An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology • Hacker News Board

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#541

Post by _rdvw » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

pzo wrote: post #540

_rdvw wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My https://divestos.org project, while not as secure as GrapheneOS, provides lots of security to many older devices.

Interesting project. Thanks for sharing! Any reason why at least some of those patches couldn't be upstreamed to LOS?

Most things simply aren't in their scope.

I do send occasional patches to Lineage if they are in-scope and am in contact with some of them reasonably frequently.

The big blocker is that their Gerrit instance requires a Google account to login.

Example of a recent fix I emailed them: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_device_htc_...

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#542

Post by zepto » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

belter wrote: post #538

zepto wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What hipocrisy are you seeing?

You must be trolling...Provoking...Joking...Or you are Tim Cook :-) Are the personal ethics and values disconnected from daily business, to be changed based on the place of business or Apple must do it because they are just complying with local laws in China ? Because IBM was also in 1939...Just the local laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

So this is just about China?

When Apple started working in China, the prevailing western belief was that economic liberalization would cause political liberalization in China, so even though China was still relatively repressive, doing business there would help move things in a better direction.

At the time, this was a very reasonable and widespread belief, which turned out to be wrong.

Betting on other people and turning out to be wrong doesn’t make you a hypocrite. It makes you naive.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#543

Post by JGM_io » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

So will apple also pick up the bill for the electricity and depreciation my device will consume?

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#544

Post by willseth » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

rantwasp wrote: post #413

gerwim wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The obvious conclusion is Apple will start to scan photos kept on device, even where iCloud is not used. Wrong [1]. It's even in the first line of the document which you apparently didn't even read: CSAM Detection enables Apple to accurately identify and report iCloud users who store known Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in their iCloud Photos accounts This doesn't mean I'm supporting their new "feature". 1. ht…

nah. it means that they don’t scan it yet. also by reading that doc and pointing to it means you trust apple. i used to trust apple when they were peddling their privacy marketing stuff. not anymore.

OK so let's all lose our shit over things that haven't happened.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#545

Post by mrtranscendence » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

noasaservice wrote: post #167

defaultname wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who engaged in such a discussion with a non-technical person is going to defacto seem like an advocate for child pornography, similar to how advocating for encryption can easily be twisted to being pro-crime. Having said that, there is an enormous amount of misinformation and fear-mongering about a pretty tame change. This seems like so much ado about very close to nothing. a) They optionally scan messaged pho…

This on-device scanning is even worse. They cant even tell what was violating, or what hash, or what image. Just that the computer said you are violating. We have no idea about the hash collisions. When talking about whole world, 2^256 isn't a big enough space.... even if they're using 256 bits. And how dare anybody criticize this - criticism is tantamount to being for child porn. (Then again, that's why it was chose…

2*256 is a huge space. If everyone in the whole world had 50,000 images stored in iCloud, the probability of a collision would still be infinitesimally, unimaginably small.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#546

Post by fragileone » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:20 PM UTC

minton wrote: post #469

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #105

I know the privacy approach Apple has been pushing was just marketing, but I didn't care too much because I enjoyed my iPhone and M1 macbook. Because of this decision (and the fact that my iPhone more-or-less facilitates poor habits throughout my life), I'm considering moving completely out of the Apple ecosystem. Does anyone have any recommendations for replacements? * On laptops: I have an X1 carbon extreme running…

I understand the impulse to turn away from Apple. However, it’s not a practical solution. How long until this tech or worse is mandated in all products? I think the real answer is for the people to stop bickering about primary colors and work together toward passing legislation that limits the pervasive invasion of privacy by governments and corporations.

You can do both. Boycott Apple because they're the ones who committed this violation, whilst also protesting government efforts to spy.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#547

Post by rantwasp » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:21 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #509

rantwasp wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. nope. trust is binary. you either trust apple or not. after peddling their privacy marketing for so long and doing this, they literally lost my trust.

For most people, trust isn't binary though. For example, just because you hire someone for one purpose doesn't mean they should have the keys to your house.

If I hire someone to do X I trust them to do X. If X involves them getting in my house to do something while I'm not there I give them the keys. If they screw up I no longer trust them for X and I no longer trust them in general.

I'm not saying you trust someone for all the possible things under the sun.

I'm saying if I trust you for X and you mess it up I no longer trust you for X.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#548

Post by giantrobot » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #511

giantrobot wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's state security laws trump all "strict controls" for employees.

Which employees? The ones who aren't Chinese citizens and aren't located in China? What does China state security have to do with them?

ByteDance's Douyin product has Chinese employees that are based in China. TikTok employees are also ByteDance employees which means a ByteDance employee that passes through their "strict controls" can access whatever TikTok data they want. Even if that's a dozen Chinese nationals that can get access that's a dozen people required by Chinese law to help the state security aparatus.

I don't see any reason to give them the benefit of the doubt considering they already moderate content the Chinese government doesn't like [0] as a matter of company policy.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/25/revealed-...

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#549

Post by fragileone » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:23 PM UTC

devwastaken wrote: post #370

There has to be some incentive somewhere for Apple to do this. They know it's wrong, they know it will be abused. Tim Cook himself, if he wasn't rich and powerful, would be executed in a number of countries that Apple operates in for his sexual/romantic identity. Apple also removes LGBT based applications in countries where they're illigal, to continue doing business. This demonstrates that Apple complies with the de…

> There has to be some incentive somewhere for Apple to do this. They know it's wrong, they know it will be abused.

For several years now politicians have been asking for "exceptional access for law enforcement" to backdoor encryption. In Europe there's been a number of laws passed recently which violate privacy also.

This is just Apple getting ahead of future legislation so that they can be the ones who get the power and money from every government agency turning to them first whenever they want to monitor and punish their citizens.

Re: An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology

#550

Post by btdmaster » Fri, Aug 06, 2021, 6:24 PM UTC

SSLy wrote: post #318

btdmaster wrote: post #314

Why is CP punished more harshly than CA [1]? Is it because it is easier to do so, or is it because it gives an illusion of protecting children? This, of course, ignores how a lot of child abusers are underage themselves and know the victim,[2] and that the prosecutors are committing the same crime as the prosecuted in the case of CP, and that, in too many cases, the content in question is impossible to call malicious…

your [1] 404's

My bad, got [1] and [2] backwards. [1] is supposed to be the archive link, and [2] is https://www.d2l.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/all_statistic....