EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/eff-joins-global-coalition-asking-apple-ceo-tim-cook-stop-phone-scanning

by DiabloD3 • 5 years ago

549 204 5 years ago

slownews4515• 5 years ago

I feel list this story keeps on showing up on HN.

Does anyone have a link to previous discussion on this topic? Might help avoid endless re-hashes of the same arguments and misinformation.

wskinner• 5 years ago

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=fa...

slownews4515• 5 years ago

Wow - 11 stories with tons of upvotes (lots more with fewer).

A fair number are other "open letters" as well.

Helpful.

systemvoltage• 5 years ago

I've come to abhor the term `misinformation`, I know your intent but Twitter/FB has been using it in nafarious ways. Anytime I hear it, it triggers censorship related thoughts for me.

slownews4515• 5 years ago

I agree! It's been misused to mean things someone doesn't agree with too often :)

In this case we have been gettings tons of claims that what apple doing will see them charged with child porn felonies etc with almost no foundation.

We've also had lots of claims based on a failure to actually read about what apple is doing (ie, will scan all content not just that scheduled for upload to icloud etc).

dessant• 5 years ago

This is a new development, please don't try to suppress news.

slownews4515• 5 years ago

I'm not trying to suppress news.

There have been a ton of letters, calls to action, complaints and outrage about apple's actions.

Many of the conversations are HIGHLY repetitive.

I would strongly urge folks to review past discussions before re-hashing things (again) or focus on new elements.

And these headlines "Global Coalition"? I hope folks realize there is also a "global coalition" of governments that are working to do much more to get access to your information. Australia, China, the EU (yes, go on about GDPR but actual privacy - forget about it), UK etc.

There may also be a "global coalition" of users who like apple's products.

A better headline is EFF writes open letter with 90 other civil liberties groups to Tim Cook?

Edited to list prior topics on HN about this:

Apple's plan to “think different” about encryption opens a backdoor to your life

EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/apples-plan-think-diff... 2260 points|bbatsell|16 days ago|824 comments

Apple Has Opened the Backdoor to Increased Surveillance and Censorship

EFF: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/if-you-build-it-they-w...

618 points|taxyovio|10 days ago|303 comments

Tell Apple: Don’t Scan Our Phones

EFF: https://act.eff.org/action/tell-apple-don-t-scan-our-phones

161 points|sunrise54|4 days ago|30 comments

Is EFF opposition really new news?

I've also noticed this weird forumulation more often. "Please stop xxxx" rather than an actual discussion of a topic. Ironic to try and suppress a conversation by claiming someone elses comments are suppression?

istingray12• 5 years ago

Dessant, this is a bad take. Encourage others out of the loop by pointing them in the right direction. Done properly it will improve and enable new discussion.

rootusrootus• 5 years ago

You can't stop it. Once a topic becomes popular on HN, any plausibly related submission will instantly garner enough upvotes to put it on the front page. Eventually it will fade somewhat. Same thing happens with Boeing-related topics, for example.

OzzyB• 5 years ago

Just EFF'ing sign it.

azinman214• 5 years ago

As we’ve explained in Deeplinks blog posts, Apple’s planned phone-scanning system opens the door to broader abuses. It decreases privacy for all iCloud photo users, and the parental notification system is a shift away from strong end-to-end encryption. It will tempt liberal democratic regimes to increase surveillance, and likely bring even great pressures from regimes that already have online censorship ensconced in law.

What’s clear is the potential for future abuse mandated by various gov (though that could easily be the same even without all these CSAM measures.. not a new threat). However, the other things are erroneously lumped in with it. It only weakens privacy for iCloud photos if you have CP or photos in a CP database, and it doesn’t prevent E2E with texting… it just gives an additional parental control in addition to the many numerous parental controls (with them kids have no privacy already), and is totally unrelated to the CSAM effort.

I admire the EFF in many ways, but I wish they’d be more exact here given their access to expert knowledge.

carlosdp• 5 years ago

(though that could easily be the same even without all these CSAM measures.. not a new threat)

Apple has historically avoided being pressured by governments to allow this kind of surveillance by arguing they can't be forced to create functionality that doesn't exist, or hand over information they don't have. It's the argument they made in the San Bernadino case.

