[sierpinsky]

"According to media reports, the cloud computing industry does not take full advantage of the existing CSAM screening toolsto detect images or videos in cloud computing storage. For instance, big industry players, such as Apple, do not scan their cloud storage. In 2019, Amazon provided only eight reports to the NCMEC, despite handling cloud storage services with millions of uploads and downloads every second. Others, such as Dropbox, Google and Microsoft perform scans for illegal images, but 'only when someone shares them, not when they are uploaded'." [1]

So I guess the question is what exactly "others" are doing, 'only when someone shares them, not when they are uploaded'. The whole discussion seems to center around what Apple intends to do on-device, ignoring what others are already doing in the cloud. Isn't this strange?

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2020/6593...

[eightysixfour]

It is a shift in trust. If my things are scanned on my local device, I now must trust that Apple:

* Will not be compelled to change the list of targeted material by government coercion.

* Will not upload the "vouchers" unless the material is uploaded to iCloud.

* Will implement these things in such a way that hackers cannot maliciously cause someone to be wrongly implicated in a crime.

* Will implement these things in such a way that hackers cannot use the tools Apple has created to seek other information (such as state sponsored hacking groups looking for political dissidents).

And for many of us, we do not believe that these things are a given. Here's a fictional scenario to help bring it home:

Let's say a device is created that can, with decent accuracy, detect drugs in the air. Storage unit rental companies start to install them in all of their storage units to reduce the risk that they are storing illegal substances, and they notify the police if the sensors go off.

One storage unit rental company feels like this is an invasion of privacy, so they install the device in your house but promise to only check the results if you move your things into the storage unit.

This sounds crazy, right?

[cyanite]

> The whole discussion seems to center around what Apple intends to do on-device, ignoring what others are already doing in the cloud. Isn't this strange?

Very strange. Especially when this on-device technique means that Apple needs to access far less data than when doing it on the cloud.