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Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

reuters.com

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Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#791

Post by zepto »

pritambaral wrote: post #787
zepto wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but a ‘bit flip’ could make them do so just as easily as a ‘bit flip’ could make the CSAM detector do something nefarious.

How are you still not getting this?: "search" and "spotlight" do not have the code to report anything to anyone.

How are you still not getting it? The code to ‘report’ something is barely more than a one liner http request. It could be added at any time.

On the other hand, making the CSAM code scan your text documents would be pointlessly difficult given that the other mechanisms exist.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#792

Post by ransom1538 »

mkl wrote: post #789
ransom1538 wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a grandmother takes a photo of their grandchild in a bathtub this is technically against federal law 18 U.S.C. § 2252. There is no "I am grandma" exception. This is a serious felony with serious consequences. If you use an algorithm without any context I think you are looking at a ton of new 18 U.S.C. § 2252 (child pornography) charges through these scans. These charges are notoriously difficult to defend against…

You seem to be missing the fact that they're only scanning for existing images in a database, not detecting brand new images. Grandma's photo won't be in the database unless she uploads it somewhere that reports it.

lol. Right they will just go through every photo you have ever posted.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#793

Post by mulmen »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #223
whoisjuan wrote: post #132

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…

I actually think something else happened, and to be honest I think many at Apple behind this decision are likely pretty surprised by the blowback. That is, it seems like Apple really wanted to preserve "end-to-end" encryption, but they needed to do something to address the CSAM issue lest governments come down on them hard. Thus, my guess is, at least at the beginning, they saw this as a strong win for privacy. As th…

So Apple has rightfully lost the trust of its users then. We submit to their walled garden because we believe they are benevolent. But when they make this kind of a mistake how can we trust them?

I don't really see how they can recover from this. Will they go out of business? no. Will they even lose market share? No. But there will always be that example of the time Apple got it wrong.

If I was an Apple employee I would certainly be concerned about how something like this could happen.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#794

Post by mulmen »

porpoisemonkey wrote: post #739
heavyset_go wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's encrypted at rest, but Apple has the decryption keys, and will give up your customer data when asked to by the government[1]. Also, iCloud photos are not encrypted[2]. [1] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/us.html [2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

> Also, iCloud photos are not encrypted[2]. According to the table on the second link iCloud Photos are encrypted on the server (at rest). Am I missing something?

They are encrypted at rest. This protects from someone hacking in to Apple, getting the data on disk but somehow not getting the keys, which Apple also possesses.

Apple (and thus, LEO) absolutely can look at your photos on iCloud. What you are missing is that "encrypted at rest" is essentially "not encrypted in any meaningful way".

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#795

Post by mulmen »

y7 wrote: post #572
prophesi wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I agree with Ben Thompson's point in that blog post, that it's OK to not have strong, unbreakable encryption be the default, and that it's still possible to use an iPhone without iCloud and get full E2E. I disagree completely on this. For one, users aren't aware that using iCloud means that Apple has your decryption key and can thereby read and share all of your phone's data. And two, opt-out is a dark pattern.…

I agree. If Apple wants to go this route, they should abstain from pushing the user towards using iCloud as they currently do, and instead just present a clear opt-in choice. "Do you want to enable iCloud photos? Your private photos will be uploaded encrypted to Apple's servers, so that only you can access them. Before uploading, your photos will be locally scanned on your device for any illegal content. Apple will o…

They moved away from the TimeCapsule model. If they were really committed to privacy there would be a small box you can put in your closet that provides iCloud storage functionality.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#796

Post by mulmen »

grkvlt wrote: post #689
jjgreen wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, the UK switched its organ donation laws from opt-in to opt-out. We have, yet oddly, it's still called "organ donation".

don't be disingenuous - fairly obviously it is a donation because it is optional, voluntary and non-compensated.

Is it really voluntary if it is opt-out?

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#797

Post by unityByFreedom »

shuckles wrote: post #715
noduerme wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but there is a big difference between them having the software in place already to steal files off a phone for a government, versus a government telling them "you must deploy this new software." In the past Apple has said no to writing any new spyware for the government. They would not be able to say no very easily if the software is already on the devices.

Apple has the software to “steal files off a phone” through iCloud Backup. Whether they do this for governments is a policy matter.

That's on their servers, not your device. The difference is the source of people's outrage.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#798

Post by unityByFreedom »

sneak wrote: post #674
unityByFreedom wrote: post #439

Good. I would be furious if I worked there. After the San Bernardino case, I viewed them as the paragon of privacy and security, to the extent I ignored most criticisms, including their lack of support for right-to-repair and concerns over App Store rejections. All of that is back on the table for me after this decision. It is out-of-step with everything they've been doing up to this point, and it makes me wonder who…

Apple turned over all of the San Bernardino iPhone data, as iCloud Backup information is not e2e encrypted and is readable in full by Apple without ever touching or decrypting the phone. The Apple vs FBI narrative was a coordinated marketing move (coordinated between the FBI and Apple) to push that "paragon of privacy and security" brand message. It's false. Apple explicitly preserves a non-e2e backdoor in their cryp…

They didn't unlock that phone for the FBI. The FBI got some foreign contractor to do it. Yes, Apple did turn over data to which they had access. Their stance back then was not a farce.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#799

Post by simion314 »

zepto wrote: post #706
simion314 wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is clear that Apple will have no choice, if they for sure find 1 CSAM image they can't say "it is just 1 img so it is not a big collection..." they have to send it to whoever to handle it. What would help me with this kind of things would be more transparency, like to know the algorithm, the threshold, the real numbers of false positives, can the hashes be set per country or individual, can independent peo…

> I think it is clear that Apple will have no choice, if they for sure find 1 CSAM image they can't say "it is just 1 img so it is not a big collection..." they have to send it to whoever to handle it. This is a misunderstanding of how it works. The threshold has to be met before a detection occurs. Unless the threshold is met Apple doesn’t get to know about any images. As for independent auditing and transparent sta…

You misunderstand my comment, maybe is my fault.

Let's say the threshold is 10 , you trigger the threshold so Apple checks all the 10 images , but 9 are false possitive and one appears to be a correct match, Apple will report you for 1 image ... so my point is that is not designed to catch people with big collections of CP, is designed to not trigger to often.

Re: Apple's child protection features spark concern within its own ranks: sources

#800

Post by zepto »

simion314 wrote: post #799
zepto wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it is clear that Apple will have no choice, if they for sure find 1 CSAM image they can't say "it is just 1 img so it is not a big collection..." they have to send it to whoever to handle it. This is a misunderstanding of how it works. The threshold has to be met before a detection occurs. Unless the threshold is met Apple doesn’t get to know about any images. As for independent auditing and transparent sta…

You misunderstand my comment, maybe is my fault. Let's say the threshold is 10 , you trigger the threshold so Apple checks all the 10 images , but 9 are false possitive and one appears to be a correct match, Apple will report you for 1 image ... so my point is that is not designed to catch people with big collections of CP, is designed to not trigger to often.

Ok, but the threshold is 30. It seems unlikely to be a problem.
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