Should I leave apple ecosystem in light of CSAM?

[inkahauts]

I think it’s funny people worry about this so much, yet google and others are scanning your pictures too, without a doubt. It’s not a matter of when they might launch something like this, but when, for every service.

 

[usagora]

As I said, it’s a slippery slope. You can change what is illegal in a daily basis.

Well, at least in the US, it's not QUITE that simple, and there are plenty of checks and balances in place. And even if an unconstitutional law DOES get passed, the Supreme Court can overturn it.

 

[Joniz]

If you need to ask the opinion of others – those you don’t even know — concerning your buying decisions, and you flop back’n’forth because of it, then you really shouldn’t be buying anything.

 

[usagora]

It’s either way a slippery slope. Especially for a company who advertises itself with all those privacy slogans. CSAM is just the first step. Playing the safety of children card first. After that they’ll just start adding more “features”.

And slippery slope arguments are fallacious unless you can prove that this "first step" is logically related to these other steps that you think will lead us to "hell" (so to speak). The thing is, it's not.

 

[usagora]

If you need to ask the opinion of others – those you don’t even know — concerning your buying decisions, and you flop back’n’forth because of it, then you really shouldn’t be buying anything.

So I take it you never read product reviews? 🤔

 

[AeroZ]

And slippery slope arguments are fallacious unless you can prove that this "first step" is logically related to these other steps that you think will lead us to "hell" (so to speak). The thing is, it's not.

That’s what you’re saying right now. Just take covid for example. All those vaccine passports and booster shots were some nut jobs’ conspiracy theories until they weren’t.

 

[usagora]

That’s what you’re saying right now. Just take covid for example. All those vaccine passports and booster shots were conspiracies until they weren’t.

Actually, you bring up an important point. Just because something you "predicted" would happen comes to pass doesn't mean your logic was valid. To take a silly example, I could argue: "Dogs have four legs. Humans have two legs. Therefore, I'm going to have a car accident today." Now, if I indeed got into a car accident, does that mean my logic was valid because my conclusion was true? Obviously not. Or to take a slippery slope example: "Don't let your kid get their driver's license. Before you know it, they'll be picking up hitchhikers and get kidnapped." Now, that very well may happen, but that's not a direct logical result of someone getting their driver's license. It's a very poor argument.

There's basically no technology out there that can't be exploited and abused, especially by people in power. That's no reason to not continue to develop technology.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I think it’s funny people worry about this so much, yet google and others are scanning your pictures too, without a doubt. It’s not a matter of when they might launch something like this, but when, for every service.

Prove that they are doing it on my device.

 

[I7guy]

As I said, it’s a slippery slope. You can change what is illegal in a daily basis.

So the answer is yes.

What's illegal on a phone to my knowledge hasn't changed in quite a few years.

 

[AeroZ]

Actually, you bring up an important point. Just because something you "predicted" would happen comes to pass doesn't mean your logic was valid. To take a silly example, I could argue: "Dogs have four legs. Humans have two legs. Therefore, I'm going to have a car accident today." Now, if I indeed got into a car accident, does that mean my logic was valid because my conclusion was true? Obviously not. Or to take a slippery slope example: "Don't let your kid get their driver's license. Before you know it, they'll be picking up hitchhiker and get kidnapped." Now, that very well may happen, but that's not a direct logical result of someone getting their driver's license. It's a very poor argument.

There's basically no technology out there that can't be exploited and abused, especially by people in power. That's no reason to not continue to develop technology.

Ofcourse, tech development should continue but what Apple wants to develop is not where tech is supposed to head. There are other more important things to develop. Like better and longer lasting batteries for start and so on.
The sad reality is that the world is heading to a total surveillance and control over the individual. For every new advancement to this, they say it’s for x’s safety. I mean if we’re all into everyone’s safety so much then why the backlash on having backdoors to our encrypted iMessages and locked iDevices? As they say the terrorists are using Apple devices to comminicate. What about public safety in that case?
And I mean yes, on paper I’m all hands on deck for the safety of children but who’s safety comes after that? It’s just a matter of time.

