[HN Gopher] Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM... ___________________________________________________________________ Apple clarifies why it abandoned plan to detect CSAM in iCloud photos Author : Anonboxis Score : 98 points Date : 2023-09-01 10:23 UTC (12 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.wired.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com) | sneak wrote: | The vast majority (99%+) of iCloud Photos are not e2ee and are | readable to Apple. | | You can rest assured that they are scanning all of it serverside | for illegal images presently. | | The kerfuffle was around clientside scanning, something that it | has been reported that they dropped. I have thus far seen no | statements from Apple that they actually intended to stop the | deployment of clientside scanning. | | Serverside scanning has been possible (and likely) for a long | time, which illuminates their "slippery slope" argument as farce | (unless they intend to force migrate everyone to e2ee storage in | the future). | h1fra wrote: | Where do you get this number? | sneak wrote: | e2ee for iCloud is currently opt-in, without prompts/nudging. | Most power users don't even have it turned on or are aware of | its existence. The setting is buried/hidden in submenus. | | Approximately no one uses it. | | Hopefully Apple will begin promoting users to migrate in | future updates. | h1fra wrote: | Indeed. After looking at the documentation, photos are not | e2ee by default. | | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 | 0x000042 wrote: | > The setting is buried/hidden in submenus. | | Mind sharing where it is on an iPhone and Mac? I have not | been able to find it. | michaelt wrote: | It's called "Advanced Data Protection for iCloud" | | It's kinda complicated to turn on, as it disables most | account recovery options. | JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote: | It was announced some time ago, but remember that you | need modern devices on both sides to enable that feature. | smilespray wrote: | How to turn on Advanced Data Protection for iCloud | | https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212520 | Gigachad wrote: | It only just came out this year and it comes with some | pretty serious UX issues around potentially getting locked | out of your data. | maxhille wrote: | Apple has full control over their customers devices, so they | can access all encryption keys and device local files anyway. | That e2ee setting seems pretty pointless to me... | kylehotchkiss wrote: | You can enable device wipe after 10 wrong passcodes, and E2EE | gives Apple pretty broad cover to deny government requests to | your data. The appeal to that for me isn't US government (who | have easy access to everything else about you), but other | governments around the world with worse human rights records. | It's terrifying that while traveling a policeman could make | up something and get details about your home life they aren't | entitled to. | Simulacra wrote: | I haven't forgot about the guy that sent photos of his child to | his doctor and was investigated for child pornography. With these | systems, in my humble opinion, you are just one innocent photo at | the beach away from your life turned upside down. | tjpnz wrote: | And Google to this day refuse to admit the mistake. They've | even gone as far as to insinuate that he still is a pedo | despite a police investigation clearing him. | tabeth wrote: | I'm not sure I understand Apple's logic here. Are iCloud Photos | in their data centers not scanned? Isn't everything by default | for iCloud users sent there automatically to begin with? Doesn't | the same logic around slippery slope also apply to cloud scans? | | This is not to say they should scan locally, but my understanding | of CSAM was that it would only be scanned on its way to the cloud | anyways, so users who didn't use iCloud would've never been | scanned to begin with. | | Their new proposed set of tools seems like a good enough | compromise from the original proposal in any case. | Moldoteck wrote: | so users who didn't use iCloud would've never been scanned to | begin with. - so why not implement csam for icloud only without | local scanning? | Gigachad wrote: | Because the idea is that the iCloud data would be encrypted | so their servers couldn't scan it. With the plan being they | would do on device scanning of photos that were marked as | being stored on iCloud. | | It's objectively better than what google does but I'm glad we | somehow ended up with no scanning at all. | Moldoteck wrote: | that sounds strange, I mean i'm not sure what's the big | difference. If data is scanned on icloud, this means it's | not encrypted, got it, if scanned on devices, data is fully | encrypted on icloud, but apple has access by scanning it on | devices and can send unencrypted matches, so it behaves as | an unencrypted system, that can be altered at apple's will, | just like icloud... but still, why scanning locally only if | icloud is enabled? why not scan regardless? Since policy is | meant to 'catch bad ppl', why limit to icloud option and | not scan all the time | matwood wrote: | You are correct, the original method would only have scanned | items destined to iCloud and only transmitted some hash of | matching hashes. And yes, similar slippery arguments exist with | any providers that store images unencrypted. They are all | scanned today, and we have no idea what they are matched | against. | | I speculated (and now we know) when this new scanning | announced, that it was in preparation for full E2EE. Apple came | up with a privacy preserving method of trying to keep CSAM off | their servers while also giving E2EE. | | The larger community arguments swayed Apple from going forward | with their new detection method, but did not stop them from | moving forward with E2EE. At the end of the day they put the | responsibility back on governments to pass laws around | encryption - where they should be, though we may not like the | outcome. | theshrike79 wrote: | In my opinion their goal was to get stuff to a state where they | could encrypt everything on iCloud so that even they can't | access it. | | To counter the "think of the children" -argument governments | use to justify surveillance, Apple tried scanning stuff on- | device but the internet got a collective hissy-fit of | intentionally misunderstanding the feature and it was quickly | scrapped. | Shank wrote: | > In my opinion their goal was to get stuff to a state where | they could encrypt everything on iCloud so that even they | can't access it. | | They basically did. If you turn on Advanced Data Protection, | you get all of the encryption benefits, sans scanning. The | interesting thing is that if you turn on ADP though, binary | file hashes are unencrypted on iCloud, which would | theoretically allow someone to ask for those hashes in a | legal request. But it's obviously not as useful for CSAM | detection, as, say, PhotoDNA hashes. See: | https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303 | bryan_w wrote: | > so that even they can't access it. | | > scanning stuff on-device | | What do you think they were going to do once the scanning | turned up a hit? Access the photos? Well that negates the | first statement. | theshrike79 wrote: | Who is this "they" who will access the photos on-device? | turquoisevar wrote: | > Are iCloud Photos in their data centers not scanned? | | No outright statement confirming or denying this has ever made | to my knowledge, but the implication, based both on Apple's | statements and the statement of stakeholders, is that this | isn't currently the case. | | This might come as a surprise to some, because many companies | scan for CSAM, but that's done voluntarily because the | government can't force companies to scan for CSAM. | | This is because based on case law, companies forced to scan for | CSAM would be considered deputized and thus subsequently it | would be a breach of the 4th amendments safeguards against | "unreasonable search and seizure". | | The best the government can do is to force companies to report | "apparent violations" of CSAM laws, this seems like a | distinction without a difference, but the difference is between | required to actively search for it (and thus becoming | deputized) v. reporting when you come across it. | | Even then, the reporting requirement is constructed in such a | way as to avoid any possible 4th amendment issues. Companies | aren't required to report it to the DOJ, but rather to the | NCMEC. | | The NCMEC is a semi-government organization, autonomous from | the DOJ, albeit almost wholly funded by the DOJ, and they are | the ones that subsequently report CSAM violations to the DOJ. | | The NCMEC is also the organization that maintains the CSAM | database and provides the hashes that companies, who | voluntarily scan for CSAM, use. | | This construction has proven to be pretty solid against 4th | amendment concerns, as courts have historically found that this | separation between companies and the DOJ and the fact that only | confirmed CSAM making its way to the DOJ after review by the | NCMEC, creates enough of a distance between the DOJ and the act | of searching through a person's data, that there aren't any 4th | amendment concerns. | | The Congressional Research Service did a write up on this last | year for the ones that are interested in it[0]. | | Circling back to Apple, as it stands there's nothing indicating | that they already scan for CSAM server-side and most comments | both by Apple and child safety organizations seem to imply that | this in fact is currently not happening. | | Apple's main concerns however, as stated in the letter by | Apple, echo the same concerns by security experts back when | this was being discussed. Namely that it creates a target for | malicious actors, that it is technically not feasible to create | a system that can never be reconfigured to scan for non-CSAM | material and that governments could pressure/regulate it to | reconfigure it for other materials as well (and place a gag | order on them, prohibiting them to inform users of this). | | At the time, some of these arguments were brushed off as | slippery slope FUD, and then the UK started considering | something that would defy the limits of even the most cynical | security researcher's nightmare, namely a de facto ban on | security updates if it just so happens that the UK's | intelligence services and law enforcement services are | currently exploiting the security flaw that the update aims to | patch. | | Which is what Apple references in their response. | | 0: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10713 | no_time wrote: | > I'm not sure I understand apples logic here. Are iCloud | Photos in their data centers not scanned? Isn't everything by | default for iCloud users sent there automatically to begin | with? Doesn't the same logic around slippery slope also apply | to cloud scans? | | I don't see the problem with this status quo. There is a clear | demarcation between my device and their server. Each serving | the interests of their owner. If I have a problem with their | policy, I can choose not to entrust my data to them. And | luckily, the data storage space has heaps of competitive | options. | beej71 wrote: | I think they likely also considered the lawsuit exposure. If just | 0.0001% of users sued over false positives, Apple would be in | serious trouble. | | And there's another dynamic where telling your customers you're | going to scan their content for child porn is the same as saying | you suspect your customers of having child porn. And your average | non-criminal customer's reaction to that is not positive for | multiple reasons. | neonate wrote: | http://web.archive.org/web/20230901190025/https://www.wired.... | | https://archive.ph/HZVdd | gruturo wrote: | > "Scanning every user's privately