Craig Federighi Acknowledges Confusion Around Apple Child Safety Features and Explains New Details About Safeguards

[dwsolberg]

I'm sure they think this scanning of photos is a good idea, but I don't understand why, especially when they talk about privacy. Just saying it aloud should make it clear:

"We're going to use an automatic algorithm to determine if your pictures are child porn, then we'll look through them and decide if we'll report you to the police."

It's the old, "If you have nothing to hide, then why not let us search through your stuff?"

 

[hans1972]

There’s no confusion. It’s spyware; software I can’t control, scanning systems I own, on data I own, that regardless if it’s a true positive or a false positive will be used to harm me. That’s literally spyware.

We could have done mandatory cryptographic hash matching of terrorists names, emails, and phone numbers on user systems after 9/11, but that’s in compatible with a free society. So is this. Why isn’t the issue, nor is the technical implementation. At it’s core, this is unethical software.

You can control it by turning iCloud Photo Library off.

How do you control the iCloud backup feature? It scans your device. How do you know what it backs up and where it's delivered? How do you know the data it scans and copies cannot be used to harm you?

 

[Freida]

This doesn't really explain it at all. In fact, the underlining issue is still there.
This is really really bad idea and it will backfire very quickly. Its basically the first backdoor Apple is doing.
More to come.....yeah!!!

Dammit Apple - this is not what we signed up for!

 

[bobenhaus]

all along the woke $pple fans bois thought Google was the evil one. hahahaha

 

[Robert.Walter]

Oh, well I feel much better about this, now. Thanks for laying my fears to rest, Craig!

Either they are fools or they think we are. Audited by whom? Audited for what? Who audits the auditors? And if the CCP demands that Apple start using this technology nefariously or face being blocked from the Chinese market (which is well over $50 billion in annual revenue for Apple), am I supposed to believe that Tim Cook would say no? Perhaps Craig means the auditors will help to ensure dissidents only get shot once instead of by an entire firing squad.

I suspect that the only lesson Apple will take from this is that in the future, they should simply silently spy on their customers instead of trying to dress up dangerous technology as somehow being good for all of us.

I think by recognizing that they should have decoupled these two initiatives Apple’s admitting it should have boiled the frog slower.

 

[autrefois]

The last of my PC components arrives today. Later this weekend my i7 Mac Mini will be for sale.

Sorry Apple, you've completely lost all my trust. The movie 1984 was not an instruction manual.

Where is the runner from the iconic 1984 ad to save us from Big Brother?

Maybe her iPod classic and earbuds from 2004 finally bit the dust and she’s too busy shopping for an Apple Watch and AirPods Max.

 

[antiprotest]

Saying that the confusion was caused by announcing the two features together is red herring. Very few people conflate the two features. In fact, many that I have seen complain about the "hash and send" feature do not even know about the child safety feature for Messages. They truly understand the CSAM feature and dislike it.

 

[hans1972]

I wouldn't want to be one of the people who have to compile the original images to have the system compare everyone's images to.

That's handled by NCMEC. They have been doing this for at least 20 years I believe.
Employees working for them know what they're getting into or are at least warned.

 

[dialogos]

This is a PR nightmare for Apple - full or arrogance. I guess the more we read about how great and exceptional this unique system is , among other pompous words they use , the more we (the users) will be annoyed by this arrogance. At this point they need to be more down to earth.

I would like to know how this new system aligns with their ads all those years. For example what happens on your iphone stays on your iphone. If Apple has the courage I would ask Mr Federighi to compare the message of that ad to what they announced today and to release a new PR statement mentioning that there is no contradiction between those two messages. The message of old Apple to the message the new Apple is sending today.

I would also like a straight answer from Apple if other critical topics such as children that they are searching for ways to suicide are important to apple. I assume this is a critical and equally important problem to child pornography. Are they willing to start scanning such messages to protect children?

And I would really like from Mr Federighi a straight answer to why Apple stepped back to China and Russia. They are claiming now that they won't step back to any external pressure, but let's start by explaining historical facts. Why did they stepped back in the past?

