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Comment by disgruntledphd2 | Hacker News Reader

This sort of scanning has existed for well over a decade, and was originally developed by Microsoft (search PhotoDNA).

The only thing that's changed here is that there is more encryption around, and so legal guidelines are being written to facilitate this, which has been happening for a long, long time.

(I don't disagree with your overall point, and child porn is definitely the thin edge of the wedge, but this isn't new and presumably shouldn't be too surprising for any current/former megacorp as they all have systems like this).

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That's a very strong frog slowly boiling attitude.

"It's been happening for a long time already, the only difference now is a 0.1 degree increase", says the frog while being boiled alive.

First they came for kiddie porn, and I did not speak out -because I had no kiddie porn. Then they came for Pepe the frog memes. I did not speak out -because I was held in solitary confinement pending trial and successful completion of the re-education camp.

Nothing is ever new. You can always find some vague prototype of an idea that failed to become ubiquitous ten years ago.

When I read that this shouldn't be surprising, it has an aftertaste of "Dropbox is not interesting/surprising because ftpfs+CVS have existed for well over a decade"

> Nothing is ever new. You can always find some vague prototype of an idea that failed to become ubiquitous ten years ago.

This has been standard practice for well over a decade amongst all big internet platforms.

Like, one can argue that regardless, people's messages should not be readable for any reason, but that's gonna be a tough one to get through a court of law.

The obvious difference here is that backdooring encryption is an all or nothing affair, which may require new thinking (it definitely does).

But the ship around this particular form of backdooring has most definitely sailed.

Like, the only reason Apple is new to this game is because they haven't been in the storage/media sharing business for as long as their competitors.

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