1) If you don't trust Apple's software to do what they say, any conversation about the implications of what they say is pointless.
2) The only "scanning" was to be a local pre-hashing of photos that are exchanged with iCloud. They clearly stated opting out of iCloud Photos will avoid having any local photo hashes "reported" back to them.
3) If apple wanted to look at your photos in the iCloud, they could already. The content isn't encrypted in any way either in iCloud Photos or in iCloud backups. The main reason we think apple wasn't doing this is that Google/FB/Reddit/MS/Discord/Twitter/etc all disclose public numbers on how many accounts they report for hits on these hashes; and they have orders of magnitude more reported users and hence must be regularly trawling all their users' photos.
4) other cloud photo systems compute the same hashing of the photos in their cloud (vs on device).
PhotoDNA - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
1) I wasn't clear in my statement, and I didn't want to get into too much detail with that. Let me try again. Apple has been pretty good about not putting stuff in the code that does things we would not like, from a privacy position. The competition is famous for doing the opposite. I will champion that along with anyone else. But Apple has been doing stuff for at least 8 years that I find questionable from that same privacy position.
The mic on my iMacs turn on without my participation. Mic Input used to be an easily disabled control on the Sound control pane. Now I have to go to the Keyboard control - under Dictation, strangely - to disable it. But that doesn't stop the Mic from listening, oddly. I also have to have the MIDI control panel active so I can check the "disable" box on the input as well. I now have to keep them open full time on my desktop - the Keyboard Dictation panel to see if the Mic is registering sound, and the MIDI panel to make sure the input disable is checked. Why?
When I buy a new phone, I have to set it up and then migrate any files or photos or contacts I want on that device. Because if I do a "new phone setup" and pair it with my old phone, it will migrate everything, including my settings - except for my privacy settings. It will ignore those settings and start uploading everything to iCloud. Why?
Tangent to this, on previous versions of iOS I used to do regular surveys of my privacy settings because iOS would randomly turn on iCloud for Notes, Contacts, Reminders, and many other apps. Why?
If I shut off iCloud and then turn it back on, it enables every single iCloud service. Photos, Notes, Backup, even Find My (which I wish I could delete). It totally ignores my previous settings. You'd think their vaunted "Machine Learning", which is supposed to watch your usage and make future actions easier to do based on your usage, would step in here.
Related to this, I once used a family members phone to sign into my iCloud account. The phone turned on everything and back their phone to my account. And after I shut that off I logged into iCloud from my desktop only to find I couldn't delete the photos from my desktop browser, I had to sign back on using their phone and then delete the stuff from iCloud.
2) Thats not true. See the next quote below my response to you.
3) I'm positive you're right about Apple looking through iCloud. Thats why I don't keep anything there.
4) My distrust has to do with iCloud and local device privacy, not anything from any other company.
This is what I'm talking about.
When government wants more power (and now corporations, because we're right in the middle of the creation of a mercantilist/fascist system), they demonize an easily dislikable minority of the population and then tell the majority "we could fix this with just a little more power". They then build on that. I actually applaud Apple's target here. but I have to wonder where this is coming from. Once those "undesirables" are taken care of, who is next? Right now half the country is being programmed to hate the other half, whether it be based on politics, race, immunization status, or a number of other things.
Who is next?
I gotta wonder, don't people see how easily this photo check could lead toward a social credit score system? Apple already has that implemented in China. It would be the flip of a few digital switches to have it here, out in the open. It was widely publicized that memes helped sway the 2016 election. The big platforms set up algorithms to block them for 2020. How about when your meme work doesn't just get deleted off your cloud account, it gets seized on your frozen phone, and then your name is submitted to the gov for "insurrection"?
I think its beyond time for a capable Linux phone. The unfortunate part is that the build quality of a Linux phone is probably not going to be anywhere near the iPhone, nor will the software integration. I think the next best hope is a flavor of Linux that can exist happily on a de-Appled iPhone.
I completely detest Google, and to a lesser extent Microsoft.
I'm curious - why bring that up? Every single discussion I engage in that exposes/examines Apple's malfeasance always results in at least one poster who says that same thing. I trust Apple far more than I trust Google and Microsoft, but as I said in my first post, I no longer trust Apple. I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying there.
Put it simply: they all suck. Apple sucks less.
