Privacy Whistleblower Edward Snowden and EFF Slam Apple's Plans to Scan Messages and iCloud Images

[Khedron]

I can see the downside of this, but having been in the IT business for 40-some years, I have seen a lot of disturbing things.

One residential client of a firm I was subbing for had an extensive collection of pron, and even had a nekud picture of female anatomy as his desktop picture. His wife seemed to either not know, or didn't care.

The troubling moment was one particular person who was having problems with his computer, same firm too, and I was tasked with trying to diagnose his issues. I found a second hard drive, and it had thousands of folders, and thousands of images in each one. Curious, and seeing that the drive, and the main drive too, were nearly full, I opened a folder and clicked on a couple of files. It was kiddie porn. Disgusting stuff. What really rocked me was one of the images had a little girl that looked exactly like my neighbor's daughter. They had moved into the area from an older part of town, and he kept saying he was glad to have moved. Weird people, he said, in the old neighborhood. NO KIDDING.

I reported what I found to the owner of the firm, and he backed me up reporting it to police. The guy who had it was apparently working at a local community college, and volunteered with several area youth agencies. He had plenty of access to kids. The cops at the time were stunned at what I found, and never followed up with me. It was several years later, I found out the monster was plea bargained and not tried for his 'collection'. There were hundreds of thousands of images, and over 90% of it was of children. I was incredulous that the cops and prostituting attorney swept most of it under the rug. This guy was active online, and I'm sure was trading his filth with others.

So that is why I've said that people that sexually abuse children should be given the death penalty. They violated a sacred trust with every child they have an image of. That trust is that they won't abuse them. That guy should have gotten life! Instead, he got probation, I believe, and is still 'out there' somewhere...

People that think this is an overreach, and a violation of privacy, but people need to conceptualize the depth of the toxic crap that is going around. I could describe one of the pictures, but would probably be banned, but who ever that was, with that child, should be rotting in jail, or have been exterminated.

I'm sorry, but I draw the line at that kind of thing. True, scanning *all* pictures in iCloud does seem a little excessive, but if people are dumb enough to collect and save that crap, they deserve to be outed.

So flame away...

(And the owner of the shop reportedly copied the hard drive too. *GAG* I quit shortly after that all happened)

The rich and powerful are especially immune to justice anyway.

How about we make a deal; Apple can scan our personal data when Prince Andrew, Trump, and Gates answer questions about their relationship with Epstein under oath?

 

[satcomer]

My problem is parents taking a picture of a Father/Mother kissing their child in cute situation that would reported in this new system! I sure hope Apple realizes this until it's to late!

 

[fwmireault]

Awful step by apple. And the 'alert your parents if you view a nude' is some awful overreach but typical of apple's strangely prudish approach.

If I recall the alert to parents can’t be enabled if you’re 13 years old and up. I’d say that notification of unsolicited nudes for kids under 13 is pretty fair

 

[coachgq]

It's the first step in total censorship. If Apple can scan for porn, they surely can scan for other crimes and then it's all over.

So don’t be a criminal…seems like an easy fix.

 

[Aoligei]

I'm one of the unfortunate ones who live in states that will probably NEVER legalize recreational marijuana. It's legal in my neighboring states. I don't even drink alcohol or smoke, so I'll probably never even try marijuana, even if it becomes legal in my state.

However, what if I decide to be stupid and start growing several pots of marijuana in my greenhouse.(which is currently used for growing organic fruits) Let's say I take pictures of the said marijuana plants(which is still very much illegal in my state), can't iCloud easily identify the plants and alert the state troopers who will bust in my doors at 3AM and throw me in jail? (which is what they do frequently, according to local news)

Where does it stop? If I'm not mistaken, Apple's iCloud server for Chinese users is, well, inside China. If any of them take pictures with their iPhones and the pictures contain Winnie the Pooh and the Chinese leader together or something as "innocent" as an iPhone case with Winnie the Pooh on the back, will that set off the iCloud censor software and alert the Chinese authorities? People have been arrested for using iPhones with such cases while walking near government buildings in China...

how do we know that Chinese and Russian governments have not already made such demands on Apple? Maybe Apple doesn't comply now... but what if China or Russia one day bans sale of iPhones if Apple doesn't comply? Okay, maybe the Russian market isnt' that big.. but if iPhones or other Apple products are banned in China, I imagine that Apple stocks will tumble back to 1990s prices.