stored iCloud data would | create new threat vectors for data thieves to find and exploit" | | > "It would also inject the potential for a slippery slope of | unintended consequences. Scanning for one type of content, for | instance, opens the door for bulk surveillance and could create a | desire to search other encrypted messaging systems across content | types." | | Yes, and it was patently obvious from the onset. Why did it take | a massive public backlash to actually reason about this? Can we | get a promise that future initiatives will be evaluated a bit | more critically before crap like this bubbles to the top again? | Come on you DO hire bright people, what's your actual problem | here? | jmyeet wrote: | Part of the reason why this was (and is) a terrible idea is how | these companies operate and the cost and stigma of a false | negative. | | Companies don't want to employ people. People are annoying. They | make annoying demands like wanting time off and having enough | money to not be homeless or starving. AI should be a tool that | enhances the productivity of a worker rather than replacing them. | | Fully automated "safety" systems _always_ get weaponized. This is | really apparent on Tiktok where reporting users you don 't like | is clearly brigaded becasue a certain number of reports in a | given period triggers automatic takedowns and bans regardless of | assurances there is human review (there isn't). It's so | incredibly obvious when you see a duet with a threatening video | gets taken down while the original video doesn't (with reports | showing "No violation"). | | Additionally, companies like to just ban your account with | absolutely no explanation, accountability, right to review or | right to appeal. Again, all those things would require employing | people. | | False positives can be incredibly damaging. Not only could this | result in your account being banned (possibly with the loss of | all your photos on something like iCloud/iPhotos) but it may get | you in trouble with law enforcement. | | Don't believe me? Hertz was falsely reported their cars being | stolen [1], which created massive problems for those affected. In | a better world, Hertz executives would be in prison for making | false police reports (which, for you and me, is a crime) but that | will never happen to executives. | | It still requires human review to identify offending content. | Mass shootings have been live streamed. No automatic system is | going to be able to accurately differentiate between this and, | say, a movie scene. I guarantee you any automated system will | have similar problems differentiating between actual CSAM and, | say, a child in the bath or at the beach. | | These companies don't want to solve these problems. They simply | want legal and PR cover for appearing to solve them, consequences | be damned. | | [1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/06/1140998674/hertz-false- | accusa... | [deleted] | menzoic wrote: | Pretty ridiculous idea. Bad actors simply won't use their | platform if this was in place. It would only be scanning private | data from all people who aren't comitting crimes. | stuartjohnson12 wrote: | You'd be surprised. Lots of offenders are very low | sophistication. If you read news articles about how a | particular offender was caught with illegal material, so so | often it's because they uploaded it to a cloud provider. It's | not a one-sided tradeoff here. | akira2501 wrote: | What percentage of offenders victimize children and never | record it in any way? If that's the overwhelming majority of | abuse cases, what are we even doing here? | [deleted] | [deleted] | [deleted] | formerly_proven wrote: | The who is often interesting with these stories. | | > a new child safety group known as Heat Initiative | | Doesn't even have a website or any kind of social media presence; | it literally doesn't appear to exist apart from the reporting on | Apple's response to them, which is entirely based on Apple | sharing their response with media, not the group interacting with | media. | | > Sarah Gardner | | on the other hand previously appeared as the VP of External | Affairs (i.e. Marketing) of Thorn (formerly DNA Foundation): | https://www.thorn.org/blog/searching-for-a-child-in-a-privat... | | So despite looking a bit fishy at first, this doesn't seem to | come from a christofascist group. | figlett wrote: | > So despite looking a bit fishy at first, this doesn't seem to | come from a christofascist group. | | Why would you assume this in the first place? | bsenftner wrote: | They use hysteria to generate power in society. | krapp wrote: | The main impetus behind "child safety" advocacy nowadays seem | to be by cells of extremist right-wing Christian / QAnon | types who believe in conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and | the "gay groomer" panic. It's a reasonable assumption to make | about any such group mentioned in the media that doesn't have | an established history at least prior to 2016. | figlett wrote: | It sounds like an entirely unreasonable assumption to me. | Advocating for child safety is something that transcends | political differences, and generally unifies people across | the political spectrum. | | I mean, there aren't many people who want paedophiles to be | able to amass huge collections of child abuse imagery from | other paedophiles online. And pretty much every parent | wants their child to be kept safe from predators both | online and offline. | krapp wrote: | I didn't claim otherwise. The fact remains that a | specific subset of a specific political party has been | using "advocating for child safety" as a pretext to | accelerate fear of and harassment against the LGBT | community and "the left" in general for years now, and | they put a lot of effort into appearing legitimate. | | And yes, because their politics are becoming normalized | within American culture, it is necessary to be skeptical | about references to any such group. Assuming good faith | is a rule on HN but elsewhere, where bad faith is what | gets visibility, it's naive. | figlett wrote: | Well, paedophiles hijacking leftist movements for their | own ends is a known problem, it's happened before and it | will happen again. One particularly infamous instance | occurred in the UK back in the 1970s: | | https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/02/how- | paedoph... | | So if there are indeed some right-wing groups talking | about this, maybe it's best not to brush off their claims | without some scrutiny first. And I say this as someone | who mostly agrees with the left on most things. | | Anyway I don't think that any of this has much to do with | Apple being asked to implement specific technical | measures for detecting child abuse imagery. | formerly_proven wrote: | > So if there are indeed some right-wing groups talking | about this, maybe it's best not to brush off their claims | without some scrutiny first. And I say this as someone | who mostly agrees with the left on most things. | | Figlet indeed. | | > figlett 5 months ago [flagged] [dead] | parent | | context | prev [-] | on: Florida courts could take | 'emergency' custody of k... | | > This is excellent news for children at risk of being | abused by militant transgenders and the medical | establishment who are enabling them. Thank you Florida | for trying to put an end to this menace. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35029166 | figlett wrote: | Exactly, this is one area where the political left, | particularly in the US, are failing terribly on child | safety. | | I'm in the UK and we're doing better here though, the | main left-wing party is backing away from the particular | ideology that has enabled this. I was going to vote for | them anyway as we desperately need our public services to | be restored and welfare for those less fortunate in | society to be improved, but I'm pleased they're moving | towards a sensible, harm-reducing stance on this issue | rather than assuming everything the gender activists say | is reasonable. | passwordoops wrote: | [flagged] | PrimeMcFly wrote: | [flagged] | tomjen3 wrote: | Because when they couldn't win the war on porn, some right | Christians decided to cloak their attack in "concerns" of | "abuse". See project Excedus. Of course it has nothing to do | with abuse and everything to do with their attempts to keep | people from seeing pixels of other people having sex. | Backpage was shut down despite being good at removing | underage and trafficed women - which meant that sex workers | had to find other places that didn't have nearly as good | protections. | | So yeah. When these things pop up I assume malicious intent. | figlett wrote: | But being critical of pornography and considering it to be | abuse isn't a view limited to right-wing Christians. For | example, here's what Noam Chomsky has to say about it: | | > _Pornography is humiliation and degradation of women. It | 's a disgraceful activity. I don't want to be associated | with it. Just take a look at the pictures. I mean, women | are degraded as vulgar sex objects. That's not what human | beings are. I don't even see anything to discuss._ | | > Interviewer: But didn't performers choose to do the job | and get paid? | | > _The fact that people agree to it and are paid, is about | as convincing as the fact that we should be in favour of | sweatshops in China, where women are locked into a factory | and work fifteen hours a day, and then the factory burns | down and they all die. Yeah, they were paid and they | consented, but it doesn 't make me in favour of it, so that | argument we can't even talk about._ | | > _As for the fact that it 's some people's erotica, well | you know that's their problem, doesn't mean I have to | contribute to it. If they get enjoyment out of humiliation | of women, they have a problem, but it's nothing I want to | contribute to._ | | > Interviewer: How should we improve the production | conditions of pornography? | | > _By eliminating degradation of women, that would improve | it. Just like child abuse, you don 't want to make it | better child abuse, you want to stop child abuse._ | | > _Suppose there 's a starving child in the slums, and you | say "well, I'll give you food if you'll let me abuse you." | Suppose - well, there happen to be laws against child | abuse, fortunately - but suppose someone were to give you | an argument. Well, you know, after all a child's starving | otherwise, so you're taking away their chance to get some | food if you ban abuse. I mean, is that an argument?_ | | > _The answer to that is stop the conditions in which the | child is starving, and the same is true here. Eliminate the | conditions in which women can 't get decent jobs, not | permit abusive and destructive behaviour._ | | (Source of the above is this interview: | https://youtube.com/watch?v=SNlRoaFTHuE) | baz00 wrote: | It's nice that Apple have clarified this. I think that the | original intent was a misstep and possibly an internal political | situation that they had to deal with. I can see that a number of | people would be on each side of the debate with advocacy | throughout the org. | | There is only one correct answer though and that is what they | have clarified. | | I would immediately leave the platform if they progressed with | this. | gnfargbl wrote: | _> "Scanning every user's privately stored iCloud data would | create new threat vectors for data thieves to find and exploit, " | Neuenschwander wrote. "It would also inject the potential for a | slippery slope of unintended consequences. Scanning for one type | of content, for instance, opens the door for bulk surveillance | and could create a desire to search other encrypted messaging | systems across content types."