Will you leave the Apple ecosystem because of CSAM?

[russell_314]

That's the thing. We don't care that it won't change anything. We really don't. I am happy they gave me a reason to leave. Many of us in this very thread have said that even if they said they would undo it all it wouldn't matter. Trust is broken.

We are not trying to change Apple. We are just making it so Apple can't change us.

Man, that sounds pretentious.

Yeah it's not like people don't discuss stuff they can't directly control... You might as well just shut down the forums if that's the requirement for a discussion 🤦‍♂️🤣

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Yeah it's not like people don't discuss stuff they can't directly control... You might as well just shut down the forums if that's the requirement for a discussion 🤦‍♂️🤣

Right?

 

[Wreckus]

To an extent, I agree. On the other hand, facebook doesn't get to install spyware on my literal phone.

IMO, the facebook app is a friendlier version of spyware.

 

[Mercury7]

All it really took was one approach to try and hinder child pornography. Now everyone has their pitchforks out - it looks to me that it's all about having wanted to move on to a different platform and as soon as something like CSAM scanning comes along the whole house of cards fall. Because "it's my right as a private individual. *puts the pacifier back in*"

So what is the real cause of this exodus? All the stories about developers getting paid too little by charging for their overpriced apps via subscriptions like Hey! Fantastical. 1Password etc?

Can it really only be CSAM scanning?

Sorry if I come across extremely naïve - I just don't have the mental capacity to understand this rage. How can each one of you go about in the open world and when recognised go "Hey apeface.. leave me alone... also call me tonight, maybe we can schedule a meeting tomorrow and have a bite to eat and talk about the good old days"

Also,, let me say that of course I recognise that it only takes a little thing for the house of cards to fall. The jews killing off that fellow; Jesus - started a whole crucifixion thing -before he killed mind you. crucifying after Jesus was dead sort of led to some terrible movies about that man. If he even was a man?!

So of course it's possible that only one thing causes this war cry.

It’s really not that hard to understand, cloud-public….. personal property-private Apple is doing what the government is not allowed to do… it’s just simply unacceptable to those of us that care. Police are not allowed to search your car without a warrant or permission, imagine if you had to sign a contract when you bought the car allowing them to search your car for illegal stuff anytime they wanted to… or in this case every day, same thing

 

[eltoslightfoot]

IMO, the facebook app is a friendlier version of spyware.

Right, but it still isn't installing it on my phone. I mean, I don't install the app, it can't do anything to my phone.

 

[Wreckus]

Right, but it still isn't installing it on my phone. I mean, I don't install the app, it can't do anything to my phone.

Yep your right.

 

[TopherMan12]

I understand the reason why this becoming a thing, but I don't like the overall principle. I'm not going to leave Apple's ecosystem primarily because 1) I have nothing to fear 2) Apple is being extremely upfront about it. I'm not certain other companies would be. Actually, I would not be surprised to find out that other companies are scanning images already for financial reasons.

 

[dk001]

Most of what he talked about is just a standard privacy agreement. Of course Apple needs to know your banking information if you’re using Apple Pay. Yes if you don’t want to share your banking information with Apple then Apple Pay won’t work duh 🤦‍♂️

Of course they are allowed to share your information with their lawyers that’s in case you become a legal threat to them. If they didn’t you could sue them and they couldn’t even give their lawyers your information. They’re not sending their lawyers the entire Apple iCloud list. This guy could make a video about any privacy agreement and say exactly what he said. By the way Apple owns Shazam.

What it encouraged me to do was look at the privacy.apple site. It also puts light that all these groups build profiles on us from Apple to Facebook to Google to Microsoft to … They are all pretty much the same.
What they do with these is another matter.

 

[dk001]

I understand the reason why this becoming a thing, but I don't like the overall principle. I'm not going to leave Apple's ecosystem primarily because 1) I have nothing to fear 2) Apple is being extremely upfront about it. I'm not certain other companies would be. Actually, I would not be surprised to find out that other companies are scanning images already for financial reasons.

