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

appleprivacyletter.com

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

#601

Post by crocodiletears »

zepto wrote: post #568
crocodiletears wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising awareness won't stop any of this. It's inevitable. We have the technological capacity and institutional interest required to implement it, it will be done, and it will be endemic. Raising awareness is about letting people know so that they might take the necessary precautions if they consider themselves to be at risk of its abuse, and degrades their faith in the institutions that support it.

It doesn’t matter whether they are aware. They can’t take precautions. There are no technical solutions that people can use, and technologists seem to be uninterested in working on them. Apple’s solution is the best on offer. Raising awareness about Facebook’s problems hasn’t harmed Facebook.

They can take precautions by not using iOS devices. The goal isn't to harm Apple, it's to make the knowledge available to those who need it, and have the will to avoid it.

That could mean anything from watching what they put on their iPhone, to putting them down the track of using degoogled android variants on select phones, to ditching cell phones all together depending on their needs.

Knowing that your phone is watching, reporting, and potentially moderating the content in it is information which is valuable in and of itself. Even if it only has utility to a fraction of the population.

We find ourselves in the tightening noose of a latent authoritarian technocratic surveillance society. Few people have anything to fear from it, or the resources to escape it. But some do, and should be given every piece of information that might help them moderate or escape it.

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

#602

Post by bisRepetita »

zepto wrote: post #593
bisRepetita wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if we care about privacy we have to accept that people other than ourselves think the problem is big enough to warrant these measures. Not sure what you mean here by "accept". Accept the fact those people and opinions exist? Sure! Accept their opinion without challenging, without asking questions? No. Accept this opinion is big and rational enough for the majority to follow and make laws? No. >You have already lost…

> What makes you think that? That's just your opinion. It’s not just my opinion that Apple has implemented a hash based mechanism to scan for child pornography that runs on people’s phones. People complaining about it have definitely lost the battle already. It is already here. > I understand you may try to convince readers that it is over, because it may be your opinion. That is not an accurate understanding of my a…

Are you falling into their trap knowingly or not?

There is a child molestation problem everywhere in the world, including online. I have seen nothing explaining it is getting bigger / worse. I have read that most of the cases are family members, in the real world.

So when I hear Apple and Government explain "because of the children" they want to monitor our phones more, in the context of growing assumed dictatorships, Pegasus, Snowden reveleation, do you really think that solving the child pornography issue will help refrain them, or slow them down? Open source hardware, political pressure, consumer pressure, and regulation, possibly monopoly break-ups. In the US, it starts with the people.

But doing better with child pornography won't change anything there, it juts moves the discussion to some other topic. Distraction. That is my point all along. There is no data that shows that all of a sudden child pronography has progressed leaps and bounds. So people suddenly concerned by that are most likely not truthful,a dn they have a very strong agenda. That's what we need to focus on, not their "look at the children" distraction.

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

#603

Post by emodendroket »

ianhawes wrote: post #20
donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

Many people share photos of child pornography via the mail. There has been criticism that the USPS does not open all mail and scan them for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who do not sign this letter how they think about that.

Not sure I'm going to go all in on unqualified support, but it seems like comparing an image to a series of known hashes is qualitatively somewhat different than the postal inspector open all your mail. Though those convenient little scans they'll send you if your mail if you sign up suggests they do have some interest in who sends you mail already.

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

#604

Post by pomian »

ipodopt wrote: post #440
thefourthchime wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to remove Apple and Google from my life, but this list looks so sad. You know the experience, integration and headache of all this is going to be horrible.

If you had the option of buying this hardware stack through an integrated third-party brand/storefront that offered support for the products and their integration would that make you feel differently?

That's an interesting idea. The amount of work even for a techie to maintain all this, is considerable. Could it be set up for a "user". Tech support, would be; Interesting.

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

#605

Post by emodendroket »

silverpepsi wrote: post #454
donkeyd wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US Postal service does not open every single letter to check if it contains illegal material. You'd be surprised about the amount of packages that gets x-rayed in order to find drugs. But yes, you're 100% right that it's not all of them.

An x-ray is nothing like reading the contents of letters or randomly checking ahipped harddrives and USB sticks for content. I don't know how to clarify legally or conceptually, but I feel confident there is a very clear difference

Perhaps I'm being too cynical but I think the difference is they haven't figured out a convenient, automated way to do the latter

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

#606

Post by emodendroket »

toxik wrote: post #9
donkeyd wrote: post #4

I recently listened to a Darknet Diaries episode on messaging app Kik. This app is apparently being used by many people to trade child pornography. In this episode, there was some criticism expressed on how Kik doesn't scan all the images on their platform for child pornography. I would really like to hear from people who sign this open letter, how they think about this. Should the internet be a free for all place wi…

I think there is a very deep and troublesome philosophical issue here. Ceci n'est pas une pipe. A picture of child abuse /is not/ child abuse. Let me ask you a counter-question. If I am able to draw child pornography so realistically that you couldn't easily tell, am I committing a crime by drawing?

In many jurisdictions you are.