If they release this, it'll be much harder to avoid giving governments that existing ability for other, non-CSAM uses.

shuckles12• 5 years ago

The request from the FBI in the San Bernardino case was to change a passcode limit constant and retry timeouts. Those are about as trivial to implement as any of the convoluted government coercion database attacks against CSAM detection being proposed here.

pfranz• 5 years ago

Ehh. I'd argue Apple has a mixed record. It's well known that iCloud backups are unencrypted and often handed over to authorities. In Jan 2020[1], it was reported they planned to encrypt backups, but dropped the rollout due to pressure from the FBI. I'm surprised they don't get called out because the difference between this and San Bernadino makes sense to me from a technical standpoint, from a practical standpoint and to the laymen it seems hypocritical.

In this case, I actually kind of buy Apple's argument that this will make it harder to cowtow to governments (assuming they encrypt iCloud photos at some point). Right now they can scan iCloud data and hand over photos and accounts without user's knowledge. They can do that without informing users (like they currently do with backups). With this in place the database and logic ships with the OS. They would have to implement and ship any changes world-wide. Users will have to install that update. An alternative is Apple silently making a server-side change affecting specific customers or countries. With that said, I do understand people's concern over the change.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

anonuser1234562• 5 years ago

Not really.

Apple simply tells the DOJ if any non-CSAM content is added surreptitiously to the DB, Apple will drop CSAM scanning. Also, if DOJ makes any request to scan for non CSAM by court order or warrant, Apple will in kind drop support for the technology.

Apple is making the good faith effort here. If DOJ makes a bad faith effort, Apple is in now way required to continue to participate.

jtbayly• 5 years ago

It only weakens privacy for iCloud photos if you have CP or photos in a CP database

Or people who have photos that hash the same as CP.

smoldesu2• 5 years ago

Or possess tampered photos that were engineered to be a hash collision.

relax88• 5 years ago

It only weakens privacy for iCloud photos if you have CP or photos in a CP database

Who controls what is in the database? What independent oversight ensures that it’s only CSAM images? The public certainly can’t audit it.

What is stopping the CCP from putting pro-Uighur or Xi Winnie the Pooh images into the database? Or from the US using this to locate images that are interesting from an intelligence perspective (Say for example pictures of Iranian Uranium centrifuges)? Apple says they will only add images that more than one government request? All it would take is a few G men to show up at Apple with a secret court order to do this no?

So… China and Hong Kong? The Five Eyes nations?

nullc11• 5 years ago

Their use of a highly vulnerable[1] "neural" perceptual hash function makes the database unauditable: An abusive state actor could obtain child porn images and invisibly alter them to match the hashes of the ideological or ethnically related images they really want to match. If challenged, they could produce child porn images matching their database, and they could had these images to other governments to unknowingly or plausibly denyably include.

...but they don't have to do anything that elaborate because Apple is using powerful cryptography against their users to protect themselves and their data sources from any accountability for the content of the database: The hashes in the database are hidden from everyone who isn't Apple or a state agent. There is no opportunity to learn, much less challenge the content of the database.

[1] https://github.com/AsuharietYgvar/AppleNeuralHash2ONNX/issue...

azinman214• 5 years ago

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children intersected with a not yet determined db in another jurisdiction, and then human moderators at Apple.

So what you’re describing is something that is a concern for the future that could exist anyway (and maybe already does at places like Google that have _zero_ auditable processing of data that already scan for CP from the same database above). But let’s not pretend that’s today.

sennight5• 5 years ago

...if you have CP or photos in a CP database...

Which database? I get the impression that people think there is a singular repository for thoroughly vetted and highly controlled CP evidence submission. No such thing exists.

azinman214• 5 years ago

It’s an intersection between a US db and a not yet chosen non-US db, which then will have a human reviewer verify its CP before sending off to the authorities.

lamontcg3• 5 years ago

It only weakens privacy for iCloud photos if you have CP or photos in a CP database

Or if someone hacks your device and uploads one of those photos to your iCloud.

(I still have no idea why people aren't pointing this out more aggressively -- phones get hacked probably every minute of every day, and acquiring those actual photos isn't that difficult once you're willing to commit felonies -- hash collisions are a distraction)

azinman214• 5 years ago

Because that then would already be a problem for Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc that host photos that hacked phones could be uploading today.

