691–700 of 860 posts
This was such a weird way for them to announce that they’re no longer pursuing privacy as a differentiation strategy.
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> Apple privacy focus was always opportunistic: they couldn't get a foothold into online advertising so they decided to make that weakness a selling point instead. You could spin that the other way: Apple’s foray into advertising was opportunistic, but didn’t sit with their focus on privacy. You’d need internal memos to prove it went either way.
You could, but it seems more likely that a mega corporation gave up on a huge market because it failed to succeed there rather than moral principles. It's not like Apple has showed a lot of moral standing when dealing with the CCP, or isn't ruthlessly crushing competition when it gets the chance.
Between that and Apple's principled stance against the FBI, I'm inclined to believe that at that time, they were making principled choices out of a real concern for user privacy.
I suspect this time around they have a real concern for dealing with the growing child exploitation/abuse problem, but failed to prioritize system design principles in their zeal to pursue positive change in the world.
I don't envy them: in their position, they have an incredible amount of pressure and the stakes are incredibly high.
May cool heads and rational, principled thinking prevail.
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Why? It's already been well-reported that Apple makes a teeny fraction of the NCMEC reports that other large cloud providers make, and that the reason they hold the keys to iCloud backups was from some requests/pressure from the FBI.
What other "large cloud providers"? Ones that are similar to Apple? Or general cloud companies? And is "pressure from the FBI" really the only reason why Apple might hold backup keys? Please sketch out your "lost device, need to restore from backup" user journey. For a real person, who has only an iPhone.
How about "enter your master passphrase to access your photos". Like literally all syncing password managers work, or things like Authy work to back up your one-time password seeds. It's not complicated.
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> Authoritarian countries are the least of the worries. That really depends. And is quite a strange, perhaps worrying, take. Because, for many people, copyright strikes are the least of their problems. Not that I disagree on it being an issue.
The only authoritarian country that holds any sway over Apple is China and China can easily just ban iPhones if they feel like it, especially with Xi Jinping in charge. Democratic countries are much more of a danger because Apple has offices in them and cannot easily pull out of the market if they feel the laws are unconscionable.
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Apple privacy focus was always opportunistic: they couldn't get a foothold into online advertising so they decided to make that weakness a selling point instead. They'll ditch privacy in a second if they can sell you enough ads, just as they ditched privacy for Chinese customers when the Chinese government asked them to.
> Apple privacy focus was always opportunistic: they couldn't get a foothold into online advertising so they decided to make that weakness a selling point instead. You could spin that the other way: Apple’s foray into advertising was opportunistic, but didn’t sit with their focus on privacy. You’d need internal memos to prove it went either way.
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Could they though? An authoritarian government could just as easily say "if you do not implement this feature, we will not allow you to operate in this country" and refuse to entertain legal challenges.
Authoritarian countries are the least of the worries. There's a large class of illegal imagery that is policed in democratic countries: copyrighted media. We are only two steps away from having your phone rat you to the MPAA because you downloaded a movie and stored it on your phone. I can guarantee that some industry bigwigs are salivating at the prospect of this tech. Imagine youtube copyright strikes but local to…
(Yes, I know, it sounds like I'm splitting hairs distinguishing between copyright maximalism and copyright trolling. Please, humor me.)
What copyright maximalists really want is an end to the legal protections for online platforms (DMCA 512 safe-harbor) so they can go after notorious markets directly. They already partially accomplished this in the EU. It's way more efficient from their end to have one throat to choke. Once the maximalists get what they want, platforms that want to be legitimate would be legally compelled to implement filters, ala YouTube Content ID. But those filters would apply to content that's published on the platform, not just things on your device. Remember: they're not interested in your local storage. They want to keep their movies and music off of YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, and Facebook.
Furthermore, they largely already have the scanning regime they want. Public video sites make absolutely no sense to E2E encrypt; and most sites that deal in video already have a content fingerprinting solution. It turns out it was already easy enough to withhold content licenses to platforms that accept user uploads, unless they agreed to also start scanning those uploads.
(Side note: I genuinely think that the entire concept of safe harbors for online platforms is going to go away, just as soon as the proposals to do so stop being transparently partisan end-runs around the 1st Amendment. Pre-Internet, the idea that an entity could broadcast speech without having been considered to be the publisher of it didn't really exist. Publishers were publishers and that was that.)
In their attempt to make this extra private by scanning 'on device', I think they've managed to make it feel worse. If they scan my iCloud photos in iCloud, well lots of companies scan stuff when you upload it. It's on their servers, they're responsible for it. They don't want to be hosting CSAM. It feels much worse them turning your own, trusty iPhone against you. I know that isn't how you should look at it, but tha…
This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. Imagine investing hundreds of millions of dollars in pro-privacy programs, privacy features, privacy marketing, etc... just to pull this reverse card. Of course this is going to spark concern within their own ranks. It's like working for a food company that claims to use organic, non-processed, fair-trade ingredi…
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Yea, I agree. I see so many comments where people view the issue is black and white and that apple is clearly in the wrong. Yes, privacy is a great ideal. There are absolute monsters in this world and there is zero chance that no apple employees have brushed up against those monsters. I would ask that every single developer step back and think about putting themselves into a situation where software that you write is…
Easy. When I was young, I was not effectively spied on. My activity and digital trail were ephemeral, and hard to pin down. i wasn't the subkect of constant analysis and scrutiny. I had the privilege of being invited into the engine of an idling train to share an Engineer's drinks along with my parents and no one batted an eye. There were pedophiles then too. guess what? We didn't sacrifice everyone's right to privac…
No. My elders and society just denied the monsters existed. And punished any one who talked about it.
This CSAM Prevention initiative by Apple is a 180 degress change of their general message around privacy. Imagine investing hundreds of millions of dollars in pro-privacy programs, privacy features, privacy marketing, etc... just to pull this reverse card. Of course this is going to spark concern within their own ranks. It's like working for a food company that claims to use organic, non-processed, fair-trade ingredi…
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8161067
* edit: hahaha downvotes thanks apple employees!