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August 8, 2021, 10:15 PM
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| John Gruber / Daring Fireball: |
An overview of Apple's three new “child safety” initiatives, what critics are getting wrong, and the completely legitimate slippery slope concerns from experts — Apple yesterday announced three new “Child Safety” initiatives: … (CSAM stands for Child Sexual Abuse Material — a.k.a. child pornography.
Tweets: @timsweeneyepic, @snowden, @lindellyehuda, @normative, @hardmaru, @matthew_d_green, @briannawu, @matthew_d_green, @matthew_d_green, @chibaolema, @matthewkeyslive, @tapbot_paul, @matthewkeyslive, @matthewkeyslive, @matthew_d_green, @matthew_d_green, @matthew_d_green, @matthew_d_green, @matthew_d_green, @briannawu, @matthew_d_green, @choco_bit, @sarahjamielewis, @sarahjamielewis, @sarahjamielewis, @sarahjamielewis, @sarahjamielewis, @kevinmitnick, @matthew_d_green, @mattblaze, @mattblaze, @waynedixon, @rsgnl, @briannawu, @waynedixon, @aral, @benedictevans, @counternotions, @deeperthrill, @kaepora, @carnage4life, @carnage4life, @gamingguru456, @glennf, @snowden, @benedictevans, @moonalice, @katebevan, @convertbond, @steven_aquino, @gruber, @briannawu, @gruber, @briannawu, @briannawu, @briannawu, @gruber, @sarahjamielewis, @mmasnick, @reneritchie, @gassee, @briannawu, @carnage4life, @carnage4life, @thegrugq, @thegrugq, @thegrugq, @paxxi, @paxxi, @alexstamos, @antoniogm, @alexstamos, @ajlburke, @benedictevans, @reneritchie, @charlesarthur, @charlesarthur, @benedictevans, @cdhowe, @fromjrtosr, @simardcasanova, @notpatrick, @alexstamos, @aral, @kaepora, @thegrugq, @matthew_d_green, @arnoldkim, @mattrosoff, @parrots, @migueldeicaza, @tculpan, @mattblaze, @rondeibert, @samifathi_, @normative, @matthew_d_green, @petersterne, @jon_prosser, @runasand, @normative, @josephmenn, @kaepora, @ncweaver, @normative, @migueldeicaza, and @reneritchie
More:
Dr. Neal Krawetz / The Hacker Factor Blog: One Bad Apple — My in-box has been flooded over the last few days about Apple's CSAM announcement.
Thom Holwerda / OSnews: One bad Apple — Dr. Neal Krawetz, one of the leading experts in the area of computer …
Chris Duckett / ZDNet: Apple child abuse material scanning in iOS 15 draws fire
Glenn Fleishman Rich Mogull / TidBITS: FAQ about Apple's Expanded Protections for Children
Stephen Warwick / iMore: Epic Games CEO warns of Apple ‘state surveillance’
Robert Schmad / Washington Examiner: Apple is opening a Pandora's box with its upcoming software update
Malcolm Owen / AppleInsider: Epic Games CEO slams Apple ‘government spyware’
Tweets:
Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic: I've tried hard to see this from Apple's point of view. But inescapably, this is government spyware installed by Apple based on a presumption of guilt. Though Apple wrote the code, its function is to scan personal data and report it to government. https://www.eff.org/...
Edward Snowden / @snowden: 🚨🚨 Apple says to “protect children,” they're updating every iPhone to continuously compare your photos and cloud storage against a secret blacklist. If it finds a hit, they call the cops. iOS will also tell your parents if you view a nude in iMessage. https://www.eff.org/...
Yehuda Lindell / @lindellyehuda: One thing that really bothers me about the Apple CSAM solution is that it is really easily bypassed. So it will only work for the dumb criminals, but will potentially compromise everyone else. In that sense, it's like the encryption backdoor situation.
Julian Sanchez / @normative: One of many reasons this is concerning is that it seems awfully likely we get this dynamic: CSAM scanning turns on; there's a big initial burst of reports; creeps catch on & turn off iCloud backup; reports slow to a trickle; “why don't we require them to scan the whole phone?” https://twitter.com/...
