Apple’s Decision to Kill Its CSAM Photo-Scanning Tool Sparks Fresh Controversy
Apple’s Decision to Kill Its CSAM Photo-Scanning Tool Sparks Fresh Controversy
Child safety group Heat Initiative plans to launch a campaign pressing Apple on child sexual abuse material scanning and user reporting. The company issued a rare, detailed response on Thursday.
The client side scanning of contents of your phone is the most 1984 thing you will hear.
I don't agree, it is perfectly normal to spy on people and make sure they're not committing a crime. I'm sure execs of these companies and those politicians would be fine with that if we were watching from their windows just to make sure they aren't using illegal content... /s
It was client side scanning if you chose to upload those files to iCloud. The equivalent of having your ID checked before you enter a club.
Yes, however my (Others may have other concerns, this is just off the top of my head) chief concern was the breaking a major barrier - in that explicitly user-hostile code would be running on the device itself, one I own. I’d say it’s more of the equivalent of club employees entering your home to check your ID prior to, or during your club visit, and using your restroom/eating a snack while they’re there. (scanning would use “your” device’s resources)
There’s also the trivial nature of flipping the require_iCloud_photos=“true” value to “false” whether by intention or by accident. I have an open ticket with Apple support where my Apple Maps saved locations, favorites, guides, Home, reports, reviews ALL vanished without a trace. Just got a callback today saying that engineering is aware of the problem and that it’s expected to be resolved in the next iOS update. I’m the meantime, I’m SOL, so accidents and problems can and do happen, nor is Apple the police.
And on top of that there’s also concerns of upstream perversion of the CSAM database for other purposes - after all, who can audit it to ensure it’s use for CSAM exclusively and who can add to it? Will those images from the device and database be pulled out for trials or would it be a “trust the machine, the odds of false positives are x%” situation? (I believe those questions might have been already answered when the controversy was flying but there’s just a lot of cans of worms waiting to be opened with this, as well as Apple being pressured to scan for more things once the technology has been made.)
Let's say my grandson came to a realization that he was actually my granddaughter. She grows her hair long. She practices with make-up and gets some cute dresses and skirts, and is totally into it.
Now Apple knows.
Any any law-enforcement interests that think its wrong or abusive by fiat can force Apple to let them know.
Same, if my grandkid decides they are pagan and go from wearing a cross to wearing a pentacle.
Same if law enforcement notices that they are caramel colored, that mom is Germanic pale and dad is dark brown.
The US is a society in which neither law nor law enforcement are on our side, and can at any time decide that arbitrary life shit is worthy of sending a SWAT team to collect us. And if the GOP is determined to make it worse.
THINK OF THE CHILDREN
WHO ELSE WILL PROTECT THE CHILDREN IF THE GOVERNMENT ISN'T THERE FOR THEM?! CHILDREN... THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
Best way to fix the issue is for parents to monitor they're kids internet usage and not big brother. And the online pics and people acting on these urges are the end result of a bigger issue that if we focused on would better benefit the live of everyone. And let's be honest, who truely believes that apple or any big tech company are acting in the interest of mankind, its a company with its sole purpose is to make money
Can we please start ignoring these groups? “The Children” are their only concern no matter how it might negatively affect anyone else. Kids who are abused or trafficked should be helped, but that’s not the only issue we have right now and it’s definitely not more important than the effects eroding privacy would have for people and groups around the world. But these “wHaT aBoUt ThE cHiLdReN?!” groups really don’t care - as long as their concerns are addressed everyone else can go fuck themselves. Plus, lots of these groups are primarily staffed and run by former or current LEO who would like to see less privacy anyways.
Almost none of these groups actually care about the kids. Most of them actively support policies that are proven to enable/cause more abuse because it feels like they're hurting the bad guys. As a childhood survivor of a bunch of awful shit that I don't want to get into specifics on, I've never seen a single "for the children" group advocate anything that wouldn't have caused more trauma for me when I was younger. There's no care about fixing problems and preventing childhood trauma/abuse, just care about asserting control and investing in what "feels good": retributive justice (that's more likely to cause recidivism) against one single specific style of abuser while ignoring others (and the survivors) entirely.
This is more about feeling good (and, for some, more authoritarian control) than about actually helping the issue of child abuse.
Also I highly suspect groups like this one in particular are funded or even founded by government organizations with a high interest in accessing all your data.
Completely agree. They should follow the Jeffrey Epstein’s link and networks if they have the balls. You don’t need to scan all people’s phone on earth. Well, it includes high profile people, so good luck with that.
The other day I saw a story "legal marijuana hurts the children" was filed in a court argument. No support for that sensationalist claim, of course.
Children being sexually absued is absolutely more important then iPhones automatically scanning things you upload to their private servers.
And this is exactly what I’m talking about
Good riddance to bad spyware.
I’m glad that this is finally put to rest. I ditched iCloud in protest of this but came back after Advanced Data Protection came along.
Although now I just send my photos to my PC directly now (Photosync) and copy files with iTunes since iCloud Drive (on Windows) kept breaking and also ballooning it’s logs to absurd sizes. So I’m just paying for cloud backups and message storage.
Anyone able to read the article without logging in?