[RHSeeger]

> It does NOT scan photos that are not uploaded to the cloud, despite being on-device.

Yet. Once it's on the device, it's a MUCH smaller step to use it in other ways. It's certainly easier fro governments to argue that they should be able to force it to be used arbitrarily... you know, for the children/terrorists/etc.

> And it's important to note the threshold and manual human review system put in place before the authorities receive any notification at all.

Until it's not. Once again, once it's in place, it's a lot easier for malevolent actors (governments) to force it to be used other ways.

This a back door. Plain and simple. The fact that it's not _currently_ going to be used for evil (depending on your definition of evil) does not mean it won't be in the near future. Back doors are bad. How many times does this need to be said?

[avianlyric]

> Yet. Once it's on the device, it's a MUCH smaller step to use it in other ways

We crossed this bridge a long time ago. Apple already has on device Neural Nets processing everyone one of your on device photos. That’s what powers spotlight search and “photo memories”.

Simple fact of the matter is that this isn’t the top of some slippery slope, it’s half way down one. A slope we started down when we figured out how to put powerful Neural Nets on mobile devices in people’s pockets.

> Until it's not. Once again, once it's in place, it's a lot easier for malevolent actors (governments) to force it to be used other ways.

Which is why Apples current solution makes it cryptography impossible to decrypt photos until a large enough number of suspect photos have been uploaded.

[trangus_1985]

The key difference, of course, is that when the neural network classifies certain types of content, it doesn't forward it to a centralized server "for review"

[sharken]

And depending on that review you could find yourself on the other end of some "questioning" from law enforcement.

Yes, you might laugh and say that won't happen, but on-device scanning is the first step.

In less trustworthy countries it's not that farfetched to imagine what this can be used for.

So Apple must back down now or face the consequences in the form of loss of reputation and eventually loss of sales.

[treesknees]

> Yet

I keep seeing this jump. There's no evidence this will happen. Apple can already technically do anything they want to compromise the security of your device in the next software update, so could Google or Samsung or any other company. But when in Apple's history have they done this? There is zero reason to believe this is the next step other than speculation and fear mongering.

[RHSeeger]

> Apple can already technically do anything they want to compromise the security of your device in the next software update

But they're making it easier for governments to come along and force them to do more. Or even for themselves, but I tend to think they're less of an issue.

I know "it's a slippery slope" gets overused... but if you keep taking baby slips down that slope, it only gets slipperier. You should avoid taking as many of those steps as possible.

[ryandrake]

Anyone can imagine a hypothetical future feature and oppose it. What if Apple one day replaces all my music with Best of ABBA? That would be terrible, but they haven't done or proposed it, so why argue about it?

[emptysongglass]

Because that's not what's being argued here. Nobody in power cares enough to mass load ABBA onto your phone. But there's very powerful nation states who care, more than they care about anything else, to maintain power at any cost.

[sharken]

Could anyone have imagined law enforcement using Corona contact-tracing data for other purposes ?

Because that actually happened, and in a democratic country even.

So it's not hard to imagine what less democratic countries could demand of Apple.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-29/queensland-coronaviru...

[nicce]

> But they're making it easier for governments to come along and force them to do more. Or even for themselves, but I tend to think they're less of an issue.

It is as easy as always been. Only problem is that this might give them new ideas. As the most of the politics are probably non-tech people, they don’t know what is possible.

For tech person, functionality like this (on-device scanning and flagging) is super trivial to add. Antivirus engines have existed decades.