Apple is (going to) scan your Apple devices

[fUnDaMeNtAl_knobhead]

Summary

Apple is planning to scan your phone or more accurately photos or messages or content that is related to child abuse and notifying the user or sending it to a Apple employ 

who will take action.

Quote

Apple said it'll update Siri and search features to provide parents and children with information to help them seek support in "unsafe situations." The program will also "intervene" when users try to search for child abuse-related topics. Apple will also warn parents and children when they might be sending or receiving a sexually explicit photo using its Messages app, either by hiding the photo behind a warning that it may be "sensitive" or adding an informational pop-up.

 

But the most dramatic effort, Apple said, is to identify child sexual abuse materials on the devices themselves, with a new technology that'll detect these images in Apple's photos app with the help of databases provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Apple said the system is automated and is "designed with user privacy in mind," with the system performing scans on the device before images are backed up to iCloud.

 

My thoughts

 This technology could be helpful but it would cause privacy concerns because essentially Apple is reading everything you send, look, or read plus it also reduces your phones performance. I think apple should make this mandatory for 1 month or some period so that it could determine if a person has a chance to abuse a child than like make it mandatory for their iPhone or if they have no signs of child abuse make it optional ?

 

 

Sources

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apples-plan-to-scan-phones-for-child-abuse-worries-privacy-advocates/

[emosun]

you mean YOUR phone not mine lol

[IkeaGnome]

I'm torn. On one hand. Why isn't this already a thing?

On the other hand, this opens a whole can of worms I don't want open. "We already search their photos for abuse, why not add this activity, or that activity"

 

Edit: I'm more worried about what it COULD turn into them monitoring later on. 

"We see you have looked at pictures of guns 2 times the last week, but you live in a place where they are illegal. Let's notify authorities" or "We see you searched for 'how to avoid police radar scanners' time to turn you in"

[Alireza]

they should put an on/off toggle for this because even though im not a sick person

i will not let them access every personal information that i keep on my iphone

it should be just a parent control feature 

[Blademaster91]

This is could be a good thing if it were done by an AI system and stays within the company, but its also open to abuse, Apple can scan your phone and go through your photos if they wanted to.

 

[Chris Pratt]

This seems both pointless and also just cover for scanning your data in the first place. If you tell child abusers that your going to scan their phones and that of their children for signs of abuse, then it's very easy to then just not buy an iPhone for you or your child. I guess it's a good way to just get sickos to leave your platform, but something tells me Apple is going to use the data they gleam for other purposes and just want to make it sound like it's all altruistic.

[MageTank]

Man, imagine you send a picture of your dongle to a significant other and Apple flags it as child abuse. Talk about destroying ones ego, lol.

 

I get where people are coming from about the privacy concerns, but if this is being done entirely by a remote database that is entirely automated, isn't saving results that aren't abuse, and no human has access to it, I'd probably be fine with it personally.

 

Those are some pretty big IF's...

 

6 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

This seems both pointless and also just cover for scanning your data in the first place. If you tell child abusers that your going to scan their phones and that of their children for signs of abuse, then it's very easy to then just not buy an iPhone for you or your child. I guess it's a good way to just get sickos to leave your platform, but something tells me Apple is going to use the data they gleam for other purposes and just want to make it sound like it's all altruistic.

I am not entirely sure this is the point though. It would potentially stop minors that are being groomed to send pictures from these devices on various apps to people online if it's flagging what is taken and sent outbound. If it alerts the children's parents, that could allow them to intervene before further harm takes place. I don't envy parents having to take care of their kids in a digital world, sounds like an utter nightmare honestly.

 

That said, I do agree with your cynicism about Apple's potential for false altruism here. It seems odd to me that they take a hard stance in the past of "We refuse to give the FBI access to our devices, even for criminal investigations!" to "We totally want to stop crimes and stuff, but we really have to scan your device to do it. We care about stopping crime you guys, we are super serious about it". I guess Apple is only fine going all-in in this context as long as they hold the winning hand at all times?

[Belgarathian]

41 minutes ago, MageTank said:

Man, imagine you send a picture of your dongle to a significant other and Apple flags it as child abuse. Talk about destroying ones ego, lol.

 

I get where people are coming from about the privacy concerns, but if this is being done entirely by a remote database that is entirely automated, isn't saving results that aren't abuse, and no human has access to it, I'd probably be fine with it personally.

