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Apple CEO Tim Cook in Leaked Memo: 'We Are Doing Everything in Our Power' to Identify Leakers
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The article on this very website says that rumor is quite unlikely, but people keep promoting it anyway.
The common feature is loss of confidential information, and having a choice about between foregoing a facility (iCloud photos, Apple workers' online sessions) that should be private or using the facility and potentially losing confidentiality.
You do not know what the odds are and neither does Apple. Not sure where you got the estimate of 1 in a trillion, but no doubt it is based on the assumption of statistical independence of errors, which won't apply if people take series of similar photos. Moreover, it is how this system could be abused or used as a blueprint for surveillance by authoritarian regimes that I worry about.
Come on, give me a break. You live in the most privileged country on Earth - and in one of the wealthiest of its states at that, so you're in no position to lecture me on privilege.
Yes, I can afford a car (what do you know, an American one, no less), I can buy a newspaper, and I've got friends. Lucky me. I'm not ashamed of that.
After all, everyone on this forum is privileged, because it means they have internet access, and they own an Apple device.
We are all privileged here. This is a forum for privileged people. There's nothing wrong with being privileged.
Besides, I don't think you've ever used a Garmin or another high-end navigation device, because you're plain wrong. Apple Maps cannot hold a candle, not even by far, to a Garmin. I've only got a fairly inexpensive Garmin device, not top of the line, which is five or six years old, and which still blows the iPhone out of the water when it comes to automotive navigation. And let's not forget that Apple Maps is only really useable in the US, so it's not much use to unprivileged people. Thank God for Google Maps. In this respect, it's Google who has made the world better for unprivileged people, not Apple.
Apple has made the world a bit more comfortable. But not necessarily better. And considering how expensive Apple products are, I'd say that it has made it more comfortable for privileged people. Because if you can afford an iPhone, it means you're privileged. A lot of people can't.
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To be fair to the notion of products that make people’s lives better: a car-based GPS was never going to work out for me. They aren’t live data, they need frequent costly updates, or can’t be updated.
When Apple released the original iPhone with mapping, it saved me from a lifetime of navigational misery. I suck at maps (it seems neurological). I need turn-based assistance.
This was the killer app for me (having a non-garbage web browser on my phone was also cool).
To me, iPhone was and is an assistive technology device.
It is this for many people and it’s literally used for disability assistance purposes. THAT helps people. Many people.
Before iPhone, my prior assistive tech device was a Palm OS device. My first Palm Pilot saved me with the workplace. Reminders and notes, always on hand, and would nag me when paper notes did not. I required this assistance and it helped massively. iPhone was just a continuation of that path.
Apple didn’t invent any of this, but they made it accessible and universal. That matters.
I admit that I am privileged. I didn‘t lecture you on privilege - I just pointed out how privileged one has to be to say the things your wrote. And what does anything I said have to do with Apple Maps? Apple makes iphones. iPhones run google maps or a dozen other navigation apps. And until Apple came along with the iPhone, smartphone navigation was not really a thing. So, once again, Apple made the world a better place.
It appears you've been reading more secondary sources than primary, which would explain why you don't seem to understand the proposed process:
I'm sure you're just going to downplay that as a "guess" (even though Apple clearly presents it as an accurate, informed number) but even if that were a guess AND were a thousand times off, that's still 1 in 1 billion. I'm also having hard time seeing how someone is going to take an innocent photo (or a series of them that are similar) that matches the digital fingerprint of a known CSAM image.
I also think your worry about Apple going rogue and hand over access to the system to abusive governments is really out there. As I've said in other threads on the topic, just because something's possible doesn't mean you should worry about it. Technically, my parents could have me murdered, yet I don't give that a second thought. Same for Apple abusing this technology (or allowing it to be abused).
Apple has every right to run scans on property they own, but they shouldn’t have the right to scan on property that I do. I don't want that. I didn’t sign up for that when I bought into the Apple ecosystem. They are changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game and it’s unacceptable to me. Even if it was the most insignificant amount of space imaginable to store this code, and the most insignificant amount of battery life to run it, it would still be an impact on my device. Let Apple scan on their own damn hardware taking process time, storage and energy, not on the stuff I bought. Period.