_ | | Both of these arguments are absolutely, unambiguously, correct. | | The other side of the coin is that criminals are using E2EE | communication systems to share sexual abuse material in ways and | at rates which they were not previously able to. This is, I | argue, a bad thing. Is is bad for the individuals who are re- | victimised on every share. It is also bad for the fabric of | society at large, in the sense that if we don't clearly take a | stand against abhorrent behaviour then we are in some sense | condoning it. | | Does the tech industry have any alternate solutions that could | functionally mitigate this abuse? Does the industry feel that it | has any responsibility at all to do so? Or do we all just shout | "yay, individual freedom wins again!" and forget about the actual | problem that this (misguided) initiative was originally aimed at? | PrimeMcFly wrote: | It's an _incredibly_ bad thing. It 's also an incredibly poor | excuse to justify backdooring phones. | | Cops need to investigate the same way they always have, look | for clues, go undercover, infiltrate, find where this stuff is | actually being made, etc. | | Scanning everyone's phones would make their jobs significantly | easier, no doubt, but it simply isn't worth the cost to us as a | society and there is simply no good counter-argument to that. | [deleted] | rob74 wrote: | If CSAM was still done the way it "always has been", then | "cops" relying on the methods they always had would be a | valid answer. But since tech has enabled the distribution of | CSAM at unprecedented scales, I think the requests by law | enforcement to also make their job a bit easier have some | merit... | danaris wrote: | The technology has changed distribution, yes. | | It hasn't particularly changed production, which is where | the actual abuse happens. There are still _actual_ people | abusing and filming _actual_ children, and those can be | found by the police by the same old-fashioned methods they | 've always had available. (Plus many new ones that _don 't_ | violate everyone's civil liberties or destroy the security | of every networked device.) | PrimeMcFly wrote: | I don't. | | They can find those materials the same way abusers work | their way into communities to have access to them in the | first place. | | The increased scale only means they need more people | working on it. | rob74 wrote: | More people. Paid from taxes. Ok, let's increase taxes! | Oh, wait... | PrimeMcFly wrote: | Well yes, let's absolutely increase taxes for the ultra- | wealthy why don't pay nearly enough. I don't see the | problem. | | That aside, we could also, at least in the US, stop | taking such a ridiculous stance against drugs and instead | prioritize finding makers of CSASM materials. | | The people are there, they are just not being utilized | effectively. | theshrike79 wrote: | Let's take a step back here and bring in some facts. | | "Apple" wasn't scanning your phone, neither was there a | "backdoor". | | If you would've had iCloud upload enabled (you'd be uploading | all your photos to Apple's server, a place where they could | scan ALL of your media anyway), the phone would've downloaded | a set of hashes of KNOWN and HUMAN VERIFIED photos and videos | of sexual abuse material. [1] | | After THREE matches of _known and checked_ CSAM, a check done | 100% on-device with zero data moving anywhere, a "reduced- | quality copy" would've been sent to a human for verification. | If it was someone sending you hashbombs of intentional false | matches or an innocuous pic that matched because some | mathematical anomaly, the actual human would notice this | instantly and no action would've been taken. | | ...but I still think I was the only HNer who actually read | Apple's spec and just didn't go with Twitter hot-takes, so | I'm fighting windmills over here. | | Yes, there is always the risk that an authoritarian | government could force Apple to insert checks for stuff other | than CSAM to the downloaded database. But the exact same risk | exists when you upload stuff to the cloud anyway and on an | even bigger scale. (see point above about local checks not | being enabled unless iCloud sync is enabled) | | [1] It wasn't an SHA-1 hash where changing a single bit in | the source would make the hash invalid, the people doing that | were actually competent. | PrimeMcFly wrote: | > "Apple" wasn't scanning your phone, neither was there a | "backdoor". | | Yes, you're right. But I've seen calls for phones to scan | all content before being uploaded or encrypted, and it | often feels, at least in some countries, that could still | plausible happen. I suppose that's what I had in mind when | I wrote my comment. | | > But the exact same risk exists when you upload stuff to | the cloud anyway and on an even bigger scale. | | There's a difference with them actively doing it and | announcing they are doing it, vs the possibility they are | doing it silently without consent. | taikahessu wrote: | You might've read the spec but you're missing the point and | your approach is naive. For me it's about crossing the | line. If you want to be snooping around my phone or my | house, you need a warrant and go to official channels | provides by my gov officials. And you really think it's as | simple as picking apples from oranges? I mean come on. Yes, | it's easy to implement hash check to see if u have some | known child porn in your cloud. But was that the use case | for the advocates? No. Their use case was to try finding | abuse and that would need a more thorough scanning. And | once we're there, we have to make hard decisions on what is | porn or abuse. If u think it's easy, then you need to it | through harder. Think of some picture from sauna where | there are naked family, might be harmful? But normal here | in Finland. What about a stick figure cartoon what depicts | a some shady sexual positions with a smaller child-like | figure in it? Or what about grooming, asking for naked | pics? How is this system going to prevent that? I mean, I | get why ppl would want something like this. But it isn't | the right solution imho. | Moldoteck wrote: | i thought they can't scan the media in icloud, since media | is encrypted, no? | | also: If it was someone sending you hashbombs of | intentional false matches or an innocuous pic that matched | because some mathematical anomaly, the actual human would | notice this instantly and no action would've been taken. - | if someone is doing this, imagine the scale- thousands of | pics that should be human-evaluated, scaled to thousands of | people, it'll be just plain ignored, meaning system loses | it's purpose. also, you say that it'll be enabled only if | icloud bck is enabled, but it's not guaranteed, this | assumption can later change... and it doesn't make sense, | for me your 2 statements contradict themselves: | | - if apple can scan your photos in icloud AND for this | feature to be enabled, you must enable icloud, why they | should send hashes to you? they can scan the photos anyway | in icloud, since all your photos are backed up there. | Unless... they can't scan photos in icloud since these are | encrypted, meaning scanning can be done only locally before | photos are sent, meaning icloud enabling is not mandatory | and it could work without it. | | Either way the csam scanning is imo pointless, on one hand | bc of privacy reasons(and we've seen that if state is able | to use a backdoor, it'll use it when needed) and on the | other hand, because of generative algorithms: photos can be | manipulated to trigger csam even if human eye can see | another thing (aka hashbomb) OR a sick/ill intentioned | person can generate a legit csam like photo just by using | target ppl's face(or description of their face), in this | case I don't even know if they are breaking the law or not, | since the image is totally generated but is looking totally | illegal | theshrike79 wrote: | You do know that we currently have "thousands of people" | watching for and tagging the most heinous shit people | upload to social media, right? There are multiple sources | for this how we use outsourced people from Africa and | Asia to weed through all of the filth people upload on FB | alone. | | "Looking illegal" isn't enough to trigger a CSAM check in | this case. It's perfectly normal to take pictures of your | own kids without clothes in most of Europe for example. | Nothing illegal. | | That's why the checks would've been explicitly done on | _known_ and confirmed CSAM images. It wasn 't some kind | of check_if_penis() -algorigthm, or one of the shitty | ones that trigger if there's too much (white) skin colour | in an image. | Moldoteck wrote: | Again, somebody can train an algorithm to create false | positives or real csam like pictures, like close enough | to trigger the check. Afaik csam is not about exact match | but rather close enough match based on a clever hashing | algorithm, and in this case, algorithm can be induced | into false positives(and by my limitet knowledge, hashing | can have collisions) or even true positives but that are | fully generated(and afaik generated images is not | illegal, but i guess it depends on country). | | Outsourcing work for this(afaik) isn't possible since | it's private data, not public and only specific | organisations can have full access to potential triggers | | But in the end it also doesn't matter because there are | other problems too, like how to make the final list | easily checkable so that we are sure governments/ | companies do not alter the list to target specific | ppl/groups for their own interest. Or how algorithm isn't | modified under the hood to check not just images but also | text/files | liveoneggs wrote: | How many times are you okay with having your own children taken | from you while the thought police make sure your latest family | beach vacation wasn't actually trafficking? | | How many times will actual abusers be allowed to go free while | your own family is victimized by the authorities and what ratio | do you find acceptable? | seanieb wrote: | We were not even at a point where that question needs to be | asked. | | Federal and state police, some of the best funded, equipped and | trained police in the world are so inundated with cases that | they are forced to limit their investigations to just toddlers | and babies. What use is it to add more and more cases to a | mountain of uninvestigated crimes? Whats needed is more police | clearing the existing caseload. | sebstefan wrote: | >Both of these arguments are absolutely, unambiguously, | correct. | | Oh, please. As if we couldn't just compare the hashes of the | pictures people are storing against a CSAM database of hashes | that gets regularly updated | | When this was proposed people would respond "But they could | just mirror the pictures or cut a pixel off!" | | Who cares? You got that picture from some place in the dark | web, and eventually someone will stumble upon it and add it to | the database. Unless the person individually edits the pictures | as they store them, that makes it so that you're never sure if | your hashes will posthumously start matching against the DB. | | People who wank off to CSAM have a user behavior similar to any | other porn user, they don't store 1 picture, they store dozens, | and just adding that step makes them likely to trip up, or | straight up just use another service altogether | | "What if there's a collision?" I don't know, go one step | further with hashing a specific part of the file and see if it | still matches? | | This whole thing felt like an overblown fearmongering campaign | from "freedom ain't free" individualists. I've never seen | anything wrong with content hosters using a simple hash against | you like this. | ksaj wrote: | The hashes can not have collisions anymore, because modern | forensics hash with _both_ md5 and sha512, and both hashes | must be together for use in any legal case. The odds of both | of them having a collision is big enough to flat out say it | 's not going to happen. | | But even