Will you leave the Apple ecosystem because of CSAM?

[zakarhino]

Anything other than what they announced is just you being paranoid. So I'm not wrong. Anything was possible before this announcement and anything is possible after this announcement. I'm not going to lose sleep over what *could* happen.

If something bad happens at some point in the future, then I'll rethink my options. For now, there's no reason to worry about what may, possibly, maybe, perhaps, be sorta, hypothetically, possible in the future.

Spoken by every person that has never taken climate issues, nuclear weapons, mass surveillance, fascism, authoritarianism, or racism seriously.

Have fun not losing sleep over what might happen tomorrow. The rest of us will continue paying attention and questioning the status quo so that the ignorant -- such as yourself -- actually have the option of waking up tomorrow.

"bro why would i worry about something that might happen haha! just coast through life without thinking about anything haha! history? science? public statements by authoritarian politicians? haha who has time for that boring stuff!!11!!"

 

[Jayson A]

Spoken by every person that has never taken climate issues, nuclear weapons, mass surveillance, fascism, authoritarianism, or racism seriously.

Have fun not losing sleep over what might happen tomorrow. The rest of us will continue paying attention and questioning the status quo so that the ignorant -- such as yourself -- actually have the option of waking up tomorrow.

"bro why would i worry about something that might happen haha! just coast through life without thinking about anything haha! history? science? public statements by authoritarian politicians? haha who has time for that boring stuff!!11!!"

My point was… if they were going to abuse their powers, they could have done it all along. Apple controls the software on our devices, not us. I haven’t worried about it then, and I’ll worry about it when it becomes a problem.

 

[zakarhino]

My point was… if they were going to abuse their powers, they could have done it all along. Apple controls the software on our devices, not us. I haven’t worried about it then, and I’ll worry about it when it becomes a problem.

But they've already abused their powers: they handed over iCloud's encryption keys to the Chinese government for Chinese customers. They also secretly signed up to support the illegal NSA prism data collection program without telling their customers. They stopped the initiative to encrypt iCloud backups because the FBI started crying about it. None of those things would be possible if iCloud was truly E2EE encrypted wherein the customer (the data's owners) is the only entity capable of reading that data.

That's three counts of abusing their powers as far as we know. What do you think an abuse of power is? Tim Cook personally tweeting customer's photos he found browsing through iCloud's servers? An abuse of power in my eyes is intentionally refusing to implement something that's best for the customer (E2EE with no backdoors) because -- as you mentioned -- Apple are the only people that can control the software. They don't do that because that means closing the door to their friends in the government worldwide. Another abuse of power is voluntarily creating an encryption-bypassing content scanning system that is eerily similar to a system proposed by the EU (a mandatory system which the EU have said won't just be used for CSAM).

It's a whole lot harder to battle government requests to expand the scope of an already existing content scanning system that the public have already consented to by inaction than it is to battle government requests to fundamentally change a hypothetical zero access E2EE iCloud system that they've had years to build but haven't, especially if you've stressed the importance of true zero access E2EE private systems to the public instead of intentionally misleading them with the "end to end encrypted" marketing line.

An abuse of power is being given the responsibility of leading and educating the public in all matters of technology but failing to do so. If Apple truly cared about privacy they wouldn't make this system in the first place and they would teach their customers about the importance of zero access E2EE systems.

 

[PsykX]

Because I can avoid in-the-cloud scanning simply by not using the cloud. On-device scanning I can't avoid without not using the device.

OK that makes sense, but if you disable iCloud, CSAM won't be active.
CSAM is tied to iCloud, but it's not happening on iCloud.

 

[jseymour]

... if you disable iCloud, CSAM won't be active.
CSAM is tied to iCloud, but it's not happening on iCloud.

For now. The problem is the on-device scanner will still be there. The difference is, with in-cloud scanning I avoid the scanner entirely if I stay off the cloud. It wouldn't matter what they did with it in the future. It's on the cloud. I'm not. I'm not exposed. With an on-device scanner I have to trust their word it'll do only what they claim it will do, and when. Nope.

 

[jseymour]

Sign the privacy letter here: https://appleprivacyletter.com

Done!

 

[Jayson A]

For now. The problem is the on-device scanner will still be there. The difference is, with in-cloud scanning I avoid the scanner entirely if I stay off the cloud. It wouldn't matter what they did with it in the future. It's on the cloud. I'm not. I'm not exposed. With an on-device scanner I have to trust their word it'll do only what they claim it will do, and when. Nope.

All we can do is trust what they say. Saying that some day in the future they’ll scan locally whether iCloud is simply not true. Until that happens, I’m not going to worry.