And we’re just not seeing that being the case. Because all these providers have been doing this for so many years, including the nearly 17 million photos identified by Facebook last year, you’d figure there would be a lot more noise if this was really going on.

In fact, I would venture to say it’s far easier to hack a Facebook account than it is iCloud that has many on-device-based security protections that a cloud login without mandatory 2FA (and often SMS when it is used).

kurthr• 5 years ago

"it just gives an additional parental control in addition to the many numerous parental controls (with them kids have no privacy already)"

Wait, sending data (of matching CP hashes) to law enforcement is parental control?

aesh2Xa1• 5 years ago

Yours is a very fair negative reaction. The information in the EFF’s includes a portion where it seems to be concerned only about alerting parents[1]. I think many parents would find that reasonable. However, the fact that the information will also be sent to the government [2] is just plainly an abuse of privacy, goes outside of the relationship between parent and child, and I do not imagine that parents would find that reasonable.

[1] Moreover, the system Apple has developed assumes that the "parent" and "child" accounts involved actually belong to an adult who is the parent of a child, and that those individuals have a healthy relationship. This may not always be the case; an abusive adult may be the organiser of the account, and the consequences of parental notification could threaten the child’s safety and wellbeing. LGBTQ+ youths on family accounts with unsympathetic parents are particularly at risk. As a result of this change, iMessages will no longer provide confidentiality and privacy to those users through an end-to-end encrypted messaging system in which only the sender and intended recipients have access to the information sent.
[2] When a preset threshold number of matches is met, it will disable the account and report the user and those images to authorities.

snowwrestler5• 5 years ago

Apple announced two separate things in one press release: a CSAM-scanning system, and a parental control that uses AI to attempt to detect nude pictures in iMessages and alert the parents. The latter system does not send any info to Apple or any authorities.

bequanna2• 5 years ago

Does Tim Cook have a choice here?

I would be surprised to hear that the genesis of this idea was inside of Apple vs. one or more govts pressuring Apple to add this functionality for them.

It is also likely they even suggested that Apple should market this as anti-pedo tech to receive the least pushback from users.

lrvick• 5 years ago

Sure there is a choice.

They could open source the OS allowing independent auditing and independent privacy focused builds to emerge so people have a way to opt out, as they have on Android via projects like CalyxOS.

That is of course if privacy was actually a serious Apple objective.

pmontra• 5 years ago

Apple doesn't have a history of complying with every request from governments and police. They care more about their bottom line IMHO. So I was surprised by this "feature". I don't see how it sells more phones for them. Actually it could scare away some customers because of false positives. Everybody with small kids risks a match on some of their children pictures.

If Android also implements something like that I could end up with a Linux phone as my main phone and an Android one at home for the 2FA of banks and other mandatory apps. No WhatsApp but I'll manage.

hoppyhoppy2• 5 years ago

The latest episode of The Daily podcast [0] from The New York Times said that Apple executives were told by members of Congress at a hearing that if they didn't do something about CSAM on their platform the federal government would force them through legislation. And it's not a completely idle threat; just look at the proposed EARN-IT Act of 2020 [1], which would pretty much outlaw end-to-end encrypted services without a law enforcement backdoor.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/podcasts/the-daily/apple-...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020

sharken• 5 years ago

Be that as it may, there has not been presented any proof that Congress would dictate client-side scanning on users devices.

But it still doesn't change that Apple needs to stop on-device scanning.

joe_the_user• 5 years ago

Government by threatened legislation is much worse than government by actual legislation. Legislation is public, Legislation can be opposed, legislation can be reviewed by the court and so-forth. Allowing yourself (and your users) to controlled by threats of legislation is allowing democracy to be discarded.

nullc11• 5 years ago

If Apple is performing the searching of user private data due to pressure or incentive from the government it would make apple an agent of the government from the perspective of the fourth amendment. As such, these warrantless searches would be unlawful.

If what you suggest were true, we should be even more angry with Apple: it would mean that rather than just lawfully invading their users privacy, that they were a participant in a conspiracy to violate the constitutional rights of hundreds of millions of Americans.

bequanna2• 5 years ago

Americans, Chinese, Europeans, everyone. This is an equal-opportunity privacy rights violation. Investigatory and spy agencies around the world must be thrilled that this is moving forward.