They likely are to a point.
What they are not doing is scanning them on device for legal (catch a crook) reasons.
As for Apple being very upfront about this, I suspect that we are getting just a snapshot of what they want us to see.

 

[dk001]

This won’t speed up nor slow down my current withdrawal from Apple. What I will not do is take Apple’s word any longer that they care about my privacy.

 

[twdawson]

HP Laptop running Linux, Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G, Galaxy Watch 3, Galaxy Buds Live, plenty of Android tablets both old and new. I prepared early as I saw the writing on the wall early on (Apple has made many past decisions I haven't agreed with.)

I have read all of your posts and totally agree with you 100% on what you have said in all of them.
I stopped using iCloud and iCloud photos some time ago. All my files and photos are on external drives and my old time capsule.

I am keeping my iPhone X on iOS 14 and my MacBook Pro on Catalina until I decide on what devices I will get next.

I am seriously looking in to what version of Linux I might put on this MacBook as I used to use linux mint a few years ago.

Scary times ahead.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Look at it this way. Who are all the people talking about how bad an idea this is. Most, if not all, security and IT experts. So, yes, if you want to say you are naive, I am not going to disagree. It is up to you if you stay that way.

You're absolutely right on all counts. And let's hear it one more time for Edward Snowden who's not currently co-operating with the US government and have all sorts of great viewpoints.

I don't accept anything shown or put forth to me - I am not sure who's stopping progress here?

The outcries from those whom "seen the light" are too damn high. Not that it matters... let's keep talking.

 

[smoking monkey]

This won’t speed up nor slow down my current withdrawal from Apple. What I will not do is take Apple’s word any longer that they care about my privacy.

Whatever happened to there being a middle grey area? Yes, this is definitely a privacy issue and there have been other privacy issues with Apple, but they also do A LOT of good things in regards to privacy. So maybe, it's not just all or nothing.
I know the west has gone that way where something or somebody is either super awesome or super horrible. But it just find this way of thinking far too tiring.

 

[keeper]

I don't see any need to change Apple hardware at this point, if you don't like what's happening just take control of your own cloud, I've moved all my photos and documents to my Synology NAS.
I how have ownership of all the data but can still access on IOS or my Mac.

Backed up with C2 storage

C2 Storage

Back up your Synology NAS data to the cloud with Hyper Backup or sync requested data between C2 Storage and branch offices using Hybrid Share.

c2.synology.com

I'm using Plan 1 at 9.99 a year.

 

[twdawson]

I wonder if they have silently sneaked this scanning feature in to Big Sur with that latest update. There wasn’t enough info about it so makes me wonder.

Getting very suspicious in my old age.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Whatever happened to there being a middle grey area? Yes, this is definitely a privacy issue and there have been other privacy issues with Apple, but they also do A LOT of good things in regards to privacy. So maybe, it's not just all or nothing.
I know the west has gone that way where something or somebody is either super awesome or super horrible. But it just find this way of thinking far too tiring.

Too tiring for you. Putting code on my Apple devices that spies on me and that I can't get rid of? I am never too tired to fight that. The thing is? Apple is the complaint that removed the grey area--by doing any of this at all.

No one was asking them to do anything.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I don't see any need to change Apple hardware at this point, if you don't like what's happening just take control of your own cloud, I've moved all my photos and documents to my Synology NAS.
I how have ownership of all the data but can still access on IOS or my Mac.

Backed up with C2 storage

C2 Storage

Back up your Synology NAS data to the cloud with Hyper Backup or sync requested data between C2 Storage and branch offices using Hybrid Share.

c2.synology.com

I'm using Plan 1 at 9.99 a year.

The thing is, why would I reward apple for bad life decisions that affect me? I too made an unRAID cloud, but windows devices can use it just as well. 😉

 

[eltoslightfoot]

You're absolutely right on all counts. And let's hear it one more time for Edward Snowden who's not currently co-operating with the US government and have all sorts of great viewpoints.

I don't accept anything shown or put forth to me - I am not sure who's stopping progress here?

The outcries from those whom "seen the light" are too damn high. Not that it matters... let's keep talking.

First, that doesn't make him wrong.

No one is stopping progress except apple.

