This is why Apple is a Safe Haven for this child material. They are doing NOTHING now, resulting in such low numbers its got to be embarrassing for Apple. This is why every other major cloud storage provider actively scans for it.
See this part I agree with (and my argument will also apply to Microsoft/Google and others). I do not agree about the complaining Apple is getting yet nobody says a word about Microsoft, Google and others. However, I actually agree not only what you said here, but the whole CSAM scanning is rather pointless. I want to see the actual people abusing children be put in jail or worse. While still absolutely horrible, at the end of the day who cares if Joe Someone find a random picture and saves it on their phone? It doesn't help the actual abuse, they didn't take the picture themselves, they didn't actually abuse the child.
Bingo!
I won't stop the production, it might put a dent in the distribution...and therefore can be seen to be helping the children.
No, it won't. Whoever has such pictures will simply not upload them to the cloud anymore. As for distributing them... there are many other ways to do it.
Do you know how many of our devices are used for illegal activities. Its not the devices or the clouds that are the problem, its the people using them. For all of us to be monitored like criminals for the fraction of a percent that actual are, is not right. Although, I understand child porn is a big problem, why is that, and only that, the thing that got chosen to be scanned. Isn't terrorism a big problem, isn't mass shootings a big problem... I can go on and on. Why is it not okay for them to add hashes to look for pictures of guns or bomb materials... Why aren't they searching all text on the phone for signs that something bad is about to occur. All great causes and if you are okay with someone searching your phone for child porn, you should be okay with them searching for anything else that your government deems inappropriate. It will only be a matter of time for these things to happen because if policing our devices is acceptable to society, then why not add more.
No, because they do it on their servers, not my phone.
I get a big laugh out of people such as yourself that claim people that have concerns with this are just making up conspiracy theories and fallacies. Either you are trolling or you are very naive to how the real world works. Just in last couple months alone:
And you think eliminating CSAM will be the end all be all? If the government wants it THAT BADLY, they will force Apple to comply - with or without CSAM. I really don't understand these arguments that CSAM === government control. Even without the CSAM in place, if any government wants that control that badly they will force Apple to comply. It makes zero difference if CSAM exists or not.
What kind of reasoning is that. There is a big difference between a government forcing a private company to invent something to spy on people and a private company already having the capability to do so and the government requesting the data you are obtaining. The biggest thing is accountability. Eventually these things come to light. If it ever gets found out that a government "forced" a private company to "invent" something to spy on people, it would be bad news for everyone involved. Completely different than telling me right off the bat, I will be scanning your photos. If you continue using the product it implies that you are okay with it and you have nothing to bitch about later.
Yes. You are a ray of sunshine to my day. I disagree, there is no difference between apple removing an app from the Russian store because as you said they are doing so in accordance to local law. Because Apple is providing them with a mechanism to do so, If a new local law states that the government is permitted to compare hashes of photos of anything they deem relevant, Apple would have no choice but to follow the law. Like you said, regardless of our opinion of those laws, that's how authoritarian governments work.
I am sure there already are laws in some countries that allow the government to spy on their citizens and because Apple now has the means to do so, they must comply. I agree with you, that now that they made it, governments may force them to implement it regardless what they decide. That is a can of worms they did to themselves. Do you think the leader of North Korea cares about their citizens right to privacy. There is no hope their but I am sure there are a lot of governments in between that have no problem using the tools they have to spy on their citizens. Also, just because they already can spy on things, doesn't mean Apple should give them another tool to snoop even deeper.
Maybe because CSAM photos are illegal to own, but maybe other types of photos are not, and that laws are passed to have service providers report what's classified as illegal them when found? Also maybe because companies are only doing what's required by the local laws they are operating in, and maybe because doing what's unnecessary is a waste of resources and gets into trouble with shareholders?
Then why go out of your way to actively scan for CSAM? It's unnecessary. The law doesn't require you to do it.
My take is Apple is preparing to enable E2EE for iCloud Photos, which IMHO, they cannot currently, as they cannot scan for CSAM in their servers if the data is E2EE. I believe this is the reason why Apple's lawyers likely stopped the engineering team to stop their E2EE work.
So what? They're not legally required to scan anyway.
