Posted on 08/09/2021 4:54:59 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Apple has announced impending changes to its operating systems that include new “protections for children” features in iCloud and iMessage. If you’ve spent any time following the Crypto Wars, you know what this means: Apple is planning to build a backdoor into its data storage system and its messaging system.
Child exploitation is a serious problem, and Apple isn't the first tech company to bend its privacy-protective stance in an attempt to combat it. But that choice will come at a high price for overall user privacy. Apple can explain at length how its technical implementation will preserve privacy and security in its proposed backdoor, but at the end of the day, even a thoroughly documented, carefully thought-out, and narrowly-scoped backdoor is still a backdoor.
To say that we are disappointed by Apple’s plans is an understatement. Apple has historically been a champion of end-to-end encryption, for all of the same reasons that EFF has articulated time and time again. Apple’s compromise on end-to-end encryption may appease government agencies in the U.S. and abroad, but it is a shocking about-face for users who have relied on the company’s leadership in privacy and security.
There are two main features that the company is planning to install in every Apple device. One is a scanning feature that will scan all photos as they get uploaded into iCloud Photos to see if they match a photo in the database of known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) maintained by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). The other feature scans all iMessage images sent or received by child accounts—that is, accounts designated as owned by a minor—for sexually explicit material, and if the child is young enough, notifies the parent when these images are sent or received.
(Excerpt) Read more at eff.org ...
Yep, Android burn phone and stay away from making an account with google, or installing apps from google playstore. It can be done with some minimalism as a practice.
What about exploitation coming from Apple employees themselves now that they have access? The only way children are safe is if NO ONE else has access. Apple has no right to self appoint themselves as legal custodians.
You’re right. In that regard both types are the same - they need the public to see them, love them.
Just like any OS, Linux is only as secure as the browser and apps allow. To make a Linux phone is not an easy task at all, can’t keep trying until you get it right, far too easy to brick it and make it useless forever.
And there is always the “compatibility” issues with carriers allowing you to use it on their system without their own spy apps installed. Carriers are spying too with their own apps and updates they load in it as part of their TOS agreement for service.
So if it is not Apple or Google, it is AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Etc. Even Linux can’t stop this issue, you are still at the mercy of the carriers and what they will allow.
Apple puts all the Chinese people data in China for the communists to look over. They are just allowing surveillance here in the USA. I bet they always have.
I would me most concerned about the consequences of false positives.
I would BE most concerned about the consequences of false positives.
(I really need to do a better job of proofing my posts)
“I bet they always have.”
You can bank on that. But they cannot legally use what they have been collecting until they bring it out of the closet and somehow justify it.
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