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The more I dug into this to understand Apple‘s position, the worse it got.

I started off with, “Okay, they must be doing the right thing; they’ve just explained it badly.“

Where am I now? Dumping iCloud and cancelling future underHisEyePhone purchase.



Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? Google is a privacy dumpster fire … but they don’t lie about it.

Under His Eye 🤣🤣🤣🤣
 
I bet they will have an announcement next week. They dont want to make the situation worse. They cant just cancel because half the users will be upset “for the kids”. So they have to come up with a coherent plan to get themselves out of this problem.
Apple hasn't been coherent since Tim Cook rose to power.
 
What is the alternative? Android? That is far from a privacy haven as well. Is there a third mobile operating system with a healthy app ecosystem?

I understand that we don't trust Apple to necessarily continue to do the right thing with regard to future government intrusions, but today in 2021, I trust Apple more than I trust Google. So on the balance of those two, I am not sure where else I can turn.
This is why Apple now feels emboldened to follow in the footsteps of Google and Microsoft.
 
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Apple hasn't been coherent since Tim Cook rose to power.

Hilarious! And they just lucked into becoming one of the most successful and valuable companies in the world with more than a billion users and a customer base paying premium prices for Apple products and services year after year after year.

Incoherency at its finest!
 
This is why Apple now feels emboldened to follow in the footsteps of Google and Microsoft.
Didn't Microsoft do an IBM soul-searching kinda journey to try and figure out what it should do with itself now, while Bill Gates spent more time pursing his sex-life and promoting globalism?

Google started with: don't be evil.
This morphed to: do the right thing.
We're currently at: be evil, and flee the country.

Where are the founders of Google? Well, Sergey and Larry are living on super yachts and buying islands in Fiji and citizenship in New Zealand, while Eric Schmidt has bailed for Cyprus.

 
Not ideal.


I get the worry and “potential future implementation of expanded use fears“ which are valid.

honestly reports like this, from respected ppl in their fields, I’d granted FAR too much worth without reading carefully the words being used and their meaning.




COULD /= WILL or SHOULD. There words have different meanings for a real good reason, yet so many are jumping on this bandwagon and inferring like it’s gospel or like a conspiracy theory (a conundrum of words and meanings to begin with).

WeChat headquarters is IN China and operates under Chinese laws according. Should their eXecutives not want to follow would face fines and charges etc if denying China‘s ruling body/regimes weighted hand. USA companies are not under such scrutiny. They can bow out! Take the fine and choose to ignore doing business therein. If I may another certain company was exiled almost completely globally and it really hurt that company but they’re not like what they used to be I terms of prominence outside of China like they used to be. Collectively all outsized companies could collaborate to exit for change and cause an implosion of technology policies which can only grow so far where changes in policy to work in a global commerce will and must change. Only coordinated will this work regardless of money power incentivizing confusing deals/business.


PS: IM Im referencing China due to the example of WeChat social media/etc app used here in direct context, this is NO WAY is a view into lie/dislike in a personal level, I’m neutral here and in my personal view of this nation.

just because Google, Facebook and Twitter were FINED doesn’t mean they were forced to comply or did. Notice no specific mention of compliance with those companies was stated?! Specific words and their meanings ppl.

it’s actions NOT taking that would be taken to heart here !
Google, Facebook and Twitter in this report did NOT comply. They were fined according within.. that’s it so if THEY didn’t do it why is this increasing fear towards if Apple will!?.?! Where is the source of this?!
whom is to gain buy pointing to Apple could or would comply, based on just being fined for the co petting companies!?!


NEEDS to paid attention to here.

is a change in how implemented by Apple yes. Should Apple dismantle this or abandoned is up for debate.

however JUST cause researches test solution had zthem worried doesn’t mean Apples IMO,emendation is the EXACT same to be implemented.


lamens terms. Your life long spouse has a huge crush on Jason Momoa or one of the Kardashian girls. They’d love to meet them. Said theyre incredibly attractive. Does it followed theyd cheat on you if giving the chance?! Not likely as attraction is skin deep only. They STILL have a choice to act or not! Regardless of how much they fantasized about the idea which comes to shove that is the key.

Ultimately has it been example add this magnitude for Apple can actually complied and bent??

Again, one of the reasons this has caused such an uproar is because of Apple’s poor track record in standing up to China.