If you feel the outcries from this if us who have "seen the light" are too loud, you haven't seen the results of this poll. 😆

 

[nickdalzell1]

I have read all of your posts and totally agree with you 100% on what you have said in all of them.
I stopped using iCloud and iCloud photos some time ago. All my files and photos are on external drives and my old time capsule.

I am keeping my iPhone X on iOS 14 and my MacBook Pro on Catalina until I decide on what devices I will get next.

I am seriously looking in to what version of Linux I might put on this MacBook as I used to use linux mint a few years ago.

Scary times ahead.

Be careful. Eventually, even with 'automatic updates' turned off, there's a countdown that after you bypass the 'iOS 15 is now available for your iPhone' so many times it just up and installs itself. I am not sure if the same happens with Macs. On iOS it eventually just gives you two options, install now or install later. If you somehow keep that from happening, the apps break, none will run without saying 'you must update to iOS 15 to continue using this app'

None of that happens on Android as I know how apps on Android check and phone home for updates--Mostly via Google Play Services, which a third-party app, NetGuard No-Root Firewall, can block internet access to, so apps don't force updates or complain about 'no Play Services on device'. You also keep Google from monitoring everything you do because that is also routed through Play Services. I disabled mobile data and wifi access to anything Google so any Google apps that run can run offline or run without phoning home (such as Chrome, it doesn't need Play Services to actually browse the 'net) and just disabled the actual apps (maps, search, gmail, etc) and put in open source or Samsung replacements. Since I don't believe in updates after iOS 7 turned a beautiful and fun UI into a flat cartoon (and Android did the same in version 5.0, Lollipop) I tend to have backup *.APK files stored on a Linux server acting as an NAS that date back to my all-time favorite version of Android, version 2.3, Gingerbread, the last truly open Android. Those apps run even on modern devices and look great today. Most are not even internet-based (music, gallery, file browser). I also saved some good old apps that stream music that work fine (Slacker, Pandora, Spotify) as well. You don't need the latest version of anything to have a useable device, and it does save resources to go as old as you can go.

Part of why I appreciate that even Google puts the SDK as well as an emulator for developers to tinker with, so we intelligent people can figure out how things work 'under the hood' as in Linux.

As for Macs running Linux, every attempt other than using Parallels ended in disaster. I had zero keyboard, zero wifi, zero sound, only the screen and touchpad. Something to do with the Secure Enclave having all the drivers missing in Linux. Ubuntu didn't work, neither did Mint, or OpenSuse or any others I tried. No touchbar, no keyboard, no wifi, no sound. I could plug in a USB hub with a C-to-A adapter and make it work if you like a spider mess of external devices instead of a laptop, but I want the laptop to stay a laptop. So I got a similar specced out HP laptop that costs far less and wiped Windows (after toying with 11 a bit) and put Linux on it.

 

[Jason2000]

As mentioned in another thread: probably yes. But it will be a longer transition since a) I just bought new devices and I do like especially my iPads and b) it remains to be seen if governments are able to pressure Google into introducing the same kind of on device scan (or Google even do it on their own will).
For the time being, I will stay on iOS 14. Also I don't live in the US and do not use iCloud Photos anyway, so I assume for the next 2 years I can personally ignore the thing and will just have to live with the fact that I dislike the whole thing conceptually (assuming Apple doesn't pull it back because of the negative publicity).

You do know Google along with other tech companies scan your files stored in the cloud. Sure Apple is doing this on the device but even if you move away from the iPhone unless you do not back your photos/files in the cloud they are going to get scanned too. And you are probably right. Only a matter of time before Android does the same.

 

[smoking monkey]

Too tiring for you. Putting code on my Apple devices that spies on me and that I can't get rid of? I am never too tired to fight that. The thing is? Apple is the complaint that removed the grey area--by doing any of this at all.

No one was asking them to do anything.

Yeah, but what are you doing to fight it? Just releasing some frustration about it on a rumor site (your right to do so) or are you actually gonna do something about it? Because fighting implies actually doing something. This whole social media thing of, "I posted about it therefore I'm fighting!" is meaningless.