 

[Pummers]

Go ahead and leave Apple and do your own thing for all I care, but it's literally not an issue for most of us. Lots of complaining about nothing.

You're free to do whatever you like, but you seem to have gone a long way to comment on a subject that's not an issue for you. 🤷‍♂️

 

[Mendota]

Someone calling it how it is, don't know why android users get offended when people say it's not as polished as iOS and tends to lag, even had people tell me they've left android because of the way it lags, had 3 family members android users switch to iOS recently, even they said iOS is more polished and doesn't lag like android, no shame in admitting it does happen.

As a person who has used both... No, I am sorry, but both "lag" under the right circumstances. Why do you think there are so many complaints about phones slowing down on the Apple side, and this even before the battery fiasco. Apple limits their devices so that is one factor to any slowdowns as compared to Android. You just can't do very much with IOS, unlike Android where people do things such as installing different launchers etc. And if Android is so "inferior" why does Apple keep trying to copy its features?

 

[LFC2020]

As a person who has used both... No, I am sorry, but both "lag" under the right circumstances. Why do you think there are so many complaints about phones slowing down on the Apple side, and this even before the battery fiasco. Apple limits their devices so that is one factor to any slowdowns as compared to Android. You just can't do very much with IOS, unlike Android where people do things such as installing different launchers etc. And if Android is so "inferior" why does Apple keep trying to copy its features?

No lag on any iPhone I’ve owned, don’t know anyone who said their iPhone is getting slow, apple limiting device performance is old news, it was because of old batteries, which they have fixed now by warning you to change your battery once it reaches 80%

Even a iPhone 7 is smoother than the latest android phone and doesn’t lag at all.

Watching the new pixel 5a review, even the reviewer said he ran into stutter 🤦‍♂️

 

[Mendota]

I'm genuinely curious to hear you about why on-device scanning is worse than in-the-cloud.

IMO in-the-cloud scanning is worse because a cloud is a black box, and the owner is the company behind it. They can upgrade their algorithms and add criterias whenever they want. They can get away more stealthily with doing more and more shady stuff with your data.

On-device : I own my device and I can decide to keep an old version of iOS if I don't feel comfortable with a new one.

How long do you plan to keep it? At some point you will have to buy a new one.

 

[dk001]

For now. The problem is the on-device scanner will still be there. The difference is, with in-cloud scanning I avoid the scanner entirely if I stay off the cloud. It wouldn't matter what they did with it in the future. It's on the cloud. I'm not. I'm not exposed. With an on-device scanner I have to trust their word it'll do only what they claim it will do, and when. Nope.

I wonder if MDM will be able to turn this feature off? Both of them. (Messages and CSAM)

 

[CasualFanboy]

As a person who has used both... No, I am sorry, but both "lag" under the right circumstances. Why do you think there are so many complaints about phones slowing down on the Apple side, and this even before the battery fiasco. Apple limits their devices so that is one factor to any slowdowns as compared to Android. You just can't do very much with IOS, unlike Android where people do things such as installing different launchers etc. And if Android is so "inferior" why does Apple keep trying to copy its features?

My first "smart" phone was an Android, purely by chance rather than a conscious pick of one over the other. But my wife likes i-stuff, so I ended up with an iPhone. I have never understood the hype over any phone, and am still dismayed that so many people literally base their identity around these things.

They have done more to debase, alienate, and pollute our society than anything else by rewarding degenerate Kardashianistic behavior, and have helped social media become as pervasive as it is now. These things are poison for kids, no question about it.

 

[Mendota]

Incorrect. I don't know, maybe you've been immersed in the Apple ecosystem for so long that it's outside your "box" to understand one is not obliged, on other products, to use only whatever the manufacturer supplies. (Or, in the case of Apple, allows.) Or perhaps you've never known anything else, But, when I had an Android phone I could simply plug it into my computer and download photos directly onto my computer. Just like I can my camera. (That's one of the things to which I'm looking forward if I move back to Android.)

There's also a thing called "OwnCloud," where you set up your own cloud server and sync to that. (I haven't looked into that lately. I have no idea how seamlessly it may work.)

It's like the music thing I mentioned in a post. On iOS I'm obliged to use iTunes if I want to place my music on "my" iThings and play it in any kind of reasonable manner. When I was on Android I could just dump it into a folder, point a music player at that folder, and play it. It is literally not possible to do that on an iThing. Sure, I can get my music into a folder. But there is no app available on Apple's App Store that will let me play but one track at a time--requiring me to manually select and play each track.

It's easier for me to get my music into my Jeep's system and play it than it is my iPhone. I put it on a formatted µSD card, plug it into the system, and there it is. It even supports industry standard play lists, shuffle, etc.

