I would be very surprised if anyone that thinks strongly about this hasn't already disabled iCloud Photos, I know I did the day after this story broke and I had time to read all the documentation. However that doesn't change what Apple does next with the scanning.
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Global Coalition of Policy Groups Urges Apple to Abandon 'Plan to Build Surveillance Capabilities into iPhones'
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So only the experty experts? Or is it only the experts that have been confirmed to be saints? Or is it just whatever you happen to agree with?
People who predict “some day, 5 or 10 or 100 years from now, something could change” tend to always be right. It’s too easy to be right this way tho.
If we’re gonna be this paranoid and forward looking, we should instantly all switch to open source hardware, open source software and self-hosted personal cloud. And decentralized consensus-based settlement of transactions (on blockchains).
Yes, next up scanning for derogatory images or opinions of non-white or non-heterosexual people. Derogatory images or opinions of white or heterosexual people is encouraged.
No it’s not, the verification of the security vouchers happens on servers, until then they’re a “glorified EXIF parameter”. Nobody is in your device. Apple is not in your device, just an inanimate process NOT tethered to Apple.
It's on airport (their) property.
Ditto, though I would hope a beaten wife would be reported by anyone. It's not something you have to scan for!
Again, their property, their responsibility to follow law.
Their property, again.
My phone, *my* property.
Exactly! My phone, my property. Their property, their responsibility.
Incidentally that also doesn’t change the hypocrisy of pretending that nowadays local devices aren’t one thing with the cloud anyway so both Google and Apple users in 99% cases will get scanned anyway…no matter on what side of the uploading process...Apple’s using us the courtesy of not routinely fumbling with our unencrypted pics on the server side, by pre-labeling them securely on the client side..
Set aside all the technical aspects of this situation, the privacy arguments, the legal justifications, etc for just a moment.
This is becoming a slow roll public relations disaster for a company that touts privacy in it's advertising. We can sit here on what is a fan boy tech geek web site and argue all the technobabble we want about on device, off device, this scan, that scan, hash, human review, cloud, no cloud.
All people who care about privacy hear is that Apple is going to scan their photos. All the iCloud on/off is techno mumbo jumbo to them. It's all static. People don't have time to do a deep dive into stuff like that. They're too busy watching Beat Shazam or Hell's Kitchen and eating pizza.
When the tag lines in your advertising are:
"Privacy. That's iPhone"
"Privacy is King"
"We're in the business of staying out of yours"
and
"What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone"
And people PERCIEVE that's not the case, that's a PR and a brand image FAILURE.
The technological or the moral reasons do not matter at this point. This is becoming a colossal egg on face moment for Apple, and they seem to be in denial about it.
Time to punt. Knowing when to make a stand and when to fold is important. Apple should quietly back away from this for now. Maybe regroup and work with other providers to come to an industry wide standard on the issue so they're not set apart like they are now.
They're making a mess of it, which is not what I would expect from the world's most valuable company.
This is becoming a slow roll public relations disaster for a company that touts privacy in it's advertising. We can sit here on what is a fan boy tech geek web site and argue all the technobabble we want about on device, off device, this scan, that scan, hash, human review, cloud, no cloud.
All people who care about privacy hear is that Apple is going to scan their photos. All the iCloud on/off is techno mumbo jumbo to them. It's all static. People don't have time to do a deep dive into stuff like that. They're too busy watching Beat Shazam or Hell's Kitchen and eating pizza.
When the tag lines in your advertising are:
"Privacy. That's iPhone"
"Privacy is King"
"We're in the business of staying out of yours"
and
"What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone"
And people PERCIEVE that's not the case, that's a PR and a brand image FAILURE.
The technological or the moral reasons do not matter at this point. This is becoming a colossal egg on face moment for Apple, and they seem to be in denial about it.
Time to punt. Knowing when to make a stand and when to fold is important. Apple should quietly back away from this for now. Maybe regroup and work with other providers to come to an industry wide standard on the issue so they're not set apart like they are now.
They're making a mess of it, which is not what I would expect from the world's most valuable company.
Cloud based scanning is only worse if you believe that on device scanning is inherently and absolutely better without exception. There is nothing stopping Apple from doing the same scanning on device - except then you can't choose to not upload it. By the same token there is nothing stopping Apple from doing all the special "privacy focused" scanning in the cloud - it just doesn't want to.
Software running on it is not your property, you’re licensed to use it in a limited way.
Get the process OFF MY DEVICE.
Except in most cases that would require to routinely decrypt innocent users pics.
Whereas with pre-upload scanning you skip that.
The BIGGEST PR desaster in Apple History. With every Day Apple isn't pulling this, it gets worse. Apple could always charge more, for their leadership in privacy. This will be over, don't they finally get it?
WTF Apple, act NOW!
WTF Apple, act NOW!
Why.
It’s cryptographically air gapped.
It doesn’t communicate with the outside world.
You’ll consent to it if you accept iOS15 terms and conditions.
Perhaps the signees read & fully understood Apple‘s „explanations“ already and are still not convinced.
„Mr. Powell, I am not concinced.“
Remember?…
Perfect example of how all the people going nuts over this are just grasping at any emotional straws so they can be offended instead of actually thinking things through.
I'll bet most people won't care. What I mean by most is the hundreds of millions who shell out money to buy Apple products. IMO, "most" people won't be affected by this and thus either they won't care or they will applaud Apple for having the guts to address a pervasive problem.
While you might see this as a PR and a brand image failure, I do not think the average consumer will be. (Again the average consumer is about the hundreds of millions customers who buy Apple products every year...not a few posts on an anonymous internet forum)
It does, but for my benefit only, and nothing it scans gets back to authorities. (unless Apple is lying about that too.)
Well I'm sure these 90 civil rights organizations don't fully understand how it works. /S