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WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

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Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#61

Post by Fnoord »

hutzlibu wrote: post #30
zpeti wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great to hear someone else is doing the same. For me the biggest issue is I have young kids and the convienence of quick photo taking is good on a smartphone. Might look into pinephone or something similar.

"Might look into pinephone or something similar." Pinephone is my hope, too, but do not expect anything stable soon. That will take some time, probably years. It does not happen on its own, though, they need support now to make it a real alternative and not just a tinker toy.

There's like three major options if you want to run a FOSS smartphone, and I'll sum them up.

Pinephone: Cheap. The device isn't very powerful. With people coming from an Apple device, that's a problem.

Fairphone 3: Fair. The hardware isn't very powerful either, and the device is more expensive, but the product is better for the people who assembled it and the environment.

Librem 5: Open. Even more expensive than Fairphone, but the hardware features killswitches, and there's no binary blobs. Lacks the fair advantages Fairphone has.

Each of these can run a myriad of FOSS OSes from a deGoogled Android (ASOP-based fork) such as /e/ or Ubuntu or Debian/Arch/Ubuntu mobile versions or SFOS (Sailfish) community version (without Android emulation layer!), and each hardware and software has their pros/cons. I use a Fairphone 3 with stock firmware with a Pinephone as back-up phone (and have to use a Samsung flagship device for work). Previously I used a Fairphone 2 with LineageOS + microG (kind of like predecessor of /e/ before that took off).

PS: On the gaming side, I'm getting a Steam Deck. Its a bang for the buck compared to Aya Neo/Nintendo Switch/gaming smartphones). No, it isn't open hardware, but the device runs Linux and you get root on it, plus all the reviews (including Linus Tech Tips) are positive.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#62

Post by ashildr »

ryanlol wrote: post #40
siscia wrote: post #35

So I was ignorant on the issue and completely against the approach of Apple. Then HN taught me that any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government. At this point, the approach taken by Apple seems like the best one to me, if you don't want to store pictures in clear on your servers. What other technical approach are people advocating for? Another point…

> any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government Ones they know of… > What other technical approach are people advocating for? Apple already has a technical solution, encryption.

Encryption does not help, Apple still is responsible. If Apple intends to let the user store photos in iCloud (or send by imessage) encrypted, they either have to keep the keys, so they can decrypt and scan the photos or or to keep the user from uploading incriminating content. Apple found a third way: they will only get to reconstruct the keys if the user uploads too many pictures triggering alarms.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#63

Post by ashildr »

Octabrain wrote: post #38

With the noble excuse of "protecting the children" they are just opening the vector that will allow them to go for other stuff in the future. I think this is just the first step and the intention is to make it "cognitively acceptable" for the majority of us later on. At this point, I have no doubt that in the future, a more ambiguous excuse such as "hate speech" will be used and under that umbrella, the elites will h…

This vector has been opened for a while. Companies are not allowed to provide E2E encryption anymore, they have or will have (see EU) to scan every picture they host or transport for you.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#64

Post by 542458 »

siscia wrote: post #35

So I was ignorant on the issue and completely against the approach of Apple. Then HN taught me that any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government. At this point, the approach taken by Apple seems like the best one to me, if you don't want to store pictures in clear on your servers. What other technical approach are people advocating for? Another point…

Do mandatory reporter laws work like that? I was under the impression that you had to report something if you saw it, but you had no obligation to be actively scanning or to compromise encryption to do so. For example, I don’t think S3 does any active scanning and you can definitely shove any encrypted blob you want onto their servers with no obligation to give them a decryption key.

IMO this appears to be Apple either a) trying to preempt future criticism or regulation or b) responding to some behind-closed-doors pressure/bargaining with US authorities.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#65

Post by holstvoogd »

I'm so fucking tired of these asswipes from companies are a thousand times worse pretending they are better. They literally sell all your data to anyone who wants is, but noooo, apple bad! I'm not saying apple is some kind of bastion of privacy or whatever, but at least they are not selling my data to pay for their spyware vessels.

To those 'experts': Get off you high horse and do better. Prove me wrong, go build a working open-source phone, go provide a image hosting service that does not analyze every single photo you upload. Go build a fucking app with out trying to steal my contact book. Fuck you

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#66

Post by Raed667 »

hughrr wrote: post #6
zpeti wrote: post #3

I really hope there is enough momentum to stop this. It's definitely the last straw for me in terms of apple products. I haven't bought a new iphone for 4 years, I'm slowly trying to switch to a lightphone (non smartphone). My mac needs a change but I will probably switch to linux. It's absolutely ridiculous what apple has become. The exact opposite of what they used to represent, when I loved them. God rest Steve Jo…

It’s too late either way. The fact that it even got this far through implementation says the vendor is not on my side. Not only that once capability is revealed it can be required by governments and manipulated under warrant. Particularly in some regimes, mine included, the vendor can be compelled to do something and not say anything. My comment doesn’t even cover how monumentally flawed the entire thing is either. S…

I'm not really sure about feature phones either. Modern Nokia ones come preloaded with Facebook and Whatsapp.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#67

Post by sebzim4500 »

siscia wrote: post #35

So I was ignorant on the issue and completely against the approach of Apple. Then HN taught me that any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government. At this point, the approach taken by Apple seems like the best one to me, if you don't want to store pictures in clear on your servers. What other technical approach are people advocating for? Another point…

They could still do the scanning, but if the photo fails it would just refuse to upload it and display an error to inform the user that the photo will not synchronize. There is no reason that the results of the scans need to be sent to Apple servers.

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#68

Post by sebzim4500 »

ashildr wrote: post #63
Octabrain wrote: post #38

With the noble excuse of "protecting the children" they are just opening the vector that will allow them to go for other stuff in the future. I think this is just the first step and the intention is to make it "cognitively acceptable" for the majority of us later on. At this point, I have no doubt that in the future, a more ambiguous excuse such as "hate speech" will be used and under that umbrella, the elites will h…

This vector has been opened for a while. Companies are not allowed to provide E2E encryption anymore, they have or will have (see EU) to scan every picture they host or transport for you.

Then how come so many companies provide E2E encryption? Are the signal devs about to be sent to Gitmo?

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#69

Post by GeekyBear »

siscia wrote: post #35

So I was ignorant on the issue and completely against the approach of Apple. Then HN taught me that any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government. At this point, the approach taken by Apple seems like the best one to me, if you don't want to store pictures in clear on your servers. What other technical approach are people advocating for? Another point…

> Then HN taught me that any company storing images on their infrastructure in the US must report pedophilic images to the US government.

It's certainly been going on for the past decade.

For example:

>a man [was] arrested on child pornography charges, after Google tipped off authorities about illegal images found in the Houston suspect's Gmail account

https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/06/why-the-gmail-scan-that-le...

Re: WhatsApp lead and other tech experts fire back at Apple’s Child Safety plan

#70

Post by josefx »

raspyberr wrote: post #23

I think it's sad that the "think of the children" argument has been (ab)used so much that people are becoming numb to it.

The tool is just hilariously easy to abuse, in the west it "may" be limited to child porn, in some countries it might be images featuring gay sex, political dissent, parodies or other kinds of crimes against the regime.
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