How is it any more ‘bit flips’ away from scanning every photo on your device than it was before?
if (willBeUploaded) {
scanPhoto();
}
if (true) {
scanPhoto();
}
Photos for your own use that you do not upload to Apple’s cloud are completely unaffected.
But why are people only objecting now when they were already doing on-device analysis?
CSAM detection is a complete red herring. It is less of a general purpose scanning mechanism than the search function that was already there.
If a bit can be flipped to make the CSAM detector go evil, surely it can be flipped to make photo search go evil, or spotlight start reporting files that match keywords for that matter.
There is nothing special about this CSAM detector except that it’s narrower and harder to repurpose than most of the rest of the system.
As your immediate parent has already said: there isn't any process by which an image of a hotdog will be sent to someone else without my knowledge.
Neither "photo search" nor "spotlight" report anything to third parties currently.
On the other hand, making the CSAM code scan your text documents would be pointlessly difficult given that the other mechanisms exist.
It has already been added. That's the point here. The phone already has the code to report its own owner. People are rightfully pissed about that.
Also, adding a one-liner of code is a lot more than a bit-flip. That's the addition of a feature, which is a major business decision. Code that already exists is a lot closer to "misfiring" than code that simply does not. Flipping a policy config, OTOH, could be "explained" away a lot easier. In fact, Big Tech does it all the time! (Remember Facebook's "Oh. Sorry. It was a bug."?)
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Please stop this poor attempt at moving the goalposts by saying, "But, similar code could be added at any time in the future! Why're you guys complaining now?!"
It's also not about where the scanning is happening, or whether that's new or old. The old scanning is not a problem, precisely because it does no reporting. The new scanning IS a problem, precisely because it does the reporting.
The former is not a problem on its own. The latter is. That's the point you keep missing.
This whole ‘now that they have a scanner it’s easier’ reasoning doesn’t make sense. iOS already had numerous better matching algorithms if your goal is to do general spying.
It’s way more complex than that, and has been engineered to prevent exactly that scenario.
I recommend you actually check out some of Apple’s material on this.
The idea that it’s just a list or fingerprints or hashes that can easily be repurposed is simply wrong, but is the root of almost all of the complaints.
I feel like you may not have actually read the paper in depth. The paper clearly shows this is a generalised solution for detecting content that perceptually matches a database. The "what" is CSAM today, but nothing about the technicals require it to be CSAM.
To answer your specific response of safety voucher and visual derivative:
- The 'safety voucher' is an encrypted packet of information containing a part of the user's decryption keys, as well as a low resolution, grayscale version of the image (visual derivative). It is better described as "backdoor voucher".
- The 'visual derivative' is just the image but smaller and grayscale.
None of those two technologies have anything to do with CSAM. Apple's statement that they will only add CSAM to the database is a policy statement. Apple can literally change it overnight to detect copyrighted content, or Snowden documents, or whatever.
> Apple can literally change it overnight to detect copyrighted content, or Snowden documents, or whatever.
No, Apple doesn’t run the database. NCMEC does.
Also, in the US, the 4th Amendment protects against the abuse you are talking about:
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/08/12/a-38-year...
It can target a pride flag just as easily as CP.