> That's not how it works, unless you control your partner's Apple ID and you lie about their DOB when you create their account.
Rather than reassuring me, this sounds like an achievable set of steps for an abuser to carry out.
Rather than reassuring me, this sounds like an achievable set of steps for an abuser to carry out.
There’s a repository built from seized child porn.
Those pictures and videos have hashes. Apple wants to match against those hashes.
That’s it.
That’s it for now.
Previous times down this slope:
* UK internet filters for child porn -> opt out filters for regular porn (ISPs now have a list of porn viewers) + mandatory filters for copyright infringment
* Google drive filters for illegal content -> Google driver filters for copyrighted content
* iCloud data is totally protected so it's ok to require an apple account -> iCloud in China run by government controlled data centers without encryption
* Protection against malware is important so Windows defender is mandatory unless you have a third party program -> Windows Defender deletes DeCSS
* Need to protect users against malware, so mobile devices are set up as walled gardens -> Providers use these walled gardens to prevent business models that are bad for them
That was the first sin of the internet era.
Discussing slippery slopes does nothing.
Edit: It is frustrating to see where we are going. However - conversations on HN tend to focus on the false positives, and not too much on the actual villains who are doing unspeakable things.
Perhaps people need to hear stories from case workers or people actually dealing with the other side of the coin to better make a call on where the line should be drawn.
My problem is that these lists have already been used for retaliation against valid criticism. Scope creep is real, and in case of this particular list, adding an item is an explicit, global accusation of the creator and/or distributor for being a child molester.
I also wrote some less commonly voiced thoughts yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28071872
I don't know how most people feel about this, but even a false positive would seem hazardous. Does that put you on some permanent watch list in the lowest tier? How can you even know? And besides, it's all automated.
We could of course massively shift society towards a no-photo/video policy for our kids (perhaps only kept on a non-internet connected camera and hard drive), and tell grandma to just deal with it (come back after the lockdown granny, if you survive). Some people do.
And don't think that normal family photos won't get classified as CEI. What is titillating for one is another's harmless family photo.
But just to highlight one aspect, the list of maintained hashes has a known, non-negligible fraction of false positives.
> That’s it for now.
If this is an attempt at "first they came...", we're not biting.
My statement was to clarify incorrect statements of the issue. Someone was worried about incorrect DoBs entered by jilted lovers would get people flagged.
I just outlined what the actual process is. I feel that discussing the actual problem leads to better solutions and discussions.
Since this topic attracts strong viewpoints, I was as brief as possible to reduce any potential target area, and even left a line supporting the slippery slope argument.
If this was not conveyed, please let me know.
Matter of fact, your response pointing out the false positive issues is a win in my book! Its better than what the parent discussion was about.
But what I am truly perplexed by, is when you talk about "firs they came..." and "we're not biting".
Who is we, and why wouldn't YOU agree with a position supporting a slippery slope argument?
You seem to disagree with the actions being telegraphed by Apple.
Could you clarify what you mean?
Trying to frame the question along the usual slippery slope arguments implicitly sets up anyone critisicing the mechanism as a supporter of fundamentally objectionable content.
This thread however was where I was making a separate point that helps this discussion by removing confusion or assumptions on how Apple’s proposal works.
Perhaps you may have misread what I was saying ?
Your original post posited a reasonable question, but I felt the details were somewhat muddled. The reason I reacted and answered was that I have seen this style of questioning elsewhere before. The way you finished off was actually a little alarming: it'd be really easy to drop in with a followup that in turn would look like the other person was trying to defend the indefensible.
With my original reply I attempted to defuse that potential. The issue is incendiary enough without people willingly misunderstanding each other.
To do a factory reset or otherwise get it back into a state where the spyware the abuser installed is not present, the manufacturer requires the authorization of the abuser. If you can't root your own device then you can't e.g. spoof the spyware and have it report what you want it to report instead of what you're actually doing.
Apple should be ashamed. I see this as Apple paying the tax of doing business in many of the worlds most lucrative markets. Apple has developed this feature to gain access to markets that require this level of surveillance if their citizens.
Consider Sally sending a picture of a bee that Apple’s algo determines with 100% confidence is a breast while Tom sits in another room. One could iterate ad infinitum.