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It's quite easy to extrapolate this and in a few steps end up in a boring dystopia. First it's iPhone photos, then it's all iCloud files, that spills into Macs

It's quite easy to extrapolate this and in a few steps end up in a boring dystopia. First it's iPhone photos, then it's all iCloud files, that spills into Macs using iCloud, then it's client side reporting of local Mac files, and somewhere along all other Apple hardware I've filled my home with have received equivalent updates and are phoning home to verify that I don't have files or whatever data they can see or hear that some unknown authority has decided should be reported. What is the utopian perspective of this which counterbalances the risks for this to be a path worth taking?

Santosh83 5y ago
> What is the utopian perspective of this which counterbalances the risks for this to be a path worth taking? Apple takes care of everything for you, and they have your best interests at heart. You will be safe, secure, private and seamlessly integrated with your beautiful devices, so you can more efficiently consume. What's not to like about a world where child crime, terrorism, abuse, radical/harmful content and misinformation can be spotted in inception and at the source and effectively quarantined?
- SilverRed 5y ago
  No one here has a problem with the worst criminals being taken out. The problem is the scope creep that always comes after. In 2021 and 2020 we saw people being arrested for planning/promoting anti lockdown protests. Not for actually participating but for simply posting about it. The scope of what "harmful content" is is infinite. You might agree that police do need to take action against these people but surely you can see how the scope creeped from literal terrorists and pedophiles to edgy facebook mums and how that could move even further to simple criticisms of the government or religion. It's difficult to say how we draw the line to make sure horrible crimes go punished while still protecting reasonable privacy and freedom. I'm guessing apples justification here is that they are not sending your photos to police but simply checking them against known bad hashes and if you are not a pedophile, there will be no matches and none of your data will have been exposed.
  - endgame 5y ago
    We also saw the police query "check-in" databases which were pitched to the public as "for contact-tracing purposes only". Scope creep is inevitable.
    - sharken 5y ago
      Do you have sources for this ?
      - sdoering 5y ago
        See my answer to your sister comment from @optimiz3 In Germany police requested contact tracing lists from restaurants in investigations.
        sharken 5y ago
        Thank you, it clearly shows that the German government cannot be trusted to do the right thing. And the underlying desire for having this information will no doubt prolong the Corona restrictions longer than necessary, which is certainly not in the interest of German citizens.
        antpol 5y ago
        > German government cannot be trusted to do the right thing Oh dear, one thing we could definitely state that German government is absolutely could be trusted to do the right thing
      - endgame 5y ago
        Australia, WA, check-in data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-15/safewa-app-sparks-urgent-law-change-after-police-access-data/100201340 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-15/safewa-app-sparks-urg... Australia, WA, border pass data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-17/g2g-app-data-accessed-for-investigations-as-well-wa-police-admit/100222804 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-17/g2g-app-data-accessed... Australia, VIC, check-in data: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/police-sought-access-to-qr-check-in-data-intended-for-contact-tracing-20210621-p582x4.html https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/police-sought-ac... Australia, QLD, check-in data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-29/queensland-coronavirus-check-in-app-police-data-search/100249624 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-29/queensland-coronaviru...
- GaryTang 5y ago
  Who will be accountable for the creeps at apple? Or their overlords in the government?
sergiomattei 5y ago
I mean, Apple isn't too far from the Mac thing you mention. Since Catalina running an executable on macOS phones home and checks for valid signatures on their servers.
- quenix 5y ago
  No, this is entirely different.
ChrisKnott 5y ago
> "What is the utopian perspective of this which counterbalances the risks for this to be a path worth taking?" Basically victims of rape don't want imagery of their rape freely distributed as pornography. They consider that a violation of their rights. It's interesting how many users in this thread are instinctively siding with the offenders in this, and not the victims. Presumably because they made it through their own childhoods without having imagery of their own abuse shared online.
- switch007 5y ago
  > It's interesting how many users in this thread are instinctively siding with the offenders in this, and not the victims. That is infantile. Painting people advocating privacy as siding with offenders is highly insulting.
  - ChrisKnott 5y ago
    This is a situation where different people's privacy is in conflict. What's infantile is claiming sole ownership of privacy advocacy while so-whating the worst privacy violation imaginable, from the victims' perspective.
    - neolog 5y ago
      That's an interesting point. However, I'm not sure victim privacy is the reason for CSAM regulations. Rather, it's reducing the creation of CSAM by discouraging its exchange. For example, suppose instead of deleting/reporting the images, Apple would detect and modify the images with Deepfake so the victim is no longer identifiable. That would protect the victim's privacy but wouldn't reduce the creation or exchange. The fact that such a proposal is ridiculous suggests that privacy isn't the reason for regulation and that reducing creation and exchange is.
      - bostik 5y ago
        There is an utterly perverse incentive to consider as well. If the median shelf-life of abuse evidence is shortened, in that the item in question can no longer be forwarded/viewed/stored/..., what does that imply in a world where the demand remains relatively stable? I despise the abusers for what they do, and the ecosystem they enable. But I also remember first having this argument more than ten years ago. If you, as a member of law enforcement or a child wellbeing charity, only flag the awful content but do not do anything else about it, you are - in my mind - guilty of criminal neglect. The ability to add an entry to a database is nothing more than going, "at least nobody else will see that in the future". That does NOTHING to prevent the creation of more such material, and thus implicitly endorses the ongoing abuse and crimes against children. Every one of these images and videos is a piece of evidence. Of a horrifying crime committed against a child or children.
feanaro 5y ago
> It's quite easy to extrapolate this and in a few steps end up in a boring dystopia. It's only boring until we get another Hitler or equivalent.
raxxorrax 5y ago
> What is the utopian perspective of this You will make Apple tons of money.

