Apple Open to Expanding New Child Safety Features to Third-Party Apps

[BlueMoose]

You mean the image of Pooh Bear will be banned and those with Pooh Bear wallpapers will be sent to prison or worse?

good bye everybody.... I have dozens of very unflattering Winnie the Pooh images from my previous visits to Disney. They are all still on my iCloud account. If I take a flight that flies over Chinese air space, I guess they'll force the plane down and arrest me.... my forwarding address will probably be Camp 17, 81 Red Flag Road, [Secret City], X*njiang Autonomous Region, Communist China.

 

[Cosmosent]

Apple is clearly worried that a Boycott of iOS 15 & its derivatives could occur.

And they are now trying hard to Head that Off @ the Pass !

As it currently stands, I'd say the chances are less than 10%.

But, most in the General Public are currently UN-aware of what Apple announced last Thursday, & the heat that it has generated for them !

And BTW, a Boycott of iOS 15 would mean this year's Flagship iPhones would flop, UNLESS Apple decided to include iOS 14.8 as the starting point, which I suspect, they are now discussing internally !

Personally, I think it's the smart move !

 

[IIGS User]

They said it was for the children, and I didn't do anything.

They said it wouldn't apply to me, and I didn't do anything.

People said it could never happen here, and I didn't do anything.


It's amazing how history rhymes, if not repeats. And it would seem people are indeed doomed to repeat it.

The only privacy you have is the inside of your head (for now). Act accordingly...

 

[Airforcekid]

Is it?
Personally, if I had a kid under the age of 13, and I had that restriction of sending or receiving explicit photos turned on, I would want it to be universal across all apps, first party and third party.
I wouldn’t want my kid sneaking onto Snapchat to send stuff or receive stuff they couldn’t send or receive on iMessage.

If I had a kid under 13 they would have a dumb phone with MMS disabled. They wouldn't get a smartphone or unsupervised internet access until I thought they were mature enough for it which would probably be 13 or 14.This seems more like Apple trying to compensate for bad or lazy parenting.

 

[joecomo]

if one of those 3rd party apps happens to be from a developer that's 47% owned by a Chinese tech company... which is controlled by a Chinese state corporation with direct ties to the Chinese communist party.... well... they'll never use this as a backdoor into scanning iPhones of U.S users to detect unflattering images of Chinese communist leaders... right?

Well, iff they could insert a rogue hash they could scan for *one* specific unflattering image.
There seems to be a misunderstanding, that the image itself is analyzed - it is not. It is just compared
with a hash of a predefined (offending) photo.

However I agree with you, that Apple should be very cautious before opening this up to other (potentially less scrupulous organizations)

 

[4jasontv]

Apple *is not* scanning your photos.
That’s not how it works.
There’s a One and 1 trillion chance that anyone from Apple will ever see any of your images

Then what is the point of all this? They are scanning the photos and that's how they generate the hash. People are trying to make the argument that comparing the image and comparing the has are somehow different. It doesn't matter if a person doesn't see my photos. Knowing what isn't on my phone is no different than knowing what is.

I can't argue that I didn't share the music because I zipped the mp3s first. They can't argue they didn't see my photos because they converted them into a character string first.

 

[Airforcekid]

I really hope they make this opt in or possibly being able to block the domain used to check content on my network etc.

 

[Dkka1]

Third party Apps? Come on now. Apple is doing the MOST now. Imagine if Facebook get's ahold of the photos/information. Isn't Whatsup App belong to Facebook? SMH.

This is just getting creepier and creepier. What happened to this, Apple?

View attachment 1816612

This happened:

I don't get why you're afraid of Facebook when all of this is happening during China's tech crackdown.

Are you afraid Facebook is going to show you some sunglasses ads when you go to the beach? 🤣

 

[Mrjetsondc]

Is it?
Personally, if I had a kid under the age of 13, and I had that restriction of sending or receiving explicit photos turned on, I would want it to be universal across all apps, first party and third party.
I wouldn’t want my kid sneaking onto Snapchat to send stuff or receive stuff they couldn’t send or receive on iMessage.

Your kid is your problem. The world is not going to adjust to you. Nothing worse than entitled parents.

 

[JippaLippa]

Here we go...

 

[4jasontv]

Your kid is your problem. The world is not going to adjust to you. Nothing worse than entitled parents.

In that example kid isn't the problem. The parents are the problem. We need real-world consequences for parents who allow their kids to be exposed to stuff like this. They put their child in danger by giving them a device and not monitoring how it was being used.

But I am sure people will cry 'clearly you are not a parent' and 'being a parent is hard.' As it should be.

 

[joecomo]

I have a general question about this:

1. iCloud is not using client side encryption, so Apple could also just scan the pictures on the Cloud - there would be no need to scan on device.
2. Only stuff that is intended to go on iCloud is scanned, so no gain from the on-device scanning
3. A potential reason could be, that Apple would want to keep iCloud "clean" of such content. But the way I understood the feature, Apple will nevertheless upload the picture even in case of a match. So again no benefit for the "on device" scan.