if there was an md5 hash collision back when md5 was | the only one hash use, it still doesn't matter because upon | viewing the image that matched, if it's not csam, it doesn't | matter. Having said that, the chance of _dozens_ of images | matching hashes known to be associated to csam is also so | unlikely as to be unthinkable. Where there is smoke, there is | fire. | | And further, a hash alone is meaningless, since in court | there must be a presentation of evidence. If the image that | set off the csam alarm by hash collision is say, an | automobile, there is no case to be had. So all this talk | about hash issues is absolutely moot. | | Source: I have worked as an expert witness and presented for | cases involving csam (back when we called it Child | Pornography, because the CSAM moniker hadn't come about yet), | so the requirements are well known to me. | | Having said all that, I am an EFF member, and I prefer | cryptography to work, and spying on users to be illegal. | pseudalopex wrote: | Apple's system used a perceptual hash. Not cryptographic | hashes. The hash databases were not auditable and were | known to contain false positives. The threshold for viewing | reported matches was not auditable and could have been | changed at any time. I hope your expert testimony was more | careful. | draw_down wrote: | [dead] | danpalmer wrote: | [flagged] | draw_down wrote: | [dead] | danpalmer wrote: | I agree that those statements are correct, however my reading | of the proposed Apple implementation was that it struck a good | balance between maximising the ability to discover CSAM, | minimising the threat vectors, minimising false positives, and | minimising the possibility that a malicious government could | force Apple to implement bulk surveillance. | | I'm all for privacy, but those who put it above all else are | already likely not using Apple devices because of the lack of | control. I feel like for Apple's target market the | implementation was reasonable. | | I think Apple backed down on it because of the vocal minority | of privacy zealots (for want of a better term) decided it | wasn't the right set of trade-offs for them. Given Apple's aim | to be a leader in privacy they had to appease this group. I | think that community provides a lot of value and oversight, and | I broadly agree with their views, but in this case it feels | like we lost a big win on the fight against CSAM in order to | gain minor, theoretical benefits for user privacy. | HelloNurse wrote: | But "the ability to discover CSAM" is by itself an excuse for | mass surveillance, not a bona fide goal. It is certainly | possible, instead, to investigate, then find likely | pedophiles, and then get a search warrant. | danpalmer wrote: | Discovering users sharing CSAM is a goal isn't it? That's | why governments around the world require cloud storage | providers to scan for it - because waiting until the police | receive a report of someone is not really feasible. A | proactive approach is necessary and mandated in many | countries. | Moldoteck wrote: | imo diminishing ppl's privacy is a goal. Apple's csam | could be tricked in different ways, esp with generative | algorithms, like an malicious person will send you an | album with 100+ normal looking photos(to the eye) but | altered to trigger csam, now govt needs to check 100+ | photos per person per send and dismiss the false | positives. Since this can be replicated, imagine gov't | will need to scan 100k similar usecases just for 1k ppl? | that's insane, they'll either not check them, so system | became obsolete(bc in this case ill intentioned ppl can | just send an album of 5k photos, all triggering csam and | only a bunch will be real csam. multiplied by nr of these | ill ppl, you understand system is easy to game, or they | spend thousands of hours checking all this photos and | checking each person. Another vector of attack is | generation of legit looking csam, bc, generating | algorithms are too good now, but in this case(afaik) it's | not a crime, since image is fully generated(either by | only using ppl's face as starting point or using the | description of their face tweaked enough to look | realistic). So what we get is: - a system that can be | gamed in different ways - a system that's not proved to | be effective before releasing - a system that may | potentially drive those ppl to other platforms with e2ee | that don't have the csam scan(i assume since they know | what e2ee is, they can find a platform without csam), so | again obsolete AND: - a system that can't be verified by | users (like is the csam list legit, can it trigger other | things, is the implementation safe?) - a system that can | be altered by govt by altering the csam list to target | specific ppl (idk snowden or some journalist that found | something sketchy) - a system that can be altered by | apple/other company by altering csam list for ad | targeting purposes | | Idk, maybe i'm overreacting, but I've seen what a | repressive gov can do, and with such an instrument it's | frightening what surveillance vectors can be opened | version_five wrote: | Mass surveillance is never an appropriate solution, let's start | with that. | | I don't belive tech has an over weighted responsibility to | solve society's problems, and in fact it's generally better if | we don't try and pretend more tech is the answer. | | Advocating for more money and more prioritization for this area | of law enforcement is still the way to go if it's a priority | area. Policing seems to be drifting towards "mall cop" work, | giving easy fines, enabled by lazy electronic surveillance | casting a wide net. Let's put resources towards actual | detective work. | SoullessSilent wrote: | I would prefer advocating more money for mental health as it | would provide additional benefits in other areas of society | down the line too? I can't imagine child porn consumption | rising from a healthy mind. | danpalmer wrote: | Mass surveillance is bad, but I think there are versions of | it that are far less bad than others. | | Apple's proposed solution would have theoretically only | reported cases that were much more than likely to be already | known instances of CSAM (i.e. not pictures of your kids), and | if nothing else is reported, can we say that they were really | surveilled? In some very strict sense, yes, but in terms of | outcomes, no. | candiodari wrote: | How about we start with this version of surveillance: | currently it is almost impossible, and frankly stupid, for | kids to ask for help with abuse, because they'll end up in | this sort of system (with no way out one might add) | | https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/26/texas-foster-care- | ch... | | So how about we implement mass-surveillance by giving | victims a good reason to report crimes? Starting with not | heavily punishing victims that do come forward. Make the | foster care system actually able to raise kids reasonably. | | Because, frankly, if we _don 't_ do it this way, what's the | point? Why would we do anything about abuse if we don't fix | this FIRST? Are we really going to catch sexual abuse, then | put the kids into a state-administered system ... where | they're sexually, and physically, and mentally, and | financially abused? | | WHY would you do that? Obviously that doesn't protect | children, it only hides abuse, it protects perpetrators in | trade for allowing society to pretend the problem is | smaller than it is. | Muehevoll wrote: | [flagged] | Moldoteck wrote: | ok, and in theory, with new generative algorithms, do you | think it's still ok? Suppose apple implements this, suppose | someone finds a way to generate meme images that can | trigger apple's algorithm(but human can't see anything | wrong), suppose that someone wants to harm you and sends | you a bunch of memes and you save them. What will happen? | Or what does happen if somebody is using generative | algorithm to create csam like images by using people's face | as base but the rest of the image is generated, should this | also trigger csam? | | Also, you can not guarantee that apple/google will use only | known instances of csam, what if, govt orders them/google | to scan for other type of content under the hood, like | documents or god knows what else bc govt want's to screw | that person (for the sake of example let's suppose the | targeted person is some journalist that discovered shady | stuff and govt wants to put em in prison), bc you know, you | don't have access to either algorithms and csam scan list | that they are using, system could be abused and usually | could means 'sometime' it will | danpalmer wrote: | These criticisms are reasonable criticisms of a system in | general, but Apple's design featured ways to mitigate | these issues. | | I agree that the basic idea of scanning on device for | CSAM has a lot of issues and should not be implemented. | What I think was missing from the discourse was an actual | look at what Apple were suggesting, in terms of technical | specifics, and why that would be well designed to not | suffer from these problems. | pseudalopex wrote: | Apple's mitigations and their inadequacy were discussed. | figlett wrote: | Mass surveillance isn't necessarily bad. It depends how | it's implemented. The solution you describe is basically | how it works with the intelligence agencies, in that only a | miniscule fraction of the data collected in bulk ever | reaches human eyes. The rest ends up being discarded after | the retention period. | | In terms of outcomes, almost nobody is actually surveilled, | as the overall effect is the same as no data having been | collected on them in the first place. | | That said, I am personally more comfortable with my | country's intelligence agencies hoovering up all my online | activity than I am with the likes of Apple. The former is | much more accountable than the latter. | jtbayly wrote: | Correction: the rest just ends up getting _searched_ | thousands of times, in direct violation of the US | constitution. | flir wrote: | Every other aspect of life has been impacted by the | computer's ability to process lots of information at speed. | To say "no, policing must not use these tools but everyone | else can" seems - well, quixotic, maybe? | | If illegal data (CP) is being transferred on the net, | wiretapping that traffic and bringing hits to the attention | of a human seems like a proportional response. | | (Yes, I know, it's not going to be 100% effective, encryption | etc, but neither is actual detective work.) | danbruc wrote: | If you have reasonable evidence, wiretapping a suspect to | gain more evidence is fine. On the other hand wiretapping | everyone in hope of finding some initial evidence, that is | not okay at all. | figlett wrote: | Why is it not okay at all? That's what our intelligence | agencies do with their bulk data collection capabilities, | and they have an immense positive impact on society. | omniglottal wrote: | s/positive/negative/ | danbruc wrote: | _[...] and they have an immense positive impact on | society._ | | For this I need proof. | jtbayly wrote: | If you want to argue that they can scan people outside | the country and not US citizens, and that that has a | benefit, go ahead and make that argument. You might even | convince me. | | But it's just begging the question to say there's immense | benefit to them searching US citizens' communications | without a reason. | | That's the whole question. | | Show me why we should change the constitution which | guarantees us freedom from this sort of government | oppression. | figlett wrote: | I'm writing from a UK perspective so there's no | underlying constitutional issue here like there might be | in the US. Bulk data collection is restricted by specific | laws and this mandates regular operational oversight by | an independent body, to ensure that both the collection | and each individual use of