Santosh83 5y ago

> What is the utopian perspective of this which counterbalances the risks for this to be a path worth taking? Apple takes care of everything for you, and they have your best interests at heart. You will be safe, secure, private and seamlessly integrated with your beautiful devices, so you can more efficiently consume. What's not to like about a world where child crime, terrorism, abuse, radical/harmful content and misinformation can be spotted in inception and at the source and effectively quarantined?

SilverRed 5y ago
No one here has a problem with the worst criminals being taken out. The problem is the scope creep that always comes after. In 2021 and 2020 we saw people being arrested for planning/promoting anti lockdown protests. Not for actually participating but for simply posting about it. The scope of what "harmful content" is is infinite. You might agree that police do need to take action against these people but surely you can see how the scope creeped from literal terrorists and pedophiles to edgy facebook mums and how that could move even further to simple criticisms of the government or religion. It's difficult to say how we draw the line to make sure horrible crimes go punished while still protecting reasonable privacy and freedom. I'm guessing apples justification here is that they are not sending your photos to police but simply checking them against known bad hashes and if you are not a pedophile, there will be no matches and none of your data will have been exposed.
- endgame 5y ago
  We also saw the police query "check-in" databases which were pitched to the public as "for contact-tracing purposes only". Scope creep is inevitable.
  - sharken 5y ago
    Do you have sources for this ?
    - sdoering 5y ago
      See my answer to your sister comment from @optimiz3 In Germany police requested contact tracing lists from restaurants in investigations.
      - sharken 5y ago
        Thank you, it clearly shows that the German government cannot be trusted to do the right thing. And the underlying desire for having this information will no doubt prolong the Corona restrictions longer than necessary, which is certainly not in the interest of German citizens.
        antpol 5y ago
        > German government cannot be trusted to do the right thing Oh dear, one thing we could definitely state that German government is absolutely could be trusted to do the right thing
    - endgame 5y ago
      Australia, WA, check-in data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-15/safewa-app-sparks-urgent-law-change-after-police-access-data/100201340 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-15/safewa-app-sparks-urg... Australia, WA, border pass data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-17/g2g-app-data-accessed-for-investigations-as-well-wa-police-admit/100222804 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-17/g2g-app-data-accessed... Australia, VIC, check-in data: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/police-sought-access-to-qr-check-in-data-intended-for-contact-tracing-20210621-p582x4.html https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/police-sought-ac... Australia, QLD, check-in data: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-29/queensland-coronavirus-check-in-app-police-data-search/100249624 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-29/queensland-coronaviru...
GaryTang 5y ago
Who will be accountable for the creeps at apple? Or their overlords in the government?

sergiomattei 5y ago

I mean, Apple isn't too far from the Mac thing you mention. Since Catalina running an executable on macOS phones home and checks for valid signatures on their servers.

quenix 5y ago
No, this is entirely different.

ChrisKnott 5y ago

> "What is the utopian perspective of this which counterbalances the risks for this to be a path worth taking?" Basically victims of rape don't want imagery of their rape freely distributed as pornography. They consider that a violation of their rights. It's interesting how many users in this thread are instinctively siding with the offenders in this, and not the victims. Presumably because they made it through their own childhoods without having imagery of their own abuse shared online.

switch007 5y ago
> It's interesting how many users in this thread are instinctively siding with the offenders in this, and not the victims. That is infantile. Painting people advocating privacy as siding with offenders is highly insulting.
- ChrisKnott 5y ago
  This is a situation where different people's privacy is in conflict. What's infantile is claiming sole ownership of privacy advocacy while so-whating the worst privacy violation imaginable, from the victims' perspective.
  - neolog 5y ago
    That's an interesting point. However, I'm not sure victim privacy is the reason for CSAM regulations. Rather, it's reducing the creation of CSAM by discouraging its exchange. For example, suppose instead of deleting/reporting the images, Apple would detect and modify the images with Deepfake so the victim is no longer identifiable. That would protect the victim's privacy but wouldn't reduce the creation or exchange. The fact that such a proposal is ridiculous suggests that privacy isn't the reason for regulation and that reducing creation and exchange is.
    - bostik 5y ago
      There is an utterly perverse incentive to consider as well. If the median shelf-life of abuse evidence is shortened, in that the item in question can no longer be forwarded/viewed/stored/..., what does that imply in a world where the demand remains relatively stable? I despise the abusers for what they do, and the ecosystem they enable. But I also remember first having this argument more than ten years ago. If you, as a member of law enforcement or a child wellbeing charity, only flag the awful content but do not do anything else about it, you are - in my mind - guilty of criminal neglect. The ability to add an entry to a database is nothing more than going, "at least nobody else will see that in the future". That does NOTHING to prevent the creation of more such material, and thus implicitly endorses the ongoing abuse and crimes against children. Every one of these images and videos is a piece of evidence. Of a horrifying crime committed against a child or children.

feanaro 5y ago

> It's quite easy to extrapolate this and in a few steps end up in a boring dystopia. It's only boring until we get another Hitler or equivalent.

raxxorrax 5y ago

> What is the utopian perspective of this You will make Apple tons of money.