Spying on you implies you don't know. You do know. It's checking on you is probably a more apt description.

Actually, you might find some were asking Apple to do something about it. There was a report that iPhone were heavily used to distribute CP.

Let's hope they abandon the system prior to launch or push it back and then intro something less intrusive or better. But this isn't going away. Apple is 100 percent going to do something about it.

 

[twdawson]

Be careful. Eventually, even with 'automatic updates' turned off, there's a countdown that after you bypass the 'iOS 15 is now available for your iPhone' so many times it just up and installs itself. I am not sure if the same happens with Macs. On iOS it eventually just gives you two options, install now or install later. If you somehow keep that from happening, the apps break, none will run without saying 'you must update to iOS 15 to continue using this app'

None of that happens on Android as I know how apps on Android check and phone home for updates--Mostly via Google Play Services, which a third-party app, NetGuard No-Root Firewall, can block internet access to, so apps don't force updates or complain about 'no Play Services on device'. You also keep Google from monitoring everything you do because that is also routed through Play Services. I disabled mobile data and wifi access to anything Google so any Google apps that run can run offline or run without phoning home (such as Chrome, it doesn't need Play Services to actually browse the 'net) and just disabled the actual apps (maps, search, gmail, etc) and put in open source or Samsung replacements. Since I don't believe in updates after iOS 7 turned a beautiful and fun UI into a flat cartoon (and Android did the same in version 5.0, Lollipop) I tend to have backup *.APK files stored on a Linux server acting as an NAS that date back to my all-time favorite version of Android, version 2.3, Gingerbread, the last truly open Android. Those apps run even on modern devices and look great today. Most are not even internet-based (music, gallery, file browser). I also saved some good old apps that stream music that work fine (Slacker, Pandora, Spotify) as well. You don't need the latest version of anything to have a useable device, and it does save resources to go as old as you can go.

Part of why I appreciate that even Google puts the SDK as well as an emulator for developers to tinker with, so we intelligent people can figure out how things work 'under the hood' as in Linux.

As for Macs running Linux, every attempt other than using Parallels ended in disaster. I had zero keyboard, zero wifi, zero sound, only the screen and touchpad. Something to do with the Secure Enclave having all the drivers missing in Linux. Ubuntu didn't work, neither did Mint, or OpenSuse or any others I tried. No touchbar, no keyboard, no wifi, no sound. I could plug in a USB hub with a C-to-A adapter and make it work if you like a spider mess of external devices instead of a laptop, but I want the laptop to stay a laptop. So I got a similar specced out HP laptop that costs far less and wiped Windows (after toying with 11 a bit) and put Linux on it.

I am seriously considering a new laptop called system 76 when I need a new one, that’s a linux based system that seems really good.
When I upgraded to my iPhone X I got a new battery put in to my 5S and put it back in its box ready for something like this. I have used it a couple of times as an iPod since then so I know it still works well.

I don’t really use apps at all and much prefer using the browser for things like accessing my bank. I never play games or use any kind of social media rubbish.

I use my phone as an actual phone for calls and messages, or taking photos of the grandkids and family and with being signed out of iCloud I can just airdrop them to my MacBook.

In the future I am tempted to get a de googled phone, I used to mess around with custom roms years ago when I had my Nexus 5. That was a great little phone and wished I still kept it.

The iPad in my sig is reset and boxed up ready for sale as I have had enough of this ecosystem and if finances allowed it I would replace everything now.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I am seriously considering a new laptop called system 76 when I need a new one, that’s a linux based system that seems really good.
When I upgraded to my iPhone X I got a new battery put in to my 5S and put it back in its box ready for something like this. I have used it a couple of times as an iPod since then so I know it still works well.

I don’t really use apps at all and much prefer using the browser for things like accessing my bank. I never play games or use any kind of social media rubbish.

I use my phone as an actual phone for calls and messages, or taking photos of the grandkids and family and with being signed out of iCloud I can just airdrop them to my MacBook.

In the future I am tempted to get a de googled phone, I used to mess around with custom roms years ago when I had my Nexus 5. That was a great little phone and wished I still kept it.

