5 ms·

I think one of the problems here is a reality and perception don't align: - Apple has over a billion devices out there. - Child abuse is a rare problem, but w

by wegs 5y ago

I think one of the problems here is a reality and perception don't align: - Apple has over a billion devices out there. - Child abuse is a rare problem, but with over a billion devices, there will be enough of it for a lot of newsworthy stories. - Child pornography takes just one abused child for an arbitrary number of viewers. Arguably, by the time you're limiting the number of viewers, most of the harm has been done. On the whole, I'm not quite sure how the Apple plan will protect actual children from rape (except to somewhat reduce the secondary harm of distribution). I can clearly see how it will protect Apple from bad press, though -- people won't use iPhones to record that. On the other hand, an investment in education, health care, reporting, and enforcement could significantly reduce the amount of child abuse, but with 7 billion people in the world, no expense would bring it to zero. So long as it's not zero, the potential for bad press is there. Indeed, usually if something happens a few times per year, it receives more bad press than if it happens a few times per day. Apple has every incentive to be (1) seen as doing something (2) do things which protect its brand value. Apple has no incentive to invest in education, health care, reporting, and enforcement. Those seem like good things to do, but if anything, if a scandal comes up, those sorts of things are used to say "See, Apple new, and was trying to buy an out." As a footnote, if we value all children equally, a lot of this is super-cheap. This is a good movie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_into_Brothels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_into_Brothels And the problem it portrays could probably be solved with the same finances as the salaries of a few Apple engineers, and a focused, targeted effort to identify child prostitutes, help their families with the economics which force those kids to become child prostitutes, and get those kids into schools instead. I'm guessing the $100k raised from this film will do more to protect kids than this whole Apple initiative will do.

