General > General Technical Chat
Apple privacy letter (Law enforcement through your phone)
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MrMobodies:
I saw this in the Eevblog IRC ans thought this was interesting:


--- Quote ---[Twitter] - eevblog - RT @wherati: @eevblog Please pass this on in hopes of stopping those countless idiots. https://t.co/hufhwPQkld
--- End quote ---

https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1423758676020678662


--- Quote ---Edward Snowden

If you have a  @github account, you can join me in co-signing the first letter uniting security & privacy experts, researchers, professors, policy advocates, and consumers against  Apple 's planned moves against all of our privacy

Apple Privacy Letter
Read and sign the open letter protesting against Apple's roll-out of new content-scanning technology that threatens to overturn individual privacy on a global scale, and to reverse progress achieved...
appleprivacyletter.com
--- End quote ---

https://appleprivacyletter.com

--- Quote ---An Open Letter Against Apple's Privacy-Invasive Content Scanning Technology
Security & Privacy Experts, Cryptographers, Researchers, Professors, Legal Experts and Apple Consumers Decry Apple's Planned Move to Undermine User Privacy and End-to-End Encryption
→ Sign the letter via GitHub.

Dear Apple,
On August 5th, 2021, Apple Inc. announced new technological measures meant to apply across virtually all of its devices under the umbrella of “Expanded Protections for Children”. While child exploitation is a serious problem, and while efforts to combat it are almost unquestionably well-intentioned, Apple's proposal introduces a backdoor that threatens to undermine fundamental privacy protections for all users of Apple products.

Apple's proposed technology works by continuously monitoring photos saved or shared on the user's iPhone, iPad, or Mac. One system detects if a certain number of objectionable photos is detected in iCloud storage and alerts the authorities. Another notifies a child's parents if iMessage is used to send or receive photos that a machine learning algorithm considers to contain nudity.

Because both checks are performed on the user's device, they have the potential to bypass any end-to-end encryption that would otherwise safeguard the user's privacy.

Immediately after Apple's announcement, experts around the world sounded the alarm on how Apple's proposed measures could turn every iPhone into a device that is continuously scanning all photos and messages that pass through it in order to report any objectionable content to law enforcement, setting a precedent where our personal devices become a radical new tool for invasive surveillance, with little oversight to prevent eventual abuse and unreasonable expansion of the scope of surveillance.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has said that “Apple is opening the door to broader abuses”:

...

--- End quote ---

So if the bot alerts the authorities over what it detects as questionable content and they decide to access all phone's content remotely through the backdoor I wonder what impact that would have over bandwidth especially if it is in a poor signal area or do they just send out the police with the details they possible obtained from the sale of the phone (if new) or from other information from tracking.

Interesting to see how this will turn out.

Just see it was posted on the BBC news an hour ago:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58124495

--- Quote ---Apple criticised for system that detects child abuse
Published 1 hour ago

Apple is facing criticism over a new system that finds child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on US users' devices.

The technology will search for matches of known CSAM before the image is stored onto iCloud Photos. But there are concerns that the technology could be expanded and used by authoritarian governments to spy on its own citizens. WhatsApp head Will Cathcart called Apple's move "very concerning". Apple said that new versions of iOS and iPadOS - due to be released later this year - will have "new applications of cryptography to help limit the spread of CSAM online, while designing for user privacy". The system will report a match which is then manually reviewed by a human. It can then take steps to disable a user's account and report to law enforcement. The company says that the new technology offers "significant" privacy benefits over existing techniques - as Apple only learns about users' photos if they have a collection of known child sex abuse material in their iCloud account.

But WhatsApp's Mr Cathcart says the system "could very easily be used to scan private content for anything they or a government decides it wants to control. Countries where iPhones are sold will have different definitions on what is acceptable". He argues that WhatsApp's system to tackle child sexual abuse material has reported more than 400,000 cases to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children without breaking encryption. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, has also criticised the move, labelling it "a fully-built system just waiting for external pressure to make the slightest change".

But some politicians have welcomed Apple's development. Sajid Javid, UK Health Secretary, said it was time for others, especially Facebook, to follow suit. US Senator Richard Blumenthal also praised Apple's move, calling it a "welcome, innovative and bold step". "This shows that we can protect children and our fundamental privacy rights," he added.

Facebook and Apple don't like each other. That dislike has come to a head in recent months over privacy Apple's Tim Cook has consistently beaten the drum of "privacy first". He has not so subtly criticised Facebook's business model - that it essentially sells peoples' data to advertisers. A recent feature of Apple's new iOS update asked users whether they wanted to be tracked around the internet when they downloaded a new app. Facebook hated the move, and warned shareholders it could hurt their profits. So it's not entirely surprising that Facebook owned WhatsApp has come out so emphatically against Apple's new move. Looking at it cynically, Apple's announcement is a chance for Facebook to tell the world that Apple isn't as keen on privacy as it likes to say. But the WhatsApp chief isn't alone in his criticism. There are some very real concerns that this technology - in the wrong hands - could be used by governments to spy on its citizens. Facebook has said in no uncertain terms that it thinks this vision of online safety is dangerous and should be canned.Not for the first time the two companies have illustrated a totally different philosophical position on of the issues of our age -privacy.
--- End quote ---

Sounds like a serious problem that they would feel the need to do that.
rsjsouza:
Louis Rossmann made a video about it:
MrMobodies:
Something doesn't make sense to me, for a criminal to knowingly upload/access illegal/forbidden or pirated content I thought they normally use something decentralized/low profile and likes of Bittorent with a computer or laptop where control is easier over the internal/local storage but using phones and tablets with established online storage/cloud services where they could have backups of things and I believe they can be tracked. I somehow think that the criminals are unlikely to go for that.
magic:

--- Quote from: MrMobodies on August 07, 2021, 02:24:34 am ---Read and sign the open letter protesting against Apple's roll-out of new content-scanning technology that threatens to overturn individual privacy on a global scale, and to reverse progress achieved...

--- End quote ---
I don't feel affected :-//

Poor Apple fanboys :-DD

But on second though, I'm sure they will find some way to justify it :phew:
magic:

--- Quote from: MrMobodies on August 07, 2021, 05:13:03 am ---Something doesn't make sense to me, for a criminal to knowingly upload/access illegal/forbidden or pirated content I thought they normally use something decentralized/low profile and likes of Bittorent with a computer or laptop where control is easier over the internal/local storage but using phones and tablets with established online storage/cloud services where they could have backups of things and I believe they can be tracked. I somehow think that the criminals are unlikely to go for that.

--- End quote ---
"Think of the children" is the American "hate speech". In plain English it means: we want to monitor you and if you don't agree then you are a racist or rapist. It's one of the oldest memes.

Who would have expected that monopolization and dumbing down aka democratization of computing could possibly have that kind of effect? :wtf:
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