The iPad in my sig is reset and boxed up ready for sale as I have had enough of this ecosystem and if finances allowed it I would replace everything now.

My father was the same way. He had an old RAZR VIIIi that died the day AT&T killed 2G/GPRS so he had a friend lend him an old iPhone 2G that apparently worked on T-Mobile (still has 2G/EDGE to this day) and all he used it for was calling, and occasionally Safari to look up aviation sites. He never texted. He was using it the day he died in 2016.

Newer ain't always better. Ain't nobody's business to tell folks what they should use or not. But I feel more private having even older Android phones that date back to 2011 since they don't even support Play Services at all, no Google account nothing. If anything goes down that affects my modern phone, I'll go back to those. Same apps, same data, same music, same photos, all offline mostly. I really don't need a modern phone to live my life.

I would forget rooting and Custom ROMs. they haven't been the same fun they used to be when CyanogenMod 7.1 launched years ago. They just give you upgraded Android on unsupported devices (which isn't the best experience, and the modern UI is crap) and root breaks a lot of banking apps since SafetyNet became hard-coded. You would be best getting a phone, disabling the Google apps, using NetGuard to keep Play Services, Services Framework offline and sideload your *.APK files and never use Google Play Store. Disable any and all update services via NetGuard or turn the option off in the app. No apps will force updates and if somehow they try, I uninstall them.

One thing I've noticed as an odd benefit is an ancient browser such as Dolphin Mini (2010 version) can pull up modern websites since it supports the webview engine in modern Android, even though the browser dates back to 2.1, Eclair. It has a nice organic UI that fits the Samsung nature aesthetic, and can run YouTube ad-free without extensions.

 

[jseymour]

Look at it this way. Who are all the people talking about how bad an idea this is. Most, if not all, security and IT experts.

I have yet to have seen a single security researcher, professional, or group, or privacy advocate, bless Apple's plan. Not. One. I have several times posted here asking people to cite one. Not one response to the challenge.

One would think the people supporting this plan of Apple's might look at that and think "Hmmm..."

IMO, the facebook app is a friendlier version of spyware.

You have a choice as to whether or not to install Facebook. Even on some Android devices that included it by default and didn't allow you to delete it didn't force you to actually sign up for and use it. In fact they allowed you to disable it.

What I will not do is take Apple’s word any longer that they care about my privacy.

I'd say Apple's claims to being privacy advocates has pretty much gone up in smoke at this point. That sign that put up years ago has become a running joke.

... but [Apple] also do A LOT of good things in regards to privacy.

I find what they plan to do so bad it's wiped-out everything else they claim to do and for which they claim to stand.

Be careful. Eventually, even with 'automatic updates' turned off, there's a countdown that after you bypass the 'iOS 15 is now available for your iPhone' so many times it just up and installs itself.

It is at that point, at the latest, my iThings will be replaced.

You do know Google along with other tech companies scan your files stored in the cloud.

Yes, but that only matters if you use their cloud services. I don't and never did.

Only a matter of time before Android does the same.

Ah, but the difference is, with Android, I can load alternative OS' that don't have that spyware on them. On my spiPhone and spiPad I have no such option.

Yeah, but what are you doing to fight it?

If you'd followed the thread at all closely you'd have noted several participants have already done things about it--from sending comments to Apple, to signing public petitions, to divesting themselves of Apple services, to having canceled plans to acquire additional or new Apple product, to already having divested themselves of Apple hardware.

 

[schneeland]

You do know Google along with other tech companies scan your files stored in the cloud. Sure Apple is doing this on the device but even if you move away from the iPhone unless you do not back your photos/files in the cloud they are going to get scanned too.

Yes, but a) on the practical side, it's actually a lot easier to just switch to a self-hosted cloud store or use encryption on a public cloud provider than to deal with on-device scanning, and b) I consider my phone part of my private life so Apple's move crosses a boundary for me.

But let's see. After some initial research on the state of things in the Androidverse, I can only hope that the hardware situation improves in the next two or three years (among others, there's really a disturbing lack of smaller phones with decent tech, there).