Really? These type of image analysis techniques has been in existence for awhile. It really doesn’t matter if Apple do it or not. If repressive regime wants to achieve something like this, they would do it regardless what Apple or Microsoft do.

Don’t take any nude photo of your children, don’t take marijuana photo then. Know the law and comply with the law.

If you have issue with Apple doing it, there are plenty of alternatives. Don’t use iPhone, vote without your wallet

 

[JosephAW]

We have no clue what’s going on behind the scenes at Apple. Probably a lot of arguing and yelling in board meetings with govmnt officials telling Apple they must include certain things in future iOS versions or face consequences and ban from fcc and patents requests. Cook needs to speak on this publicly or a leaker posts documents of a non-disclosure that they are being forced to do this.

 

[Michael Scrip]

I guess we know why Apple keeps making their chips so incredibly powerful with neural engines and whatnot...

Today they scan your iCloud photos. Tomorrow your phone could scan a photo as soon as it's taken.

They could be scanning everything we do... at all times!

 

[coachgq]

We’re all criminals now. Wake up.

Yea….but I’m not. Wake up.

 

[ggibson913]

While no one wants the exploitation of Children, I tend to agree with the article, a back door is a back door and can be exploited by folks with less pure intent. If they refused to unlock a phone for a terrorist who actually killed people on privacy grounds it is rather hypocritical. If they wanted to enhance parental controls so that they had total access to their kids phones, you would get no argument from me but don’t create a back door.

 

[Wizec]

iCloud coding error locks out Rachel True over a boolean flag - 9to5Mac

Author Rachel True has been locked out of her iCloud account for six months after iCloud interprets True as a boolean flag.

9to5mac.com

With this kind of track record I see some potential for severe technology fumbles here as well.

 

[5232152]

"...and what happens with your data on iCloud is non of your business!"

 

[NightFox]

People seem to be blurring capability and intent. Apple have long had the technological capability to do this, all they've now done is expressed an intent to actually start doing it. They also already have the capability to do some of the other things people are predicting or concerned about in this thread, that genie's out of the bottle. It's not as if scanning for images of child abuse was a pre-requisite step Apple had to go through before extending it's scanning remit to anything more dubious, so I'm not clear why people feel this in anyway brings us closer to that happening.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

The rich and powerful are especially immune to justice anyway.

How about we make a deal; Apple can scan our personal data when Prince Andrew, Trump, and Gates answer questions about their relationship with Epstein under oath?

I don't care about them. Money will always warp society, and, yes, justice. The problem isn't those you name, its people that looked the other way. Those 4 you mention are a symptom of a justice system problem. Fixing it will take an acknowledgement that there is a problem, and how deep it goes. And also shows how mentally ill people can get away with a hell of a lot in society...

 

[I7guy]

The rich and powerful are especially immune to justice anyway.

How about we make a deal; Apple can scan our personal data when Prince Andrew, Trump, and Gates answer questions about their relationship with Epstein under oath?

Don't think there is a deal to be made. It's pretty simple:
- Apple will scan our personal data
- the people you mentioned above will be silent.

Simple really.

 

[I7guy]

View attachment 1815503

"...and what happens with your data on iCloud is non of your business!"

That still isn't really wrong, in fact it's pretty darn accurate.

 

[Khedron]

I guess we know why Apple keeps making their chips so incredibly powerful with neural engines and whatnot...

Today they scan your iCloud photos. Tomorrow your phone could scan a photo as soon as it's taken.

