Apple is killing iPhone privacy, says EFF

Bradley Prior

Bradley Prior

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Apple is killing iPhone privacy, says EFF

Apple has announced impending changes to its operating systems that include new “protections for children” features in iCloud and iMessage. If you’ve spent any time following the Crypto Wars, you know what this means: Apple is planning to build a backdoor into its data storage system and its messaging system.
 
On the occasion, I read EFF articles, and for the most part they hit the nail on the head.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again now: it’s impossible to build a client-side scanning system that can only be used for sexually explicit images sent or received by children.

As a consequence, even a well-intentioned effort to build such a system will break key promises of the messenger’s encryption itself and open the door to broader abuses.

All it would take to widen the narrow backdoor that Apple is building is an expansion of the machine learning parameters to look for additional types of content, or a tweak of the configuration flags to scan, not just children’s, but anyone’s accounts.

That’s not a slippery slope; that’s a fully built system just waiting for external pressure to make the slightest change.
Click to expand...

I said the same in the other thread and was ferociously corrected by Apple's own technical documents...

Time will tell.
 
Wawawawa they always gonna complain. I think Apple is doing a great job. Humanity has become a species of complainers before even knowing 5% of any story or event.

and it saddens me to see infosec professionals commenting how to disable it or stop it working. They’re effectively telling someone that is planning to have sex with a 5 yr old how to hide it. That’s all, it’s of no consequence to 99% of our photos and privacy.
 
CSAM Hash is also conveniently used for learning new NeuralHash models. At this time it hard to fault the system for what it is purposed for, until the day we hear of the encryption not holding tight as the technical documents made it out to be, and this has happened many a time before. Cryptography is not tamperproof, and it is only as strong as its hardening.
 
neoprema said:
Wawawawa they always gonna complain. I think Apple is doing a great job. Humanity has become a species of complainers before even knowing 5% of any story or event.

and it saddens me to see infosec professionals commenting how to disable it or stop it working. They’re effectively telling someone that is planning to have sex with a 5 yr old how to hide it. That’s all, it’s of no consequence to 99% of our photos and privacy.
Click to expand...

Tell us the rest of the 95%.
 
VERY VERY sneaky MBB - you got us all to click to check the anomaly. Should've known there is no such intelligence in our local EFF organisation. Well positioned clickbait!!
 
neoprema said:
Wawawawa they always gonna complain. I think Apple is doing a great job. Humanity has become a species of complainers before even knowing 5% of any story or event.

and it saddens me to see infosec professionals commenting how to disable it or stop it working. They’re effectively telling someone that is planning to have sex with a 5 yr old how to hide it. That’s all, it’s of no consequence to 99% of our photos and privacy.
Click to expand...
OSCP round 2 lol
 
I've always heard good stuff about Apple's stance towards privacy, but this sounds just like those "think about the children" feeble excuses to abuse privacy. Sounds like something China would do.
 
As if Apple would even know who our EFF was..

Julias who?
 
username and 23 others said:
I've always heard good stuff about Apple's stance towards privacy, but this sounds just like those "think about the children" feeble excuses to abuse privacy. Sounds like something China would do.
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You mean like when they went to court with Epic? Not really new tbh.
 
neoprema said:
Wawawawa they always gonna complain. I think Apple is doing a great job. Humanity has become a species of complainers before even knowing 5% of any story or event.

and it saddens me to see infosec professionals commenting how to disable it or stop it working. They’re effectively telling someone that is planning to have sex with a 5 yr old how to hide it. That’s all, it’s of no consequence to 99% of our photos and privacy.
Click to expand...
Bring up policies that take away people's privacy and freedoms under the guise of protecting children is an old trick. What's to stop them to stand expanding this technology for other use cases?
 
Polymathic said:
Bring up policies that take away people's privacy and freedoms under the guise of protecting children is an old trick. What's to stop them to stand expanding this technology for other use cases?
Click to expand...
Nothing, but my point is they've had such a good track record so far with privacy, why not take them at face value when they say they won't and its only for this particular purpose? Instead everyone just immediately assumes Apple has become pro 1984.
 
Polymathic said:
Bring up policies that take away people's privacy and freedoms under the guise of protecting children is an old trick. What's to stop them to stand expanding this technology for other use cases?
Click to expand...
Because they need to know about the files prior?
That it requires a lot of matching files for you to be flagged?
Because they never took away your privacy…
 
Fulcrum29 said:
On the occasion, I read EFF articles, and for the most part they hit the nail on the head.



I said the same in the other thread and was ferociously corrected by Apple's own technical documents...

Time will tell.
Click to expand...
Actually no.
As a consequence, even a well-intentioned effort to build such a system will break key promises of the messenger’s encryption itself and open the door to broader abuses.
Click to expand...
That’s why they said on-device processing.
Once it’s on your device, it’s decrypted.

When I get a message, I don’t go oh my privacy look how it’s infringed because phone numbers and addresses are highlighted. The message was processed on the device.

That feature is totally opt-in by parents, it has no affect on any other user.
 
You wont imagine when you have kids, how many people start asking you for nude pictures of them, especially if they are modelling and have social media accounts to promote themself for new movie roles and modelling ads.

Its in honestly scary. I think in 1 year, I banned over 700 accounts from accessing my daughter's instagram account, even have an account managed by parent on there.

Spooky place this day.

I actually agree with this. It will put a lot of predators in their tracks.
 
DA-LION-619 said:
Because they need to know about the files prior?
That it requires a lot of matching files for you to be flagged?
Because they never took away your privacy…
Click to expand...
DA-LION-619 said:
Because they need to know about the files prior?
That it requires a lot of matching files for you to be flagged?
Because they never took away your privacy…
Click to expand...
Look beyond the current use case they want to implement this tech for.

Corelli said:
You wont imagine when you have kids, how many people start asking you for nude pictures of them, especially if they are modelling and have social media accounts to promote themself for new movie roles and modelling ads.

Its in honestly scary. I think in 1 year, I banned over 700 accounts from accessing my daughter's instagram account, even have an account managed by parent on there.

Spooky place this day.

I actually agree with this. It will put a lot of predators in their tracks.
Click to expand...
How old is your daughter? Is she even old enough to be on the platform according to the T's & Cs ?
 
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