Final thought. If Apple wants to be honest and regain some trust, ..if possible... they are defending a system that caused such a great reaction. Some people support it , most of us do NOT support it. Why aren't they releasing the code so experts will be able to evaluateit. I understand Apple has a closed system but I guess there must be a way to release at least this part of the code somehow... if they are not willing to release the code it would be also interesting to have a PR release by Apple explaining the reason..

200​

 

[hans1972]

The main goal is to make sure Apple doesn’t get CSAM on its servers, so i don’t know why Apple doesn’t just do what Google, Facebook, etc do and just scan the photos in the cloud. That way if you don’t use iCloud, your stuff never gets scanned on device or off device.

If scanning on servers, you can never have end-to-end encryption. Also it's easier to find out what's happening on phones than on servers.

 

[alpi123]

I will not appreciate Apple scanning my iCloud photos.

It sounds like Apple is using "Protecting Children" as an example to be spying on the consumers. STOP this mass surveillance.

Holy macaroni, did you watch or read any of the explanations?

They're not physically scanning your photos and seeing them. When you upload a photo to iCloud (which you can 100% opt-out from and just use another Cloud service that will still scan them but who knows how), say a photo of a tree, it then gets assigned to a Neural Hash (think of it as a unique code for images of trees), and then this code (not the image, the code) is compared to known codes (Neural Hashes) of child p#, and only if the codes get matched, then a real person will check if the image is actually that.

This is very different than having all your photos scanned and compared to child p#, which you probably think the case is.

If you don't possess such materials, what are you so afraid of? The algorithm won't get any matches and Apple won't know about your photos. Still, just don't use iCloud Photos then.

 

[thadoggfather]

all along the woke $pple fans bois thought Google was the evil one. hahahaha

To give google some credit, they even got rid of their own creed 'Do no evil' because they found it inconsistent with their trajectory.

In a way, they are more transparent than Apple because they don't hold this 'holier than thou' policy on individual privacy.

Many people have said they will be Apple customers for life, regardless of their politics, so long as they stay privacy focused. That's what separates them from the pack perception wise. Now many find themselves at a fork in a road.

"oh you're just a sicko" will be the rebuttal. Obviously not if people are willing to jump to Android BECAUSE there is no difference. They just vote with their dollars.

 

[09872738]

Thank you Mr. Federighi for explaining how sophisticated your snitch is. Impressive... very impressive indeed.

Problem is: Its not important at all how it works. The explanations just corroborate the view that its an evil thing.

Its now even more clear that this is nothing but a sophisticated snitch violating user privacy hereby crossing all existing red lines.

What’s more, insinuating Apple could withstand the pressure from governmental agencies is, in my view, a blatant lie. Apple must know that there is no way this could remotely be true.
Yet Apple argues that its safe, clearly lying, thus diminishing trust into Apple even more

 

[Robert.Walter]

How can you trust Apple to not do the right thing about the iCloud backup feature?

What's stopping Apple from secretly turning iCloud backup on and providing almost everything on your phone to a government?

I literally noticed that iCloud Photos had turned on two years in a row when I did my annual iOS update.

This year using Public beta , this week I noticed FaceTime and messages both had turned on a number of iCloud aliases which I had off.

 

[0112862]

Zoom Gains Focus Mode to Help Reduce Distractions in Virtual Classrooms

Zoom has introduced a new feature called Focus Mode that's designed to prevent students from distracting each other during virtual classrooms. ...

www.macrumors.com

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Holy macaroni, did you watch or read any of the explanations?

They're not physically scanning your photos and seeing them. When you upload a photo to iCloud (which you can 100% opt-out from and just use another Cloud service that will still scan them but who knows how), say a photo of a tree, it then gets assigned to a Neural Hash (think of it as a unique code for images of trees), and then this code (not the image, the code) is compared to known codes (Neural Hashes) of child p#, and only if the codes get matched, then a real person will check if the image is actually that.

This is very different than having all your photos scanned and compared to child p#, which you probably think the case is.

If you don't possess such materials, what are you so afraid of? The algorithm won't get any matches and Apple won't know about your photos. Still, just don't use iCloud Photos then.

Apple is still violating my privacy. Using AI or Hash... at this point, it does not matter. I don't want Apple scanning anything on my iPhone.

 

[Mebsat]

They are targeting all Apple users systematically, and all Apple users in America specifically. An American company that treats all their users like criminals by default, until proven otherwise. I find that totally reprehensible after giving it careful thought before reaching a conclusion.

