. B: possession or distribution of CSAM
  * A: drug trafficking or tax evasion. B: structured cash withdrawals

The irony is that the more B is prevented, the less A can be detected and the less B can be used as evidence of A.

It's my understanding that conviction of CSAM-related crimes do not require any physical act to have ever occurred to any real person: one can be convicted of CSAM-related crimes related to paintings/drawings/created_art of fictional people.

It's my understanding that one can be convicted of structured withdrawals that are not driven by, linked to, or in any way related to anything nefarious.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#52

Post by wbl » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:51 PM UTC

IANAL but I thought the whole reason scanning worked was it wasn't required so there weren't fourth amendment issues.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#53

Post by ajsnigrutin » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:51 PM UTC

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #37

JSR_FDED wrote: post #7

The judge called the outcome disturbing, as it leaves victimized children as "collateral damage" of privacy protections. As sad as this is, end to end encryption means no CSAM scanning. As an alternative Apple previously tried to do scanning on the phones locally but caught hell for that too. This is one of those unfortunate tradeoffs but I see no alternative to privacy taking priority.

People can also distribute heinous things through snail mail, but we are not yet at the point where the government reads all letters looking for wrongthink. Just because we technically can make a privacy destroying drag net does not mean we should. Had phones existed 250 years ago, I have no doubt the founders would have thought it obvious that a cellphone’s contents were your personal papers which could not be freel…

More effort should be done to find real-world equivalents of such actions and "think of the children".

An icloud is like a storage locker or a safety deposit box... the owner should go through all your stuff there, just in case you have some CSAM!

Metadata is just tracking info about who, where and with whom... every bartender should take your IDs and log when you came to the bar, who you sat with and how long you talked there.

EU Chat control is like general eavesdropping... every time you sit down and talk with someone, an EU bureaucrat should sit next to you and listen and write down your conversations, just in case.

etc.

Somehow people think that "it's ok if it's on the internet", even when it's stuff they'd never accept in real life.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#54

Post by eagle2com » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

kthinckley wrote: post #32

megous wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the judge would be in favor of companies proactively going into people's houses at random to check on their belongings, if they don't have inappropriate photos somewhere, or whatever. It's harder to do, but conceptually the same. So sad it's not being done. Very disturbing. They could do it when people are not at home. There'd no problem, nobody would even notice.

[flagged]

It is drowning in sarcasm, so I would say yes, it is a joke.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#55

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

semiquaver wrote: post #38

an0malous wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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The judge’s dicta about protecting children in her pro-privacy ruling upholding existing law “tips their hand” that they are somehow part of a global conspiracy to eliminate privacy? I think your conspiracy theory needs work, to be perfectly honest with you.

[deleted]

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#56

Post by trollbridge » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:53 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #25

twuopf wrote: post #8

I know creating a throwaway to hide your name for an opinion is a bad manner, but this one is one I really don’t want linked back to me The VAST majority of “CSAM” is consensually created and exchanged by teens. Their future selves and their parents form this pressure group attacking everyone’s liberty and privacy to try to undo the downsides of choices they made themselves with full knowledge of what could happen. T…

The proposed CSAM scanning used perceptual hashing to try to identify CSAM material known to law enforcement. It was not a tool to identify private images as being underage. That’s an impossible task.

I'd say modern AI tools could probably do this pretty effectively. They're very effective at describing anything else about an image. I have a workflow that churns through large amounts of images, describes them, and then looks for things I specifically want (in my case, auction listings that are not described accurately on the auction website).

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#57

Post by SXX » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:54 PM UTC

amazingamazing wrote: post #4

It is crazy people think apple isnt on the side of privacy. Are they perfect? Not even close, but compared to the rest of big tech theyre simply on another level. Apple could easily not do this stuff and it may even be easier to not.

Apple is very much like WhatsApp. Yes you cant perfectly trust their E2EE against state actors, but both in fact put some effort into making world have little bit more privacy.

At least on Desktop we have usable Linux, but on the phones there is literally nothing usable because thanks to Google efforts switching to GrapheneOS mean tons of apps either not working or break every few months.

Yes its possible to make Andoid spy on you a little less, but even for tech savvy person its damn inconvinient and Google making platform worse with every single release.

Thanks to Google "security" I can use my banking apps on 9 years old device with 6 years outdated firmware, but not on GrapheneOS.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#58

Post by dd8601fn » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #44

amazingamazing wrote: post #4

It is crazy people think apple isnt on the side of privacy. Are they perfect? Not even close, but compared to the rest of big tech theyre simply on another level. Apple could easily not do this stuff and it may even be easier to not.

Apple is on the side of privacy, except when you want privacy from Apple: Watchdog ponders why Apple doesn't apply its strict app tracking rules to itself (theregister.com) 161 points by Logans_Run on Feb 14, 2025 | 69 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43047952 Apple silently uploads your passwords and keeps them (lapcatsoftware.com) 170 points by ingve on Nov 1, 2024 | 127 comments And whenever your priv…

It's telling that these come from people trying to implement tracking and high visibility into user behavior, and complaining that Apple won't let them even though Apple conceptually could.

Except ublock, which can't do what it does the way it normally does, for the same reason you can't have any plugin inspecting realtime activity and doing scriptlet injection.

You can have ad blocking. You can't have plugins with that kind of low level access to your browser activity.

You can prefer something that allows dangerous behavior as a trade-off for greater capabilities, but you can't deny it's a safety trade-off where Apple picked what's safer.

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#59

Post by ajsnigrutin » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #43

al_borland wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are often used as a weapon to erode freedoms, like privacy and speech. Those pushing it rarely actually care about the children.

While I’m decidedly pro-encryption, I don’t like this argument. If something is the right thing, it would still be the right thing when promoted for the wrong reasons, and if it’s the wrong thing, it’s still the wrong thing even when at present nobody has ulterior motives. When arguing against surveillance, the arguments should be on its merits, not on whether the current proponents happen to have ulterior motives.

So invading the privacy of millions of people, even if it's just automatic scans for some specific thing is a right thing? Does this apply to mandatory drug tests for everyone everywhere? How about drug and weapon seeking drones, doing daily checks in every apartment everywhere? How about mandatory AI powered microphones everywhere that would detect threats, blackmail, any talk about anything illegal, etc.?

If you take a 1000 random people of the street now,how many of them are sharing CSAM via icloud?

If you take a 1000 random politicians, how many of them have corruption scandals? Why not start with them instead, a bodycam and an AI powered microphone that would detect corruption automatically... let them lead as an example, before they apply the laws onto "the rest of us".

Re: Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM

#60

Post by slashdave » Tue, Jul 21, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

JSR_FDED wrote: post #7

The judge called the outcome disturbing, as it leaves victimized children as "collateral damage" of privacy protections. As sad as this is, end to end encryption means no CSAM scanning. As an alternative Apple previously tried to do scanning on the phones locally but caught hell for that too. This is one of those unfortunate tradeoffs but I see no alternative to privacy taking priority.

> end to end encryption means no CSAM scanning

Not true. There is the option of scanning on the device.