[28220968]

Can someone explain this to me --

The whole premise is that Google and Facebook and everyone else are just doing this on the unencrypted photos you upload, in their cloud, with their own (presumably, but correct me if I'm wrong) undocumented algorithms and datasets.

Now here comes Apple, documenting almost everything except the dataset itself, and everyone is freaking out because it's happening on your own device. But then it's encrypting the whole thing and uploading it to Apple where they presumably do no additional scanning.

What is the actual difference if it's being looked for on-device vs. by the provider? Supposedly in preparation for a bigger push of encryption of the photos themselves, if they are not already encrypted in the cloud.

Am I missing something more than "but it's happening on-device!"?

[marcus_holmes]

I think part of it is that Apple has always said "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone". People expect Microsoft to be evil, and (post "don't be evil") Google to be evil. Apple was supposed to be the good guys in this. So it's more surprising and feels more like a betrayal when Apple decides to be evil.

Also, it's actually pretty easy to mess with Android and get it un-googled. Google don't make most Android phones, so there's less hardware-level enforcement of rules, and more independent alternatives. This is less so for Apple devices. If Apple decides to do something you don't like to your phone, you are SOL; you can only accept it or ditch Apple and switch to Android/something else.

[nicce]

> "what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone"

Well, technically this is still true. Files you are putting to iCloud by yourself voluntarily are not staying in your iPhone in the first hand. Everything which is against this, is only speculation currently.

[marcus_holmes]

Except that this is all about analysing files that are not on iCloud, but on the device. So what is on your phone is now being reported to people who might decide to trash your life. Hardly "staying on your iPhone".

[nicce]

That is not true if you read the technical details. Scan applies for files (and only for those) which are prepared to be uploaded into the cloud.

If you don't trust that, that is another story. System is full black box.

[marcus_holmes]

Yes, but it happens on your iPhone. So what happens on your iPhone isn't staying on your iPhone like they said it would.

[28220968]

So when I said:

Am I missing something more than "but it's happening on-device!"?

Your answer is "no".

[nicce]

> Am I missing something more than "but it's happening on-device!"?

People think that this kind of capability was not there already, while it was. The simplest example case is normal iCloud sync. It scans your files and gets metadata, finally comparing to cloud to know which files to sync.

Other concern is, that this can be easily expanded to other kind of content, or whole device (outside of iCloud files). While, this sounds like valid concern, government who can force this change, could have forced it already. "Technology does not exist" is not valid excuse, never was. There are pretty expensive consults used by politics to prove these excuses otherwise.