throwavocado 5y ago
> On the whole, I'm not quite sure how the Apple plan will protect actual children from rape (except to somewhat reduce the secondary harm of distribution). You bring up the distinction between "possession offenses" (i.e., a person who has CSAM content) and "hands-on offenses" (i.e., a person who abuses children and possibly, but not necessarily, produces CSAM). Detecting possession offenses (as Apple's sytem does) has the second-order effect of finding hands-on offenders because hands-on offenders tend to also collect CSAM and form large libraries of it. So finding a CSAM collection is the best way to find a hands-on offender and stop their abuse. Ideally, victims would always disclose their abuse so that the traditional investigatory process could handle it -- but child sexual abuse is special in that offenders are skilled in manipulating children and families in order to avoid detection. I think that the case of USA v. Rosenchein [0] is a good example because it shows the ins and outs of how the company->NCMEC->law enforcement system tends to work and how it leads to hands-on offenders. It's higher profile than most, perhaps because the defendant (a surgeon), seems to have plenty of resources for fighting the conviction on constitutional grounds (as opposed to actually claiming innocence). But the mechanism leading to the prosecution is by no means exceptional. Caveat: Not a lawyer. [0] https://www.anylaw.com/case/usa-v-rosenchein/d-new-mexico/11-11-2020/U23IwXUBvjaUG3Ruy4-x https://www.anylaw.com/case/usa-v-rosenchein/d-new-mexico/11...
- browningstreet 5y ago
  We already live in a police state. The federal, state and local infrastructure and resources are mind bogglingly massive. They have laws granting them near carte blanche rights and actions. We are citizens of our country and we deserve a dignified existence. We are supposed to have rights, and they're being worn away, formally and informally, by our governments and megacorps acting like NGOs. I'm sympathetic to the overwhelming horrors of drunks, drunk driving, violent actors, child abuse, child porn, economic crimes, etc. I've done my calculus, and I got my vaccine and I wear my mask in the current circumstances of our pandemic. But in a similar calculus, what Apple has planned to subject a huge portion of our population to, by din of their marketshare in mobile and messaging. I personally can't accept the forces at play in this Apple decision, and I'm continually baffled by those who think this is overblown.
  - frickinLasers 5y ago
    I'd like to subscribe to your blog. So what's next? There might be some time left to secure our rights on Mars...
    - jodrellblank 5y ago
      Have you imagined what a near-future Mars colony will be like? You can't live on the surface, so it will be as high-tech and enclosed and cramped as a space station; an air-tight pressure vessel with no escape. It will have limited energy and resources so there will likely be rationing. It will be vulnerable to any pressure breach or loss of power, so can take no risks with mechanical failure, bad actors, disease spread, etc. so it will likely be sensored and surveilled all over. It will likely be funded in large part or entirely by private investors. Musk has estimated $500k for a ticket to go there and people have estimated $3Bn/year for 30 years to keep a base running with no economic return from that. No government, no police, no Wild West "run them out of town" option. You think they're going to want to spend $500,000 return flight cost to send potential criminals away or just "let them be" in an environment like that? The idea that you might be able to go there and "demand your freedom" without being a billionaire owner of the colony is ill-thought-out. Subjects will have no leverage and no options, and leaders will have billions sunk into it and demand obedience like a Navy Submarine.
themaninthedark 5y ago
Ford has a large number of cars out there - Drunk driving is a rare problem but with a large number of cars there will be enough cases for there to be newsworthy stories. -Drunk driving just takes one driver to create an arbitrary number of deaths. We would not accept having breathalyzers in every car. Or to bring it closer to the child abuse problem: Would we accept cameras that take pictures of the occupants of the car to make sure that the minors in the care are not being trafficked?
- frickinLasers 5y ago
  > We would not accept having breathalyzers in every car. lol, that's not up to us. It's in the infrastructure bill. https://www.mediaite.com/news/infrastructure-bill-could-require-auto-manufacturers-to-install-breathalyzers-in-future-cars/ https://www.mediaite.com/news/infrastructure-bill-could-requ...
  - themaninthedark 5y ago
    Oh for fucks sake. "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." - George Orwell How long until general computing is given up due to hackers and piracy ala The right to read(https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html)?
  - DeadlockAsync 5y ago
    There's a stipulation just above that portion of the bill where the Secretary of Transportation can determine that it is not possible to 'passively' determine if a driver is impaired and decline that rule so long as they issue a report to congress as to why.
    - frickinLasers 5y ago
      And I trust Buttigieg to give the issue a solid looking over, but aren't breathalyzers pretty well established as a positive indicator of driver impairment? Though requiring the driver to blow into a straw doesn't seem particularly "passive"--whatever that means.
ummonk 5y ago
> Child pornography takes just one abused child for an arbitrary number of viewers. This is the thing that privacy advocates seem to ignore. Measures taken to reduce child abuse won’t reduce the circulation of whatever CASM does get created. Some even seem to think, a la the ACLU, that viewing child abuse material is a victimless crime, and only the creators of the CASM should be punished.

by wegs 5y ago

throwavocado 5y ago

> On the whole, I'm not quite sure how the Apple plan will protect actual children from rape (except to somewhat reduce the secondary harm of distribution). You bring up the distinction between "possession offenses" (i.e., a person who has CSAM content) and "hands-on offenses" (i.e., a person who abuses children and possibly, but not necessarily, produces CSAM). Detecting possession offenses (as Apple's sytem does) has the second-order effect of finding hands-on offenders because hands-on offenders tend to also collect CSAM and form large libraries of it. So finding a CSAM collection is the best way to find a hands-on offender and stop their abuse. Ideally, victims would always disclose their abuse so that the traditional investigatory process could handle it -- but child sexual abuse is special in that offenders are skilled in manipulating children and families in order to avoid detection. I think that the case of USA v. Rosenchein [0] is a good example because it shows the ins and outs of how the company->NCMEC->law enforcement system tends to work and how it leads to hands-on offenders. It's higher profile than most, perhaps because the defendant (a surgeon), seems to have plenty of resources for fighting the conviction on constitutional grounds (as opposed to actually claiming innocence). But the mechanism leading to the prosecution is by no means exceptional. Caveat: Not a lawyer. [0] https://www.anylaw.com/case/usa-v-rosenchein/d-new-mexico/11-11-2020/U23IwXUBvjaUG3Ruy4-x https://www.anylaw.com/case/usa-v-rosenchein/d-new-mexico/11...