the data is necessary and | proportionate. | | Some of this will include data of British citizens, but | the thing is, we have a significant home-grown terrorism | problem and serious organised criminal gang activity, | happening within the country. If intelligence analysts | need to look at, for example, which phone number | contacted which other phone number on a specific date in | the recent past, there's no other way to do this other | than bulk collect all phone call metadata from the | various telecom operators, and store it ready for | searching. | | The vast majority of that data will never be seen by | human eyes, only indexed and searched by automated | systems. All my phone calls and internet activity will be | in there somewhere, I'm sure, but I don't consider that | in itself to be government oppression. Only if it's used | for oppressive purposes, would it become oppressive. | flir wrote: | But that's just a restatement of the OP's position ("Mass | surveillance is never an appropriate solution"). You're | not attempting to justify that position. | danbruc wrote: | That's just an axiom for me, no justification needed. My | life is my life and it is not the business of the state | to watch every step I do as long as I am not affecting | others in any relevant way. You convince me that I or | society as a whole would be better off if I allowed the | state to constantly keep an eye on me, then I might | change my opinion and grant the state the permission to | violate my privacy. | flir wrote: | > That's just an axiom for me, no justification needed | | Congrats, you've got a religion. | troupo wrote: | [flagged] | danbruc wrote: | That's nonsense, every worldview must be grounded in some | axioms, that does not make it a religion. I can break it | down somewhat more for you. The state has no powers | besides the ones granted by its citizens. I value my | privacy highly and need very good reasons to grant the | state permission to violate it. Catching criminals does | not clear the bar, there are other ways to do this that | do not violate my privacy. | jtbayly wrote: | It's guaranteed by our constitution, among other reasons. | Search of my communications for no reason is, by | definition "unreasonable search." | flir wrote: | That document with 27 amendments? | jtbayly wrote: | Yes? | | If you want to get it amended, then by all means, make a | case for why it should be amended. | | In the meantime you wanted to know why mass surveillance | isn't an option. The answer "because it's against the | law" is a simple, good answer. | | If you want to know why we decided as a nation to make | that such a fundamental law that it is in our | constitution, you could do worse than reading about what | prompted the writing of the Bill of Rights. | | I agree with a lot of the original reasoning. | danbruc wrote: | _The answer "because it's against the law" is a simple, | good answer._ | | While often true, at all times there have also been | morally wrong laws, so it would not be unreasonable to | counter that being written into law on itself means | nothing. So you should always be prepared to pull out and | defend the reasoning behind a law, which you also hinted | at in your following sentences. | DSingularity wrote: | When tech creates problems should tech tried to solve it or | should tech be limited? | | We deceive ourselves honestly by pretending like we have not | created new realities which are problematic at scale. We | have. They are plentiful. And if people aren't willing that | we walk back tech to reduce the problems and people aren't | willing to accept technical solutions which are invasive then | what are we to do? Are we just to accept a new world with all | these problems stemming from unintended consequences of tech? | isykt wrote: | "Tech"? What do you mean by "tech?" Do you expect Apple to | remove the camera, storage, and networking capabilities of | all their devices? That's the "tech" that enables this. | glogla wrote: | I mean "tech" did a lot of messed up things - there is a | reason why "what is your favorite big tech innovation: 1) | illegal cab company 2) illegal hotel company 3) fake | money for criminals 4) plagiarism machine" is a funny | joke. | | Enabling people to talk to each other without all their | communication being wiretapped and archived forever is | not one of those, I would say. | danaris wrote: | Those aren't really "tech innovations", though, aside | from maybe the plagiarism machine. | | Uber and AirBnB are just using very-widely-available | technology--that some taxi services and hotels are _also_ | using!--and claiming that they 're _completely different_ | when the main difference is that they 're just ignoring | the laws and regulations around their industries. | | Cryptocurrencies are using a tech innovation as a _front_ | for what 's 99.9999% a financial "innovation"...which is | really just a Ponzi scheme and/or related scams in | sheep's clothing. | | LLMs are genuinely a tech innovation, but the primary | problem they bring to the fore is really a conversation | we've needed to have for a while about copying in the | digital age. The signs have been there for some time that | such a shift was coming; the only question was exactly | when. | | In none of these cases is technology actually _doing_ | anything "messed up". Companies that denote themselves | as being "in the tech industry" do bad things all the | time, but blaming the _technology_ for the _corporate_ | (and otherwise human) malfeasance is very unhelpful. In | particular, trying to _limit technological progress_ , or | _ban widely useful technological innovations_ because a | small minority of people use them for ill, is | horrifically counterproductive. | | Enforce the laws we have better, be more willing to turn | the screws on people even if they have lots of money, and | where necessary put new regulations on human and | corporate behavior in place (eg, requiring informed | consent to have works you created included in the | training set of an LLM or similar model). | BLKNSLVR wrote: | > When tech creates problems should tech tried to solve it | or should tech be limited? | | You haven't explained the problem 'tech' has created, I'm | confused as to what your point is? | | CSAM isn't a problem caused by 'tech' unless you're going | back to the invention of the camera, and I think that | toothpaste is well out of the tube. | | Additionally, and this is where a whole of arguments about | this go wrong, the important part: the actual literal | abuse, is human to human. There is no technology involved | whatsoever. | | Technological involvement may be an escalation of offense, | but it's vanishingly secondary. | tshaddox wrote: | > Both of these arguments are absolutely, unambiguously, | correct. | | I don't really buy any "slippery slope" arguments for this | stuff. Apple already can push any conceivable software it wants | to all of its phones, so the slope is already as slippery as it | can possibly be. | | It just doesn't make sense to say "Apple shouldn't implement | this minimal version of photo-scanning now even though I don't | think it's bad, because that's a slippery slope for them to | implement some future version of scanning that I _do_ think is | bad. " They already have the capability to push _any_ software | to their phones at _any_ time! They could just skip directly to | the version you think is bad! | mrits wrote: | Your comment confused me. Isn't Apple still scanning iPhones | for CSAM just not the iCloud? I don't see any additional | threat vectors by doing it locally. | traceroute66 wrote: | > criminals are using E2EE communication systems to share | sexual abuse material | | Blah blah blah, the same old argument given by the "think of | the children" people. | | There are many ways to counter that old chestnut, but really, | we only need to remember the most basic fundamental facts: | | 1) Encryption is mathematics 2) Criminals are criminals | | Can you ban mathematics ? No. Can you stop criminals being | criminals ? No. | | So, let's imagine you are able to successfully backdoor E2EE | globally, on all devices and all platforms. | | Sure, the "think of the children" people will rejoice and start | singing "Hallelujah". And the governments will rub their hands | with glee with all the new data they have access to. | | But the criminals ? Do you honestly think they'll think "oh no, | game over" ? | | No of course not. They'll pay some cryptographer in need of | some money to develop a new E2EE tool and carry on. Business as | usual. | danaris wrote: | > Can you stop criminals being criminals ? No. | | [Citation needed] | | This mindset--that assigns people into immutable categories, | "criminal" and "not criminal"--is actually one of the biggest | things that needs to change. | | We absolutely _can_ stop criminals from being criminals. We | just can 't do so by pointing at them and saying "Stop! Bad!" | We have to change the incentives, remove the reasons they | became criminal in the first place (usually poverty), and | make it easier, safer, and more acceptable to go from being a | criminal to being a not-criminal again. | ben_w wrote: | > But the criminals ? Do you honestly think they'll think "oh | no, game over" ? | | > No of course not. They'll pay some cryptographer in need of | some money to develop a new E2EE tool and carry on. Business | as usual. | | I used to think this, I changed my mind: just as it's | difficult to do security correctly even when it's a legal | requirement, only the most competent criminal organisations | will do this correctly. | | Unfortunately, the other issue: | | > And the governments will rub their hands with glee with all | the new data they have access to. | | Is 100% still the case, and almost impossible to get anyone | to care about. | traceroute66 wrote: | > only the most competent criminal organisations will do | this correctly. | | All it takes is for one criminal to write a one-page guide | to using GPG and circulate it to the group .... | | I know I mentioned paying a cryptographer earlier, but in | reality downloading and using GPG is a crude and effective | way of defeating an E2EE backdoor. | | Are the GPG devs going to backdoor GPG to satisfy | governments ? Probably not. | ben_w wrote: | > All it takes is for one criminal to write a one-page | guide to using GPG and circulate it to the group | | If cybersecurity was that easy, we wouldn't have so many | examples of businesses getting it wrong. | | Just because everyone here can follow instructions like | that, doesn't make it common knowledge for anyone else. | dnh44 wrote: | > If cybersecurity was that easy, we wouldn't have so | many examples of businesses getting it wrong. | | There are almost no consequences for anyone working at a | business that gets it wrong. | | The consequences for being a nonce are quite severe so | the motivation to get it right will be quite high. | newscracker wrote: | > If cybersecurity was that easy, we wouldn't have so | many examples of businesses getting it wrong. | | I can only partially agree with this point. Businesses | getting cybersecurity wrong has almost no material and | significant consequences. At best, they get a tiny slap | on the wrist or asked to answer some questions. Nobody in | said businesses goes to jail for it or personally pays | any fines. Compare that to criminals who have a lot more | to lose if they get caught -- jail time, fines they have | to pay, not having freedom for quite sometime, life not | being the same after they've served their sentence, and | more. Businesses have it extremely easy compared to this. | No wonder cybersecurity is so poor among all businesses, | including very large ones (like Microsoft, as a recent | example). | ben_w wrote: | > jail time, fines they have to pay | | Fear of these is the reason for the (maliciously | compliant) GDPR popups, and _that_ despite