 

Those are some pretty big IF's...

 

I am not entirely sure this is the point though. It would potentially stop minors that are being groomed to send pictures from these devices on various apps to people online if it's flagging what is taken and sent outbound. If it alerts the children's parents, that could allow them to intervene before further harm takes place. I don't envy parents having to take care of their kids in a digital world, sounds like an utter nightmare honestly.

 

That said, I do agree with your cynicism about Apple's potential for false altruism here. It seems odd to me that they take a hard stance in the past of "We refuse to give the FBI access to our devices, even for criminal investigations!" to "We totally want to stop crimes and stuff, but we really have to scan your device to do it. We care about stopping crime you guys, we are super serious about it". I guess Apple is only fine going all-in in this context as long as they hold the winning hand at all times?

I would suggest that there is a probably a report somewhere saying that the most common devices used by pedophiles and those that abuse are iPhones, and that encryption and privacy is the reason they use the phones. 

 

They're getting wayyyyy ahead of the potential PR nightmare while still being able to provide some privacy (they'd always be the villain if they say they're protecting the privacy of pedophiles).

 

That said, the way they're implementing the scanning sounds like if you used a 3rd party camera app, library,  and messaging service it wouldn't be scanned and would be safe from prying eyes so I'm unsure how effective it would be. 

 

However, this whole thing is a complete guess, but it makes sense.

[Arika]

1 hour ago, linux fanboy said:

But the most dramatic effort, Apple said, is to identify child sexual abuse materials on the devices themselves, with a new technology that'll detect these images in Apple's photos app with the help of databases provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Apple said the system is automated

ah yes, because there has never been a false positive in any AI detection or algorithmic process.

 

it's the classic "think of the children" excuse.

any other company would be crucified on the spot for using anything as a justification to scan through your devices and photos, so Apple should too.

 

[TetraSky]

And to think Apple was making such good efforts toward protecting the privacy of their users lately...

 

Quote

 The program will also "intervene" when users try to search for child abuse-related topics.

I'm on the "wait and see" wagon on this one. Will it just show a popup ? Prevent the user from searching these topics at all ? Or possibly upload your info to the authorities and you get raided by the swat right away?

 

Then there's "false positives", what if the AI flagged a picture you weren't planning to share of your toddler playing around in the kiddie pool while naked because they removed their clothes as toddlers do, as sexual abuse ? Are you going to get raided for it? Are they just going to show a warning? Delete the picture by itself? We probably won't know until Apple actually rolls this "feature" out.

 

[IkeaGnome]

1 minute ago, TetraSky said:

Or possibly upload your info to the authorities and you get raided by the swat because the AI flagged a picture you weren't planning to share of your toddler playing around in the kiddie pool while naked because they removed their clothes as toddlers do, as sexual abuse.

That's a big part of why I'm so reserved about this. That's one of those areas where context is key. An algorithm won't understand that. The person that the video gets forwarded to might not get that. If the language spoken in the video is a different language, you better hope the person reviewing understands that language.  

 

On a personal note, due to COVID I'm in a long distance relationship. If she gets reported to authorities because of me I'm going to be embarrassed. 

[StDragon]

Love how "Big Tech" along with the MSM are acting like the unofficial 4th and 5th branches of US government.

 

There was a time when technology gave me such optimism and hope for humanity. Instead, I'm finding it being abused to subjugate instead.

Ah, the ignorance and naivete of my youth. 

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Chris Pratt said:

This seems both pointless and also just cover for scanning your data in the first place. If you tell child abusers that your going to scan their phones and that of their children for signs of abuse, then it's very easy to then just not buy an iPhone for you or your child. I guess it's a good way to just get sickos to leave your platform, but something tells me Apple is going to use the data they gleam for other purposes and just want to make it sound like it's all altruistic.

Perhaps.  It depends on what they do with the scanned info.  If it’s just a “think of the children” excuse for datamining it’s annoying and abusive. If it’s not Apple should provide assurances.  They may have already done so and it’s not included in the post.  The problem with providing assurances though is the actual offenders generally know who they are, and specifics about assurances before the fact could simply help actual offenders avoid it.  Needs to be watched perhaps.  Android has done this for a while though so if someone thinks they have avoided such with an android phone they are wrong.