browningstreet 5y ago
We already live in a police state. The federal, state and local infrastructure and resources are mind bogglingly massive. They have laws granting them near carte blanche rights and actions. We are citizens of our country and we deserve a dignified existence. We are supposed to have rights, and they're being worn away, formally and informally, by our governments and megacorps acting like NGOs. I'm sympathetic to the overwhelming horrors of drunks, drunk driving, violent actors, child abuse, child porn, economic crimes, etc. I've done my calculus, and I got my vaccine and I wear my mask in the current circumstances of our pandemic. But in a similar calculus, what Apple has planned to subject a huge portion of our population to, by din of their marketshare in mobile and messaging. I personally can't accept the forces at play in this Apple decision, and I'm continually baffled by those who think this is overblown.
- frickinLasers 5y ago
  I'd like to subscribe to your blog. So what's next? There might be some time left to secure our rights on Mars...
  - jodrellblank 5y ago
    Have you imagined what a near-future Mars colony will be like? You can't live on the surface, so it will be as high-tech and enclosed and cramped as a space station; an air-tight pressure vessel with no escape. It will have limited energy and resources so there will likely be rationing. It will be vulnerable to any pressure breach or loss of power, so can take no risks with mechanical failure, bad actors, disease spread, etc. so it will likely be sensored and surveilled all over. It will likely be funded in large part or entirely by private investors. Musk has estimated $500k for a ticket to go there and people have estimated $3Bn/year for 30 years to keep a base running with no economic return from that. No government, no police, no Wild West "run them out of town" option. You think they're going to want to spend $500,000 return flight cost to send potential criminals away or just "let them be" in an environment like that? The idea that you might be able to go there and "demand your freedom" without being a billionaire owner of the colony is ill-thought-out. Subjects will have no leverage and no options, and leaders will have billions sunk into it and demand obedience like a Navy Submarine.

themaninthedark 5y ago

Ford has a large number of cars out there - Drunk driving is a rare problem but with a large number of cars there will be enough cases for there to be newsworthy stories. -Drunk driving just takes one driver to create an arbitrary number of deaths. We would not accept having breathalyzers in every car. Or to bring it closer to the child abuse problem: Would we accept cameras that take pictures of the occupants of the car to make sure that the minors in the care are not being trafficked?

frickinLasers 5y ago
> We would not accept having breathalyzers in every car. lol, that's not up to us. It's in the infrastructure bill. https://www.mediaite.com/news/infrastructure-bill-could-require-auto-manufacturers-to-install-breathalyzers-in-future-cars/ https://www.mediaite.com/news/infrastructure-bill-could-requ...
- themaninthedark 5y ago
  Oh for fucks sake. "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." - George Orwell How long until general computing is given up due to hackers and piracy ala The right to read(https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html)?
- DeadlockAsync 5y ago
  There's a stipulation just above that portion of the bill where the Secretary of Transportation can determine that it is not possible to 'passively' determine if a driver is impaired and decline that rule so long as they issue a report to congress as to why.
  - frickinLasers 5y ago
    And I trust Buttigieg to give the issue a solid looking over, but aren't breathalyzers pretty well established as a positive indicator of driver impairment? Though requiring the driver to blow into a straw doesn't seem particularly "passive"--whatever that means.

ummonk 5y ago

> Child pornography takes just one abused child for an arbitrary number of viewers. This is the thing that privacy advocates seem to ignore. Measures taken to reduce child abuse won’t reduce the circulation of whatever CASM does get created. Some even seem to think, a la the ACLU, that viewing child abuse material is a victimless crime, and only the creators of the CASM should be punished.