discussion | about extra-territoriality and relativity limited | capacity-to-websites ratio. | | The law and threats of punishment are clearly not hugely | significant to anyone involved in the specific topic of | this thread regardless; in the UK at least, it's the kind | of thing where if someone is lynched for it, the | vigilantes have to be extremely stupid (like attacking a | paediatrician because they can't tell the difference, | which happened) to not get public sympathy. | Moldoteck wrote: | they can just use/switch to unpatched devices with some | opensource e2ee without big effort. Result? Criminals will | continue doing criminal stuff, rest of the planet will be | under surveillance system that can be altered at | govt/company's will without your knowledge to either target | specific ppl(from govt) or target groups of ppl(for | 'relevant' ads) | ben_w wrote: | > they can just use/switch to unpatched devices with some | opensource e2ee without big effort. | | Assuming no new zero-days, and that they were even doing | best practices in the first place. How many legit | companies do best practices? | Moldoteck wrote: | zero days are irrelevant imo, zero days are for targeted | attacks(assuming it's from gov), exploiting all zerodays | for all devices is not that productive, csam scan on the | other hand can handle both untargeted and targeted | surveilance: untargeted by spotting bad actors from a | generic csam list, targeted - by adding to that list | target's face/specific things to locate it and monitor | it. | | That's the point, bad actors can circumvent the system if | they feel threatened, but system can be exploited by | gov/companies once rolled out globally to target any | user, so we get something that may be not that effective | against bad actors but poses great risk to be misused by | gov/company in their own interests without users knowing. | I've seen how an authoritarian gov in my country is | targeting ppl bc they are uncomfortable for the system | and this algorithm opens another potential vector of | attack. | ben_w wrote: | I don't buy your argument, but as for: | | > I've seen how an authoritarian gov in my country is | targeting ppl bc they are uncomfortable for the system | and this algorithm opens another potential vector of | attack. | | As per my last sentence in my initial comment in this | chain: | | -- | | > And the governments will rub their hands with glee with | all the new data they have access to. | | Is 100% still the case, and almost impossible to get | anyone to care about. | phpisthebest wrote: | >>and at rates which they were not previously able to. | | your source for proof of that? | | >> in the sense that if we don't clearly take a stand against | abhorrent behaviour then we are in some sense condoning it. | | No. this narrative of "silence is violence" and "no action is | support" etc is 100% wrong. | | You started out great, but i can not get behind this type of | thinking... | | >>Does the tech industry have any alternate solutions that | could functionally mitigate this abuse? | | Why is it a "tech industry" problem | | >>Or do we all just shout "yay, individual freedom wins again!" | | For me the answer is simple... Yes individual freedom is more | important that everything. I will never support curbing | individual freedom on the alter of any kind proclaimed | government solution to a social safety problem. Largely because | I know enough about history to understand that not only will | they no solve that social safety problem, many in government | are probably participating in the problem and have the power to | exempt themselves, while abusing the very tools and powers we | give them to fight X, for completely unrelated purposes. | | Very quickly any tool we would give them to fight CSAM would be | used for Drug Enforcement, Terrorism, etc. It would not be long | before the AI based phashes detect some old lady's Tomato | plants as weed and we have an entire DEA paramilitary unit | raiding her home... | numpad0 wrote: | I don't like how these sentiments are written as if (C)SAM | sharing is only type of crimes to ever be committed, which is | devastating and PTSD inducing and life crippling, but say, not | a murder. It could be one, or it could be major financial | crimes, terrorism conspiracy, et cetera. | | Yet, the only justification around for mass surveillance for | camera pictures, the important societal matter to rest | literally on "the other side of the coin", is "some minority of | people could be sharing naked photos of young members of | society for highly unethical acts of viewing". | | wtf. | jimkoen wrote: | I'd very much like a source on your claim that "[...] criminals | are using E2EE communication systems to share sexual abuse | material in ways and at rates which they were not previously | able to." | | > Does the tech industry have any alternate solutions that | could functionally mitigate this abuse? Does the industry feel | that it has any responsibility at all to do so? Or do we all | just shout "yay, individual freedom wins again!" and forget | about the actual problem that this (misguided) initiative was | originally aimed at? | | The issue at large here is not the tech industry, but law | enforcement agencies and the correctional system. Law | enforcement has proven time and time again themselves that the | most effective way to apprehend large criminal networks in this | area is by undercover investigation. | | So no, I don't think it is the tech industries role to play the | extended arm of some ill conceived surveillance state. Because | Apple is right: This is a slippery slope and anyone that | doesn't think malicious political actors will use this as a | foot in the door to argue for more invasive surveillance | measures, using this exact pre-filtering technology are just | naive idiots, in my oppinion. | acumenical wrote: | [flagged] | mvonballmo wrote: | I honestly hadn't considered that when I asked someone to use | Signal or Threema instead of Facebook Messenger that they | would think I was a pedophile or drug addict. Food for | thought. | acumenical wrote: | For what it's worth, I don't think using Signal or Threema | is enough to make you an E2EE enthusiast, and wanting to | speak without your speech later used against you is maybe | the purest reason for E2EE. I meant more so the type of | people who are into Tor or I2P. | isykt wrote: | How are individuals re-victimized with every share? That makes | no sense. Your LinkedIn profile photo could be on a billboard | in rural China, what would it be to you? | Simulacra wrote: | There are several cases of victims being harassed and haunted | by photos and video of them as a child being sexually abused. | This is one of the reasons for Masha's law. | | https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/child-porn- | victim... | akira2501 wrote: | This makes no mention of direct harassment. How easy is it | to connect random pictures of children with actual living | adults? She's suing people she's never had any direct | contact with. The government itself notifies her each time | someone is arrested and in possession of an image of her, | why, it does not say, but none of this sounds like a | necessary healthy resolution to the underlying problem. | bigDinosaur wrote: | The extreme hysteria created by anything related to children | often seems to be carte blanche to destroy privacy and | implement backdoors in applications. Most child abuse comes | from family members (which must be solved at the source), and | the ultra extreme cases simply make awful law (doing away with | E2EE or instituting mass surveillance to catch an incredibly | small minority is absurd). | | Much like other 'tough on crime' measures (of which destroying | E2EE is one) the real problems need to be solved not at the | point of consumption (drugs, guns, gangs, cartels) but at the | root causes. Getting rid of E2EE just opens the avenue for the | abuse of _us_ by the government but in no way guarantees we 'll | meaningfully make children safer. | | And no, we are not 'condoning' it when we declare E2EE an | overall good thing. Real life is about tradeoffs not absolutes, | and the tradeoff here is protection from the government for | potentially billions vs. _maybe_ arresting a few thousand more | real criminals. This is a standard utilitarian tradeoff that | 'condones' nothing. | gnfargbl wrote: | _> Most child abuse comes from family members (which must be | solved at the source)_ | | Yes. Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a moment, | part of the solution must be making access to CSAM much | harder. | | _> And no, we are not 'condoning' it when we declare E2EE | an overall good thing._ | | Agreed. I'm sorry if I worded things in a way that caused you | to see an implication which was not intended. To be clear: | E2EE is a good thing. Championing E2EE is _not_ equivalent to | condoning CSAM. | | What I did say is that in failing to try and provide any | meaningful solutions to this unintended consequence of E2EE, | the industry is effectively condoning the problem. | | _> This is a standard utilitarian tradeoff_ | | If that's the best we can do, I'm very disappointed. That | position says that to achieve privacy, I must tolerate CSAM. | I want _both_ privacy and for us not to tolerate CSAM. I don | 't know what the solution is, but that is what I wish the | industry were aiming for. At the moment, the industry seems | to be aiming for nothing but a shrug of the shoulders. | [deleted] | pseudalopex wrote: | It is not clear if access to child pornography increases, | decreases, or has no significant effect on child sex | abuse.[1] | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_chil | d_por... | phpisthebest wrote: | >>That position says that to achieve privacy, I must | tolerate CSAM. I want both privacy and for us not to | tolerate CSAM. | | I want to have more money than Elon Musk..... sometimes | life is not fair and we can not always get what we want... | | Any "backdoor" or "frontdoor" in encryption is a total | failure of encryption. That is a immutable truth, more | fixed in reality than the speed of light is in physics. | danbruc wrote: | _That position says that to achieve privacy, I must | tolerate CSAM. I want both privacy and for us not to | tolerate CSAM._ | | Not true, you can have privacy and at the same time not | tolerate child pornography, those are two perfectly | compatible positions and arguably the current state. What | you can not have - by definition - is privacy on the one | hand and on the other hand no privacy in order to look for | child pornography. You can still fight child pornography in | any other way, but when it comes to privacy, you have to | make a choice - give people their privacy or look through | their stuff for illegal content, you can not have both. If | you have enough evidence, a judge might even grant law | enforcement the permission for privacy violating measures, | it should just not be the default position that your | privacy gets violated. | [deleted] | BLKNSLVR wrote: | > Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a moment, | part of the solution must be making access to CSAM much | harder. | | In my opinion CSAM is a symptom, not a cause. | | It's difficult to "stumble across" that kind of material | unless you're already actively looking for it, which means | some amount of "damage" is already done. | | I also highly doubt that someone with no proclivities in | that direction would 'turn' as a result of stumbling across | CSAM. I'd guess they'd go the other way and be increasingly | horrified by it. | Guvante wrote: | Your logic is flawed fundamentally. | | Should we disallow encrypted traffic between machines | because that encrypted traffic could be CSAM? | | Saying "X is bad so we should be rid of it" requires a | method to get rid of it. | | Obviously giving up privacy and