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Apple Outlines Security and Privacy of CSAM Detection System in New Document

bobcomer said:
They do have the keys and can do that easily -- and that's ok for me. I doubt if they can be sued, others do the same thing and it's their servers and their service. That's pretty compelling in U.S. courts...


You got a quote from Apple on that? And how do you account for photos not uploaded from an Apple device?
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i assuming on both counts just based on my reading, i may be wrong, to scan icloud, they would have to un-encrypt and then scan, a completely different operation than what they say they intend to do, this would piss people off, and i don't think apple wants to piss its users off

don't know as far as photos not uploaded from apple device, give me an example
 
bobcomer said:
You got a quote from Apple on that? And how do you account for photos not uploaded from an Apple device?
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no quote from apple, since they are setting this up and informing us in advance and the database will be loaded with ios15, i just assumed it would begin when users upgrade to 15, not sure what else would make sense

as to photos not from apple phones, great question, i don't know, clearly that would be a big loophole to allow photos from a windows machine uploaded to icloud, if you find any info let us know
 
slomojoe said:
as to photos not from apple phones, great question, i don't know, clearly that would be a big loophole to allow photos from a windows machine uploaded to icloud, if you find any info let us know
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A PC running iCloud. A web browser on anything accessing your iCloud.
 
GBaughma said:
You still don't understand how it works. If there's a match, it's a match with a KNOWN CHILD ABUSE image. The human review at that point is just a visual confirmation.

The silly thing of this is, who the hell stores downloaded internet porn in their camera roll, then syncs it with iCloud? This is a complete waste of time, and an invasion of privacy "for the children".
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Then why have a manual review process in the first place? Just forward it up to the government automatically.
 
xWhiplash said:
What we still don't know is WHAT Apple is doing during the review process. Do they have the raw images of the CSAM and can actively compare flagged images to CSAM images? How else can they determine false positives? Are they just sending ANY picture that has kids in them to further review to those that DO have access to CSAM? Again, if its the latter would they be making judgement calls on 15 year olds or 25 year olds?
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I already can see all the real perverts and pedos applying for a job at Apple as CSAM Reviewing Genius. 😑
I hope Apple equip them with clear glass desks.
 
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Wildkraut said:
Meanwhile… https://www.geeker.info/2021/08/17/german-government-wants-tim-cook-to-reconsider-csam-plans/

👍
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How ironic that the German government calls it a backdoor, yet some on this bb refuse to acknowledge it.

Everyone has apparently misinterpreted Apples altruistic motives to safeguard our privacy by having a backdoor (according to German government) on our hardware. The media, the employees, German government, IT specialists, etc. etc.

Sounds similar to the lines in Hamilton.

The price of Apple's 'backdoor' not a price that you're willing to pay
You cry
In your tea which you hurl in the sea when you see Apple go by
Why so sad?
Remember we made an arrangement when you paid and took YOUR kit away
Now you're making me mad
Remember, despite our estrangement, Apple's still your man

You'll be back, soon you'll see
You'll remember you now belong to me
You'll be back, time will tell
You'll remember I surveilled you well
Oceans rise, empires fall
We have seen each other through it all
And when push comes to shove
I will a create backdoor on your hardware, to remind you of my love.

(TIC)

I still believe Apple to be the best system been with Apple decades more than Tim Cook, saw Steve revolutionise OS and where he was keen on industrial strength Unix combining Mach and BSD for security and privacy, albeit I won't be able to continue using it if this goes live on all Apple kit. Steve's innovative NextSTEP os is still the basis of Mac operating systems.

Apple has by their own admission but with my interpretation really f up.

Steve Jobs chose a unix based system for good reason and his view on privacy should be upheld as a core value for Apple.
“I believe people are smart. Some people want to share more than other people do. Ask them.”

extract"
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, has praised Steve Jobs for helping devise the machine that he used to write the software.

Berners-Lee wrote the code for the web while working at the physics research institute Cern in 1991, using a NeXT Computer - the company set up by Jobs after he was ejected from Apple in 1985.

In a post on his personal blog entitled "Steve Jobs and the actually usable computer", Berners-Lee - whom nobody would be likely to call naive or inexperienced with computers - says that "A big thing Steve Jobs did for the world was to insist that computers could be usable rather than totally infuriating".

He says of the NeXT, whose software became the basis for the desktop Mac OS X operating system, and then the iOS software powering the iPhone and iPad, that "The NeXT was brilliant. The NeXT had (arguably too) many things introduced at once -- removable optical storage, Objective C, DSP for sound and movies, Mach kernel, unix for a PC, display Postscript, InterfaceBuilder and so on. Yes, they never got the price down and the optical disks proved unreliable. But Steve and NeXTStep ended up saving Apple, and there must be a lesson that it is worth hanging on to cool things: you never know when they will in fact become mainstream."
 
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Wildkraut said:
Meanwhile… https://www.geeker.info/2021/08/17/german-government-wants-tim-cook-to-reconsider-csam-plans/

👍
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The writer does no favors by saying misinterpretation, because that’s pretty much apples response, the article does later rightly say that the concern is no matter how narrow the back door is, it’s still a back door open to future abuse. Hopefully more governments will weigh in during the coming weeks, probably the only thing left to get them to reverse course, I think Apple successfully censored our own government by tying it to child endangerment because not many will take the political risk…. In this country we all know the political ads next fall would say they tried to protect child pornographers by being against this
 
Mercury7 said:
Hopefully more governments will weigh in during the coming weeks, probably the only thing left to get them to reverse course,
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EU should as a whole react to this at some point, like they did with GDPR. What this reaction may be, remains to be seen.
 
