> I’m slowly getting the impression that either there’s been a policy change at Apple in terms of customer privacy
More likely that they never were for privacy and injury used it as a marketing ploy, putting on the mirage of being pro-privacy.
More likely that they never were for privacy and injury used it as a marketing ploy, putting on the mirage of being pro-privacy.
The real question and concern is what happens once laws start getting passed that run counter to this. And that then won’t be just Apple’s problem at that point.
Lol, no.
and tell me what's not about privacy with this? The alternative is upload everything unencrypted to providers who then scan there, which is how everything else works.
I don't need to read your marketing manual when there's no getting around the fact you are normalizing on-device scanning on personal devices and automated secret reporting to the authorities, which means iphones have now become adversarial.
Used to be that there was a clear delineation between a customer's device and a cloud server. Not anymore with Apple "privacy".
At least with Google I know that if I don't upload the photos to them, they're not scanning my device.
Just as a point of fact, there is zero point to encryption if Apple is able to access everything on icloud, which they can, because Apple doesn't allow you to do backups using a key that only you know.
That's just another one of Apple's penny-pinching scams so they can upsell customers on extra icloud space for backups which are also "encrypted", yet Apple can read everything.
Real privacy would mean real encryption, but then Apple couldn't do their upselling scam and also couldn't secretly scan all your personal stuff.
That's exactly how it should be. If a service provider wants to scan unencrypted documents for legal or PR reasons that's completely understandable. If instead they want to provide true E2EE and risk ending up in court with the regulators, that's also fine.
E2EE with black box on device scanning, however, is an absolutely terrible idea. It misleads regular people who almost certainly won't understand what's really going on. It's easily subverted by various governments as a condition of doing business. It blurs the line regarding ownership and unlawful search, thereby eroding future expectations of civil rights.
Apple should just be honest about the fact that they aren't comfortable providing a full E2EE solution for various regulatory or political reasons.
This is just ever so slightly better than the worst of everything.
No real encryption, on-device scanning and scanning on Apple servers. "For privacy", WTF!!
I can't see any reason to implement a scanner in this way other than at least having E2EE as a possibility under consideration. They knew there was the possibility for PR backlash. Doing it on device also adds significant complexity. Meanwhile scanning on upload is a very common and well accepted (both legally and socially) practice.
On its own the current approach is all downsides and no upsides so there has to be something else going on here. Wanting to market iCloud as providing full E2EE is obvious and fits perfectly.
We can only recognize the current situation, not a hypothetical future one.
I for one think it is unlikely that Apple will willingly lock themselves out of that mountain of intoxicating user data.
I believe their privacy stance is just marketing. There's countless examples of them not caring about real security issues, eg https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
Even if they do ever implement true encryption - not E2E between customer and Apple - personally I wouldn't trust it because of the unauditable on-device scanning/snitching.
> The alternative is upload everything unencrypted to providers who then scan there
No, the alternative is to not do any scanning.