And that is only if the feature works.

So much of what is wrong with this is that their risk assessment for false positives is crap.

Here's a more than one-in-a-trillion scenario:

A list of photos that are collisions with CSAM in the database will leak.​

Reprehensible people will start using AirDrop to put those photos on people's phones (many people leave it on).​

All of them will get flagged.​

Apple's review process will get overwhelmed and the 20-something employee will just forward them all to NCMEC.​

 

[Jim Higgins]

So someone who looks a child porn photos stops using iCloud Photos. What about the rest of us who want privacy? What future governmental interference?

Politicians like power and their mantra is that this is all for our SAFETY, Safety seems to sufficient justification for any power grab.

 

[iHorseHead]

If they are just scanning the hash couldn't the abuser not just modify the image slightly (like adding a pixel somewhere) and they would be clear?

Honestly, this has talked about so much that CP producers & owners will find a new way rendering the entire 'feature' pointless.
This has caused more harm than good for Apple.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Privacy is the sole reason I went back to Apple and bought a MacBook Air and iPhone 12 and no, I don't and never have owned CP.

 

[sracer]

In corporate-speak, "customer disagrees" = "confusion" (confusion, because if you understood what we are doing you'd agree)

 

[hans1972]

Final thought if Apple wants to be honest and regain some trust, ..if possible... they are defending a system that caused such a great reaction. Some people support it , most of us do NOT support it. Why aren't they release the code so experts will be able to evaluate. I understand iOS is a close source system but I guess there must be a way to release at least this part of the code somehow... if they are not willing to release the code it would be also interesting to have a PR release by Apple explainig the reason..

​

How would you know that the code they released was the code which was used to compile the software running on your device?

At some level you have to trust Apple if you're using their hardware, software and services.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Honestly, this has talked about so much that CP producers & owners will find a new way rendering the entire 'feature' pointless.
This has caused more harm than good for Apple.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Privacy is the sole reason I went back to Apple and bought a MacBook Air and iPhone 12 and no, I don't and never have owned CP.

Not sure why Apple is being so stubborn about it.

 

[EyeTack]

Because several arms of Hydra the federal government are completely above board and would never think of bombing a vulnerable target via email, text messages, or airdrops to trigger the warning system.

 

[hagjohn]

If scanning on servers, you can never have end-to-end encryption. Also it's easier to find out what's happening on phones than on servers.

If they are scanning your device, why bother having end-to-end encryption?

 

[dialogos]

My apologies it's a double post of my message , I was trying to reply to the message included in the end

This is a PR nightmare for Apple - full or arrogance. I guess the more we read about how great and exceptional this unique system is , among other pompous words they use , the more we (the users) will be annoyed by this arrogance. At this point they need to be more down to earth.

I would like to know how this new system aligns with their ads all those years. For example what happens on your iphone stays on your iphone. If Apple has the courage I would ask Mr Federighi to compare the message of that ad to what they announced today and to release a new PR statement mentioning that there is no contradiction between those two messages. The message of old Apple to the message the new Apple is sending today.

I would also like a straight answer from Apple if other critical topics such as children that they are searching for ways to suicide are important to apple. I assume this is a critical and equally important problem to child pornography. Are they willing to start scanning such messages to protect children?

And I would really like from Mr Federighi a straight answer to why Apple stepped back to China and Russia. They are claiming now that they won't step back to any external pressure, but let's start by explaining historical facts. Why did they stepped back in the past?

Final thought. If Apple wants to be honest and regain some trust, ..if possible... they are defending a system that caused such a great reaction. Some people support it , most of us do NOT support it. Why aren't they releasing the code so experts will be able to evaluateit. I understand Apple has a closed system but I guess there must be a way to release at least this part of the code somehow... if they are not willing to release the code it would be also interesting to have a PR release by Apple explaining the reason..

How would you know that the code they released was the code which was used to compile the software running on your device?

At some level you have to trust Apple if you're using their hardware, software and services.

I would have no idea.. but it would be a good starting point... I assume there must be some auditing to companies and at this corporate level catching a company lying I have no idea what it means in fees they have to pay. But anyway don't you want them to at least release the code?