Of course, we’ll accept it and the dullest of us will even cheer it as “doing the right thing” while stating that they “have nothing to hide”.

politelemon• 5 years ago

The time to be angry with apple was years ago when they launched their false marketing campaign claiming privacy on their closed devices. A lot of people fell for it, and were happy to believe whatever they said. All the while they have been two-face-timing by turning over user data to governments (including the US and putting user data on Chinese servers) anyway, with the highest data turnover rates actually. Everyone was happy to turn a blind eye to these happenings as long as it didn't affect them.

We should be angry with _ourselves_. What's happening now is that this has hit closer to a lot more people, who are now dissecting every detail, blaming others, performing mental gymnastics, and launching 'open letters' so that their brand identity and perceptions aren't proven wrong. Convincing them to roll back their recent changes will not somehow make Apple devices private, when it was never private to begin with.

mrtksn• 5 years ago

The logical argument against this tech is solid but I despise it because it materializes the theological idea of “always being watched”.

There’s always an option to be part of the government and be on the side that takes advantage of this tech to take out rivals, make your job easier etc. but implementation of always watching devices is a hill to die on.

tpush2• 5 years ago

[...] and the parental notification system is a shift away from strong end-to-end encryption.

That particular statement doesn't make much sense to me. The parental notification system is just a frontend action (one of many, like link previews and such). What does that have to do with iMessage's encryption?

I can see an argument about a shift away from privacy (though it only pertains to minors under 13 receiving sexually explicit images). But I think it's misleading to say that it relates to iMessage's encryption in any way.

shuckles12• 5 years ago

EFF would probably argue that technologies like safe browsing are also a shift away from E2E encryption. They were strongly against email spam protection in the 90s for this reason.

aaomidi• 5 years ago

You mean when they said blanket banning email lists is bad and shouldn't be done? Because yeah that's still true.

vimacs2• 5 years ago

Framing the EFF's position as being against browser safety or spam protection is disingenuous.

slownews4515• 5 years ago

I remember those arguments against spam filtering!

Now we all accept it as annoying but necessary?

My guess is this may meet a similar fate.

GuB-423• 5 years ago

It is not about the encryption, it is about what an "end" is.

Generally, we consider the "end" to be the end user. If someone else can see the message along the way, it is not end to end anymore from a user perspective, even if it is from a network perspective. And Apple has complete control over your device through software updates. So that the leak is from your device or from the network is a mostly meaningless technical detail.

simondotau20• 5 years ago

As a parent, I consider myself the "end user" of my child's device, not my child. That I might be looped in on any messages sent or received by this device is not at all a leak, it's a convenience—much like how I can receive messages sent to me on my phone and my laptop.

simondotau20• 5 years ago

And Apple has complete control over your device through software updates.

This has been true of all operating systems with integrated software updates since the advent of software updates. In this respect, nothing has changed for over a decade.

tpush2• 5 years ago

But the message isn't being sent anywhere. The parental notification stuff doesn't do that.

And obviously both the sender and receiver software processes the unencrypted messages in a variety of ways.

dannyobrien2• 5 years ago

They went into this in more detail in 2019: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/11/why-adding-client-side...

soziawa• 5 years ago

This is based on pure speculation, but could it be that Apple believes the covid tracking functionality has shifted power from governments to Apple?

Many governments (e.g. Germany) wanted location instead of token based tracking with central storage of location pretty much up until the point where Apple and Google said that it won't happen .

This is based on my perception of Germany tech media coverage of the issue.

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 5 years ago

the covid tracking functionality has shifted power from governments to Apple?

IMO this is off topic, but I think it absolutely has done that, and has demonstrated it. I'm surprised governments haven't screamed about it more loudly, but maybe they didn't want to do that in an example where they were clearly on the wrong side (pushing for privacy-violating approaches).

robertoandred• 5 years ago

After the EFF lied about the system in the first place, does anyone care what they’re asking for now? What they’re really asking for is donations.

insomniacity• 5 years ago

What did the EFF lie about? Missed that…

shuckles12• 5 years ago

2/3rds of their original letter was spent describing a parental control over sensitive content detection in iMessage as an end to end encryption back door. At best, that is highly cynical. At worst, it is an intentional conflation of different features to raise false alarm.

slownews4515• 5 years ago

here is a quote from EFF complaint about Apple alerting parents to kids under 13 being sent porn:

"The recipient’s parents will be informed of the content without the sender consenting to their involvement."

