lathiat

I would think calculating the perceptual hash client side is precisely the "local scanning" part most are concerned about. Pushing a perceptual hash of every photo to Apple would actually decrease your privacy as now Apple can find any known photo in your library - not just CSAM but on any topic - memes, political protests, porn, whatever.

I agree there is a slippery slope concern, and Apple has themselves made related arguments such as the FBI case and not wanting to create a software update to decrypt the contents of a phone. However that is contrasted with a very real and much more practical concern of malicious parties getting access to your cloud stored photos.

It would help to note Apple also today announced "Advanced Data Protection" in iCloud which closes the hole where iCloud Backups, iCloud Photos and various other bits of data were technically decryptable by Apple. They've closed that (but it's opt-in, to balance the average user losing all their photos against other users desire to be secure even if it means losing their data). Details: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303#advanced

However even without the "Advanced Data Protection" what I said about not having a workflow for any Apple server to "normally" request both the keys and photo data is also still good security.

All of your concerns are valid for "should Apple do CSAM scanning at all" and I share those.

However my argument is specfically to the OPs point that they should just scan the photos "in the cloud" and not "on your device". But the reality is they were only scanning photos that were being uploaded to the cloud, they were just doing it on your device so that Apple doesn't need to have a server that can decrypt your photos to do it in the cloud. Which is what most others (including Google) do.

You are right, but by local-only photos I meant "not using iCloud photos" - e.g. "none".

The point is, I think if Apple decided to scan your photos for CSAM even if you weren't using iCloud, that this would be a distinctly different situation to scanning only the ones uploaded to iCloud.

This necessitates a workflow where both the photos and decryption keys are accessible by the same server and that there is a security workflow to request the users decryption keys without the user involved.

This is specifically what Apple is trying to avoid - they are intentionally pushing an environment where the user must be involved to get the keys, by way of their account password and/or other enforcement mechanisms designed to ensure only the real user can access such keys.

This is discussed in detail in their Apple Platform Security guide: https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-sec...

All of the facial recognition, object identification, etc is all done on-device for the same reason. By contrast Google can and does do this in the cloud - and there are Google servers that intentionally have access to decrypt your photos.

iCloud backup was previously a vector that bypassed this, however they also today announced they are fixing that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33897793 "Apple introduces end-to-end encryption for backups"

EDIT: Whether or not Apple should be scanning for CSAM in some way is an entirely separate argument to whether it should be "on device" or "in cloud". That's not obvious, so my explanation below explains why that is the case.

I disagree. On-device scanning is desirable here and scanning it in iCloud though the industry-norm, is not desirable.

Apple specifically stated they would only scan the photos being uploaded to iCloud [1] and not local photos which were not being uploaded.

Most cloud storage providers are scanning in the cloud, this necessitates a workflow where both the photos and decryption keys are accessible by the same server and that there is a security workflow to request the users decryption keys without the user involved (by way of their account password, or other enforcement mechanisms designed to ensure only the real user can access such keys, Apple has previously detailed Hardware HSM enforced details of that for iCloud in their Apple Platform Security guide [2]).

By extension that opens up the potential for a malicious employee or third-party to either intercept those photos while being scanned or otherwise allows a workflow that could be exploited to request the keys and photos. This is a major loss of security and privacy which Apple is specifically and intentionally designing to avoid. Until now iCloud Backups were a major weakness in that story however they also today announced they are fixing that [3].

Hence: the on-device scanning was just an entirely technical solution to scanning "only photos uploaded to icloud" (like everyone else) while also "ensuring some server in icloud can't decrypt your photos".

You could of course argue that it makes a later change of policy to scan local-only photos easier. While this is true, Apple could decide to add code to iOS to do anything they want at any time, so they could just decide to do that anyway, even if they were scanning iCloud photos in the cloud. At the same time, by not scanning them in the cloud, they have a technical solution to ensure it's much harder for a malicious actor to get unauthorised access to iCloud user photos. Because there is no place/server that is "supposed" to be able to access both the photos and the keys.

[1] https://www.apple.com/child-safety/pdf/Expanded_Protections_... [2] https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-sec... [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33897793 "Apple introduces end-to-end encryption for backups"

The UI is not as good but it’s multi threaded and much faster.

FYI I recently discovered sort —-human is a thing so you can keep the K/M/G units if you want to.

However I use ncdu all the time.