 

[usagora]

Ofcourse, tech development should continue but what Apple wants to develop is not where tech is supposed to head. There are other more important things to develop. Like better and longer lasting batteries for start and so on.

That's obviously an opinion and one that apparently Apple and many others DON'T share with you (and of course many DO share it). And it's a straw man to imply they are focusing just on this to the detriment of other technological developments. Obviously this is merely one of the many, many things they are working on.

The sad reality is that the world is heading to a total surveillance and control over the individual. For every new advancement to this, they say it’s for xxx safety. And I mean yes, on paper I’m all hands on deck for the safety of children but who’s safety comes after that? It’s just a matter of time.

Again, this is fallacious reasoning. And Apple is not interested in surveilling what you have on your local iPhone storage. They never have and I believe they never will. But when it come to using their optional cloud service, you are now moving files from your local iPhone storage to someone else's computers (servers). They have every right to ensure you aren't uploading illegal material to their servers. If you really don't want Apple to know about ANYTHING on your iPhone, then I'd suggest not using iCloud, as it's not 100% private - Apple has always had the ability to decrypyt and view your files/data stored there.

 

[AeroZ]

That's obviously an opinion and one that apparently Apple and many others DON'T share with you (and of course many DO share it). And it's a straw man to imply they are focusing just on this to the detriment of other technological developments. Obviously this is merely one of the many, many things they are working on.



Again, this is fallacious reasoning. And Apple is not interested in surveilling what you have on your local iPhone storage. They never have and I believe they never will. But when it come to using their optional cloud service, you are now moving files from your local iPhone storage to someone else's computers (servers). They have every right to ensure you aren't uploading illegal material to their servers. If you really don't want Apple to know about ANYTHING on your iPhone, then I'd suggest not using iCloud, as it's not 100% private - Apple has always had the ability to decrypyt and view your files/data stored there.

We might never know who is interested in surveilling our data. Probably (maybe) not Apple, but the government. Apple didn’t play along with the government regarding backdoor access to iDevices so this might be where they agreed to play along or face consequences.
Weird that they haven’t been interested in illegal mp3’s and movies uploaded to iCloud all those years but suddenly they’re so interested in photos.

 

[usagora]

We might never know who is interested in surveilling our data. Probably (maybe) not Apple, but the government. Apple didn’t play along with the government regarding backdoor access to iDevices so this might be where they agreed to play along or face consequences.

might, probably, maybe, etc. All pure conjecture with no evidence.

Weird that they haven’t been interested in illegal mp3’s and movies uploaded to iCloud all those years but suddenly they’re so interested in photos.

Could this be more apples and oranges (no pun intended)? How is Apple supposed to know if an mp3 or movie stored on their servers was legally obtained or not? On the other hand, CSAM is always illegal (not to mention a far more important issue than pirated music/movies). I'm sure if there were a feasible way for Apple to detect pirated materials, they'd so so.

 

[dk001]

Apple's way is completely blind until it gets to the server, so no, your phone has no idea what if the scans are a match or not until they're processed on Apple's servers.

You still don't get it.

 

[dk001]

Would you prefer I make up a word? That's what it is, so that's what I call it. It's an informal logical fallacy called "appeal to emotion" (argumentum ad passiones) that is rampant in our society in many different arenas. People fall for it all the time, which is why you and others use it - far easier than actually using reason and evidence.

You can use any word you want. That is up to you.

 

[usagora]

You can use any word you want. That is up to you.

Of course, but I choose to use the accurate word.

 

[dk001]

Of course, but I choose to use the accurate word.

Once again, the term used is your choice.

 

[Black Magic]

I dont have a percentage, but I'm guessing a WHOLE lot more than 0.1% of Apple consumers have CSAM collections. It is a HUGE problem world-wide, and there's nothing special about Apple consumers that would make them any different from the rest of the population. I can promise you Apple isn't going through all this blood, sweat, and tears for a 0.1% problem.

