The deceptive PR behind Apple’s “expanded protections for children”
Whoever controls the hash list controls your phone from now on. Period. End of sentence.<p>Apple has not disclosed who gets to add new hashes to the list of CSAM hashes or what the process is to add new hashes. Do different countries have different hash lists?<p>Because if the FBI or CIA or CCCP or KSA wants to arrest you, all they need to do is inject the hash of one of your photos into the “list” and you will be flagged.<p>Based on the nature of the hash, they can’t even tell you which photo is the one that triggered the hash. Instead, they get to arrest you, make an entire copy of your phone, etc.<p>It’s insidious. And it’s stupid. Why Apple is agreeing to do this is disgusting.<p>And it doesn’t make sense. If I were a pedophile and I took a new CSAM photo, how long would it take for that specific photo to get on the list? Months? Years? As long as pedophiles know that their phones are being scanned, they won’t use iPhones for their photos. And then it will be only innocent people like me that get scanned for CSAM and potentially getting that used against me in the future.<p>If they really cared about CSAM, this feature is useless and stupid. All it does is make regular people vulnerable to Big Brother tactics which we know already exist.