Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users' devices

[Black Orchid]

Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users' devices for banned content, warns professor. For now it's child abuse material but the tech has mission creep written in.

Apple is about to announce a new technology for scanning individual users' iPhones for banned content. While it will be billed as a tool for detecting child abuse imagery, its potential for misuse is vast based on details entering the public domain.

The neural network-based tool will scan individual users' iDevices for child sexual abuse material (CSAM), respected cryptography professor Matthew Green told The Register today.

Rather than using age-old hash-matching technology, however, Apple's new tool – due to be announced today along with a technical whitepaper, we are told – will use machine learning techniques to identify images of abused children.

"What I know is that it involves a new 'neural matching function' and this will be trained on [the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children]'s corpus of child sexual abuse images. So I was incorrect in saying that it's a hash function. It's much more powerful," said Green, who tweeted at length about the new initiative overnight.

"I don't know exactly what the neural network does: can it find entirely new content that "looks" like sexual abuse material, or just recognize exact matches?" the US Johns Hopkins University academic told El Reg.

Indiscriminately scanning end-user devices for CSAM is a new step in the ongoing global fight against this type of criminal content. In the UK the Internet Watch Foundation's hash list of prohibited content is shared with ISPs who then block the material at source. Using machine learning to intrusively scan end user devices is new, however – and may shake public confidence in Apple's privacy-focused marketing.

Apple infamously refuses to talk to The Register, so asking it to comment on this is a fruitless exercise. Doubtless Cupertino will point to its scanning of (deliberately) unencrypted iCloud backups as precedent for this, saying it's just an incremental step in the ongoing fight against the true evil of child sexual exploitation. Nonetheless, we've asked the fruity firm to comment and faithfully promise here to reproduce their response for the delight and delectation of El Reg's readership.

Governments in the West and authoritarion regions alike will be delighted by this initiative, Green feared. What's to stop China (or some other censorious regime such as Russia or the UK) from feeding images of wanted fugitives into this technology and using that to physically locate them?

>snip<

The privacy-busting scanning tech will be deployed against America-based iThing users first, with the idea being to gradually expand it around the world as time passes. Green said it would be initially deployed against photos backed up in iCloud before expanding to full handset scanning.

If this is the future of using Apple devices, it might not only be sex offenders who question Apple's previously-stated commitment to protecting user privacy. ®

https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/05/ ... eading-btm

Whilst I believe all pedos, and their apologists, have forfeited their right to live on this earth this is just a drop in the bucket of how we will all be constantly monitored in whatever we do.

[sprintcyclist]

Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users' devices for banned content, warns professor. For now it's child abuse material but the tech has mission creep written in.

Apple is about to announce a new technology for scanning individual users' iPhones for banned content. While it will be billed as a tool for detecting child abuse imagery, its potential for misuse is vast based on details entering the public domain.

The neural network-based tool will scan individual users' iDevices for child sexual abuse material (CSAM), respected cryptography professor Matthew Green told The Register today.

Rather than using age-old hash-matching technology, however, Apple's new tool – due to be announced today along with a technical whitepaper, we are told – will use machine learning techniques to identify images of abused children.

"What I know is that it involves a new 'neural matching function' and this will be trained on [the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children]'s corpus of child sexual abuse images. So I was incorrect in saying that it's a hash function. It's much more powerful," said Green, who tweeted at length about the new initiative overnight.

"I don't know exactly what the neural network does: can it find entirely new content that "looks" like sexual abuse material, or just recognize exact matches?" the US Johns Hopkins University academic told El Reg.

Indiscriminately scanning end-user devices for CSAM is a new step in the ongoing global fight against this type of criminal content. In the UK the Internet Watch Foundation's hash list of prohibited content is shared with ISPs who then block the material at source. Using machine learning to intrusively scan end user devices is new, however – and may shake public confidence in Apple's privacy-focused marketing.

