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

It wasn’t just Apple who was naïve, it was the entirety of US and European foreign policy too. Do you want to claim that the west didn’t expect political liberalization in China.

That article doesn’t change anything. Apple didn’t go into China thinking they were helping to strengthen an authoritarian regime. They went in thinking they were helping to liberalize it.

We all, Apple included, got played.

Historically this has been regarded as true, but according to the FBI, online predation is a growing problem.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/child-predators

> Your mistake here is assuming that anything that technologists can build will ever change those people's minds or make them ease up on calls to ban encryption. It won't.

What makes you think I think that? You have misrepresented me here (effectively straw-manning), but I will assume an honest mistake.

You are right that there are people who will always seek to ban or undermine encryption no matter what, and who use ‘think of the children’ as an excuse regardless of the actual threat. ‘Those people’ as you put it, by definition will never have their minds changed by technologists. Indeed there is no point in technologists trying to do that.

However I don’t think that group includes Apple, nor does it include most of Apples customers. Apple’s customers do include many people who are worried about sexual predators reaching their children via their phones though. These people are not ideologues or anti-encryption fanatics.

Arguing that concerns about children are overblown or being exploited for nefarious means may be ‘true’, but it does nothing to provide an alternative that Apple could use, not does it do anything to assuage the legitimate fears of Apple’s customers.

Perhaps you believe that there is no way to build a more privacy preserving solution than the one Apple has.

I would simply point out in that case, that the strategy of arguing against ‘think of the children’, has already lost, and commiserate with you.

I’m not convinced that there is no better solution. Betting against technologists to solve problems usually seems like a bad bet, but even if you don’t think it’s likely, it seems irrational not to hedge, because the outcome of solving the problem would have such a high upside.

It’s worth pointing out that Public Key cryptography is a solution to a problem that at one time seemed insoluble to many.

https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/

There are projects such as Sailfish OS that make use of this to run on originally Android hardware.

The more sophisticated child molesters out there will find out about what Apple is doing and quickly avoid it. Isn’t that what the FBI is complaining about, that they have grown increasingly sophisticated?

The more sophisticated privacy adherents will also avoid Apple and resort to end to encryption and offline tools.

What is the actual outcome? You won’t get more arrests of child molesters. Instead, you get a security apparatus that can be weaponized against the masses. Furthermore, you will have the FBI complaining that child molesters are increasingly out of their reach and demanding greater powers. They will then try to mandate child porn detectors built into every phone.

This creep has been occurring for years. Go read the Snowden disclosures.

First your cell phone companies worked with the government for mass harvesting of data. No need for any suspicion because they promise not to look unless there is one. That wasn’t enough because the data was encrypted.

Second they had the companies holding the data snoop in on data that was shared. That wasn’t enough.

Third they had the companies holding the data snoop in on data EVEN when it wasn’t shared, just when it was uploaded to them. Not enough for them!

Now they will have it done on device prior to uploading. Does this mean that if it fails to upload, it gets scanned anyway. Why yes!

Next they will have it done on device even if it never is held by the company and never shared and never even intended to be uploaded.

The obvious goal is that the government has access to ALL data in the name of safety. No need for warrants. Don’t worry about it. They won’t look unless there was any suspicion. Opps never mind that, we will just have tools look.

There is no end to the loss of privacy in the name of safety if your bogeyman is increasingly sophisticated actors.

Why isn’t this obvious to everyone?

Anyone old enough to remember the Clipper chips?