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

There is nothing to ‘hang’ anyone with. Just a series of quotes taken out of context which even then don’t look particularly nefarious.

Remind us again what you’re trying to prove with this?

> 1) We can educate them about the dangers of banning encryption and encourage them to research more about the problem. We can remain open to other proposals that they have, while making it clear that each proposal's social benefits have to be weighed against their social costs.

> or

> 2) We can offer them some kind of compromise solution that may or may not actually address their problem, but will make them feel like it does, and which will in theory make them less likely to try and ban encryption.

Why are those the only two solutions? That seems like a false dichotomy.

Again why would you think I’m suggesting #2.

Can I ask you straight up, are you trolling?

There is a pattern where you say “I think you are saying X” where X is unrelated to anything I have actually said. I ask “why do you think I think X”, and you don’t answer, but just move on to repeat the process.

I have been assuming there is good faith misunderstanding going on, but the fact that you keep not explaining where the misunderstandings have arisen from when asked is starting to make me question that.

Most of what you’ve written in this reply is frankly incoherent, or at least seems to be based on assumptions about my position that are neither valid nor obvious, as to make it seem seem unconnected from our previous discussion.

For example this:

> To me, if someone comes to me and says, "I'm not interested in hearing about the downsides of banning encryption, come up with a solution or we'll ban it anyway" -- I don't think that person is reasonable, I don't think they're acting rationally, and certainly I'm not interested in working with that person or coming up with solutions with that person.

Just seems like a gibberish hypothetical that doesn’t have much to do with what we are talking about.

And this:

> You could come up with the most innovative amazing reduction strategy for CSAM ever conceived, and it would not change any of those people's opinions on encryption.

What does it even mean to ‘reduce CSAM’? Why do we care about changing people’s minds here about encryption?

Let’s take another part:

> Where I fall on this is that I am totally willing to look for alternative solutions; but encryption, device ownership, privacy, and secure software -- these are not prizes to be won, conditional on me finding a solution.

Ok, but those are all in fact fluid concepts whose status is changing as time goes by, and mostly not in the directions it sounds like you would prefer. Nobody is thinking of them as prizes. The status quo is that they are in jeopardy.

> We can look for a solution together once we've taken those things off the table.

Ok, but this just means you aren’t willing to participate with people who don’t agree to a set of terms, which in fact don’t represent anything anyone has so far developed.

That’s a comment about your personal boundaries not about whether a better solution than what Apple is proposing could be built.

That’s fine by me, in fact I’d be happy if a solution did incorporate all of the concepts you require. I agree we need that. I argue for it quite often.

I don’t think such a thing has been built yet, and if it were built, I suspect parents would like to have some mechanism to control whether it was. vector of child exploitation before they let their kids use it.

So what would that solution look like?

With this technology in place, never again will the Government be able to wail "think of the children" when claiming E2E needs a back door in order to protect the the children.

Give me the bullshit back door any day.

Did you know they can still be seen exactly as I wrote them in the thread, where anyone can make sense of them, and see what I was replying to?

Remind us what this copy and paste behavior is meant to prove?

It's not? It's a real dichotomy. What other solution could there be?

I mean, OK, I guess there are other solutions we could try like ignoring them or attacking them or putting them in prison or some garbage, but to me those kinds of solutions are off the table. So we either figure out some way to satisfy them, or convince them that we're right. That's not a false dichotomy, those are the only 2 options.

I assume you're suggesting #2 because you're sure as heck not suggesting #1, and I can't figure out what else you could be suggesting.

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> why do you think I think X

Frankly, if this isn't what you think, then I don't understand what you're thinking.

You keep on saying that we need to offer solutions, we can't just criticize Apple's proposal, we have to offer an alternative if we're going to criticize. But why?

- I thought the point was to get rid of people's fears: no, you're saying that's not what you mean.

- I thought the point was to compromise with critics: no, you're saying that's not what you mean.

- I thought the point was to try and get people to stop attacking encryption: no, you're saying that's not what you mean.

- Heck, I thought the point was to reduce CSAM, and you're telling me now that even that's not what you mean either?

