Do the same digging on their competition and I think you'll find the grass isn't even growing on the other side. Always good to approach everything with a bit of skepticism. I read their published material, I researched the organizations that deal with the content and manage the databases, and I remembered who has the most open gov't contracts (not Apple). I also read information published by security and privacy gurus, but always with the question of what would they stand to gain by supporting one side versus the other. I do think Apple botched this reveal and were counting on a much different public reaction, it was good comedy.
1. We're the user so we cannot prevent that unless we somehow gain control of those databases. If you're so inclined, become an employee to help maintain oversight.
2 & 3. I haven't seen the reasoning behind the data threshold, possibly from studies behind pinterest/instagram parents versus pedophiles and their devices. 🤷♂️ Maybe Apple doesn't want to over burden NCMEC with potential false positives so they act as a middle man to limit backlogs. My guess is that when Apple did in transit encrypting the CSAM hits were reduced and that raised flags with the NCMEC who probably reached out to Apple to find a middle ground solution.
NCMEC End to End Encryption Statement
4. Shared globally yes, but each organization/agency can weigh in to help ascertain validity like a second or third opinion from doctors.
5. You don't notify a criminal they're about to be caught for doing whatever illegal activity it is so they have time to destroy evidence.
6. You can't compare hashes on encrypted data at the server level, the photos are encrypted in transit so it would have to be on device scanning to do the comparison. Server side would require unencrypted data transfers to the server and your privacy and security experts would agree that is a terrible idea. Keeping the work on the device does help with end-user privacy.
7. It looks real at face value.
A totally acceptable choice you're currently allowed to make, and hopefully that choice is never forced for you later on down the road.
It may be just "some privacy" to you, but to others their location may be total privacy. To each their own. In terms of Apple versus the competition, I am turning more to Apple than my previous position of MS. I am just tired of MS's terrible OS. As an outsider looking in I liked how the ecosystem all worked together versus hunting down random drivers different versions of software. I will also never use an android device after having had to work with them in my previous job, buggy software, poor quality devices, and it's too open for my liking. YMMV
Yes, anything that detracts from their stovepipe of ideas and feelings. You can also suppress posts by burying them under more posts that scream counter ideas, not everyone peruses each thread so if you can hide the informative post with group think it accomplishes the same thing albeit less effective as removal.
