I don't follow the guy but has he condemned Twitter and other social media sites banning/shadow banning Trump and other conservative voices?
If not then he doesn't have any basis for his complaint. If it's ok for private companies to censor on their own platforms, and still somehow be content neutral and not be publishers, then clearly it's ok for Apple to look for criminal content on their servers. As I understand it Apple is only looking at content on iCloud servers.
I do find it interesting all the left wing types who are chill with the social media companies censoring anyone who doesn't buy into "right think" are suddenly getting all 1st Amendmentish over protecting pedophiles.
After all to avoid this "problem" pedophiles only have to not put their photos on iCloud.
Not sure about Trump specifically, but I remember Maher was vocally critical when Alex Jones got banned from Twitter, or something. I think he goes in pretty heavy on freedom of speech.
Apple aren't looking at content on iCloud servers though, they're looking at content on your phone as it is in the process of being sent to iCloud. I think it's a pretty academic distinction but others disagree.
Your argument makes no sense as it would be easier to update server-side scanning than on-device scanning without the user knowing. The privacy concern isn’t with scanning (as all devices scan libraries) it’s with reporting the results. The only thing Apple’s system will report is a large collection of verified CSAM images. Can the same be guaranteed for the other services?
Neither does yours, because nobody can transparently check what kind of pattern recognition these hashes are looking for. there is no sufficient legal structure that will offer enough guarantee to protect citizens around the world. Neither in the US.
True... But then if there is nothing to hide....
There is my privacy to hide. Otherwise, there IS no privacy, and welcome to 1984.
The general public has no understanding of what a file hash is. So the techies at Apple have no understanding of how the general public perceives what they are doing. They just think Apple is scanning their phone. I’m not a huge Bill Maher fan, but I agree with him here. It’s a slippery slope that Apple is embarking on.
People wouldn't get so bent out of shape if Apple didn't wear the "privacy! privacy! privacy!" mantra on its sleeve. Cook kept shouting about it from every damn rooftop he could find.
It's the sheer, seemingly blatant hypocrisy of it that rankles, rings hollow for a lot of people. Including me. Why? It's from a company that refused to break into a terrorist's phone despite all manner of strong-arming from the governments of the world (a stance that many of us, on principle, agreed with, even though that was not easy).
Dumb take. You’re referring to the San Bernardino workplace shooting, to which Apple did offer and help law enforcement, handing over all server-side data. What they didn’t and can’t do is decrypt someone’s device, they don’t have the tools for this. That’s the point of encryption.
Um... no. You win the dumbness contest today. Apple said that it might be able to, but that it would take many many man-hours to do. All of Apple's public pronouncements at that time were about how it would not violate a user's privacy on the device. The company pushed back strongly, and despite all manner of political pressure, stayed firm.
It became moot, in any event, because an Israeli company was able to help the FBI do it.
I don’t think he’s wrong, per se. Apple doesn’t have the keys to decrypt the device, but they could remove some brute force protections which is likely why they referenced that it will still take many man ours to crack. This case was about making a modified version of iOS to circumvent the rate limit of password tries, and the potential of a device wipe after 10 incorrect tries (if enabled).
There are things they could try to avoid brute forcing, such as a dictionary attack, to speed up the process, but if the dictionary attack doesn’t work, you’d still have to fallback to brute force (guessing every possible combination). At the end of the day, it’s a guessing game… and there are protections afforded by iOS to make guessing harder.
Passcodes would be easily guessable because their length is so short, but those who choose to use a long password not in a dictionary, it would likely take months to years to brute force it.
The “tools” they were asking for in the San Bernardino case was a modified version of iOS to make brute forcing faster essentially. I think the pie in the sky for them would be the crypto keys to decrypt the device, but Apple does have those. There are methods to get around some of these protections, but it often requires disassembling the device and tinkering with the device which runs the risk of destroying it among being more time consuming (unless of course there’s an undisclosed vulnerability to exploit)
The general public has no understanding of what a file hash is. So the techies at Apple have no understanding of how the general public perceives what they are doing. They just think Apple is scanning their phone. I’m not a huge Bill Maher fan, but I agree with him here. It’s a slippery slope that Apple is embarking on.
People wouldn't get so bent out of shape if Apple didn't wear the "privacy! privacy! privacy!" mantra on its sleeve. Cook kept shouting about it from every damn rooftop he could find.
It's the sheer, seemingly blatant hypocrisy of it that rankles, rings hollow for a lot of people. Including me. Why? It's from a company that refused to break into a terrorist's phone despite all manner of strong-arming from the governments of the world (a stance that many of us, on principle, agreed with, even though that was not easy).
Dumb take. You’re referring to the San Bernardino workplace shooting, to which Apple did offer and help law enforcement, handing over all server-side data. What they didn’t and can’t do is decrypt someone’s device, they don’t have the tools for this. That’s the point of encryption.
Um... no. You win the dumbness contest today. Apple said that it might be able to, but that it would take many many man-hours to do. All of Apple's public pronouncements at that time were about how it would not violate a user's privacy on the device. The company pushed back strongly, and despite all manner of political pressure, stayed firm.