Tidelift does this now, without the blockchain/web3 from Tea.xyz: https://www.tidelift.com/about/lifter

Particularly useful for "fast heat-up" combined with "don't fry the pan"

That was a steal, a little better a value proposition than my $100 AUD / $92 CAD / $67 USD first generation Flir One (lightning port plug-in for iPhone).

Where did you score it for that price, marketplace, eBay?

Though even the $500 AUD odd going rate on eBay is pretty good given the cost of any of the devices with a screen built-in.

Using a thermal camera in the kitchen is under-rated. I sometimes do the same.

Was inspired by this old linux.conf.au talk (that I attended in person) about a microwave with a thermal camera in the top. I would love the same above my kitchen stove: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3DADx5z-XY

I'm a die-hard iPhone user so sadly a built-in won't work for me. I currently have a first generation Lightning FLIR One.

It's pretty limited, only a single temperature measurement, no min/max scale you can see (it just auto calibrates), has a terrible rechargable battery and doesn't work with an iPhone case.. but I got it for the bargain basement price of $100 AUD ($67 USD) on Marketplace.

My interest is more related to home effeciency (looking at gaps in insulation etc) but has been fun in the kitchen too.

I'd love one of the newer ones but haven't wanted to justify the cost and happy with my bargain aquisiton :)

The number of chickens will blow your mind. There was a world clock I saw once counting like population and a bunch of random statistics including chickens in approximated real time.

I have started using gron to understand the json structure to then write jq. Other times it does the job alone. It’s great.

My 486 had boot sector protection in the BIOS. It would pop up a Y/N confirmation in text mode during boot sector overwrite.

This froze the windows 95 setup in graphical mode. Although the text prompt appeared for whatever reason the Y/N didn’t work and we could never continue.

So was never able to upgrade that machine.

I work for Canonical so a biased +1 for MAAS (Metal As A Service). It’s got a pretty great workflow where you PXE boot an unknown server and it “commissions” it by cataloguing all its hardware specs and running some hardware tests etc and adding it to the list of available services. It’s ready to deploy through the web interface, cli or API. That installs the OS and pre configures the network and storage and adds your SSH keys. You can give cloud-init metadata the same as a cloud server to bootstrap your next steps or config. It’s multi user so you can track who then deploys and owns the machines by username. We use that for our internal hardware lab as well as deploying OpenStack or Kubernetes using juju to automatically check out the machines which internally sets cloud-init metadata to kickstart the juju install process.

https://maas.io/

If you’re using Ubuntu it’s Pretty great. It does support custom Linux and windows images but the feature set isn’t as good for storage and network config etc and that doesn’t get as much focus as first party Ubuntu deployment. So if your primary OS is something else there may be better tailored solutions.

More generally there is a class of “metal” management solutions you can look at similar like Foreman and OpenStack Ironic that usually have some variation of PXE boot install. Hopefully some others can chime in with good examples or recommendations for those.

May help to share what your primary OS/Distro is and others you need to do.

It's absolutely critical to have some at structures in place to deal with this. While some level of this often surfaces anywhere you have human relationships, it is 100% made much worse by a bad culture that is allowed to perpetuate.

- Code of Conduct longer than 3 lines clearly spelling out expectations. Not everyone has the same "obvious" expectations.

- Clear written process for dealing with complaints, member suspensions and expulsions.

- Just get rid of people that are consistently abrasive and cause problems with multiple other people over time, no matter how good or important they are. Just blamelessly ship them out earlier than later. Somehow. But it's easier said than done. A clear code of conduct sooner than later to fall back on as the "bad guy" helps rather than needing individual people to make the "bad guy" decision. You can just follow the process and whoever it's instituted against has a clear set of rules to expect.

Accross most of the volunteer work I've done (which has definitely had the challenges you mention) usually personally as a longer term or more "senior" member of the teams, I've observed most of the work gets done by people who have a sense of personal responsibility or ownership for the task.

Some people are naturally more pro-active and feel more personally entitled to basically take the power to run with doing the task without needing approval from others. I feel like this is part personality, part skill but critically also partly related to the culture/environment of the team.

I've observed that fails when either people are not inclined that way (maybe more introverted people, people with a personality/habbit of not feeling such entitlement, etc), however also critically the culture of others shooting down their ideas or not giving them the freedom to work and learn for themselves can break it down.