(I swear, this is like trying to explain the reliability and freedom that comes with using a Linux system to somebody who's never experienced anything but MS-Windows.)


In its announced current implementation. This is the part you and the others that find this acceptable keep wanting to disregard.

Well... I use both Windows and Linux as well as MacOS, and I find Windows to be far more reliable then Linux. I like Linux, but it would never work for me as a daily driver. The last blow up I had with Linux was over the clock. The clock was off, and the whole system went down before I was able to figure out what was wrong, by that time I was forced to reboot and deal with a postage stamp sized command line, (4k monitor) that I could barely see. On Windows, if the clock is off, Windows just fixes it, no fuss, no bother.

 

[smoking monkey]

If you think other companies aren't doing the same or similar or aren't going to intro something similar then you don't realise we're already Danny La Rooted.

It will be interesting to see if the uptake for iOS 15 will be slower compared to previous years.

 

[PsykX]

How long do you plan to keep it? At some point you will have to buy a new one.

It was more of an example.
I'm already on iOS 15 (beta) and won't go back.

But I also have an iPhone 5 since 2012. I now use it for vacations. It is now running iOS 10. Still working fine, nine years later. So I believe it's a solution for people who hate CSAM.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

If you think other companies aren't doing the same or similar or aren't going to intro something similar then you don't realise we're already Danny La Rooted.

It will be interesting to see if the uptake for iOS 15 will be slower compared to previous years.

See, it's easy to say something like this, but tough to prove it...

 

[RedRage]

As a person who has used both... No, I am sorry, but both "lag" under the right circumstances. Why do you think there are so many complaints about phones slowing down on the Apple side, and this even before the battery fiasco. Apple limits their devices so that is one factor to any slowdowns as compared to Android. You just can't do very much with IOS, unlike Android where people do things such as installing different launchers etc. And if Android is so "inferior" why does Apple keep trying to copy its features?

Don't waste your time. The guy spends more time talking about Android on an Apple forum lol

 

[jseymour]

As a person who has used both... No, I am sorry, but both "lag" under the right circumstances.

I never had even middle-of-the-road Android phones, much less flagship phones. The best Android phone I had was my Moto G. I guess you could say my first "really good" phone was my iPhone 6S. Anyway, I never noticed much in the way of lag with any smartphone I've owned. Maybe I'm just too-easily satisfied? Or maybe it's because I don't go looking for flaws to nit-pick.

Did I have occasional annoyances with my Android phones? Yes I did. But my Apple phones haven't been all sweetness and light, either.

I have never understood the hype over any phone, and am still dismayed that so many people literally base their identity around these things.

I've never understood all the hype, either. And, while I'm not dismayed by people who seem to wrap their ego around their mobile device choices, I do have to say I find it more than a bit silly.

I moved from Android to Apple for improved security and privacy. Well, security-wise, it now seems to me they're about on-par. And, with their latest announced intentions, Android privacy will certainly be no worse than Apple--and, arguably, worse in some respects. So I may move back. If Apple follows-through with their spyware plans, it's nearly a certainty.

Don't waste your time.

Truth be told: All this discussion is pretty much a waste of time--other than for the amusement factor. Anybody who doesn't get it, doesn't care, or chooses to trust Apple by this point isn't going to change their minds, and those who get it, care, and are skeptical of Apple's promises are not, either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well... I use both Windows and Linux as well as MacOS, and I find Windows to be far more reliable then Linux.

As I noted, elsewhere: I used to be a SysAdmin. My experiences with MS-Windows was such that I hope never to have to touch another MS-Win box again for the rest of my life. My Linux and Unix boxes, however, just ran and ran and ran and ran... The machine I'm currently typing this from has an uptime of 193 days. I don't even recall why I last rebooted it. I think just for the heck of it.

I used to track uptimes an all my servers at work. I had servers with uptimes in excess of two years, at times. Most times uptime was cut short by power failures in excess of UPS capacity.

 

[Mendota]

I never had even middle-of-the-road Android phones, much less flagship phones. The best Android phone I had was my Moto G. I guess you could say my first "really good" phone was my iPhone 6S. Anyway, I never noticed much in the way of lag with any smartphone I've owned. Maybe I'm just too-easily satisfied? Or maybe it's because I don't go looking for flaws to nit-pick.

Did I have occasional annoyances with my Android phones? Yes I did. But my Apple phones haven't been all sweetness and light, either.


I've never understood all the hype, either. And, while I'm not dismayed by people who seem to wrap their ego around their mobile device choices, I do have to say I find it more than a bit silly.