What’s more, a New York Times report this month revealed that Apple has ceded legal ownership of its customers’ data in China to a company controlled by Chinese government officials. The analysis also found that roughly 55,000 active apps, including ones that give users access to news, private messaging and websites blocked by the Chinese government, have vanished from Apple’s App Store in China since 2017. “Just as Mr. Cook figured out how to make China work for Apple, China is making Apple work for the Chinese government,” the report concluded.

The difference in this case was simple: in order, to operate in any country, Apple has to comply with the laws In that country.

Interestingly enough, when Google was planning to build a search engine for China that might have been used to track what Chinese citizens searched for, the dissent from Google’s own employees was so great, the project was canned.


Now, the popular response is, “Well, it could happen, but it might not; we should wait and see.”

So here’s Sir Humphrey Appleby explaining why “waiting and seeing” is a bad idea.

 
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I bet they will have an announcement next week. They dont want to make the situation worse. They cant just cancel because half the users will be upset “for the kids”. So they have to come up with a coherent plan to get themselves out of this problem.

No they won’t. They‘ve already sacrificed the privacy high ground (again with the metaphors 🙄), so to reverse now will leave them with nothing. Their strategy now is to stick their fingers in their ears, press on, and hope everyone accepts it.

Personally, I don’t think this is about child protection; they already scan images and emails on their cloud servers, so why do it on the client? One possible reason is to move the scanning to the iPhone to take the load off the servers (remember that iCloud is built on Amazon and Microsoft cloud servers, so this would reduce the bill).

My own theory is that this is a necessary step in getting us to accept Apple’s version of privacy, so they can introduce user tracking for advertising later on. They can bill it as on-client tracking that‘s privacy centric.
 
The red line for many people is to keep the end user device free from any inspection software. Apple really have to decide if they want to go this route. People will look at this and only this. No excuses. It's not too late to abandon it.
Child porn protection can be done in different ways if this is what concerns them.

I actually wonder how apple could miss the massive concerns associated with decisions like this. They should ask for user feedback before strategic decisions like this are made and they should talk openly about them before they start to prepare everything already.
 
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Soon we will be looking for a device that can only call and we will have to cover or disable our phone cameras because at some point we will unknowingly take a photo that will land us in jail or something else worse. I hate to say this, but this will be the last time I would use a smart phone when this is enabled.
Well, I have never used apps to bank, etc. I used people for that.

However, this straw that is straining my back is making me look into the "phone box". I have some BB / Porsche Design BB10 phones. Also, the stainless steel Nokia 8800, I think my favourite phone of all time as it was just such a tactile phone, phone to play with. Let us not forget the 8910i....Also a great phone. Might stick a SIM in and see what happens.
 
CSAM Is a massively bad idea but I doubt Apple will reverse course. They rarely do. I suspect this is being driven by fears of somehow being prosecuted for "storing” illegal materials on their server even if they have no control over it and have no access to the content.

It can be driven by fear but not because they are afraid of being prosecuted for storing illegal material in their cloud. They are already scanning CSAM on server side but for some reason they want to start doing it client side. From consumer point of view there are zero benefits in scanning client side. I’m really baffled by this move. Why on earth would Apple want to do it? Remember, few years ago Apple didn’t even want to crack terrorists iPhone because it could lead in to mass surveillance / backdoors etc. Now they just want to scan every single person who buys Apple product. WHY?!?!

Its also worth mentioning that law enforcement can access your iPhone / Android and do pretty much anything they like to do with it. There are commercial services like NSO Groups Pegasus and most likely other solutions different governmental agencies are using. There seems to be a one problem with solutions like Pegasus. Using services like Pegasus to grain access to iOS/Android phone isn’t easy or cheap. Initial set up fee is around $500 000 and gaining access to 10 iOS/Android devices costs $650 000. End user must also pay yearly maintenance fee which is around 17% of total cost. Apparently Israels minister of defence must accept every new client before they can access Pegasus. However, some drug cartels have been using it so… don’t know about client verification process… However, Pegasus isn’t suited for mass surveillance. You need to pinpoint the target. No one is using $100 000 to spy on John Doe. Ability to scan everyone and everything remains to be a pipe dream. I mean no one in their right mind is going to intentionally introduce “backdoor” like that. Right?!?!
 
