Or inversely, the FBI/CIA/CCP went to Apple and said "it'd be a shame it turned out you were a monopoly".
Apple caved to pressure and had to implement this.
Whatever the angle, this isn't about protecting kids whatsoever. It's about power.
Apple caved to pressure and had to implement this.
Whatever the angle, this isn't about protecting kids whatsoever. It's about power.
In other words, the author thinks with Apple’s back to a wall, they only needed to make the announcement of this feature for the government to see there are advantages to apple having tight control as well. Now they’ll be able to make that very same argument in court in a public sense, but there’s always a behind the scenes sense with 3-letter agencies as well.
Granted all of that is speculation and who knows what is really driving any of this. The author does have a point that if this first step causes bad guys to move on from these services then that will be future justification to move the scanning further and further upstream to the point where it’s baked into the API’s or something. At that level, Apple would really need a “monopoly” to accomplish such a feat.
It’s certainly an interesting and creative perspective.
But even in the best case, exists then worst abuse cases. That’s the problem. This WILL be abused.
It's time to start dismantling massive chunks of the intelligence community. It no longer works for the citizenry that's supposedly their bosses. (If it ever did.) It's become a power blackhole unto itself.
Even elected officials, up to POTUS, have found themselves unable to control the unelected and unaccountable fiefdoms that make up the intelligence community.
The problem isn’t with them, it’s with the loopholes that let them pay less than people would like.
The IRS can’t do anything.