It became moot, in any event, because an Israeli company was able to help the FBI do it.
I don’t think he’s wrong, per se. Apple doesn’t have the keys to decrypt the device, but they could remove some brute force protections which is likely why they referenced that it will still take many man ours to crack. This case was about making a modified version of iOS to circumvent the rate limit of password tries, and the potential of a device wipe after 10 incorrect tries (if enabled).
The general public has no understanding of what a file hash is. So the techies at Apple have no understanding of how the general public perceives what they are doing. They just think Apple is scanning their phone. I’m not a huge Bill Maher fan, but I agree with him here. It’s a slippery slope that Apple is embarking on.
People wouldn't get so bent out of shape if Apple didn't wear the "privacy! privacy! privacy!" mantra on its sleeve. Cook kept shouting about it from every damn rooftop he could find.
It's the sheer, seemingly blatant hypocrisy of it that rankles, rings hollow for a lot of people. Including me. Why? It's from a company that refused to break into a terrorist's phone despite all manner of strong-arming from the governments of the world (a stance that many of us, on principle, agreed with, even though that was not easy).
Dumb take. You’re referring to the San Bernardino workplace shooting, to which Apple did offer and help law enforcement, handing over all server-side data. What they didn’t and can’t do is decrypt someone’s device, they don’t have the tools for this. That’s the point of encryption.
Um... no. You win the dumbness contest today. Apple said that it might be able to, but that it would take many many man-hours to do. All of Apple's public pronouncements at that time were about how it would not violate a user's privacy on the device. The company pushed back strongly, and despite all manner of political pressure, stayed firm.
It became moot, in any event, because an Israeli company was able to help the FBI do it.
I don’t think he’s wrong, per se. Apple doesn’t have the keys to decrypt the device, but they could remove some brute force protections which is likely why they referenced that it will still take many man ours to crack. This case was about making a modified version of iOS to circumvent the rate limit of password tries, and the potential of a device wipe after 10 incorrect tries (if enabled).
Not sure I’m following… like… I thought the discussion went back to what was said about the San Bernardino case which is what I was referencing in the quoted part… not sure what the EU document has to do with that, but then now I’m not sure I was in the right page when I butted in.
The general public has no understanding of what a file hash is. So the techies at Apple have no understanding of how the general public perceives what they are doing. They just think Apple is scanning their phone. I’m not a huge Bill Maher fan, but I agree with him here. It’s a slippery slope that Apple is embarking on.
People wouldn't get so bent out of shape if Apple didn't wear the "privacy! privacy! privacy!" mantra on its sleeve. Cook kept shouting about it from every damn rooftop he could find.
It's the sheer, seemingly blatant hypocrisy of it that rankles, rings hollow for a lot of people. Including me. Why? It's from a company that refused to break into a terrorist's phone despite all manner of strong-arming from the governments of the world (a stance that many of us, on principle, agreed with, even though that was not easy).
Dumb take. You’re referring to the San Bernardino workplace shooting, to which Apple did offer and help law enforcement, handing over all server-side data. What they didn’t and can’t do is decrypt someone’s device, they don’t have the tools for this. That’s the point of encryption.
Um... no. You win the dumbness contest today. Apple said that it might be able to, but that it would take many many man-hours to do. All of Apple's public pronouncements at that time were about how it would not violate a user's privacy on the device. The company pushed back strongly, and despite all manner of political pressure, stayed firm.
It became moot, in any event, because an Israeli company was able to help the FBI do it.
I don’t think he’s wrong, per se. Apple doesn’t have the keys to decrypt the device, but they could remove some brute force protections which is likely why they referenced that it will still take many man ours to crack. This case was about making a modified version of iOS to circumvent the rate limit of password tries, and the potential of a device wipe after 10 incorrect tries (if enabled).
At the same time law enforcement is increasingly dependent on access to electronic evidence to effectively fight terrorism, organised crime, child sexual abuse (particularly its online aspects), as well as a variety of other cybercrime and cyber-enabled crimes. For competent authorities, access to electronic evidence can be essential, not only to conduct successful investigations and thereby bring criminals to justice, but also to protect victims and help ensure security.
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Apple aren't looking at content on iCloud servers though, they're looking at content on your phone as it is in the process of being sent to iCloud. I think it's a pretty academic distinction but others disagree.
There are things they could try to avoid brute forcing, such as a dictionary attack, to speed up the process, but if the dictionary attack doesn’t work, you’d still have to fallback to brute force (guessing every possible combination). At the end of the day, it’s a guessing game… and there are protections afforded by iOS to make guessing harder.
Passcodes would be easily guessable because their length is so short, but those who choose to use a long password not in a dictionary, it would likely take months to years to brute force it.
The “tools” they were asking for in the San Bernardino case was a modified version of iOS to make brute forcing faster essentially. I think the pie in the sky for them would be the crypto keys to decrypt the device, but Apple does have those. There are methods to get around some of these protections, but it often requires disassembling the device and tinkering with the device which runs the risk of destroying it among being more time consuming (unless of course there’s an undisclosed vulnerability to exploit)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ oh well