Ahh, the Misunderstanding Olympics of 2021
The Apple system was pretty much the best way this could be done short of having a 100% reliable "AI" system on-device detecting bad stuff.
The Apple system was pretty much the best way this could be done short of having a 100% reliable "AI" system on-device detecting bad stuff.
It wasn't 100% reliable and in fact people quickly found collisions. Which you should expect to be able to with an even more advanced system.
> Ahh, the Misunderstanding Olympics of 2021
There's much nicer ways to say this that is congruent with community standards[0]. If you believe I have misunderstood then try pointing out specifically what I have misunderstood instead of just making an assertion.
But the question was if anyone was aware of any client side scanning technology that could in fact check for stuff such as CSAM. In fact, the Apple system was developed explicitly for this purpose, so yes, this does exist. While Replay doesn't have this explicitly feature stated (that I'm aware of), it is not a big step to think that you can just smash the two things together. As Apple shows a system detecting based on images and Replay is taking images of one's computer.
They forgot that:
a) It required _multiple_ matches before it was mathematically possible for Apple to see any of the photos
b) AFTER the multiple matches to known and verified CSAM signatures there would be an actual human looking at the picture (at reduced resolution or something like that)
c) Only after the human factor they would consider getting law enforcement involved.
Now your fancy collision has slightly inconvenienced a minimum wage CSAM checker for 15 seconds.
Not exactly a master plan for getting people SWATed for CSAM possession =)
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And the "Misunderstanding Olympics" was referring to the fact that I think I was one of 12 people in the world who actually read the specs of how the system was designed and didn't just imagine in my head how they might've done it and started panicking about "Tim Apple looking at every photo on my phone!!11".
It is about how such a technology can enable abuse. It does not matter if the technology is exclusively used for good if the harm it does if abused is too great. And we have plenty of evidence to see that irrespective of which country you reside in, that the scope of such projects typically widens. We also live in a global world and we are not exclusively subjected to the laws of our own governments. We don't have to go far back in history to see examples of the government turning on its own citizens. It is not just the US, it is not just German, not just Russia, not just China, but such actions have been prolific. I do not believe the is sufficient reason to believe your own government is incapable of abusing such power and I'd accuse you of lunacy if you claim that no government would seek to abuse it. Was not the US founded on the explicit principle of treating the government as an adversarial entity? Because if not, well then one of us must be illiterate, since Federalist 10 and 51 famously write this explicitly. Not to mention a litany of quotes by Jefferson.
experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny
This may be true, and yet it's also true that it was still a terrible plan. This is exactly why it simply shouldn't be done at all.