It makes me wonder why Apple even tried the on-device thing.
The last thing they want is people freaked out about snooping in their phones. They even had billboards about it!
What happens in Vegas...
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EFF Flew a Banner Over Apple Park During Last Apple Event to Protest CSAM Plans
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It makes me wonder why Apple even tried the on-device thing.
The last thing they want is people freaked out about snooping in their phones. They even had billboards about it!
What happens in Vegas...
I’m kinda wondering if this was a preemptive move because they saw more intrusive government regulations on the horizon if they didn’t take action. Do note though that they’ve been scanning all your photos for years, that part isn’t new - how do you think they can tell you which pictures contain grandma, or cats? And all the other providers have long been scanning your photos in their cloud services for CSAM for quite some time. Apple could have handled this better, and certainly could have presented it better, but they’re to some extent getting singled out for criticism here.
Apple needs to shutter their CSAM plans forthwith. Just throw it in the bin of products to never release. Well justified privacy arguments aside, I see little talk about unintended consequences, and this goes for other companies too, who are scanning for CSAM in the cloud or wherever.
Wide spread CSAM detection will only lead to massive increases in human/sex trafficking and child exploitation/molestation. Do you really think that kiddie pornographers are going to stick to sharing (en mass) images that are already identified, hashed and tagged in the CSAM database?!?! These sick people are going to be obtaining and producing new material on an exponentially increased frequency to keep ahead of identification and tagging. Do you have any idea what that will do to the levels of abuse of children - the very (vulnerable) group you're professing to want to protect? Your plans will be counter-productive. Tech companies will cause a significant increase in this heinous behavior. Stop now! Crimes of exploitation are best handled by good police/detective work.
Back to privacy: The building-in of what essentially is a back-door will inevitably lead to more abuse of power and loss of liberty at the hands of governments around the globe, including in those countries where you thought you were free. We've all already seen Apple and others capitulate to communist China, the world leader in human rights abuse. Do you really think that creating hashes of kiddie porn is where this will end? Hashes can be created and cataloged for any image, any sound, any video, any document, or even any word. What happens when the language of every country is hashed and cataloged (if it isn't already)? Once you can identify the hash of anything being communicated to the "cloud," then you know exactly what the content is - the hash becomes equivalent to the data, so then what is the point of encryption at all? Put the lid back on Pandora's box now.
Wide spread CSAM detection will only lead to massive increases in human/sex trafficking and child exploitation/molestation. Do you really think that kiddie pornographers are going to stick to sharing (en mass) images that are already identified, hashed and tagged in the CSAM database?!?! These sick people are going to be obtaining and producing new material on an exponentially increased frequency to keep ahead of identification and tagging. Do you have any idea what that will do to the levels of abuse of children - the very (vulnerable) group you're professing to want to protect? Your plans will be counter-productive. Tech companies will cause a significant increase in this heinous behavior. Stop now! Crimes of exploitation are best handled by good police/detective work.
Back to privacy: The building-in of what essentially is a back-door will inevitably lead to more abuse of power and loss of liberty at the hands of governments around the globe, including in those countries where you thought you were free. We've all already seen Apple and others capitulate to communist China, the world leader in human rights abuse. Do you really think that creating hashes of kiddie porn is where this will end? Hashes can be created and cataloged for any image, any sound, any video, any document, or even any word. What happens when the language of every country is hashed and cataloged (if it isn't already)? Once you can identify the hash of anything being communicated to the "cloud," then you know exactly what the content is - the hash becomes equivalent to the data, so then what is the point of encryption at all? Put the lid back on Pandora's box now.
CSAM would be an unconstitutional violation of the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable SEARCHES and seizures. CSAM might be a good tool to use on a suspected target if there is a WARRANT.
It will be interesting to see if Apple quietly abandons this feature or if they will quietly push it out in a 15.x update.
Definitely no future Apple devices or iOS 15 for us until Apple tells us exactly what they plan to do with this. Our company phone plans are up and we would already have had a large iPhone 13 order in by now. For security reasons, our company will not pay for devices that willingly give other parties access to our confidential material. (The hashes are not publicly auditable so there is no way of knowing what authoritative governments, the NSO, or hackers are looking for) Better act on this soon Apple or you just lost a bunch of sales. We are also waiting on the new MacBook Pro's. Those will also be a no go until we understand where Apple plans to go with this technology and their new found desire to act as police instead of being a corporation that just concentrate on making great devices.
