A fallacy doesn’t gain validity
I wasn’t a big fan of iCloud before this new nanny policy was announced so it only took a few minutes to remove all my files and photos from Apple servers.
Everything was already duplicated on both my Google Workspace account and my Microsoft 365 OneDrive. AFAIK neither Google or Microsoft currently scan the photos, files, or email of their commercial customers.
You’ve not read the yearly digital safety content report from microsoft then?
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This tool being used to find copyrighted material or chinese dissident info on your devices in 4…3…2…1
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Well, you’re right, but you cannot ignore the fact that Apple will scan someone’s photos with an algorithm they created and with some of their employees to see if, with those photos a crime is committed.
To me, it looks like something that crossed a line that should not be crossed.
And that is way different from training an AI to recognize a dog or a mountain (which may or may not be something legal or appropriate, but this is not the matter here).
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So you don’t think they could take this a step further in some country who has some type “morality police” (an example, but a real thing in parts of the world) and decide to scan for images that contain nudity because it has a large addressable market? Or perhaps scan for keywords in iMessages or target specific groups deemed to be “threats”? What’s “too much”?
That’s not correct. This a new system designed to scan encrypted content based on file hashes. What you’re referring to is entirely different.
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I’m generally opposed to this kind of thing, so this isn’t in defence of Apple but it’s in response to those saying that governments can leverage this into other kinds of access: I think it’s worth keeping in mind that absolutely nothing keeps any service provider of the sort that Apple is here from covertly doing this to all of our data; that horse left the barn ages ago. Apple could have turned this on without telling us a thing. I don’t like that they’re doing it, but at least there’s some transparency.
For what it’s worth, as far as I can tell, this does not apply to photos that are not uploaded to iCloud.
Nope ………………………………………
Simplest advice: Consider anything you put online public.
I’ve developed cloud services for decades, and for that knowledge of how the hot dogs are made, have no online storage, no social media profiles, no web apps in my toolkit, and no apps with sync, except the following very conscious exceptions:
- Instant messaging
- A notes app with sync (in which I put nothing sensitive)
- A task manager with sync (in which I put nothing sensitive)
- Private FTP off of anyone’s radar for file exchange
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Repeatedly calling arguments for a point of view you seemingly don’t agree with a fallacy without and instead of actually addressing any of the concerns which have been voiced does makes me wonder if might have overlooked part of the discussion?
Regarding the fact which has been mentioned, that scanning your online data is already implemented by most relevant service providers - that‘s true, but the point is: I can avoid using OneDrive, or I can choose to - with some additional effort - encrypt my OneDrive data if I don‘t like the thought of some algorithm searching my private data. (Plus, since when is „MS and Google are doing something similar“ the standard to which we hold Apple accountable?)
I can avoid using a smartphone, for sure, but that‘s a lot more inconvenient than avoiding or encrypting some cloud data, or being selective about what to upload to unencrypted cloud storage.
Sure, Apple right now is only announcing to use this new „feature“ for data which would have been scanned online anyway. But I think the whole argument about setting up the infrastructure to scan your local data has been repeated often enough in this thread by now.
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Off topic; what’s your opinion on services that you cloud databases that allow for user/enterprise key management thus enabling “zero knowledge” (insert whatever market term applies) encryption?
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One of the reasons I am a fan of Apple is (was) privacy. I can now strike this off that list. Luckily we still have the OS itself …
It used to be the case that the photos on your phone were scanned on-device only to recognize faces, themes, objects. The insights gained from indexing thousands of photos of each of the hundreds of millions of iOS users allowed them to build a huge set of “training data” without centralizing them on their servers as Google did. On a technical level all the data fed back into the distributed neural network that performed this indexing in this decentralized fashion used to be 100% anonymous according to the white papers they released.
With this system in place Apple will at first keep scanning all your photos on-device. The crucial difference: The reports of insights are no longer anonymous. Some that meet certain criteria will trigger reports to their “big brother” team or law enforcement team.
The claim is that it only affects photos uploaded to iCloud. Yet. Because the scanning will take place nevertheless.
Once in place this is a stone throw away from being able to abuse the system by tweak the triggers. Not necessarily by Apple, but more so by people with malicious intent or intelligence agencies. This is why zero-day exploits are often held back. They can be powerfully abused.
Using an exploit and hooking into the newly created surveillance tool could allow a suppressive regime to for example identify LGBT individuals, religious minorities or regime critics, which in some countries can essentially cost you your life.
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In this case the suspect uploaded the image to Skydrive, Microsoft’s free cloud service that predated OneDrive. Google and/or Microsoft may in fact be scanning everyone’s files but that seems inconsistent with the ability of their paid services to be Hipaa compliant.
As I read it, Microsoft’s privacy policy states that they will only access a business customer’s data when presented with a warrant or subpoena from law enforcement. Google has a similar policy for their business accounts. In any event, I really don’t care that Apple is scanning images. It is their hypocrisy that irritates me.
iCloud is the least reliable of the three when it comes to syncing files. That’s reason enough for me to stop using it.
The better encryption they offer and less tracking they purport the better, obviously. But everything works the day before it’s broken. At present, that cipher is strong. At present, regulations (and their business models) allow them to store the key and encrypt on your end and mine nothing beforehand. But that can change.
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The worth in that "for what it’s worth” isn’t substantial 
You didn’t even have an argument. You explained nothing why you thought it’s fallacy, nor why others arguments aren’t valid. You are just repeating that it’s fallacy, which is just your unsubstantiated opinion. Saying “an argument I don’t agree is not an argument” doesn’t convey anything.
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