Sad but true when you think about it. I guess I'm being naive and like to believe this world is a lot better than it actually is.

 

[usagora]

Once again, the term used is your choice.

Which I just acknowledged, but thanks for repeating yourself.

And thanks for pointing out the obvious. I was under the impression that you had chosen the term for me. Thanks for clearing it up.

 

[Abazigal]

As I said, it’s a slippery slope. You can change what is illegal in a daily basis.

It’s not something I lose sleep over.

 

[MadeTheSwitch]

CSAM concerns to me seem overblown. As I understand it, Apple will be scanning for known images or faces of children on iCloud. If something is flagged, then a human will review the image and it escalates from there. For me, I would imagine 99.9% of Apple consumers do not have sexual images of children so things will not be flagged/escalated. If an accidental flag happens, a human will review and resolve. Can this technology be exploited? Maybe. Are we fools for expecting 100% privacy in the year 2021? Probably.

My issue is that I don’t like:

1) Being treated guilty until continually proven innocent...endlessly.
2) Having my photos sifted through on my device. Just like I wouldn’t want someone coming into my house and sifting through all my papers and stuff looking for things either. It just seems like such an invasion of privacy. If they want to look once it gets on their servers...fine. But don’t be snooping on my device first. I don’t like that.
3) Along those lines I also don’t like the additional bloatware that will be added to the OS to accomplish this and the battery life that might be used while it “scans”.

It just seems Orwellian and wrong to me. Just doesn’t sit well with me for a company that is always touting privacy and ran an ad based on 1984 to be doing this.

 

[hot-gril]

That's simply untrue. This is exactly what I'm talking about - you've clearly bought into the conspiracy theory stuff surrounding this. ALL they're wanting to do is scan for illegal imagery (which is not protected by the Constitution as free speech) to prevent people from uploading it to iCloud, because that's a violation of the TOS. If you don't like that, then you can disable iCloud for photos. If you think Apple is going to "hand the keys over" to governments to abuse this system, then what's your evidence for this? Do you have a secret recording of Apple execs discussing this with top government officials or something? What motive would Apple have for doing so? Heck, they wouldn't even give the FBI their way to give them access to a terrorist's iPhone. Now you think they're suddenly going to lie down and be walked all over? I don't think so.

They're not merely blocking offending content from going onto iCloud like you say. That would be understandable. But they're also reporting you to the authorities if you attempt to upload it. That's the mass surveillance part, and there's no excuse for it.

This isn't just some Twitter-style outrage. Security researchers are complaining for good reasons.

 

[hot-gril]

So I take it you never read product reviews? 🤔

I actually don't. I ask friends who know their stuff. According to product reviews, the best phone is some random piece of **** Android, cause nobody gets clicks hyping up something typical. The OnePlus Maxx Pro China+ 5G or whatever.

I still remember Consumer Reports recommending against the iPhone 4, despite it being by far the best phone you could buy (since back then Android hadn't even remotely caught up yet), because of the antenna fake news.

 

[usagora]

They're not merely blocking offending content from going onto iCloud like you say. That would be understandable. But they're also reporting you to the authorities if you attempt to upload it. That's the mass surveillance part. There's no excuse for it.

So you're against reporting child porn to the police? Did I hear that correctly? You're ok with them finding it and blocking it, but not reporting it?

I'm sorry, but if you attempt to upload illegal material to someone else's computer (which is basically what's happening, since servers are just computers), there's no excuse NOT to report it to the authorities.

 

[usagora]

I actually don't. I ask friends who know their stuff. According to product reviews, the best phone is some random piece of **** Android, cause nobody gets clicks hyping up the iPhone.

How lucky that you have friends that have experience with every product or service you're looking to buy. Most of us don't have that luxury, nor the time to interview them all even if we did. And of course your friends are people just like people who post reviews. Obviously people need to filter reviews critically, but there's nothing wrong with looking to reviews from "strangers" when researching products or services you wish to purchase. And of course many reviews can be found on reputable sites or YouTube channels, etc. as well.