[Spooky]

Apple confirms it will begin scanning iCloud Photos for child abuse images.
This tech might help in cracking down on child pornography, but it can also be misused.



Apple is purportedly poised to announce a new tool that will help identify child abuse in photos on a user’s iPhone. The tool would supposedly use a “neural matching function” called NeuralHash to detect if images on a user’s device match known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) fingerprints. While it appears that Apple has taken user privacy into consideration, there are also concerns that the tech may open the door to unintended misuse—particularly when it comes to surveillance.

The news comes via well-known security expert Matthew Green, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute. Green is a credible source who’s written extensively about Apple’s privacy methods over the years. Apple has also confirmed to TechCrunch that the tech will be rolling out later this year with iOS 15 and macOS Monterey. It’s also published technical details of how the tech works and says it was reviewed by cryptography experts.

No one wants to go to bat for child pornography, but Green points out this tech, while nobly intended, has far-reaching consequences and can potentially be misused. For instance, CSAM fingerprints are purposefully a little vague. That’s because if they were too exacting, you could just crop, resize or otherwise edit an image to evade detection. However, it also means bad actors could make harmless images “match” problematic ones. One example is political campaign posters that could be tagged by authoritarian governments to suppress activists, and so forth.

The other concern is that Apple is setting a precedent, and once that door is open, it’s that much harder to close it.
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https://gizmodo.com/apple-reportedly-wor...1847427745

Does anyone remember the San Bernadino shooter in 2016, where the U.S. govmt was attempting to force apple to unlock the phone. But it raised huge privacy concerns regarding the govmt basically having a backdoor to the phone unlock.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/san-be...ne-n519701

There is huge problems with a 3rd party detecting photos among many in gallerys. Will they have non stop access to my camera? What about my underage sister? What if the govmt wanted to find all opposing poltical party's and listen in on conversations? This is fucking nuts man. Im gonna switch to android and if that option faces the same issue I will just give up smartphones. SMH.