Couldn't, couldn’t! I’ll go fix that. Thanks for catching that. 😀
I may have misunderstood. Sorry about that.
I guess the notion of "better" is a bit vague and very personal. Some people's lives may be better with Apple, others' lives may be just a bit faster and more comfortable, others' lives may be completely unchanged. So there's no point in arguing about it.
Yes, that was my point. It’s mostly likely that the S7 chip is an identical S6 chip rebranded with a S7 marking, since Apple didn’t mention anything at all about chip improvements during the keynote.
Nah, that's not correct. Apple has only 15% worldwide market share with the iPhone, so even though they get most of the "current" profits from the smartphones business as a whole, there is still huge potential for selling more iPhones and growing by putting more people in Apple ecosystem which in turn generates more profits in the services business. This applies also to the tables, smartwatch segments, and definitely to the laptop/desktop computers. Xiaomi just released some smart glass that are pretty neat, probably as result of all rumors about Apple working on this type of product as well. All Apple's competitors are killing to know what would be the next Apple product and its key feature in order to replicate it in some way or form and getting some piece of the cake, even if it is not the biggest piece. It is not true that Samsung uses cash from panel sales and washing machines to fund it smartphone business. Actually, what they do is selling products at cost, with little or no margin, so even if this means no profits to distribute to shareholders, it leads to an exponential growth of user base and presence in the market. Look for example Uber. They haven't paid a single dividend in the company's history. Profits is not all that matters.
I did read the Apple literature as well as some of the technical literature. I am a researcher who has been following the AI literature since back-propagation algorithms in the 1980's. The system will produce false positives. The result of that can be a human review of the photographs. And I do not trust the 1 in trillion statistic cited by Apple for multiple reasons. For one thing, given odds per year presumes a certain number of photos per year, and I suspect there are many other assumptions as well that go into that estimate. Moreover, they will not know the odds until they fully deploy the system, which means we become one giant experiment in surveillance.It appears you've been reading more secondary sources than primary, which would explain why you don't seem to understand the proposed process:
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I'm sure you're just going to downplay that as a "guess" (even though Apple clearly presents it as an accurate, informed number) but even if that were a guess AND were a thousand times off, that's still 1 in 1 billion. I'm also having hard time seeing how someone is going to take an innocent photo (or a series of them that are similar) that matches the digital fingerprint of a known CSAM image.
I also think your worry about Apple going rogue and hand over access to the system to abusive governments is really out there. As I've said in other threads on the topic, just because something's possible doesn't mean you should worry about it. Technically, my parents could have me murdered, yet I don't give that a second thought. Same for Apple abusing this technology (or allowing it to be abused).
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Like I said, even if that statistic were a THOUSAND times off, it's STILL slim chances. But I guess some folks just like to fear-monger. Something tells me we're not going to be hearing a bunch of verified stories about people's iCloud accounts being locked for innocent images when/if Apple deploys this tech, but I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong if we do! Not holding my breath.
Apple has the right to fire those who break NDA’s why are pipo so upset about him saying Those who leak stuff will be fired? Every company In the world will fire or even prosecute those who leak confidential Information and leak internal documents.
Sure it has. But we also have the right to make fun of Tim when he looks like Grumpy Cat's cousin. 😁
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Except if you are keeping it a secret and doing it on a massive scale than it looks a hell of a lot more like a recall worthy hardware defect you sweep under the rug while saying “well, onto the next device”.
We’ll no. I had a phone that was part of the power management “scandal”. This “sneaking it in” didn’t bother me and apple replaced the battery. I did not get a “generous offer” to upgrade to the next device.
Hey Tim! Why not scanning workers emails with knowing hashes of the leaked email? The code is there, just use the code and scan them.
I remember his appearance. It was wonderful. I have to check to see if it is on YouTube.I think I'd adopt the posture and attitude of George Galloway
