Re: Apple accused of underreporting suspected CSAM on its platforms

Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> wrote:

On 2024-07-23, Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> wrote:

Jörg Lorenz <hugybear@gmx.net> wrote:

Am 23.07.24 um 13:31 schrieb Chris:
 

After being a bit skeptical of Apple's solution, I realised it was a
pretty good and pragmatic balance between respecting people's
privacy and protecting vulnerable people. I was disappointed that
the angry "muh freedom" brigade scuppered it.

 
It was neither a good nor an acceptable solution. This being the
reason why Apple decided against it in the end.

 
It was sunk by reactionary know-it-alls. If anyone bothered looked at
the technology - which Apple published openly - they would have seen
it was pretty elegant and privacy preserving.

 
It still allowed for privacy invasion with false positives - and that's
the point.
 

It could have been a really good tool to protect children, but no,
people's non-rights were more important.

 
Apple's proposal was to match personal photos with *known* CSAM images.

Correct.

It would do nothing to detect *new* CSAM images.

Also correct.

You need to realise, however, that these types of people like to collect
vast numbers of these images which usually means sharing existing images
with others. Most never create their own.

Tracking only known images is a perfectly good method for finding these
people.

Obviously as new images are identified they can be added to database.

And it could not
prevent false positive matches.

Incorrect. It is designed to avoid false positives, although nothing is
100% perfect.

Whereas now we have meta sending 30m images to the authorities. I bet the
FPR is close 100%.

Is this really the best system we could have? Nope. It wastes everyone's
time, protects no-one's privacy and doesn't stop the crimes.

Everyone on this planet should have a right to basic privacy.

And they do. That right is not absolute, however. Just like everyone has a
right to freedom until they are convicted of a serious crime and are sent
to prison. Even *suspects* of serious crimes are held in prison before
conviction.

Well done to the privacy brigade for protecting paedophiles.