ihatescreennames

elijahg said:

ihatescreennames said:

Rayz2016 said:

elijahg said:

Bollocks. So when the Chinese government tells Apple to add a heap of CPP provided hashes, they’re going to refuse? Of course they won’t. If any government said provided data were hashes of CSAM material, who’s Apple to say it’s not?

That's the great thing about the CSAM material; it's just hashes. In some countries it could kiddie porn; in other countries it could be photos taken by the police at protest march. And in those countries, Apple won't be the only ones checking the pictures.

CSAM is not just hashes. Where did you get that idea? The hashes that Apple will compare against come from NCMEC, where the actual images are stored. The hashes are created from the images. Are we supposed to believe that NCMEC will now just accept a hash from any government that feels like sending it over without a corresponding image to go along with it?

Let’s not forget that it US law requires tech companies to report incidences of CSAM. Also, using iCloud Photo Library is opt in, so people who are worried about their photos being matched to a hash don’t need to opt in.

Gruber posits that doing the check client-side, rather than server-side, will allow them to fully encrypt iCloud backups.

So you think China will be happy with Apple using hashes of NCMEC? Where the US government could insert hashes that are of someone they want in China, and then under the guise of CSAM find out all the photos they want of this person? 

There is literally no point in encrypting backups if Apple has defied the trust of their customers by inserting this spyware. What's the point in end to end encryption if the spyware is already on the device pre-encryption? How long until it scans all files on your phone before syncing to iCloud? How long before it scans all files all the time? 

That isn’t how hashes work. Hashes find the exact same photograph, not a photograph that is similar. So, your imagined scenario where the US government uploads a hash of a photo of someone they are looking for and in return get all photos of that person is not how it works. The uploaded hash would only help to find positive matches of that exact same photo.

Also, as has been mentioned several times already, everyone can opt out.

patchythepirate said:

Good to know, home kit is a must have for me now, but will these also work with the new, universal smart home standard, M_____? (think it starts with an “M”)

You’re thinking of Matter. If you’re all in with HomeKit then, the way I understand it, having Matter support won’t make a difference. Matter should open the market up to more things being available for HomeKit than there are now, but if you’re using HK and HK support is already there then you’re good.

It’s happened to me before. I was working out with my Apple Watch on, doing push-ups. Apparently my wrist was bent enough that the top of my hand pressed the side button hard enough and long enough to activate the 911 call. In the middle of the set I heard someone saying something but I couldn’t make it out because my hands were also wrapped. When I checked my iPhone later I saw that I had initiated the call. Oops.

Flip side, a friend of mine is a police dispatcher. She’s constantly telling me how they get bogus “solicitor” calls, you know, the ones where they’re trying to get you to send money for something that typically sounds like a scam. She frequently plays along for a while, then the rest of the dispatch team listen to the recording later and all get a laugh out of it. They also get drunks calling for things that aren’t emergencies. I’ll have to ask but I would guess that the accidental Apple Watch calls are far fewer than the other calls that end up just being nonsense.

To keep this in perspective, she works in a busy city in Virginia, it’s not like she’s in some slow, back woods town.

Rayz2016 said:

Apple wasn't alone as far as interoperability criticism. For example, Lazarus said that Google "demanded as a condition of Google Assistant in our products that we never allow concurrency with another general voice assistant."

Is this actually true? So what he’s saying is that if you support Google Assistant in your product then you cannot support another voice assistant? Not sure this is correct  

In the UK, it’s illegal to put up barriers to market entry like this. 

I think the issue is “concurrency”. So, a Sonos device can be set up to use GA OR Alexa, but not both at the same time. There’s no “Alexa, what’s the weather?” immediately followed by, “Hey Google, what is the status of my thermostat?”

If you’re using a Sonos speaker with GA and inexplicably decide you want to use Alexa instead, I guess you’ll have to factory reset and make the switch during setup. 

AppleInsider said:

"Basically [now] the main points of differentiation of AirTags vis a vis Tile, are [unique] to platform capabilities that we don't have access to," he said. "Seamless activation [is an example], and another is Ultra Wideband."

Prober says that Tile has been pressing to get developer access to Apple's U1 Ultra Wideband processor, "and have been denied."

"Apple does not need to take advantage of its monopoly position, the App Store and the iPhone, [or] enable advantages that only they can partake in," continued Prober. "They can make those [platform] advantages available to all companies so we can compete on a level playing field."

Perhaps the CEO of a product that competes with AirTag is completely unaware of this:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/04/07/apple-announces-find-my-network-for-third-party-accessories

Here’s the quote I’m referring to from that linked article: “ Alongside the announcement of the program, Apple says it will be launching what it calls a draft specification for chipset manufacturers. Due out "later this spring," the specification will allow third-party firms to utilize the more precise location technology, Ultra-Wideband technology in U1-equipped Apple devices.”

If he is truly unaware he should be looking for new engineers.

Chipolo also makes a competing product to Tile and AirTags. Where is all of the complaining about unfairness coming from Chipolo? I haven’t seen any. In fact, what I do see is Chipolo is making a product that explicitly works with Find My. Maybe this Tile guy should take a few pages from the Chipolo playbook instead of running to the government for help.