Apple Addresses CSAM Detection Concerns, Will Consider Expanding System on Per-Country Basis

[MrDerby01]

Anyone remember when Apple gave China the "Golden Key" for iCloud and iMessages? They can see everything in real time. Apple did not care about the people of China at all. "We were just following the law." and tried to say it was a hard long decision that had to be made..

 

[giggles]

iCloud is not a sewer. You can’t force Apple to accept fecal matter on iCloud willy nilly.

Triaging data in an anonymous, automated and local way is not outside the scope of what a cloud company may do.

Laws and morals changes by country and time, but last time I checked CP is universally reviled nowadays. Judge Apple if and when they abuse this. So far it’s just one more check, together with all the other things they check for to be able to find a dog or ice cream in your picture collection.

 

[Khedron]

Correct headline: Apple releases vague infographic failing to address any concerns, will consider if children in other countries are worth protecting too

 

[StrangeNoises]

iCloud is not a sewer. You can’t force Apple to accept fecal matter on iCloud willy nilly.

Triaging data in an anonymous, automated and local way is not outside the scope of what a cloud company may do.

Laws and morals changes by country and time, but last time I checked CP is universally reviled nowadays. Judge Apple if and when they abuse this. So far it’s just one more check, together with all the other things they check for to be able to find a dog or ice cream in your picture collection.

This is not just (maybe not even) about what's on iCloud. This is about the OS scanning photos on the device, that *isn't* uploaded to iCloud.

 

[dannyyankou]

Good thing I have the 512gb iPhone, I might just turn off iCloud photos.

 

[Schismz]

This is a horrendous idea with so many ways this tech could go wrong.

Limiting it to the U.S. is not a solution and it’s obtuse of Apple to think so. Apple needs to stop now. Get rid of the feature, both the iCloud and Messages versions. No one wants this.

That's too bad. Apple caved. They already gave up with end-to-end iCloud encryption last year, this is the beginning of the end of any semblance of privacy. I guess they're concerned with potential antitrust problems and need to help enable 1984 on our phones.

This was one of the primary reasons I liked Apple, being the customer, not the product. The solution to privacy is don't participate in the fully connected smart-home and internet of ****, leave your phone turned off and at home, and if you're concerned with privacy, don't connect that device to the internet. Brave new world. Hooray.

Wait ... how did I live without an iPhone?

 

[giggles]

This is not just (maybe not even) about what's on iCloud. This is about the OS scanning photos on the device, that *isn't* uploaded to iCloud.

Nope.
It’s a local labelling applied to pictures that are on the way to iCloud.
Otherwise nobody will ever know about this “CP or not” label.
Like a tree falling in a forest when no one is listening.

 

[BlazednSleepy]

Utterly disappointed in Apple.

 

[sdz]

I personally place a high priority on privacy and security. Apple's move doesn't bother me, though, because one of my baseline rules is to never store anything that is highly sensitive or mission critical in the cloud.

so you don't use iCloud Photos?
Because I can't decide which photos should be uploaded and which not.

 

[sdz]

Can't wait until they roll out updates to scan for gay porn in Saudi Arabia.
Or Anti-CCP material in China.

 

[Cosmosent]

This has the potential to Backfire on Apple UN-like anything they've ever encountered !

And, potentially lead to the first-ever Boycott of Apple products !

Specifically, anything having to do with iOS 15 & its derivatives !

 

[Rigby]

iCloud is not a sewer. You can’t force Apple to accept fecal matter on iCloud willy nilly.

Triaging data in an anonymous, automated and local way is not outside the scope of what a cloud company may do.

They can scan materials on their servers as much as they want. That leaves me a choice whether I upload anything or not. In fact, they have been doing just that for years:

Naked Security – Sophos News

nakedsecurity.sophos.com

What they are doing now is a new level of surveillance by forcibly installing what is effectively spyware on our devices and Macs.

 

[giggles]

People are so confused about this.

Apple already scan your photos for
- trees
- dogs
- cats
- ice cream cones
- grass
- sky
- the Moon
- etc.

This is just one more scan, and it’s even less invasive because it’s not based on actual AI analysis of your photos but by comparing hashes of them to hashes of known certified CP. Apple’s not looking at your pics, just smelling them next to a turd and applying a super-precise 1-error-in-a-trillion “turd or not” label. It’s not a backdoor, or even looking for dogs and trees was a backdoor by this logic.

The difference is that this could get you suspended from iCloud and in some cases (is Apple supposed not to report a big pedo “whale”? really?) reported to authorities, but only for multiple offences.

This is like mask mandates and vaccines, a collective sacrifice to get this crap out of the internet. Of course there’s no silver bullet and companies experiment with way to approach this.

 

[arvinsim]

Well, that was quick

 

[_Spinn_]

This doesn’t make me feel any better.

Governments (especially the US) have found that they can use Big Tech to get around the rights of their citizens. I remember when computers and the internet were supposed to be liberating. Now it seems they are turning into Big Brother.

How long before the US government passes laws requiring Apple to look for other illegal activities? Maybe look for group photos during the lockdowns?

Currently Apple has the hooks for this process at the point photos are uploaded to iCloud. Why couldn’t they move the hooks to when pictures are saved on your phone? That way everything is caught in this massive dragnet.

