Hacker News Reader

Comment by new299 | Hacker News Reader

This still seems like it would require a significant change in functionality, which they would likely announce. I.e. lose your lock code, lose all your data. Also, are you going to enter your lock code online to browse photos in a browser? What about syncing between devices?

In the absence of an explicit announcement regarding these changes in functionality it seems unlikely to me.

View on HN

You're right, Apple is definitely not going to secretly enable end-to-end encryption without announcing it.

If this client side photo scanning thing is part of an ongoing plan to eventually enable end-to-end encryption of iCloud, then Apple made a huge blunder. They should have waited until end to end encryption was ready first so that they could announce it simultaneously.

Or, get the contentious part out of the way so that your E2EE announcement isn’t overshadowed.

I don’t know how much I believe that, though.

What is the point of end-to-end encryption if the snitch for objectionable content lives on the device?

Reverse engineers can examine the snitch to see what it's looking for. Without semi-E2E, Apple could hand over every photo of every account to China and we would be none the wiser.

How? I can’t imagine security researchers wanting to hold csam and pictures of the police to test this out…

What's wrong with pictures of the police?

Also, a big concern that people have is what the Chinese government will want to be censored. Researchers in the US can investigate that without fear.

Apple has to follow local law. Rightfully so IMO the very last thing I want is US companies making us all honorary Americans.

Yes, and the next time you find yourself in a hold-up, just inform the perpetrators that what they're doing is actually illegal.

The problem is when local law requests data on someone from another country. Then everyone in the world's iCloud data is only as private as the least private country with influence over Apple (the US isn't that country IMO).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com