"Hi!
I'm Agent Jamie Smith and this is my Federal Legal Posse.
Here is a FISA warrant and an addendum to your CSAM db.
Here is the instructions you will follow in the event you get a match.
And lastly, here is the Gag Order limiting what you can discuss and communicate.
Kindly have a Super Sparkly day and we will see you next time!"
It’s not their database. Also, you do not know what a fisa warrant is, clearly.
2. “Because a user’s photos stored in iCloud are end to end encrypted so that even Apple can’t access the data, NeuralHash instead scans for known CSAM on a user’s device...”

Quote from a TechCrunch article. Either I don‘t understand this correctly or I do understand it and it is incorrect or you are incorrect.
This is incorrect, photos are not end to end encrypted on iCloud.
From consumer point of view there are zero benefits in scanning client side.
This is simply a hugely incorrect statement. Ignorance like this is exactly why people really need to read up on subjects they know nothing about, instead of just jumping on the bandwagon because they think they know things.
 
It amazes me how folks can get it so wrong. Try looking back at the San Bernadio incident and see why Apple was successful at holding off the FBI in court. A Company cannot be compelled to create a back door. This, as designed according to Apple, can be leveraged as a back door. Apple lost that “argument” if they go live with this.

Apple was not successful in the sense that United States withdrew. The case wasn't tested in court.

Also, the CSAM detection system is bad at catching people unless the police are after people with exact copies (or derivates) of a group of photos.

Let's say they wanted to be aware of people with a certain type of gun. They can't create hashes of their own photos of this gun since it will not match other photos with this gun on it.

NeuralHash is bad at finding similar images. The algorithms they already have in the Photos app is much better at finding "images in the same category".
 
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Just links. My sole contribution for the day.



 
This is simply a hugely incorrect statement. Ignorance like this is exactly why people really need to read up on subjects they know nothing about, instead of just jumping on the bandwagon because they think they know things.

Oh, please do educate me then. How is it benefitting the consumer to scan images client side instead of server side only? You do understand that even if material is scanned client side it doesn’t mean they won’t be accessed by third party in server side.

You do understand even the developers of this technology say it shouldn’t be implemented!?! You read Apples so called “white papers” like it’s the ultimate truth and endpoint of this technology. Honestly, why do you want to be watched? What do you get out of it? Is it some sort of turn-on for you? It’s OK dude but can you please get your kicks some other way so the whole iOS using world isn’t involved.
 
The only solution is never ever use the camera of the iPhone, and buy a digital one from Nikon or Canon or the like.
Even better pics.Win-win.

Oh wait, that's what all bandits do anyway.
 
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How can they legally get away with this in the first place?
I mean, police needs a warrant to get in my house, but Apple doesn't???
No warrant required if you give permission, if you download ios15 then you have given permission
 
No it's not the FBI's database. *wink* *wink*. And you mustn't draw conclusions from the fact that the NCMEC office is crawling with ex-FBI and FBI people.
But that wilfully ignoring how it actually works in order to push this agenda.
 
Oh, please do educate me then. How is it benefitting the consumer to scan images client side instead of server side only? You do understand that even if material is scanned client side it doesn’t mean they won’t be accessed by third party in server side.

You do understand even the developers of this technology say it shouldn’t be implemented!?! You read Apples so called “white papers” like it’s the ultimate truth and endpoint of this technology. Honestly, why do you want to be watched? What do you get out of it? Is it some sort of turn-on for you? It’s OK dude but can you please get your kicks some other way so the whole iOS using world isn’t involved.
Mocking me is easier than learning things for yourself, evidently. However, it’s pretty easy to educate yourself also, learning is good! Here’s a starter - client side *anything* is more private than server side everything. This premise is especially evident in privacy circles. If it’s done on your device, it’s inherently private.

The argument people here are making is that this system will be abused by governments- they’re ignoring the safety procedures as documented in the white paper.

They’re also stating that Apple will be bent to manipulate other files and unlawfully search our phones, yet they’re absolutely ignoring the fact that they have always been susceptible to this, it’s their OS. This function changes nothing in this regard.

Finally they’re stating that the trust has been removed with apples plans. This is an emotional response, because logic states that without present source code to scrutinise, one has only ever taken apples words on this trust. Nothing here has changed.

Everything else is whataboutism, emotionally charged false logic and slippery slope fallacy.
 
It is "their" database because it is content apple force feeds onto my device in a coded format I don't know about. Apple is responsible not the FBI or anybody else. Why at all does apple feel to behave like some corporate legal guardian? I am ready to respect the law but on my private device this is my job not apple's.
 
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