Heck, maybe they can expand it to scan what is displayed on the screen that way you can’t look at “wrong think”. Chrome already does to prevent phishing.

Faster and more efficient phishing detection in M92

Keeping Chrome users safe as they browse the web is crucially important to Chrome; in fact, security has always been one of our four core pr...

blog.chromium.org

Edit: Tinfoil hat time. Maybe they are being forced by the government to put this in or be broken up via antitrust? Otherwise why wouldn’t they have announced this late Friday evening when fewer people would notice?

 

[giggles]

They can scan materials on their servers as much as they want. That leaves me a choice whether I upload anything or not. In fact, they have been doing just that for years:

Naked Security – Sophos News

nakedsecurity.sophos.com

What they are doing now is a new level of surveillance by forcibly installing what is effectively spyware on our devices.

You really prefer them to scan all of your pics once they’re already on their servers (maybe located in China if you’re a Chinese citizen) to them pre-labelling your pics in advance locally on your device?
These are pics that are on the way to their servers anyway. If you disable iCloud photos they won’t be labelled.

 

[grantew1]

Apple: We care about your privacy
Apple: Let us scan PERSONAL photos on your icloud account.

This is a slippery slope.

I used to in the group of "I don't have anything to hide" but then I became an adult.

 

[transpo1]

Correct headline: Apple releases vague infographic failing to address any concerns, will consider if children in other countries are worth protecting too

They can’t do it any other countries (for now) because they know that opens a can of worms with authoritarian governments who spy on their citizens…

 

[antiprotest]

So basically they just repeated everything they already said.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

People are so confused about this.

Apple already scan your photos for
- trees
- dogs
- cats
- ice cream cones
- grass
- sky
- the Moon
- etc.

This is just one more scan, and it’s even less invasive because it’s not based on actual AI analysis of your photos but by comparing hashes of them to hashes of known certified CP. Apple’s not looking at your pics, just smelling them next to a turd and applying a super-precise 1-error-in-a-trillion “turd or not” label. It’s not a backdoor, or even looking for dogs and trees was a backdoor by this logic.

The difference is that this could get you suspended from iCloud and in some cases (is Apple supposed not to report a big pedo “whale”? really?) reported to authorities, but only for multiple offences.

This is like mask mandates and vaccines, a collective sacrifice to get this crap out of the internet. Of course there’s no silver bullet and companies experiment with way to approach this.

This one more scan will lead Apple to report you to Law Enforcement.

Too much risk is involved.

 

[Khedron]

People are so confused about this.

Apple already scan your photos for
- trees
- dogs
- cats
- ice cream cones
- grass
- sky
- the Moon
- etc.

This is just one more scan, and it’s even less invasive because it’s not based on actual AI analysis of your photos but by comparing hashes of them to hashes of known certified CP. Apple’s not looking at your pics, just smelling them next to a turd and applying a super-precise 1-error-in-a-trillion “turd or not” label. It’s not a backdoor, or even looking for dogs and trees was a backdoor by this logic.

The difference is that this could get you suspended from iCloud and in some cases (is Apple supposed not to report a big pedo “whale”? really?) reported to authorities, but only for multiple offences.

This is like mask mandates and vaccines, a collective sacrifice to get this crap out of the internet. Of course there’s no silver bullet and companies experiment with way to approach this.

Those other scans are to provide the user with useful information and editing tools to improve the quality of their photos.

This scanning is to accuse the user of being a paedophile (or other kind of person deemed undesirable by an authority that can impact Apple's share price) and ruin their life.

Apple has already taken over 6 months to fix the problem of someone's surname being a series of letters they couldn't handle. I'm not inspired to trust them with interpretation of photos with legal ramifications.

 

[q64ceo]

This site is full of folks who sound like Republicans claiming that their personal freedom is being harmed in an attempt to do the right thing.

We must do our best to remove these images from circulation. This is a good idea. But no, people are crapping on it because FREEDUM!

 

[Ursadorable]

Apple's move doesn't bother me, though, because one of my baseline rules is to never store anything that is highly sensitive or mission critical in the cloud.

This is being done client side.. on your phone.

 

[hot-gril]

People are so confused about this.

Apple already scan your photos for
- trees
- dogs
- cats
- ice cream cones
- grass
- sky
- the Moon
- etc.

This is just one more scan, and it’s even less invasive because it’s not based on actual AI analysis of your photos but by comparing hashes of them to hashes of known certified CP. Apple’s not looking at your pics, just smelling them next to a turd and applying a super-precise 1-error-in-a-trillion “turd or not” label. It’s not a backdoor, or even looking for dogs and trees was a backdoor by this logic.

The difference is that this could get you suspended from iCloud and in some cases (is Apple supposed not to report a big pedo “whale”? really?) reported to authorities, but only for multiple offences.

This is like mask mandates and vaccines, a collective sacrifice to get this crap out of the internet. Of course there’s no silver bullet and companies experiment with way to approach this.

Apple isn't telling anyone but me when my photo has a tree in it.

 

[Ursadorable]

This site is full of folks who sound like Republicans claiming that their personal freedom is being harmed in an attempt to do the right thing.

Why does everything have to be political with some people.

Bawk bawk bawk Trump bawk bawk bawk republicans bawk bawk!