Edited August 6, 2021 by Bombastinator

[Roswell]

Sounds like they’re just running potential uploads against hashes for known illegal content before it hits their online services. They’re not “looking at your pictures” in any traditional sense.

 

As far as forwarding attempts at illegal searches to authorities, everyone does this already. 

[sub68]

1 hour ago, linux fanboy said:

Apple is planning to scan your phone or more accurately photos or messages or content that is related to child abuse

Uhh does this also mean anime?

If so, good thing I switched to android.

[Bombastinator]

5 minutes ago, Roswell said:

Sounds like they’re just running potential uploads against hashes for known illegal content before it hits their online services. They’re not “looking at your pictures” in any traditional sense.

 

As far as forwarding attempts at illegal searches to authorities, everyone does this already. 

Doesn’t make it right though.  A good hard look needs to be taken at AI procedural legal actions.  Too many mistakes are made.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, sub68 said:

Uhh does this also mean anime?

If so, good thing I switched to android.

Android would mean this has already happened so it’s already ok, or already too late, or something.  The impression I am getting from reading the thread is the Apple thing is much less aggressive than what android already does, I don’t know.  Not a lot of information given that I can see.

[Jtalk4456]

2 minutes ago, sub68 said:

Uhh does this also mean anime?

If so, good thing I switched to android.

Lolicon Detected, FBI open up!
 

1 hour ago, MageTank said:

It would potentially stop minors that are being groomed to send pictures from these devices on various apps to people online if it's flagging what is taken and sent outbound. If it alerts the children's parents, that could allow them to intervene before further harm takes place.

OR, and stay with me here, parents TEACH their children about online safety and not to send nudes to strangers
Also IMHO, kids don't need a cell phone unless they have a job in high school. 

[sub68]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

Android would mean this has already happened so it’s already ok, or already too late, or something.  The impression I am getting from reading the thread is the Apple thing is much less aggressive than what android already does, I don’t know.  Not a lot of information given that I can see.

Its fine, I think they will see the difference between anime and actual stuff.

1 minute ago, Jtalk4456 said:

Lolicon Detected, FBI open up!

 

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

Lolicon Detected, FBI open up!
 

OR, and stay with me here, parents TEACH their children about online safety and not to send nudes to strangers
Also IMHO, kids don't need a cell phone unless they have a job in high school. 

Need and want are different things though.  I didn’t NEED fashionable clothes in school.  The stuff I got would keep me warm.  The ostracism I received for such didn’t help much though.  School is weird that way.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, sub68 said:

Its fine, I think they will see the difference between anime and actual stuff.

 

There’s a name for anime pornoraphy. Hentai is the animated stuff but there’s a different one for still images.

[Eshu Marneedi]

1 hour ago, linux fanboy said:

Summary

Apple is planning to scan your phone or more accurately photos or messages or content that is related to child abuse and notifying the user or sending it to a Apple employ 

who will take action.

 

My thoughts

 This technology could be helpful but it would cause privacy concerns because essentially Apple is reading everything you send, look, or read plus it also reduces your phones performance. I think apple should make this mandatory for 1 month or some period so that it could determine if a person has a chance to abuse a child than like make it mandatory for their iPhone or if they have no signs of child abuse make it optional ?

 

 

Sources

https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/apples-plan-to-scan-phones-for-child-abuse-worries-privacy-advocates/

I mean, they're theoretically not wrong here. It's just opening the doors to something potentially catastrophic. I do agree with that idea that a person could opt out of it though.

[Bombastinator]

Just now, EshuMarneedi said:

I mean, they're theoretically not wrong here. It's just opening the doors to something potentially catastrophic. I do agree with that idea that a person could opt out of it though.

The problem with opt out is it makes the program useless.  Probably why it hadn’t been done before.  I could see all the pedos flocking to Apple though because they think their kiddie porn is safe. It will depend a lot on how it’s handled.

[Fasterthannothing]

Does anyone realize how many times the "think of the children" excuse is used to chip away at our security? Look I'm all for cracking down on abuse however for a company so privacy focused at least pretends to be they sure are creating a huge privacy risk. There just has to be a more secure and privacy focused way to help.

 

[sub68]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

There’s a name for anime pornoraphy

Yes, But I never had any stored on my phones or ANY where else

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Hentai is the animated stuff but there’s a different one for still images.

I think there is a version.

Eroga? Thats the only----

oh