ErikSomething

Apple, this CSAM detection of yours is crazy! Even if it is used as advertised - people are going to be scared. Scared that you will yet again break your promise and introduce a ‘special version’ for the totalitarian regimes you so often submit to. On behalf of the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently yadi yada - I urge you to please please reconsider. People should not have to live in fear because their devices are under constant and warrantless surveillance. 

What’s so wrong with constantly scanning everyone’s devices without their consent for content that the government might find objectionable? If they don’t know what’s best for you - who will? We did elect them after all (except a few exceptions like China, Iran, all Arab countries, Russia and a few more). That those countries also are places where Apple has been strong-armed to give up user privacy are just evil rumours and nobody should pay any attention to it. Finally claims that continuous monitoring of people’s devices might have a dampening effect on people’s human right to express themselves is clearly just right-wing conspiracy theories and should be ignored. So why should we worry?! -It’s for the children goddammit. 

mcdave said:

ErikSomething said:

Apple’s story about calculating hashes of pictures doesn’t add up. If they, as they claim, only wants to target the photos that hit iCloud they could just as well have done that the cloud and nobody would have been the wiser. Yet they choose to do it upstreams on the users’ phones. -That is odd! I can see two possible reasons. One being that they want to save some CPU cycles from their servers. Hashing isn’t a big deal and I see little support for that option. The other is that, as everyone keeps pointing out, Apple is establishing a snooping platform that they willy-nilly can updated with a new iOS patch to do whatever kind of shady surveillance tasks they, or somebody else, wants them to do. Effectively turning an iPhone into an iSnoop. I find that to be the most likely reason. 

I don’t like private companies acting like law enforcement agencies because they are not subject to transparency, the bill of right, court orders etc. A framework that has taken us hundreds of years to get properly tuned. That is all being pushed aside with moves like this one where Apple just turns on the mikes. That irks me. I find it especially despicable when it comes from a company that continuously brag about how they value user privacy and I company I have admired for close to forty years. 

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?

That is exactly the point I was making. Apple has all the information required to carry out CSAM hashing in the cloud. They don't need to have it done on the device. Why on earth do they have to install these components on our phones? Unless of course there is more at play that the 'it's for the children' argument they keep pushing. My view is that they have received a combined governmental order and a gag order to install an on-device spying framework. What do you think? 

Apple’s story about calculating hashes of pictures doesn’t add up. If they, as they claim, only wants to target the photos that hit iCloud they could just as well have done that the cloud and nobody would have been the wiser. Yet they choose to do it upstreams on the users’ phones. -That is odd! I can see two possible reasons. One being that they want to save some CPU cycles from their servers. Hashing isn’t a big deal and I see little support for that option. The other is that, as everyone keeps pointing out, Apple is establishing a snooping platform that they willy-nilly can updated with a new iOS patch to do whatever kind of shady surveillance tasks they, or somebody else, wants them to do. Effectively turning an iPhone into an iSnoop. I find that to be the most likely reason. 

I don’t like private companies acting like law enforcement agencies because they are not subject to transparency, the bill of right, court orders etc. A framework that has taken us hundreds of years to get properly tuned. That is all being pushed aside with moves like this one where Apple just turns on the mikes. That irks me. I find it especially despicable when it comes from a company that continuously brag about how they value user privacy and I company I have admired for close to forty years. 

I applaud Apple’s initiative to monitor our private content on our private devices without our consent or a search warrant or even suspicion of wrongdoing. In fact I don’t think they went far enough. They should do what they did in 1984 and install cameras and microphones in every single wall in every single room so that whoever is on the other side of the line can monitor our every move all the time. Thanks to Apple we are almost there anyway. The slogan can remain ‘If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’ or maybe ‘It is for the children!’. 

Who elected Apple to be a law enforcement agency for whom the fourth amendment doesn’t apply?