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Just got this into my mind, I wouldn’t wonder if pictures taken with iPhones also got some kind of TraceBackID embed into them, that can be mapped to the origin AppleID.
 
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makitango said:
Agreed. This week marks the death of the privacy brand. But at least they are honest about it.
However I wonder if they are not honest with other things.
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Well,
Since I don't store kiddie porn on my iPhone, this doesn't bother me at all. If it will catch the perverts that enable these photographers, I"ll shoot Huzzah!!
Come to think of it, anyone who thinks ANYTHING transmitted over the internet is private, I'll question their intellect.
 
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peanuts_of_pathos said:
Yes I’m replying to myself but I just scanned the most recent article and comments and don’t see an answer to this question nor how Apple is limiting this to the “U.S.”

I’m assuming they’re using a combination of restricting via SIM, geolocation and AppleID but I can’t tell. Of all the extremely valid concerns being raised so far, to me this “geo creep” is both the most concerning and where I suspect the first abuses of this (both by “bad guys” and by “bad govs”) will occur.

Especially given the way most of the reciprocity and intel-sharing agreements currently in-place between US and other countries (it’s well beyond just the 5 eyes).

Finally, stupid question but this is just for iOS? Or iOS and iPadOS? What about TVOS and WatchOS? And of course MacOS? I’ll check again as I’m sure this one is answered somewhere but was wondering if anyone knew off-hand.
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I don't believe the feature has been available to anyone at this point. It will go live at some point with iOS 15.
 
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I see the benefits in preventing child abuse. But have serious concerns about Apple creating a back door which will make apple devices vulnerable to privacy breaches. This will erode apples reputation on privacy.
 
cmcbhi said:
Come to think of it, anyone who thinks ANYTHING transmitted over the internet is private, I'll question their intellect.
Click to expand...

There is this really cool thing I’d like to tell you about. You probably haven’t heard of it, but it’s called encryption. You should expand your intellect by reading up on it.
 
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Am I the only one who is completely unfazed by the planned photo-scanning feature? The scanning happens on-device, not in the cloud. This is the difference between the way Apple implements these things and the way Google and Facebook do it, selling your data to their customers. It's their business model. Apple sells computers and services, so they don't need to sell the data.
 
kaz911 said:
I know Apple claims they only tag previously "known" images. I do not trust that statement at all - it does not make sense as you would prefer to capture the images at the "source" (aka the "dealer/maker" - not at the "user" level)
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While Apple has not earned any trust on this topic, I think you can trust that statement. From a technological standpoint it would be extremely difficult to implement an AI program to filter out child abuse at the source. For sure AI can be trained to recognize explicit images (as is implemented on many social media sites) just as it can recognize text, landmarks, or faces. But AI needs a frame of reference. It can pick out text because text is a known reference. It can pick out explicit images because certain body parts or positions are known reference. But recognizing age is more challenging; there are plenty of minors who could pass for adults and adults who could pass for minors. There’s no consistent reference for what age of consent looks like. It’s more feasible (or at least easier) to scan against known image hashes than to try to have AI figure out how old someone might be.
 
clickerclacker said:
Am I the only one who is completely unfazed by the planned photo-scanning feature? The scanning happens on-device, not in the cloud. This is the difference between the way Apple implements these things and the way Google and Facebook do it, selling your data to their customers. It's their business model. Apple sells computers and services, so they don't need to sell the data.
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Apple can legally protect themselves by keeping the scanning in the cloud, which they have been doing. There is no reason that I can see to include on device scanning, unless Apple is going to broaden the scope of this new policy, which I think they are laying the foundation for. I do find the on device scanning counter to Apple's privacy stance.
 
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Apple has now removed the following for Photos on their privacy page:
Apple devices are designed so those memories don't leave your hands until you share them.
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Some services process photos in the cloud, which gives them access to your photos. But we designed Photos to process your images right there on your Mac, iPhone and iPad.
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Apple has updated the wording around Photos on their privacy page. : r/apple

2.1K votes, 347 comments. 6.2M subscribers in the apple community. An unofficial community about Apple and all of its devices and software.
redd.it redd.it
 
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Apple_Robert said:
What you could do, is get a second-hand used phone and use that for taking pictures. Don't log into your Apple ID on said phone. No tracking or scanning then, as far as I am aware. You could then AirDrop any pictures you wanted to save from that second phone to an external drive for safe keeping and or upload the photos to an encrypted Cryptomator folder in the cloud for safe keeping from Apple.

If you buy another phone new from Apple (online) using your Apple ID, the new phone can be tracked to you even if you don't log into your Apple ID. If you want to buy a new phone now for this purpose, buy it new and pay cash for it from someone else that doesn't require Apple ID for purchase like the Apple Site.

The process I mentioned earlier is not hard at all and only takes a few minutes to do once set up. Cryptomator is a free program.

cryptomator.org

Cryptomator - Free & Open-Source Cloud Storage Encryption

Cryptomator is an open-source encryption tool for secure cloud storage. Protect your privacy for free on Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and more.
cryptomator.org

If you get a new Mac or update to Monterey, you will run into the same kind of Apple problem.
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please oh please release the 14inch mbp update before monterey comes out.
 