They could be scanning everything we do... at all times!

The iPhone 14 contains the M3 chip which features 8 performance cores, 8 efficiency cores, and 24 cores for analysing your behaviour.

Base model comes with 256GB*

*32GB usable after space taken by iOS and criminal activity databases

 

[applesith]

For example - Tim Cook has been outspoken about his homosexuality, yet homosexuality used to be illegal in the United States. In many parts of the world, this is still the case. Should Apple be served with a subpoena to scan images and identify iPhone users which demonstrate that the laws of the country in which their devices are being used are being broken, will they comply with that subpoena? Would the evolution of LGBTQ rights in the United States ever have happened if there had been tools, such as these, facilitating a legal government crack-down?

This is an excellent point! Laws are no where consistent across governments of different countries. Seeing how apple has a history of compromising its stance and efforts for social issues in the US in effort to gain market share in China and Russia- this could quickly be used for evil.

 

[RamGuy]

I'm going to be the father of my first child next year. I use iCloud Photos extensively. What are the guidelines here? I trust iCloud to keep my photos private. I'm surely going to have pictures of my kids that I would never post online and that might be "interesting" for child predators to obtain. What the line of what this scanning is going to consider child pornography and not? I am certain there will be AI in place, it's not like Apple is going to review this one-by-one via human efforts. How do you separate family photos of their child in a bath or pool from the rest? Or will they all get flagged and al those who get flagged is being manually reviewed?

All of this just increases the risks of my photos getting in the hands of predators. From all I know the people handling the manual reviews at Apple is enjoying the pictures.. Is it time to going back to having my photos locally stored and backed up to physical media....

 

[Aoligei]

This is an excellent point! Laws are no where consistent across governments of different countries. Seeing how apple has a history of compromising its stance and efforts for social issues in the US in effort to gain market share in China and Russia- this could quickly be used for evil.

Again. Don’t you think oppressive regimes already have something like this? Last time I went back to China, which was 2018. I saw plenty of high def securities camera. They are all capable of facial recognition. I am perfectly okay with this. I feel safe in China, I can’t say the same in Toronto.

 

[Puonti]

Apple's plan to allow users to either update to iOS 15 or stick with iOS 14 and still receive security updates makes a whole lot more sense now, since this will be an iOS 15 feature.

 

[LiE_]

I'm going to be the father of my first child next year. I use iCloud Photos extensively. What are the guidelines here? I trust iCloud to keep my photos private. I'm surely going to have pictures of my kids that I would never post online and that might be "interesting" for child predators to obtain. What the line of what this scanning is going to consider child pornography and not? I am certain there will be AI in place, it's not like Apple is going to review this one-by-one via human efforts. How do you separate family photos of their child in a bath or pool from the rest? Or will they all get flagged and al those who get flagged is being manually reviewed?

All of this just increases the risks of my photos getting in the hands of predators. From all I know the people handling the manual reviews at Apple is enjoying the pictures.. Is it time to going back to having my photos locally stored and backed up to physical media....

It's not doing any machine learning on your photos. It's checking photo "hashes" against a database of known "hashes" that are provided by the agencies.

For example if they come across an an image, they will add that hash to the database, then it will be cross checked against people's phones to see if they also have the exact same image.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

Good intent but a bad idea. I don’t have any pictures that I wouldn’t want scanned and I’ll continue to use iCloud but I don’t like the idea.

I have pictures I don't want scanned: all of them.

 

[nvmls]

Well said Edward, Apple has an immense moronic user base which defends anything they put out blindly. It was never about privacy and everything about marketing / selling more from the beginning.

Of course they are a business so go for it, but the hypocrisy level is off the hook.

Also, if you expect any kind of privacy, first thing is: avoid any Apple cloud service like the plague.

 

[DNichter]

I get the pushback, but I personally have no issue with it.

 

[easy4lif]

It’s not Apples job to be an arm of law enforcement.

I have a feeling this will blow up in their face!