So unless Apple is planning to implement "client side encryption" I fail to understand the reason of the "on device scanning".

The only other point I could think of, is the support of "third party apps" (which could only happen on-device) - but that can't seriously be the reason.

 

[DesignTime]

How many of the developers who help create these spying tools will one day regret their part in ending privacy?

 

[norcom]

When an openly gay man started saying that Apple is all about privacy, I truly believed him. I figured there's the one individual who would definitely understand how and why people need privacy. I wonder what Tim Cook's opinion on countries banning images of same sex couples and then hashing them to verify you don't have any would be?

I'm in no way trying to justify child abuse or many other things that are morally wrong. And I REALLY don't care what two consenting adults of same sex do. In my opinion, if you plan to offer privacy, you shouldn't offer it based on any logic other than the data is no one elses but the owners. No matter how vile any society, country, state or an individual group may consider that data to be.

 

[Shirasaki]

That's not how this works..... that's not how any of this works!

haha... anyways - this argument is super weak and just begging for exploits/issues. Typical weak-ass argument against mass surveillance. "I'm not hiding anything, why do I care if the police randomly pull me over and throw me out of my car and search it." This thinking rapidly escalates and it's a VERY slippery slope and hard to turn back from.

What they actually need is a irl case of unwarranted search by a third party, be it employer or security company or whatever. Digital stuff can’t be really “seen” by most people as being “real”, “exist” and they can’t “feel” it. So the perception is going to be different than say, a desk bought from target or a cup got from Starbucks to drink the coffee.

 

[4jasontv]

When an openly gay man started saying that Apple is all about privacy, I truly believed him. I figured there's the one individual who would definitely understand how and why people need privacy. I wonder what Tim Cook's opinion on countries banning images of same sex couples and then hashing them to verify you don't have any would be?

I'm in no way trying to justify child abuse or many other things that are morally wrong. And I REALLY don't care what two consenting adults of same sex do. In my opinion, if you plan to offer privacy, you shouldn't offer it based on any logic other than the data is no one elses but the owners. No matter how vile any society, country, state or an individual group may consider that data to be.

That's the thing about privacy. You can't have some.

 

[Tanax]

The question is though, is there a better reasonable alternative to iPhone? Isn't it still more secure and has better privacy than Android phones? I mean, I know there are some obscure alternatives but then you lose apps and possibly great phone cameras as well.

So what are we supposed to do, we're stuck between choosing either a bad option (Apple) or an even worse option (Google) :///

But if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

 

[DesignTime]

Is it?
Personally, if I had a kid under the age of 13, and I had that restriction of sending or receiving explicit photos turned on, I would want it to be universal across all apps, first party and third party.
I wouldn’t want my kid sneaking onto Snapchat to send stuff or receive stuff they couldn’t send or receive on iMessage.

In that case, your kid is also breaking the terms of service for Snapchat and many other online services by being under the age of 13. Maybe as a parent you should make sure you are not providing a tool to underaged users. A lot like alcohol to minors.

 

[turbineseaplane]

If the mechanism works as designed in my view the benefits outweigh the risk of the privacy intrusion.

Benefits to whom though?

I'm not looking for my data and my phone to be part of a society wide dragnet to solve issues as determined by others.

This needs to be FULLY opt in required in my opinion.

 

[Dkka1]

The question is though, is there a better reasonable alternative to iPhone? Isn't it still more secure and has better privacy than Android phones? I mean, I know there are some obscure alternatives but then you lose apps and possibly great phone cameras as well.

So what are we supposed to do, we're stuck between choosing either a bad option (Apple) or an even worse option (Google) :///

But if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears!

You're supposed to tell your representatives to start calling out for a monopolies/duopolies crackdown. There is a reason antitrust laws exist.

 

[joecomo]

Benefits to whom though?

I'm not looking for my data and my phone to be part of a society wide dragnet to solve issues as determined by others.

This needs to be FULLY opt in required in my opinion.

The benefit is to society itself, as some of the people, that store such images and are stupid and/or sloppy enough to store them on iCloud, will be exposed.

An "opt-in" will not work - that sets the bar for being stupid to high.

 

[antiprotest]

Getting scanned, hashed, and flagged is a human right.

 

[Sciomar]

Third party Apps? Come on now. Apple is doing the MOST now. Imagine if Facebook get's ahold of the photos/information. Isn't Whatsup App belong to Facebook? SMH.

This is just getting creepier and creepier. What happened to this, Apple?

😒 it's hash data, not the actual picture...

Mac Rumors is overboard with the sensationalism lately.

 

[_Spinn_]

Apple is really being tone deaf about all this. What is going on over there in Cupertino?

 

[macduke]

Sexually explicit photos being sent to minors, and among minors, is Snapchat's entire business model. I don't expect them to sign on with this, lol.

Also James Charles is probably somewhere freaking out right now. His whole identity is basically sexting with underage boys.