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

#607

Post by emodendroket »

zug_zug wrote: post #153
donkeyd wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I similarly draw other crimes being committed, the same does not apply. Why is that? The answer is much more simple than you seem to think it is. Because the law doesn't say it is. I can only go by the law in my country, which is that (loosely translated) 'ownership of any image of someone looking like a minor in a sexually suggestive position' is a crime. Since a drawing is an image, it's a crime. Having an ima…

Yeah but he's using reducto-ad-absurdem to illustrate the law as written is absurd in some cases. So yes you can pedanticly cite the law and have an answer to the question, but you're missing the larger discussion. At somepoint somebody is gonna actually have to tackle that looking at images, especially fake ones, might not only be harmless, it might be safer to let people get release from their fantasies (I'd be cur…

It seems just as plausible that viewing such depictions could feed into someone's urges. Without some evidence I'd be hesitant to go with someone's conjectures here. There is also, frankly, the fact that a lot of people find viewing such stuff so shockingly depraved that they don't care if someone is "actually" harmed in the process, a claim that is hard to evaluate in the first place.

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

#608

Post by zepto »

danShumway wrote: post #600
zepto wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you're also completely wrong in assuming that there is some kind of escape hatch or technological miracle that anyone can pull off to make those fears go away, I can’t be wrong about that since I’m not claiming that anywhere or assuming it. > because in your own words: "parents will be afraid for their children regardless of the stats." Given that I wrote this, why would you claim that I think otherwise? > Ther…

> except that I go further and claim that the stats are not sufficient, so making about the stats can’t solve the problem. Statistics are a reflection of reality. When you say that the stats don't matter, you are saying that the reality doesn't matter. Just that people are scared. You need to go another step further than you are currently going, and realize that any technological "solution" will only be affecting the…

> Statistics are a reflection of reality.

No, they are the output of a process. Whether a process reflects ‘reality’ is dependent on the process and how people understand it. This is essential to science.

Even when statistics are the result of the best scientific processes available, they are typically narrow and reflect only a small portion of reality.

This is why they are insufficient.

> When you say that the stats don't matter,

I never said they don’t matter. I just said they were insufficient to convince people who are afraid.

> you are saying that the reality doesn't matter.

Since I’m not saying they don’t matter, this is irrelevant.

> It's not that making this about the stats will solve the problem. It won't. But neither will any technological change. You can not solve an irrational fear by making reality safer.

Can you find a place where this contradicts something I’ve said? I haven’t argued to the contrary anywhere. I don’t expect to get the fears to go away.

As to whether they are rational are not, some are, and some aren’t. We don’t know which are which because you don’t have the stats, so we have to accept that there is a mix.

> Will you use stats? Appeal to logic?

Probably a mix of both, maybe some demos, who knows. I won’t expect them to be sufficient to silence the people who are arguing in favor of weakening encryption, not make parents feel secure about their children being protected against predation forever.

> You almost completely understand the entire situation right now, you just haven't connected the dots that all of your technological "solutions" are subject to the same problems as the current debate.

Again you misrepresent me. Can you find a place where I argue that technological solutions are not subject to the same problems as the current debate?

I don’t think you can find such a place.

I have fully agreed that you can’t escape the vicissitudes of the current debate. Nonetheless, you can still produce better technological solutions. This isn’t about prevailing over unquantifiable fears and dark forces. It’s about making better technologies in their presence.

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

#609

Post by danShumway »

zepto wrote: post #608
danShumway wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except that I go further and claim that the stats are not sufficient, so making about the stats can’t solve the problem. Statistics are a reflection of reality. When you say that the stats don't matter, you are saying that the reality doesn't matter. Just that people are scared. You need to go another step further than you are currently going, and realize that any technological "solution" will only be affecting the…

> Statistics are a reflection of reality. No, they are the output of a process. Whether a process reflects ‘reality’ is dependent on the process and how people understand it. This is essential to science. Even when statistics are the result of the best scientific processes available, they are typically narrow and reflect only a small portion of reality. This is why they are insufficient. > When you say that the stats…

> This is essential to science.

Okay, fine. Are you claiming that people who are calling to ban encryption are doing so on a scientific basis?

Come on, be serious here. People call to ban encryption because it scares them, not because they have a model of the world based on real data or real science that they're using to reinforce that belief.

If they did, we could argue with them. But we can't, because they don't.

> Can you find a place where this contradicts something I’ve said?

Yes, see below:

> such that when calls to weaken encryption or insert back doors are made as they always will be, we don’t have to

I'm open to some kind of clarification that makes this comment make sense. How are your "solutions" going to make people less afraid? On what basis are you going to argue with these people that your solution is better than banning encryption?

Pretend that I'm a concerned parent right now. I want to ban encryption. What can you tell me now to convince me that any other solution will be better?

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

#610

Post by robertoandred »

drampelt wrote: post #522
robertoandred wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then Apple reviews the account and sees that what was flagged was not CSAM. And again, the hashes aren’t of arbitrary subject matter, they’re of specific images. Using that to police subject matter would be ludicrous.

How would Apple know what the content was that was flagged if all they are provided with is a list of hashes? I completely agree it's ludicrous, but there are plenty of countries that want that exact functionality.

The matched image’s decrypted security voucher includes a “visual derivative.” I’m sure in other words they can do some level of human comparison to verify that it is or is not a valid match.
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