allowing more surveillance | can reduce something but that isn't necessarily the right | choice. | | Like what do you do if they start sharing in files the user | encrypts? | Manuel_D wrote: | > Yes. Since becoming an abuser is a process and not a | moment, part of the solution must be making access to CSAM | much harder. | | This is a very big assumption. Sexual abuse of minors has | existed long before the internet, and long before | photography. The notion that less availability of CSAM | leads to less real-world abuse is not at all clear. | | > If that's the best we can do, I'm very disappointed. That | position says that to achieve privacy, I must tolerate | CSAM. I want both privacy and for us not to tolerate CSAM. | I don't know what the solution is, but that is what I wish | the industry were aiming for. At the moment, the industry | seems to be aiming for nothing but a shrug of the | shoulders. | | As other commenters have pointed out, the solution is to | prevent children from being abused in the first place. Have | robust systems in place to address abuse, and give kids | effective education and somewhere to speak out if it | happens to them or someone they know. | practice9 wrote: | > which must be solved at the source | | Governments are not good at this type of thing. It requires | careful analysis, planning and actual decisions. | | But slap on a regulation and require private companies to do | the hard work for you - now we are talking! | glogla wrote: | [flagged] | red_admiral wrote: | This morality may not be so unusual outside the tech "filter | bubble". And wherever someone, like the OP, appears to be | serious, my own personal morality says the absolute least | they deserve is an equally serious answer. | gnfargbl wrote: | I'm confused by what you mean by "morality" here. The only | moral position that I am communicating is that child sexual | abuse is a real thing that really happens, and it is bad | for both the individual and for society. That's it. There's | no subtext. There is explicitly no refutation of the | arguments against client-side CSAM scanning which, I will | say again, are unambiguously correct. | | Is being against child sexual abuse _really_ an unusual | opinion in the tech industry? Have we really all gone so | far along the Heinlein /Rand road that any mention of a | real negative outcome gets immediately dismissed with the | empathy-free thought-terminating-cliche _" think of the | children?"_ | glogla wrote: | > Is being against child sexual abuse really an unusual | opinion in the tech industry? | | Nobody said that. You are being manipulative an trying to | make it look that people who disagree with you are | somehow pro-child abuse. | | In saying "Does the tech industry have any alternate | solutions that could functionally mitigate this abuse?" | you are trying to pain a picture in which child abuse is | somehow "tech industry" fault. | | You are also trying to paint a complete Panopticon in | which every interpersonal communication is subjected to | surveillance by the state as somehow the default, that | end to end encrypted electronic communication is changing | - while the truth is that personal communication was | private for hundreds of years, because it was impossible | for the state to listen in on everything. | gnfargbl wrote: | This thread is tending towards flamewar so I'll try to | dial back, but I do want to respond. | | _> You are being manipulative an trying to make it look | that people who disagree with you are somehow pro-child | abuse._ | | I am not doing that. You described my position as an | "alien morality", to which another poster seemed to | agree. I was responding to that by clarifying the actual | moral point I was making. For the avoidance of doubt, I | am not arguing that you are pro-child abuse. | | _> In saying "Does the tech industry have any alternate | solutions that could functionally mitigate this abuse?" | you are trying to pain a picture in which child abuse is | somehow "tech industry" fault._ | | Yes, this is basically a correct understanding of my | position. I am stating that the problem has been | massively exacerbated by the adoption of E2EE by the tech | industry, and that the tech industry therefore has a | moral responsibility to deal with the unintended | consequences of its own action. | | _> the truth is that personal communication was private | for hundreds of years, because it was impossible for the | state to listen in on everything._ | | The truth is that in pre-internet times, networks of | pedophiles could be dismantled by the state, partly | through surveillance -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki | /Paedophile_Information_Exchang... for a supporting | example. | red_admiral wrote: | > I am stating that the problem has been massively | exacerbated by the adoption of E2EE by the tech industry | | I understand that most information on how the state | fights organised crime will be classfied, but if there is | any publicly available evidence for this claim that you | can share, I would be interested in reading it (and I | hope others on this thread would be too). I'm not saying | I doubt you - you give the impression you know what | you're talking about - please take this in the spirit | it's intended, as one of my former supervisors once said | "In academia, asking for citations/references is an | expression of interest, not of doubt". | gnfargbl wrote: | It's completely reasonable to ask for evidence. Don't | apologise for asking! | | I'm not part of any state, and I don't have access to any | special knowledge that you can't find on the internet. | | I'm also not aware of any study that provides the very | direct link you're asking for. Because of the nature of | E2EE, I don't know if it would be possible to produce | one. What I can do is link to evidence such as | https://www.weprotect.org/global-threat- | assessment-21/#repor..., which has (to me) some fairly | compelling data showing that the magnitude of the problem | is increasing. | red_admiral wrote: | I don't think anyone would disagree with you that child | abuse exists - and if they did, that's an empirical | question, and it resolves to you being correct. | | The moral part is whether and how much society / the | state / the tech industry should invest in combating it, | and how the advantages and disadvantages of mandating | government access to E2E encrypted communications or | people's cloud storage weigh up. | | For what it's worth, my own position is that the state | should do more about it, and should in principle have | more resources allocated to do so. I would support higher | taxes in exchange for more police (and better trained | police), who could do more about many kinds of crime | including child abuse. I wouldn't mind more resources | being allocated to policing specifically for fighting | child abuse, too. But I could think of a lot of other | places besides legislating access to people's messenger | apps where such resources could be invested. | | I'm still undecided on whether legally mandated backdoors | in E2E encrypted storage and communications would be | _effective_ in fighting child abuse, which is a question | I would need more technical knowledge on before I could | take an informed position (I know a fair bit about | cryptography but less about how organised crime | operates). If it turns out that this would be an | ineffective measure (maybe criminals fall back on other | means of communication such as TOR relays) then it would | be hard to justify such a measure morally, especially as | it could have a lot of disadvantages in other areas. | 0x000042 wrote: | > Both of these arguments are absolutely, unambiguously, | correct. | | Indeed, they are correct. And they were also brought up when | Apple announced that they would introduce this Orwellian | system. Now they act like they just realized this. | ben_w wrote: | > Is is bad for the individuals who are re-victimised on every | share. | | Absolutely. | | > It is also bad for the fabric of society at large, in the | sense that if we don't clearly take a stand against abhorrent | behaviour then we are in some sense condoning it. | | Much less clear. There's always been the argument: does it | provide an outlet with no _ _new_ _ (emphasis on "new" so | people don't skim that word) victims, or does it encourage | people to act out their desires for real? | | I don't have any answer to this question; but the answer | matters. I do have a guess, which is "both at the same time in | different people", because humans don't have one-size-fits-all | responses. | | Even beyond photographs, this was already a question with | drawings; now we also have AI, creating new problems with both | deepfakes of real people and ex-nihilo (victimless?) images. | | > Does the tech industry have any alternate solutions that | could functionally mitigate this abuse? | | Yes. | | We can build it into the display devices, or use a variation of | Van Eck phreaking to the same effect. | | We can modify WiFi to act as wall-penetrating radar with the | capacity to infer pose, heart rate, and breathing of multiple | people nearby even if they're next door, so that if they act | out their desires beyond the screen, they'll be caught | immediately. | | We can put CCTV cameras everywhere, watch remotely what's on | the screens, and also through a combination of eye tracking and | (infrared or just noticing a change in geometry) who is aroused | while looking at a forbidden subject and require such people to | be on suppressants. | | Note however that I have not said _which_ acts or images: this | is because the options are symmetrical under replacement for | every other act and image, including (depending on the option) | non-sexual ones. | | There are places in the world where being gay has the death | penalty. And if I remember my internet meme history right, | whichever state Mr Hands was in, _accidentally_ decriminalised | his sex when the Federal courts decided states couldn 't outlaw | being gay and because that state had only one word in law for | everything they deemed "unnatural". | kafrofrite wrote: | My two cents reg. this. | | Creating backdoors that allow encryption schemes to be | subverted is _fundamentally_ going to cause harm on the | internet, and eventually fail the weakest users/those that need | privacy/security the most. | | A mechanism that can subvert cryptographic protocols can be | used by any party, including oppressive regimes, private | entities etc. that have the resources/will/knowledge to use the | backdoor etc. Backdoors harm both the trust on the web (which | can have an impact on economic transactions among many others) | and the people that need security/privacy the most. In the | meantime, criminals will wise up and move their operations | elsewhere where no backdoors exist. | | We basically end up with a broken internet, we are putting | people in harm's way and the criminals we are targeting are | probably updating their OPSEC/MO not to rely on E2EE. | mrtksn wrote: | >The other side of the coin is that criminals are using E2EE | communication systems to share sexual abuse material in ways | and at rates which they were not previously able to. | | I think that companies might need to enable some kind of | mechanism for offline investigation of the devices though. The | CSAM is a real problem, there are real predators out there, the | only risks isn't CSAM and law enforcement does really need to | have a way to investigate devices. Previously, my proposal was | the ability to force the device scan the user content for | fingerprints of the suspected content but only with physical | access. Physical access enforces the law enforcement to | actually have a real and official investigation with strong | enough reasons to spend resources and risk repercussions when | done improperly. | | However, the project of scanning all