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Mercury7 said:
The writer does no favors by saying misinterpretation, because that’s pretty much apples response, the article does later rightly say that the concern is no matter how narrow the back door is, it’s still a back door open to future abuse. Hopefully more governments will weigh in during the coming weeks, probably the only thing left to get them to reverse course, I think Apple successfully censored our own government by tying it to child endangerment because not many will take the political risk…. In this country we all know the political ads next fall would say they tried to protect child pornographers by being against this
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Yeah, the writer is somewhat biased towards Apple, it's the only english version of it that i've found.
It was just to show that it's escalating around the world, and not just a nerdy paranoid topic as often said in here.
Even the stupidest boulevard victim sites headlined it.

Anyway, that's worse than Apple Maps, Tim should kick himself out now and step back from the CEO position for this, just like he did with Scott Forstall. But the Cook won't go for sure, because he's a Crook!
 
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Mercury7 said:
The writer does no favors by saying misinterpretation, because that’s pretty much apples response, the article does later rightly say that the concern is no matter how narrow the back door is, it’s still a back door open to future abuse. Hopefully more governments will weigh in during the coming weeks, probably the only thing left to get them to reverse course, I think Apple successfully censored our own government by tying it to child endangerment because not many will take the political risk…. In this country we all know the political ads next fall would say they tried to protect child pornographers by being against this
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without taking on the issue of what the database should rightly be called, the definition "backdoor" does not seem right to me, this implies code that is inserted without the awareness of the user whereas the database is in full view of everyone, indeed, this is one of the strengths of this design according to apple
 
Mercury7 said:
The plot thickens https://www.reuters.com/legal/trans...awsuit-against-cybersecurity-firm-2021-08-17/
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"One executive said that such reviews made it better for privacy overall than would have been possible if the scanning occurred in Apple's storage, where it keep the coding secret."

this last line from the article corresponds to what has been said by apple about researchers coming on to apple's campus to do their audit

apple says this: "Then, in a secure on-campus environment, Apple can provide technical proof to the auditor that the intersection and blinding were performed correctly."
 
slomojoe said:
without taking on the issue of what the database should rightly be called, the definition "backdoor" does not seem right to me, this implies code that is inserted without the awareness of the user whereas the database is in full view of everyone, indeed, this is one of the strengths of this design according to apple
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? Just how do i look at the database on my phone without jailbeaking it? How about the code that does the hash? Backdoor seems like a perfect definition to me once you think Apple is doing it so they can do e2ee. (Not that they've announced e2ee!)
 
bobcomer said:
? Just how do i look at the database on my phone without jailbeaking it? How about the code that does the hash? Backdoor seems like a perfect definition to me once you think Apple is doing it so they can do e2ee. (Not that they've announced e2ee!)
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i may be wrong but i am basing this on what apple says in their "security threat model review ...."

"Apple will publish a Knowledge Base article containing a root hash of the encrypted CSAM hash database included with each version of every Apple operating system that supports the feature. Additionally, users will be able to inspect the root hash of the encrypted database present on their device, and compare it to the expected root hash in the Knowledge Base article. That the calculation of the root hash shown to the user in Settings is accurate is subject to code inspection by security researchers like all other iOS device-side security claims."
 
slomojoe said:
i may be wrong but i am basing this on what apple says in their "security threat model review ...."

"Apple will publish a Knowledge Base article containing a root hash of the encrypted CSAM hash database included with each version of every Apple operating system that supports the feature. Additionally, users will be able to inspect the root hash of the encrypted database present on their device, and compare it to the expected root hash in the Knowledge Base article. That the calculation of the root hash shown to the user in Settings is accurate is subject to code inspection by security researchers like all other iOS device-side security claims."
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From what I understand, all a root hash gives you is a comparison point -- it doesn't allow access to the database itself. Kind of like the MD5 checksum on a .iso file. (so you can make sure you have Apple's DB, rather than a 3rd party DB.)
 
bobcomer said:
From what I understand, all a root hash gives you is a comparison point -- it doesn't allow access to the database itself. Kind of like the MD5 checksum on a .iso file. (so you can make sure you have Apple's DB, rather than a 3rd party DB.)
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right, this is how i read this, apple will load this database onto our phones with ios15, the database itself is composed of the intersection of 2 or more csam databases from 2 different legal jurisdictions (i.e. ncmec and the eu, or canada etc)

presumably apple will be given the hashes for whatever databases they choose ... or ... they will create the database themselves by hashing the partner database of images, i don't know

but yes, we have to trust apple to create the database and including only those materials that are found in 2 different databases in 2 different countries, this is designed to insure that the images in the db are actual child abuse material and not something else (political, terrorist, lgbtq eetc) this database will be hashed and they result published so any user can verify that the database on device is the same that apple signed with the install of the os15

i think what apple is doing here is trying to put the database in the spotlight so users will know it can't be tampered with or changed ... unlike databases that reside server side which are opaque to the user

but yeah we will have to trust apple that they have assembled the original database honestly and without being coerced by government or corporations

i think apple has a strong interest in maintaining trust with users so perhaps we will know more

some folks have said that apple should do the photo scanning on a relay server and thus keep it off device, again as far as i know this would be a less transparent process than what they are trying here
 
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