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Comment by nitrogen | Hacker News Reader

With server-side scanning, the separation is clear

In all these threads everyone is coming close to the crux of the issue, but I want to restate it in clearer terms:

There is a sacrosanct line between "public" and "private," "mine" and "yours." That line cannot be crossed by Western governments without a warrant. Cloud computing has deliberately blurred this line over time. This on-device scanning implementation blows right past that line.

Our tools before the computing revolution, and our devices after, become a part of us. Our proprioception extends to include them as part of "self." A personal device -- a tool that should be wholly owned and wholly dependable, like pen and paper -- that betrays its user, is a self that betrays itself.

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> There is a sacrosanct line between "public" and "private," "mine" and "yours." That line cannot be crossed by Western governments without a warrant.

This is a self-delusion, I am afraid. The line has been crossed more than once, and it will be crossed again. UK and Australian governments are just two prime examples of waving terrorism and pedobear banners as a pretext to get invasive with each new legislation, and the Oz government already has a new legislation draft to make it a crime to refuse cooperation with law enforcing services when they request access to the encrypted content (think Signal messages). Also, refer to the Witness K case to see how cases that are unfavourable to the standing government completely bypass a «trustworthy» Western judicial system, including the Minister of Justice.

CSAM is guaranteed to be abused under whatever new pretext politicians can come up with, and we won't even know that Apple has been quietly subjugated to comply with it in those jurisdictions. There will be even less transparency and even more abuse of CSAM in «non-Western» countries. That is the actual worry.

The line between private and public has been crossed many times but we're still better off having that line officially there.

Even if the cops and private security along with TLAs are actively spying on people on an extremely regular basis, we're better off if officially they aren't supposed to be, if some court cases can get tossed for this, that they have to retreat sometimes, etc.

This is why having Apple overtly spying on the "private side" is still a big thing even with all the other revelations.

The line is not a delusion just because it happened to be crossed at some point. The line is there because humans intuitively consider it to be there.

The fact that the line is there gives us a reason and a foothold to fight back when someone attempts crossing it.

In the US however this division remains, even if it has been lost elsewhere. (This loss is one of the reasons I have had to never want to live in the UK nor Australia.)

And all the while:

Sir James Wilson Vincent Savile OBE KCSG (/ˈsævɪl/; 31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011) was an English DJ, television and radio personality who hosted BBC shows including Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It. He raised an estimated £40 million for charities and, during his lifetime, was widely praised for his personal qualities and as a fund-raiser. After his death, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse were made against him, leading the police to conclude that Savile had been a predatory sex offender—possibly one of Britain's most prolific. There had been allegations during his lifetime, but they were dismissed and accusers ignored or disbelieved; Savile took legal action against some accusers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile

There's never been any indication that there has been any more difficulty in catching these guys with better smartphone privacy features. It's easier than ever largely because the police have become better at investigations involving the internet.

Asking the police to put some investigative effort in rather than a dragnet sweep of every photo on every persons device is not too much to ask.

Importantly this should be the hard-capped precedent for every sort of crime. There's always a ton of other ways these people get caught without handing over preemptive access to every innocent persons phone. Same with terrorism, murder, etc.

Maybe I should add more text in support of the parent comment's point. When I read "UK and Australian governments are just two prime examples of waving terrorism and pedobear banners," my first thought was: all the while _protecting_ monsters like Savile.

I see push for CSAM as an alignment of powers in the form of "The Baptist and Bootlegger." The well meaning moral campaigners are a tool for folks who seek to surveil and control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists

Respectfully, I don't understand where you're going with this at all. I could point to it and say, "Wow, we need to make sure nothing like that ever happens again, no matter what the cost to personal liberty!"

I can see that interpretation for sure. My impression is that folks like Savile will always be protected from CSAM by the same powers that be calling for CSAM. I'm not certain if that viewpoint is realism or cynicism, or if there is a difference.

> that betrays its user, is a self that betrays itself.

And cloud computing are corporations that take your self away from you.

And that was always going to happen. And people have been fighting that idea in the shadows for a while.

This issue is just bringing it to the foreground in a most intense way. "Think of the children."

They are coming for your self. They will take it. There's not doubt. There never was. Your self is too valuable and you've just been squandering it anyway.

Eventually you become Apple. Unless you start resisting, but that's hard. Just slooooowly warm the water. This froggy is fine. Nice and warm. Just don't touch the bottom of the pot.

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