the user content for | policing the users was one thing that irked and later relieved | when Apple abandoned the project. | | Apple's explanation is good and I agree with them but IMHO the | more important aspects are: | | 1) Being able to trust your devices being on your side. That | is, your device shouldn't be policing you and shouldn't be | snitching on you. At this time you might think that the | authorities who would have controlled yor device are on your | side but don't forget that those authorities can change. Today | the devices may be catching CSAM, some day the authorities can | start demanding catching people opposing vaccines and an | election or a revolution later they can start catching people | who want to have an abortion or having premarital sexual | relations or other non-kosher affairs. | | 2) Being free of the notion that you are always watched. If | your device can choose to reveal your private thoughts or | business, be it by mistake or by design, you can no longer have | thoughts that are unaligned with the official ones. This is | like the idea of a god who is always watching you but instead | of a creator and angels you get C level businessmen and | employees who go through your stuff when the devices triggers | decryption of your data(by false positives or by true | positives). | | Anyway, policing everyone all the time must be an idea that is | rejected by the free world, if the free world doesn't intent to | be as free as Democratic People's Republic of Korea is | democratic. | FredPret wrote: | No, no, no. | | There is no parallel to be drawn between better encryption and | worse outcomes for kids. Should we also outlaw high-performance | cars because these sometimes serve as effective getaway | vehicles for criminals? | | CSAM producers and consumers should be found and punished via | old-fashioned methods. How was this done in the past? Did we | just never catch any human traffickers / rapists? No, we had | detectives who went around detecting and presumably kicking | down doors. | | To outlaw large sections of mathematics because of this is | absurd. And from the amount of power it would give big | governments / big businesses, the fabric of society doesn't | stand a chance. | hx8 wrote: | I think it's a pretty hardline opinion to state law | enforcement should be confined to "old-fashioned" methods. | Tech is changing the world. Let's not let it be a de-facto | lawless world. | | Yea, LE/IC clearly have gone too far in many modern tactics. | | Yea, it's possible to build a surveillance/police state much | more efficiently than ever before. | | Yea, we should be vigilant against authoritarianism. | techsupporter wrote: | > Should we also outlaw high-performance cars because these | sometimes serve as effective getaway vehicles for criminals? | | What if we change the last bit after the "because" to "these | sometimes are used at unsafe speeds and, intentionally or | not, kill people who are not in cars?" | | Because, at least for me, the answer is an unambiguous yes. | | I agree that privacy and security should be available to | everyone. But we also shouldn't count on being able to find | people who are doing vile things--to children _or_ adults-- | because the person messed up their opsec. I think Apple is | correct here but as an industry we have to be putting our | brains to thinking about this. "To outlaw large sections of | mathematics" is hyperbole because we _use mathematics_ to do | a lot of things, some useful and some not. | threeseed wrote: | > How was this done in the past? Did we just never catch any | human traffickers / rapists? | | Recently invented encrypted chat rooms allow people to | coordinate and transfer CSAM without any government official | being able to infiltrate it. And just being able to freely | discuss has been shown to make the problem worse as it | facilitates knowledge transfer. | | This is all completely different to in the past where this | would have been done in person. So the argument that we | should just do what we did in the past makes no sense. As | technology advances we need to develop new techniques in | order to keep up. | tomjen3 wrote: | The real issue is that FBI/NSA/CIA has abused our trust in the | so completely that we have to make E2E communication. From | assasinating people like Fred Hampton to national security | letters, the government has completely lost the trust of tech. | | That is a bigger problem and it will take a long time to fix. | So long that I suspect that anybody reading this is long dead, | but its like the saying with planting trees. | Manuel_D wrote: | > The other side of the coin is that criminals are using E2EE | communication systems to share sexual abuse material in ways | and at rates which they were not previously able to. | | ...regardless of whether Apple rolls out E2EE right? End to end | encryption is available through a whole host of open-source | tools, and should Apple deploy CSAM scanning the crooks will | just migrate to a different chat tool. | themgt wrote: | _It is also bad for the fabric of society at large, in the | sense that if we don 't clearly take a stand against abhorrent | behaviour then we are in some sense condoning it. Does the tech | industry have any alternate solutions that could functionally | mitigate this abuse?_ | | I'd suggest there's a lot the not-tech industry could do to | stop condoning abhorrent behavior that stops short of | installing scanners on billions of computing devices. It's | become a bit of a trope at this point, but it's bizarre to see | a guy who is/was spokesman for a "minor attracted persons" | (i.e. pedos) advocacy group getting published negatively | reviewing the controversial new sex trafficking movie ... in | Bloomberg: | | https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-15/qanon-... | | For some background: | | https://www.opindia.com/2021/08/meet-noah-berlatsky-prostasi... | | His 501(c)(3) non-profit also advocates in favor of pedophilic | dolls and has a "No Children Harmed certification seal" program | for pedophilic dolls/etc: | | https://prostasia.org/blog/dolls-prevent-child-sexual-abuse/ | | https://prostasia.org/no-children-harmed/ | | I'm not sure you can criminalize stuff like this, but it sets | off my alarm bells when pedophile advocates are being published | in mainstream news at the same time there's a moral panic | around the need to scan everyone's hard drives. Is society | actually trying to solve this problem, or is this more like | renewing the Patriot Act to record every American's phone calls | at the same time we're allied with al Qaeda offshoots in Syria? | Interesting how terrorism has been the primary other argument | for banning/backdooring all encryption. | | ---- | | As an aside I couldn't find ~anything about this group "Heat | Initiative" Apple is responding to? Other than a TEDx talk by | the founder a couple years ago which again seems very focused | on "encrypted platforms" as the primary problem that needs | solving: | https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_gardner_searching_for_a_chil... | vacuity wrote: | Can't solve social problems with technology, as they say. And | as mentioned elsewhere, most child abuse is perpetrated by | family members and other close connections. | [deleted] | thinking_ape wrote: | [dead] | lamontcg wrote: | Are you willing to go to jail after someone hacks into your | phone and uploads CSAM to it which triggers this detection | mechanism? | _boffin_ wrote: | So... they're just doing on device scanning instead of icloud and | just calling it a different name? | sheepscreek wrote: | Yes - and there's a huge difference between the two. | | In a word, decentralization. | | By detecting unsafe material on-device / while it is being | created, they can prevent it from being shared. And because | this happens on individual devices, Apple doesn't need to know | what's on people's iCloud. So they can offer end-to-end | encryption, where even the data on their servers is encrypted. | Only your devices can "see" it (it's a black box for Apple | servers, gibberish - without the correct decryption key). | meepmorp wrote: | Not really? It looks like the nudity detection features are all | on device, aren't CSAM specific, and seem to be mostly geared | towards blocking stuff like unsolicited dick pics. | | The earlier design was a hybrid model that scanned for CSAM on | device, then flagged files were reviewed on upload. | olliej wrote: | No, the terrible misfeature that this group wants is | "government provides a bunch of opaque hashes that are 'CSAM', | all images are compared with those hashes, and if the hashes | match then the user details are given to police" | | Note that by design the hashes cannot be audited (though in the | legitimate case I don't imagine doing so would be pleasant), so | there's nothing stopping a malicious party inserting hashes of | anything they want - and then the news report will be "person x | bought in for questioning after CSAM detector flagged them". | | That's before countries just pass explicit laws saying that the | filter must includE LGBT content (in the US several states | consider books with lgbt characters to be sexual content, so a | lgbt teenager would be de facto CSAM), in the UK the IPA is | used to catch people not collecting dog poop so trusting them | not to expand scope is laughable, in Iran a picture of a woman | without a hijab would obviously be reportable, etc | | What Apple has done is add the ability to filter content (eg | block dick picks) and for child accounts to place extra steps | (incl providing contact numbers I think?) if a child attempts | to send pics with nudity, etc | Dig1t wrote: | >in the UK the IPA is used to catch people not collecting dog | poop | | What does this mean? What is IPA? I tried Googling for it but | I'm not finding much. I would love to learn more about that | olliej wrote: | The investigatory powers act. | | It was passed to stop terrorism, because previously they | found that having multiple people (friends and family etc) | report that someone was planning a terrorist attack failed | to stop a terrorist attack. | rafale wrote: | False positives would constitute a huge invasion of privacy. Even | actual positives would be, a mom taking a private picture of her | naked baby, how can you report that. They did well dropping this | insane plan. The slippery slope argument is also a solid one. | cmcaleer wrote: | NYT article about exactly this situation[0]. Despite the | generally technical competency of HN readership, I imagine | there would be a lot of people who would find themselves | completely fucked if this situation happened to them. | | The tl;dr is that despite this man ultimately having his name | cleared by the police after having his entire Google account | history (not just cloud) searched as well his logs from a | warrant served to ISP, Google closed his account when the | alleged CSAM was detected and never reinstated it. He lost his | emails, cloud pictures, phone number (which losing access to | prevented the police from contacting him via phone), and more | all while going through a gross, massive invasion of his | privacy because he was trying to do right for his child during | a time when face-to-face doctor appointments were difficult to | come by. | | This should be a particularly salient reminder to people to | self-host at the very least the domain for their primary and | professional e-mail. | | [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google- | surveil... | [deleted] | Gigachad wrote: | The apple one was only matching against known images, not | trying to detect new ones. | | The google one actually does try to detect new ones and there | are reported instances of Google sending the police on normal | parents for photos they took for the doctor. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-01 23:00 UTC)