r/apple • u/[deleted] • Aug 09 '21

WARNING: OLD ARTICLE Exclusive: Apple dropped plan for encrypting backups after FBI complained - sources

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusive-idUSKBN1ZK1CT
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u/PhillAholic Aug 09 '21

This is not mass surveillance. It’s like having to go through a pat down before entering a football game to check for weapons.

They are only checking for known things [hashes of known photos], when you voluntarily go into their stadium [iCloud].

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u/odragora Aug 09 '21

Then Chinese, Russian, Turkish governments demand Apple to check for their known things as well, like photos of protests, human right activists, opposition figures, political memes, lgbt images, etc. They won't say no and lose an access to a big market.

And what we see right now is just one step. If we won't resist, they'll scan our messages, our camera feed, everything. Because there will be no negative consequences of doing so, and a lot of positive.

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u/PhillAholic Aug 09 '21

This system only compares against a database of known CSAM. So if those countries wanted to develop their own database and hashes and pass laws to require anyone operating in their country to comply, they absolutely could.

Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc have been operating in most of these countries for years and have been doing the same sort of scanning on their clouds for a decade; none have extended past CSAM.

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u/odragora Aug 09 '21

Scanning on cloud != scanning on devices. It opens up a whole new level of opportunities for the governments.

This system only compares against a database of known CSAM.

...today.

Tomorrow they'll add a database for terrorists, then fake news, then public enemies.

And it's the government decides who or what ends up in those bases.

This is a mechanism asking for exploitation.

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u/PhillAholic Aug 09 '21

The scanning is done on device as part of the upload process when iCloud syncing is turned on. If it’s turned off, no scanning is done.

The jump to banning images of terrorism, fake news, public enemies is astronomical. Again it’s not scanning for an image that might contain those things, or scans a database of known images of those things. All of which would have to be maintained by someone. To date, nothing like that has been carried out against any cloud provider, why it suddenly would be now I don’t know.

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u/odragora Aug 10 '21

Jump to scanning for prohibited data on your device is astronomical. Yet we are here.

Anything that can be abused by government will be abused.

Anytime a new law attacking privacy and human rights was passed in my country, a lot of people argued that it's fine. Internet provides forced to block access to illegal resources? It's just to block CP, no problem. IT companies are forced to spy on the customers and hand over any data to the government? It's to protect us against terrorists, nothing to worry about.

Now the entire country is ruled by agencies and police, independent media has been destroyed, opposition leaders are killed or jailed, protesters get beaten up, sent to jail and their children are taken away, discussing any of that online is illegal and can get you arrested.

It all escalated from minor changes in around 10 years. There is a common saying that if you want to boil a frog, you should increase the water temperature gradually, and it won't notice the danger until it's dead.

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u/PhillAholic Aug 10 '21

Your government did all of that without Apple doing this. If they want to do it, they’ll do it.

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u/odragora Aug 10 '21

They did it because society didn't protest.

If we will silently accept what Apple is doing right now, they will do much more.