Interesting. I won’t be around. I doubt they’d be much better unless somehow delegated to the little guy or the gal in the middle neither of which wouldn’t happen. There are entirely too many ambitious people around and therein lies the problem IMHO. They are interested far far too often in promoting themselves.
If I had any head for Sci Fi I’d ask to steal the idea from you. I haven’t even read much Sci Fi besides Bradbury who I loved. I don’t even watch the movies either.
Nevertheless, I certainly can recognize a terrific idea when I see it.
Nah, but I am not a writer although I sure do love to write. I just dabble in kids’ stories which amuses me, perhaps because I can get rather zany, if I so desire.
Well I reckon I’ve got another 30 years in me to annoy the kids and spend their inheritance.
In all seriousness, perhaps we are there already. Tech Giants have a lot of sway in how the general public view life, priorities etc.
There’s a great scene in The Devil Wears Prada, 23 minutes in, where Meryl Streep’s character schools Anne Hathaway about the fallacy of “individual choice.” (Cue the Timezone theme )
But I have taken this off topic so perhaps normal service should resume.
Sometimes Apple is it’s own worst enemy. If they had just scanned photos on iCloud like every other cloud provider this wouldn’t have blown up in their face. But they love marketing themselves as the privacy company and “on device” has been a big selling point.
Remember the “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone” billboards. I doubt they’ll try running something like that again. I’m already seeing references to the “Apple spyPhone” on Twitter and other parts of the net.
I doubt all this will matter for long. Within the next couple of years I expect Apple will have to decide to give law enforcement access to our devices or stop selling iPhones anywhere.
This does seem to be the trajectory. I don’t begrudge them for this move. They have done a good job, not perfect, a protecting user privacy. But, at least in the US the movement to strip Apple of a lot of the things that have always made it a uniquely walled garden seems to have bipartisan support. The UK, EU, China, India, etc., are already pushing hard against privacy. As we allow governments continue to “keep us safe” we can expect that the trade off is privacy.
That’s definitely true. Nothing is secure from the platform you’re viewing it on.
I’m more speaking about the medium in general. Email, at its base level, is a bunch of unencrypted (at rest, and frequently in transit) text files flying around the Internet. The admin of an email server can read pretty much anything on that server. The thing that makes it private, in practice, is that the admins have better things to do with their time.
I taught in a school district a while back which decided to throw out ALL the perfectly good Macs. Each teacher got one PC. I was helping a friend of mine with her.
I said “What’s this little button with a flag on it?” (Ie the Windows symbol).
So I clicked on it and lo and behold it bypassed the network!!!
I’d get on the network for my mail but other than that I had all sorts of private internet usage. The kids and I use to “get down” to the Singing Hamsters!
Apple is fine to scan for CSAM. The tricky issue is reporting to any Government agency. Then it because a 4th amendment sticky situation.
It’s a 4th Amendment and Fruit from the Poisonous Tree quagmire.
Anyone accused with financial wherewithal to hire adequate representation would have their lawyer going ape ***** in trial.
Apple is fine to scan for CSAM but they simply cannot contact or exchange any information with a Government entity without violating Constitutional doctrine.
I’m not sure that’s the case. The injunction of the 4th amendment only binds government, not business or private individuals. I could be wrong, Constitutional Law can get messy post 14th Amendment.
It interests me that Apple themselves are generally never seen as a bad player. It’s said about Microsoft, Google and Amazon, but interestingly never about Apple. Why is that?
It amuses me that Apple is touted as most privacy conscious and yet they ensure that they themselves have access to all your data. That seems even more duplicitous.
How is it ok to scan people’s images without permission or probable cause? By all means obtain a warrant and scan away, but not on everyone’s photos. That is an invasion of privacy. I wonder if we’d respond in the same way if someone knocked on our door and said they’d like to see all our photo albums to check there’s nothing illegal in them?
It concerns me that with each iteration I have less and less control over my own data. Sadly the iPhone is rapidly becoming less trustworthy to store your data on.
One reason is that historically, Apple makes the bulk of their money from the sale of hardware, and so is less incentivized to engage in activities that others might have to resort to in order to monetize your use of their products. This is becoming less true as Apple increasingly relies on services for revenue.
Also, Apple has leveraged this posture by focusing on privacy as a differentiator, so they are financially incentivized to preserve it as much as possible.
(I’m not suggesting that Apple isn’t or is more of a bad player than anyone else, only offering my opinion as to why they’re often not seen as being as much of one as others.)
As currently proposed, this process happens only when someone attempts to transfer an image to Apple’s servers. It could be argued that Apple is justified in attempting to keep CSAM out of it’s own infrastructure.
I think it’s also worth reiterating that every other cloud vendor does this kind of scanning on all the images that are uploaded to their servers. It’s not unreasonable to argue that Apple’s approach (in which Apple is only made aware of the result of a scan if it’s a positive result) is more privacy preserving than what the others do.
In any case, as distasteful as I find this idea, I honestly think that Apple sees the writing on the wall about mandated government access to devices/cloud data and is trying to create as much of a case that those are not justifiable as it possibly can, before they’re compelled to provide much more access.
From a technical point of view, this will increasingly be the case no matter what. No other service provider, or open-source-do-it-yourself option will help here. The only true defence that we have is ensuring that there is good, effective, and transparent governance around how our data is handled.
I thought about this some more. The Constitution protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government but maybe unless the government is a party to the search, would the exclusionary rule even apply?
Why wouldn’t Apple be able to contact authorities if they have reason to believe a crime has been committed? Couldn’t they be compelled to do so?
Apple’s searches wouldn’t be reasonable but then they don’t need to be.
I’m not sure. (It’s been a long time since I studied Criminal and Constitutional Law.) I’m just throwing it out there.
Well, this isn’t exactly accurate in a few areas. Apple doesn’t, in fact, have access to all of your data. But they are able to create systems whereby data is analyzed on-device or in their cloud services. Once something is part of a company’s cloud service it is, by definition, no longer private and not subject to the same sort of “expectation of privacy” rules that otherwise exist. Only governments need warrants. Once we place our information on servers not owned by us that makes that information “fair game” for the company who owns the servers. It is only the TOS that states how that information will be used (or not used) that protects us from a complete exploitation of that data. The more controversial issue is on-device scanning because in that case it’s unclear what the privacy relationship actually is to the service (the OS) being used.
One of the reasons why Apple is thought of more favorably is that the information that they have about their users isn’t sold but is protected in various ways, unlike the other companies you’ve mentioned who capitalize on the data they are able to collect about you.
I’m hoping from a technical point of view and with increased storage on devices that I can cut out the cloud altogether and keep my stuff encrypted on my device. It’s fairly easy to transfer data on a closed network or with a cable.
I wonder at what point privacy will eclipse expediency for many people? Will people go back to keeping their data offline as it becomes clear that the old adage is true, “if it’s online it’s not secure”. Even moreso when you can no longer trust the gatekeepers.
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