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ilikewhey said:
wow that sucks, so would you say the current air is a good buy that won't have this scan "feature"?
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From the limited information I have read thus far, I believe the scanning that will be done moving forward with the Mac will be limited to M1 and newer. At this point, we know the scanning will be baked into Monterey but, that doesn't mean Apple can't or won't include the scanning in Big Sur for said Macs. That means, that if one wishes to completely be free of such and not have to turn off settings etc. (as we know right now) I believe one would need to stick to an Intel Mac.
 
arn said:
That wasn’t the intention of the article

Just Apple said that if you turn off iCloud Photo Library, then it won’t happen and there is no specific “off” setting just for the CSAM thing. Basically iCloud or not is the choice, and if iCloud Photo Library is off, it won’t happen.
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Thank you for the clarification, Arn. I read an article on "The Verge" that was much more clear and confirmed what you posted here.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
From the limited information I have read thus far, I believe the scanning that will be done moving forward with the Mac will be limited to M1 and newer. At this point, we know the scanning will be baked into Monterey but, that doesn't mean Apple can't or won't include the scanning in Big Sur for said Macs. That means, that if one wishes to completely be free of such and not have to turn off settings etc. (as we know right now) I believe one would need to stick to an Intel Mac.
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and here i'm thinking oh boy i can finally upgrade from my 2015 13inch to the new 14inch and not compromise on the usb ports.
 
jigzaw said:
I doubt the company is going anywhere so I don't see it as the end, but it invites a lot of frightening questions.

1. Do Android and Samsung already do this without letting anyone know? Or do they do it openly and Apple is just catching up? I honestly don't know.

2. In the U.S. it's "for the children", but what about people in China and other dictatorships where Apple feels compelled to "comply with local law"? Will Apple be turning over the results of their phone scans to those governments? Will anyone in China with a Winnie the Pooh photo, or a meme about the Uighur genocide on their phone be flagged and reported to the Chinese government?

3. How about in places like Russia where homosexuality is virtually criminalized? Will Apple be reporting who is sexting their same-sex partner to the Russian authorities? You might laugh, but the minute Apple rolls this out you better believe these dictatorships will start requiring Apple to use this technology to "comply with local law" if they want to remain in the market.

4. If I took a topless photo of a woman I dated 5 years ago, and it's still on the cloud, and it gets flagged, who looks at it? And if she's wrongly judged to be underaged by whoever on Apple's staff does the looking at photos, what recourse do I have when my phone is suddenly locked and the FBI is breaking down my door? Even if the charges are eventually dropped once the ex comes forward to prove she was an adult when the photo was taken, at this point the suspect has almost certainly lost their job and been shunned by the people in their life.

5. Will Apple pay damages for lost wages, pain and suffering, and attorney fees when a false positive leads to law enforcement action? Will Apple's Terms of Service include a provision where you agree not to sue them if they wrongly get you locked up?

6. How are they judging message content? Are they reading and judging fantasy sexts between adults? Are they only looking at messages that go to Apple customers who are under 18? How can I be sure that if I called my adult girlfriend a "bad little girl" in a joke text message, that the FBI won't be reading it the next day and deciding whether it's actionable?

7. Regarding reexamining tech options - not a bad idea. I've been in the Apple ecosystem so long, even to the point of enthusiastically buying Apple stock when I started investing, that I have no idea what's goin on with Samsung or Pixel phones or how a Windows start page even looks these days. It's past time I caught up on the outside world. But again, are those companies just doing the same thing too?
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I read the whole thing and have to admit it is amazing.
But for Apple side, they are ready for disclaimer in TOC and already waives all responsibilities regarding a false match and resulting damage to an individual’s life. PR team can say all they want, but the reality is individual life means nothing more than a line in their customer database. It’s just a statistic, even with media attention and outrage from said family. Apple again, is too big to fail, they can keep claiming they care about privacy while doing all shady things behind close doors or twist the truth so average joe won’t notice something fishy.

To anyone who says “just go and use another product”, I just reply: great, then go ahead and dodge all of your problems in your life because this is exactly like that.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
You could (for now at least) make a purchase and turn off iCloud photos to prevent the scanning. I don't know how long that option will last as it seems like an easy out for the pedophiles.
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Yeah but thats not a so good advice.
If he can’t trust a product, he should better buy something else, simply because he could end wasting money somehow, or become unhappy with the outcome.

Currently I’m even thinking to stop developing for Apple completely, my dev account just got renewed, but i stopped the auto renewal. Supporting Apples platform in any way just feels totally wrong now.
 
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jigzaw said:
Not being very tech-savvy I doubt I'd even go that far. More likely I'll just change my lifestyle to turning off all cloud functions and treating my phone like an old-fashioned digital camera/mp3 player that I have to back up to a hard drive now and then. Maybe I'll even go back to ripping my own CD's instead of streaming! Haha. We gen-x'ers are experienced with pre-cloud living.

To your first point, that's true. If they're all doing it, and my whole reason for loving the Apple ecosystem was its security, then why shouldn't I consider that Galaxy or Pixel that costs less and has better hardware?
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But here we are, no ports, can’t connect to computer at all. F you pre-cloud life.
I’m ok for now, still rocking local music library and local App Library. Dunno how long this will last.
 
Wildkraut said:
Yeah but thats not a so good advice.
If he can’t trust a product, he should better buy something else, simply because he could end wasting money somehow, or become unhappy with the outcome.

Currently I’m even thinking to stop developing for Apple completely, my dev account just got renewed, but i stopped the auto renewal. Supporting Apples platform in any way just feels totally wrong now.
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I realize it's not the best advice but, it is all we can do right now, outside of buying an Intel Mac.
 
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