I moved from Android to Apple for improved security and privacy. Well, security-wise, it now seems to me they're about on-par. And, with their latest announced intentions, Android privacy will certainly be no worse than Apple--and, arguably, worse in some respects. So I may move back. If Apple follows-through with their spyware plans, it's nearly a certainty.


Truth be told: All this discussion is pretty much a waste of time--other than for the amusement factor. Anybody who doesn't get it, doesn't care, or chooses to trust Apple by this point isn't going to change their minds, and those who get it, care, and are skeptical of Apple's promises are not, either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


As I noted, elsewhere: I used to be a SysAdmin. My experiences with MS-Windows was such that I hope never to have to touch another MS-Win box again for the rest of my life. My Linux and Unix boxes, however, just ran and ran and ran and ran... The machine I'm currently typing this from has an uptime of 193 days. I don't even recall why I last rebooted it. I think just for the heck of it.

I used to track uptimes an all my servers at work. I had servers with uptimes in excess of two years, at times. Most times uptime was cut short by power failures in excess of UPS capacity.

I have had issues with Linux servers as well. Anytime there was an update needed I literally prayed. The advice I got was pretty much the same... Once you get it going, don't update. I too was a SysAdmin at the university. I don't know your computer needs so I can't speak for you. For me, I do graphic arts, programing, writing, and 3D modeling on Windows and I have zero issues. I can't say the same for Linux even though I do much less on that machine. Don't get me wrong... I like Linux as I enjoy all operating systems, and I use them all. But Linux as a daily driver is a no go for me. I have had to spend days at time dealing with what would be non-issues on Windows and MacOS. I love open source. I think it is worthwhile and an important part of modern computing, but I would never recommend it to anyone. If someone is the Linux type, they will figure it out on their own, and be prepared to deal with the various issues that come up. Help is not always on the way, so you need to be someone that knows enough and has the patience to fix problems on your own. Posting on Linux forums? Could takes days to get an answer, if you get one at all.

Maybe the answer is to never reboot. I don't know what distro you are running, but every few days KDE Neon wants to reboot for updates. And I keep the machine updated.

 

[LFC2020]

Wow this thread is 16 pages long. 😳 get your wallets ready ladies and gentlemen, iPhone 13 is just around the corner. 🥳

 

[Mega ST]

This is actually my consideration. I was on track to certainly buy a 13 and mid term to get another MBP. Not sure anymore. They can scan for child porn but if this is set to be expanded to all Apple products and can be turned against anything in the future without me knowing and stopping anything I don't want this environment. Maybe it will happen on all company platforms finally, not sure if switching away from apple helps. But the passion to stay with apple certainly has suffered.

I miss a clear statement by Tim if he in fact is willing to go this route or if they turn around. It feels like they setup their entire infrastructure to be exactly like this. And now it blew too early somehow.

 

[Expos of 1969]

Even a iPhone 7 is smoother than the latest android phone and doesn’t lag at all.
Watching the new pixel 5a review, even the reviewer said he ran into stutter 🤦‍♂️

No lag or stutter on my 2 year old Galaxy S10e

 

[MuppetGate]

What you've described there is the current system used by Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple: checking every file as it arrives on the server and giving a ticket to the ones that break the law.

Apple's new system works like this:

The cop is riding in your passenger seat. Every time you nudge the accelerator, the cop makes a note of your speed and compares it with the local speed limit. If you exceed the speed limit thirty times then he tells you to pull over, takes your ignition keys and tells you can have your keys back if you win the appeal.

And you've also used extra petrol carting this cop around …

Wait, I forgot something …

As well as carting around the cop in your car, you‘re also carting around a list of every speed limit on every road in the country. The cop will get you to pull over every few hundred miles so he can pick up an updated list. He’s not pleased when he discovers the list he had was out of date, and you’ve been breaking the speed limit for three weeks in a residential area of Milwaukee.

Which leads me to another question.

Apple says they’re going to keep the CSAM hash list on your phone. To update the list, they’re going to issue an OS update. So this means any new additions to the list won’t be picked up by the scanner until the phone is updated. So this could allow images onto their servers from phones that haven’t been updated.

So how do they get around this?

CSAM changes will have to be forced on to the phone as mandatory updates. How often will this occur?

or

You will be prevented from uploading images to iCloud until you update your phone.

or

Apple will continue scanning their servers. It’s the only way to be sure.

What am I missing?

 

[smoking monkey]

See, it's easy to say something like this, but tough to prove it...

It is easy to prove. Google is doing it, but only in the cloud. That's been mentioned. They aren't doing it on device. They may move in that direction or they may not.

I have no answers.