Apple infamously refuses to talk to The Register, so asking it to comment on this is a fruitless exercise. Doubtless Cupertino will point to its scanning of (deliberately) unencrypted iCloud backups as precedent for this, saying it's just an incremental step in the ongoing fight against the true evil of child sexual exploitation. Nonetheless, we've asked the fruity firm to comment and faithfully promise here to reproduce their response for the delight and delectation of El Reg's readership.

Governments in the West and authoritarion regions alike will be delighted by this initiative, Green feared. What's to stop China (or some other censorious regime such as Russia or the UK) from feeding images of wanted fugitives into this technology and using that to physically locate them?

>snip<

The privacy-busting scanning tech will be deployed against America-based iThing users first, with the idea being to gradually expand it around the world as time passes. Green said it would be initially deployed against photos backed up in iCloud before expanding to full handset scanning.

If this is the future of using Apple devices, it might not only be sex offenders who question Apple's previously-stated commitment to protecting user privacy. ®

https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/05/ ... eading-btm

Whilst I believe all pedos, and their apologists, have forfeited their right to live on this earth this is just a drop in the bucket of how we will all be constantly monitored in whatever we do.

my thoughts too

[Bobby]

Summary of 4 different Govt. Apps for Mobile Phones:

(1) my Gov digital ID app.
(2) Service Victoria app QR code.
(3) Vaccine passport app.
(4) COVIDSafe app


Read their "privacy policy" ?

https://www.mygovid.gov.au/mygovid-privacy-policy

I will simplify it for you -

We have the right to do whatever we want with your information -
to give it to anyone we want to -
especially ANY other Govt. agency.

[billy the kid]

Summary of 4 different Govt. Apps for Mobile Phones:

(1) my Gov digital ID app.
(2) Service Victoria app QR code.
(3) Vaccine passport app.
(4) COVIDSafe app


Read their "privacy policy" ?

https://www.mygovid.gov.au/mygovid-privacy-policy

I will simplify it for you -

We have the right to do whatever we want with your information -
to give it to anyone we want to -
especially ANY other Govt. agency.

AND when you apply for online tickets to go to the footy
soon, your jab details will have to be conveyed to Ticketek...who
could be hacked by anyone....at any time...
Makes you feel good doesnt it....

[Bobby]

AND when you apply for online tickets to go to the footy
soon, your jab details will have to be conveyed to Ticketek...who
could be hacked by anyone....at any time...
Makes you feel good doesnt it....

Privacy has long gone.
The world gets less private every year.
Your computer or phone is broadcasting everything you do to Governments of the world.
Snowden told us that 8 years ago.
He could read anyone's email and listen to anyone's Skype messages
even if they were a President or Prime Minister of any country,
when he worked at the NSA.
The NSA had the source code of Windows since Win95
and every edition since then.

[Super Nova]

This is the way of the world now.

Yu only have privacy if you go dark.

1990s - You have been traced since the first mobile phone came in.
Then they you use Cell Tower trigonometry to locate your movements though couldn't track your exact location.
Speed cameras could tell where you were.

2000s
Digital road side cameras for speeding also could begin to feed constant data to central systems that read your number plate and could track your movements.
Cities, businesses installed digital camera. this is now everywhere.
3G cell technology could track your phone location more closely.
Our bank cards told them where we went and sometimes what we purchased by going to the store. ATM transaction were videoed.

If you used an email server from Yahoo, Google, Apple, Microsoft whomever, ll email that passed through a they moved were scan for illegal context, particularly child images that had been found. A simple algorithm (which I have seen) was applied and was efficient. So guys all of you attachments have been scanned for the last 20 years.

The introduction of individual call records by Telstra in 1988 (I know I was part of the project) allowed the tracking of every call in Australia to a central system, before that it was only mobiles and international calls. Now at this point, you need to really know what to look for and had to manually run queries across large data sets. If the police needed info, they made a request to Testra (or any provider) and it would take a few days of hard work to provide the data if it wasn't in the billing system. You had to go to the mediation system between the exchange and billing as the data was not on the exchange after a period of time. If it was recent, you also went to the exchange and then you could get the telemetry data as well.