> What does it even mean to ‘reduce CSAM’? Why do we care about changing people’s minds here about encryption?

What? We're on the same thread, right? We're commenting under an article about Apple instituting policies to reduce CSAM, ie, to make it so there is less CSAM floating around in the wild. When you talk about a "solution", what problem are you even trying to solve? Because all of us here are talking about CSAM, that's what Apple's system is designed to detect.

I don't understand. How can you possibly not be talking about CSAM right now? That's literally what this entire controversy is about, that's the only reason this thread exists.

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Honest to God, hand over my heart, I am not trolling you right now. I understand that this is frustrating to you, but my experience throughout this conversation has been:

- You say something

- I try to interpret and build on it

- You tell me that's not what you meant and ask me why I thought that

- Okay, I try to reinterpret and explain

- The cycle repeats

- The only information I can get out of you is that I apparently don't understand you. I'm not getting any clarification. You just tell me that I'm misunderstanding your position and then you move on.

What are you trying to accomplish by proposing "alternative" solutions to Apple's proposal? You seem to think this will help keep people from attacking encryption, but I'm wrong to say that it will help by reducing their fears, or by distracting them, or by teaching them, or by solving the problems that they think they have, or... anything.

You tell me that "if we think it’s a bad trade-off that is taking us in the direction of worse and worse privacy compromises, we aren’t likely to be able to persuade people to ignore the real trade-offs, but we stand a chance of getting them to accept a better solution to the same problem." But then you tell me that "encryption is not a prize" and the goal is not to convince them of anything, which to me completely contradicts the previous sentence.

If encryption isn't a prize, if "nobody is thinking of them as prizes", then why does it sound like you're telling me that preserving encryption is conditional on me coming up with some kind of alternative? If encryption isn't a prize, then great, let's take it off the table.

But then I'm told that taking encryption off the table means that "you aren’t willing to participate with people who don’t agree to a set of terms". So apparently encryption is on the table, and I am coming up with alternative solutions in order to convince people to attack something else? But that's not what you mean either, because you tell me that people will always attack encryption, so I don't even know.

You're jumping back and forth between positions that seem completely contradictory to me. I thought that you had a different view than me about how reasonable privacy-critics actually were, but apparently you also have different views than me about what the problem is that Apple is trying to solve, what privacy-critics even want in the first place, what the end goal of all of this public debate actually is. Maybe you even disagree with me about what privacy and human rights are, since "those are all in fact fluid concepts whose status is changing as time goes by".

So I need you to either lay out your views very plainly without any flowery language or expansion in a way that I can understand, or I need to stop having this conversation because I don't know what else I can say other than that I find your views incomprehensible. If you can't do that, then fine, we can mutually call each others' views gibberish and incoherent, and we can go off and do something more productive with our evenings. But I'll give this exactly one last try:

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> Most of what you’ve written in this reply is frankly incoherent

Okay, plain language, no elaboration. Maybe this isn't what you're arguing about, maybe it is. I don't care. Here's my position:

A) it is desirable to reduce CSAM without violating privacy.

B) the downsides of violating privacy are greater than the upsides of reducing CSAM.

C) most of the people arguing in favor of violating privacy to stop CSAM are either arguing in bad faith or ignorance.

D) the ones that aren't should be gently educated about the downsides of breaking encryption and violating human rights.

E) the ones that refuse to be educated are never going to change their views.

F) compromising with them is a waste of time, and calls to "work with the critics" instead of educating them are a waste of time.

G) working with critics who refuse to be educated about the downsides of violating privacy will not help accomplish point A (it is desirable to reduce CSAM without violating privacy).

H) thus, we should refuse to engage with people about reducing CSAM unless they take encryption/privacy/human rights off of the table (on this point, you understood my views completely, people who view CSAM as a bigger deal than human rights shouldn't be engaged with)

I) a technical solution that reduces CSAM without violating privacy may or may not be possible. But it doesn't matter. Even if a technical solution without violating privacy is impossible, violating privacy is still off the table, because the downsides of removing poeple's privacy rights would still be larger than the upsides of removing CSAM.

Can you give me a straightforward, bullet-point list of what statements above you disagree with, if any?