This can be bad personality on behalf of those people - some people are just naturally like this and if one person is causing problems for your organisation as a whole, you may be well served by just blamelessly getting rid of them if they are causing what I can only describe as personal conflict regardless of if they are technically capable or even technically correct. Abrasive personalities that will drive others away won't serve the organisation as a whole.

But what I saw quite a bit was as these volunteer organisations got older and more senior and more experienced, the barrier of entry was now much higher (less freedom to make mistakes and learn because theres an expected quality) and those that had that experience often try to "help" with that knowledge but can have the effect on demotivating by constantly telling people why their ideas are bad or otherwise not empowering people with enough freedom to take that sense of personal responsibilty that will drive them to completion and run with it.

I've never worked in management in a work environment so have no experience to draw on with parallels for how that works in real jobs. But have seen that in a couple different other environments.

Another problem I've noticed is it's easy to commit to things in meetings which have scheduled times, but people struggle to find the personal time to follow up with the tasks and can easily forget the todo list, etc. Some level of todo management or having someone whose job it is to task, prioritise, remind/follow-up with people on a short term basis may be helpful for some. But I don't have a lot of experience in successfully doing that.

I sympathise with your feelings. Honestly, I'm tired of it too.

But the invasion hasn't stopped. Most in the Ukraine are surely utterly exhausted from hearing decades of their infrastructure, cities, housing and culture being destroyed on a daily basis. Exhaused from the daily disruption, broken families and the mental and physical impact of having to actively protect themselves or fight against it. But they have to keep living it and fighting against it, daily, right outside their own doors. They don't have a choice.

I am sure most in Russia are equally exhausted by the daily impact on their lives of sanctions, fear of reprucussions for an opinion let alone any attempt at change, by being implicated in actions and conflict they don't agree with or by being effectively forced to personally and physically go to the front lines.

It is exhausting, it is uncomfortable, and that is OK. Globally we need to keep rallying against this fight against Ukraine. But maybe even more importantly, especially if you want to be selfish about it, we need to remember and be uncomfortable so that we're part of avoiding the next conflcit from starting.

For your personal mental wellbeing, if you're overwhelmed which I'm sure you are given the comment, my best piece of personal advice is to try and take a solid break from the news for a while. At a minimum try to avoid the hourly and daily scrolling on social media that exposes you to so much negativity and minimise the time on that to a smaller part of each day or week. It's really hard to do that, but it's the best I've got.

I remember using this in the late 2000s. More commonly blocked now but was fun.

I do this all the time with the iPhone keyboard. Because the dot is only there for URLs it’s exactly where I normally hit the spacebar at (which expands to fill where the dot for URLs is). Drives me nuts. I can’t be the only one.

For a long time I used Siri as “hey siri, timer, 3 minutes”.

This works for every time except 4 minute because it thinks you’re saying “timer for minutes” without a number.

Got fixed last year though and for some reason wasn’t reproducible for everyone. Not sure if an australian locale issue or something.

It also would be broken by having snapshots, since, the space wouldn't actually be freed, so this space accounting is not the only possible issue.

Perhaps the sonoff MS01 is for you.

Needs to be paired with a device to plug it into: https://sonoff.tech/product/accessories/ms01/

Plan B is probably not really the thing to think about here. Sure it plays a role, but, condoms came into mainstream use in the early 1900s and the contraceptive pill only in 1960. Thats only 2-3 generations really. For many your grandparents or maybe great-grandparents were early days for easily and freely accessible contraception along with sex education to make using it more likely.

This is a mistake I see on iOS a lot. You can use a 'system picker' for some things without a permission - photos is the most common one - many apps request full photo library access which I never want to grant when they could just use the system photo picker instead.

In a similar way you could (in iOS) for this same feature just popup the share sheet to send a message. Though I am not familiar with the Android analog.

If this interests you the videos from Smarter Every Day were great: https://youtu.be/toVfvRhWbj8

I can’t give you a good tutorial but this is a must watch for inspiration and laughs:

“Captain Disillusion: World’s Greatest Blenderer - Live at the Blender Conference 2018” https://youtu.be/1qSTcxt2t74

Note for after: The UI has apparently been fixed

Linus’ original talk might be good

https://youtu.be/4XpnKHJAok8

If you search Belkin Rockstar there is a dual port lightning adaptor and also a lightning+3.5mm adaptor.

Can still be done with a dongle at least.