We started to use Satnavs systems, so they could take that an see where you travelled.

2010 - Smart Phones
With 4g and all the features of GPS, data, apps, hidden apps, data capture on the phone or worse you the phone chatting with backend system capturing you location, your texts your everything, they could know a lot with a quick scan of databases, if they wanted.

2021 - We are fucked
My alexa can listen to everything in my home, if they choose.
Everyone in the house has their mobile with them always, so they can know our location at anytime or where we have been.
Uber apps tell them where I travel.
Facial recognition means they can find me or track my movements if I pass a camera.
As i drive the central systems know exactly in real-time where I am on the road.
When I use the internet, they can know everything I am up to if they want.
Smart hack software is probably on people of interest and they don't know it.
If you system is secure, any interaction with the internet is not.
We post on FB and scrap letting everyone know your thoughts, so they can judge you or you intent.
AI is capably to scan and analyse all this data and build a profile of you in next to no time if it has access to all the data you have shared.

Look, the bottom line the only way to have real privacy is to go fully off grid and live in a cave in the Blue Mountains.

The game to play, for those with the skills is to:
1. Act like a normal citizen to build a normal profile so you do not become a person of interest
- Right now we cannot analyse everyone, just persons of interest or those that popup because a red flag is raised somewhere.
- Hide in open view

2. Build you platform from first principles
- This is the biggest benefit of Unix based system. You can see every line of code and make sure you are safe.
- Have the skills to remain digitally anonymous, very few people have this skill.
- Have specially design phones with your own OS on it. Procure them with no trace to you. Join the networks with no trace to you. Never turn it on t any location where you Good Citizen is located. Never have you Good Citizen phone travel with you when you are dark.

Man for most of us, it is too hard. There is no privacy.

What e all need to do is know this and play safe. Share nothing, never type or send something that you would not be happy to be on the front page of the national news paper.

So for now, I make sure by Good Citizen is obvious. If I every plan to not be good, i need to plan it well.

If you want privacy and you use all this tech, and you dont know the consequences of your action, it is out there. Too late to worry.
No laws will protet you.

If you are really worried, bin everything, never leave the house or go bush.

If you have been naughty, you're fu.ked if they decide to show any interest in you.

Personally I am not worried.

[Bobby]

This is the way of the world now.

You only have privacy if you go dark.

The NSA had the source code to all Windows operating systems since 1995.
It means they can send you a fake "Windows" update which allows them to control
your computer - to read any file on it remotely -
to log all your keyboard strokes.
You would never know they are doing it.

[Super Nova]

This is the way of the world now.

You only have privacy if you go dark.

The NSA had the source code to all Windows operating systems since 1995.
It means they can send you a fake "Windows" update which allows them to control
your computer - to read any file on it remotely -
to log all your keyboard strokes.
You would never know they are doing it.

They don't need to have the OS code to do that. Good hackers and governments have been doing that for years without the source.

I hope you haven't been naughty Bobby, you seem worried.

[Bobby]

This is the way of the world now.

You only have privacy if you go dark.

The NSA had the source code to all Windows operating systems since 1995.
It means they can send you a fake "Windows" update which allows them to control
your computer - to read any file on it remotely -
to log all your keyboard strokes.
You would never know they are doing it.

They don't need to have the OS code to do that. Good hackers and governments have been doing that for years without the source.

I hope you haven't been naughty Bobby, you seem worried.

I have always been a good boy.

[Super Nova]

This is the way of the world now.

You only have privacy if you go dark.

The NSA had the source code to all Windows operating systems since 1995.
It means they can send you a fake "Windows" update which allows them to control
your computer - to read any file on it remotely -
to log all your keyboard strokes.
You would never know they are doing it.

They don't need to have the OS code to do that. Good hackers and governments have been doing that for years without the source.

I hope you haven't been naughty Bobby, you seem worried.

I have always been a good boy.

I haven't.