I still haven't heard an explanation from Apple or anyone else as to why hashing on-device first is superior or more effective than only hashing in the cloud. I know Apple needs to keep doing more on-device than competitors since their mobile chips are their showstoppers and their cloud services are not up to speed but their explanation here is overly complicated and offers no real advantage to users so of course no one wants this.It makes me wonder why Apple even tried the on-device thing.
The last thing they want is people freaked out about snooping in their phones. They even had billboards about it!
What happens in Vegas...
There's no way for them to secretly implement everything they want to however. The proposed scanning functionality in Messages is visible to the user.
I don’t know what EFF is, probably a good privacy advocate organization, but I have to say, this would have been a funnier story if it had been NAMBLA or people pretending to be them.
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One of the features of Apple Car will be, once you're flagged by CSAM, you'll be locked inside your car and be driven straight to the nearest FBI office.
Perhaps someone in a position of power had a personal experience that drove their passion?
I'm not waiting anymore for further information about this from Apple. I've already moved over to GrapheneOS on a Pixel 5, replaced my Apple Watch with a Casio G-Shock not-smartwatch, and I'm working on exfiltrating my massive iCloud photo library to a NAS.
I had already replaced my MacBook Pro with a ThinkPad running Ubuntu, but that was because of multiple problems with Apple software, not related to privacy.
Apple destroyed their reputation with this and I'm done with them at this point.
I had already replaced my MacBook Pro with a ThinkPad running Ubuntu, but that was because of multiple problems with Apple software, not related to privacy.
Apple destroyed their reputation with this and I'm done with them at this point.
Pretty darn extreme... that G-Shock has got to suck.
Do you have CSAM on your device? Why so concerned? I get that yes... this could get ugly if governments decide to add their own hashes, but it's not currently ugly (or even happening yet)... seems quite premature.
I could fear a hurricane coming on Thanksgiving, but it's not very likely.
My new watch has a battery life of many months, recharges from light (sunlight, indoor LEDs, whatever), syncs time automatically with atomic clock signals, and doesn't buzz my wrist with notifications. While I miss having a complication that tells me the outside air temperature, I'm otherwise very happy with switching from a smartwatch to a more traditional watch.
I am concerned because I do not consent to my property being searched. If they wanna scan iCloud photos, they can scan them in iCloud. They don't get to waste my CPU cycles and my battery to surveil my photo library. photoanalysisd is already ******* inefficient and memory-leaky on both iOS and macOS, I don't need them making it even worse for absolutely no benefit to me and at very clear risk to freedom and privacy in general.
Except this on device scanning is part of the iCloud Upload Pipeline. It is doing this scan when you are actively uploading to iCloud. Therefore, it should make NO difference.
Yep, agreed. Apple is seen as a "Safe Haven" for this stuff, I have always said that. And the article confirmed it. They had a miserable 240 reports vs Microsoft/Google/Facebook/ others in the 5 or 6 or 7 digits!That's not completely true. They scanned iCloud email, but not iCloud photos. That's why FB had in the 20M range of CSAM reports vs. Apples hundreds. Apple execs even said in recently released docs they know they are a big place for CSAM [1].
Apple exec said iCloud was the 'greatest platform' for CSAM distribution | AppleInsider
Apple's introduction of CSAM tools may be due to its high level of privacy, with messages submitted during the Epic Games App Store trial revealing Apple's anti-fraud chief thought its services was the "greatest platform for distributing" the material.appleinsider.com
Sorry, but this kind of argument is just ridiculous at this point. If the government wants something SO BADLY, it doesn't matter what we all say. They will force Apple to implement it or exit the US market entirely.
CSAM or not, those kind of situation will always be a possibility.
Yep. Also when every other major platform scans for it (Dropbox, OneDrive, more), nobody has an issue. But the moment Apple tries to implement something, its the end of the world. Absolutely ridiculous.
Where are their complaints about Dropbox, OneDrive, Facebook and more doing these scans? Why is everything ONLY ABOUT APPLE?
Except, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others are already scanning for the SAME THING. Where were the complaints then? It is built in the iCloud Pipeline - meaning ONLY items being uploaded are scanned. Not every single bit on your phone is tracked.
Look, if the government wants to pry on us THAT BADLY, they will go after the GrapheneOS too. Make it illegal to offer a system without those tracking features.
Apple: client side scanning.
All others: not client side scanning.