Are parents really outraged by this? Are people sending porn upset about this?

My own view is as a parent if you send porn to my kids, I shouldn't NEED your consent to be alerted to this. I paid for the device, so it should do what I want, and if I turn this feature on than it should alert me.

shuckles12• 5 years ago

For ideological consistency, I can only hope the EFF has a lecture prepared about two party consent for kids who show their phones to their parents if they receive a dick pic.

slownews4515• 5 years ago

I think they are coming at this from the view that because iMessage was one of the first actual E2E encrypted products, showing the pic to the parent (after picture has reached end user device and been decrypted and is ready to display) should require consent. Ie, the encryption has been "broken".

That said - I don't find it very compelling. Parent paid for device. Parent is responsible for child. Parent should be allowed to control device (including setting a kids account instead of adult which trigger this etc). So I want to preserve MY right to both the device and to take care of my child. EFF seems to be focusing oddly on the rights of someone who DIDN'T pay for device.

nullc11• 5 years ago

I wrote a message explaining why I won't be posting any more neuralhash preimages and an index/summary of my posts on the subject:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28261147

Unfortunately it got flagged after getting 41 upvotes. :(

kowlo• 5 years ago

It may have been, but not anymore. Currently on the front page and not flagged!

edit: and now it's disappeared...

istingray12• 5 years ago

Thank you for all that you did here.

650• 5 years ago

With all the news of CSAM going to be scanned on iPhones, which people are even going to keep such content on iPhones anymore? The news of this has been so prominent in the media, people not even in tech have heard about it plenty. If you are a Person of Interest that consumes/distributes such content and are a tad aware of the news, you aren't going to use iPhones/iCloud storage anymore.

CompuHacker• 5 years ago

Apple will then have a list of all the people who have an iDevice but disabled iCloud in August, 2021.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 5 years ago

That is not evidence, that is inference (of what I am not even sure... prudence perhaps).

PartiallyTyped• 5 years ago

And how does that relate to CSAM? Are we going to start from the premise that everyone is guilty of something?

istingray12• 5 years ago

I disabled iCloud the day of the announcement. This feature will be used to attack journalists, whistleblowers, and the vulnerable in our society.

I then bought a System76 laptop to move away from my Macboom.

websites20233• 5 years ago

One would hope, but this severely overestimates the common user’s awareness of such features or their implementation on their devices. Check out this survey from 2019, where a majority of iPhone users of all stripes could not identify the phone they use:

https://www.androidauthority.com/smartphone-users-survey-201...

To put it bluntly, this fantasy that any significant portion of people who live east of Tahoe even knows, much less cares, about CSAM scanning is plainly absurd. All the headlines and breathless coverage about the fatal mistake Apple is making has resulted in… Apple’s stock soaring to record highs.

Some creeps will get caught. Some will switch to another way of sharing that material. Apple will get shielded from liability for hosting this content in iCloud.

contingencies2• 5 years ago

Screw Apple. Walked in to Huaqiangbei with an Ubuntu USB stick yesterday to test a bunch of laptops and ensure all the hardware worked. Bought a Lenovo. Screw Apple.

istingray12• 5 years ago

Nice! For others not in the artery of electronics, System76 and Purism offer Linux-first laptops, rather than stuff that just happens to be compatible. Support them!

websites20233• 5 years ago

Lenovo? After Superfish? Interesting choice.

contingencies2• 5 years ago

Had a look at online pricing: couldn't order System76 to China without huge cost and long shipping time.

Basically all electronics manufacturers have bad software now. It's assumed and rampant. Firmware on TVs, preinstalled apps on phones and tablets. You can't buy current-grade gear for a reasonable price without unwanted muck.

As it stands I still had to pay the Windows tax.

websites20233• 5 years ago

EFF lost credibility on this issue when their first statement conflated the iMessage safety for kids feature with the CSAM scanning. It’s clear that they are willing to fearmonger to raise money and aren’t committed to the cause of educating users and advocating a nuanced position. I cancelled my recurring donation.

sativallday• 5 years ago

Apple is clearly headed down a path where they require intimate knowledge of your data.

That AI assistant lives in the cloud in an Apple data center, not on your device.

EFF Joins Global Coalition Asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to Stop Phone-Scanning

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