Bill Maher declares Apple CSAM tools a 'blatant constitutional breach'
Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher has waded into the debate over Apple's CSAM tools, declaring them a "blatant constitutional breach" against its users.
The CSAM debate over Apple's tools for detecting child pornography has a new high-profile participant, with comedian Bill Maher using a segment of his "Real Time" talk show to complain about the move.
The eight-minute segment starts with the outspoken host describing the tools as an update that will allow Apple to "hack into your phone without your consent to snoop through all your pictures, just in case you're a pedophile."
After saying he is against pedophilia, Maher goes on to say "nosing through everybody's private photo stash is casting an awfully wide, intrusive net." He compares the idea to a safe manufacturer saying they will occasionally check the safe for illegal material.
"Our phones should be like our wallets or purses. Private," he states, before asking "What about probable cause? What about the fourth amendment?" Maher then declares it to be "the very definition of unreasonable search and seizure, which can and will be abused to find evidence of other illegal stuff on our phones."
Maher claims he doesn't see a "strong fight" against Apple's initiative, which he claims is due to people's dependence on their smartphones.
The remaining time of the segment segues away from the CSAM debate to Maher complaining about iPhones and smartphones negatively changing how people act and how society functions.
While Maher's segment largely glosses over what the CSAM tools do, misrepresenting Apple's scanning of file hashes for full-scale phone snooping, it is arguably one of the most public attacks Apple has had over the matter.
Maher joins a long line of civil rights groups, the German government, a German journalist union, and even some Apple employees in complaining about the CSAM tools, and in asking Apple to reconsider their implementation.
Apple SVP of software engineering Craig Federighi admitted on August 13 that Apple's introduction of the tools could have been handled better, with its communication "widely misunderstood." Apple has also been performing damage control, by offering further explanations of the system, and detailing how security researchers can perform their own checks.
Read on AppleInsider
The CSAM debate over Apple's tools for detecting child pornography has a new high-profile participant, with comedian Bill Maher using a segment of his "Real Time" talk show to complain about the move.
The eight-minute segment starts with the outspoken host describing the tools as an update that will allow Apple to "hack into your phone without your consent to snoop through all your pictures, just in case you're a pedophile."
After saying he is against pedophilia, Maher goes on to say "nosing through everybody's private photo stash is casting an awfully wide, intrusive net." He compares the idea to a safe manufacturer saying they will occasionally check the safe for illegal material.
"Our phones should be like our wallets or purses. Private," he states, before asking "What about probable cause? What about the fourth amendment?" Maher then declares it to be "the very definition of unreasonable search and seizure, which can and will be abused to find evidence of other illegal stuff on our phones."
Maher claims he doesn't see a "strong fight" against Apple's initiative, which he claims is due to people's dependence on their smartphones.
The remaining time of the segment segues away from the CSAM debate to Maher complaining about iPhones and smartphones negatively changing how people act and how society functions.
While Maher's segment largely glosses over what the CSAM tools do, misrepresenting Apple's scanning of file hashes for full-scale phone snooping, it is arguably one of the most public attacks Apple has had over the matter.
Maher joins a long line of civil rights groups, the German government, a German journalist union, and even some Apple employees in complaining about the CSAM tools, and in asking Apple to reconsider their implementation.
Apple SVP of software engineering Craig Federighi admitted on August 13 that Apple's introduction of the tools could have been handled better, with its communication "widely misunderstood." Apple has also been performing damage control, by offering further explanations of the system, and detailing how security researchers can perform their own checks.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Just about everything Maher said was incorrect, but it will be passed around as gospel because Apple has done such a poor job getting the fact of the case out. It is time for full-page ads and volunteering to be on shows like 60 Minutes where it can broadcast the details of this feature which (A) has to be opted-in, and (B) which is to be used by parents who have minor children on their same family account. Nothing here about “snooping in the private photos” of adult users.
It is no small amount of irony that misinformation about Apple’s plan will be spread on Facebook, where privacy is an abstract concept and personal information has long since been mined and sold for profit. But that same person will have white knuckles from clutching the pearls so tightly.
That really is the entire point which many who are defending Apple's move are ignoring. Nothing else matters, and certainly not the technical way in which CSAM scanning works. That's precisely why I've said in other threads that Apple is now obligated to at the very least DELAY the release until they can do PR damage control and at least try to win more public support. They cannot do that between now and the release of iOS 15, so the feature must be pulled from iOS 15 and delay the release until at least iOS 16. And if they never get public support and the matter seems only to get worse and worse, then the idea may need to be permanently shelved.
This is Tim Cook's call now. It's no doubt a hard call for him because he's played social justice warrior at times in the past, and this no doubt would seem like a step back for him. But it's a call he has to make and make soon.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/photodna
I'm glad to have the talk about privacy and Apple's CSAM. It's not a great place to plant the flag for privacy but that's the hand that's been dealt. But now include the majority of smartphone users in the world having their privacy tracked to a degree that if they printed to paper what data has been collected, it would easily surpass half a million pages.
Unfortunately most of the media people railing against CSAM are probably iPhone users. So privacy issue knocked on their door, now they care. How wonderful of them...