@hardmaru: One Bad Apple “Apple says that they will scan your Apple device for CSAM material. If they find something that they think matches, then they will send it to Apple. You could have corporate confidential information and Apple may quietly take a copy of it.” https://www.hackerfactor.com/ ...
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: Maybe Apple will reverse course and maybe they don't. But I don't think they have come to terms with the deep well of antipathy and mistrust this move is going to create. It's going to be with them for years, undoing billions of dollars in priceless customer trust and marketing. https://twitter.com/...
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: Apple is not your friend. They are a $2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillion) dollar company with an army of lawyers and marketers that are well paid to have their back. I love their products too, and own most of them. But they don't need you to spend your free time defending them.
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: Someone pointed out that Apple's Intel Macs probably can't run their client-side scanning software because they don't possess a neural engine coprocessor. Real time scanning on Macs is going to require an upgrade to newer M1 hardware (or beyond).
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: Some other folks have asked whether corporate and enterprise-managed devices will be subject to scanning. What I've heard is that enterprise customers are *very* surprised and upset. Apple hasn't announced if there will be an MDM setting to disable it.
Bad Hombre / @chibaolema: CN Gov't: “Hey Apple, we need you to do a check of all iPhones and Macs in China to find out who might have shared and been exposed to this horrible image using your great new CSAM tool. Don't forget we're a quarter of your company revenue!” https://twitter.com/...
Matthew Keys / @matthewkeyslive: @EFF Literally no one here is trying to defend child pornographers or their enthusiasts. But there's a very real slippery slope here, and you can't trust the feds to say, “well, we'd never ask Apple to do that!” Remember when they jailed a journalist over a purported website edit?
Paul Haddad / @tapbot_paul: Apple's probably not Private for long iCloud Relay doesn't sound quite as nice.
Matthew Keys / @matthewkeyslive: The problem with Apple's decision to scan normally-encrypted data for child porn images isn't why they're doing it — it's that the backdoor opens the door for the feds to say, well, if Apple can do it for this, why can't they do it for other things? https://www.eff.org/... @EFF
Matthew Keys / @matthewkeyslive: @EFF (And the journalist *didn't even do the defacement*!!! Still, two years, lock 'em up, throw away the key...and let's do a repeat a few years later.) That was the whole point of Van Buren. SCOTUS said gov't's word isn't good enough. Are you listening, Apple?
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: @MarcoErmini To the general public there is a difference between “keep iCloud backup on because devices break and I don't want to lose my private photos” and “I want them scanned by Apple.” Apple assumed that due to past technical accidents the two were identical to the public. They aren't.
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: It's gradually dawning on me how badly Apple screwed up with this content scanning announcement.
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: @MarcoErmini The system scans the photos on the phone. From a technical perspective it does not need to upload the photos to the cloud. Apple has *deployed* it this way, since they assume “turning on backup in case my device breaks” is equivalent to “consent for scanning.” My point: it's not.
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: If Apple had announced that they were scanning text messages sent through their systems, or photo libraries shared with outside users — well, I wouldn't have been happy with that. But I think the public would have accepted it.
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: But they didn't do that. They announced that they're going to do real-time scanning of individuals' *private photo libraries* on their own phones. That's... something different. And new. And uncomfortable.
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: @charlesarthur @ncweaver @pvineetha I was speaking with an expert this week who measures these things. She told me fortnight, Minecraft and Roblox lobbies are where predators find children. It's not iMessage. it feels like we're going after the wrong target.
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: If 5% of US Apple users disabled iCloud Photos in the next week, Apple would probably reconsider their plans to enable client side scanning. I wonder what that would take.
Fudge / @choco_bit: The actual tech behind the CSAM is pretty sound and interesting in the lens of “How can we continue to prevent illegal shit on our services while expanding E2EE to users” But Apple *really* goofed the PR aspect + news outlets/influencers greatly misreporting its operation/nuance
Sarah Jamie Lewis / @sarahjamielewis: Because, this thing isn't running in the cloud, it is running on your device and reporting back to Apple. Apple tells it what hashes are “crimelike” and with the help of your phone they learn a number. Your phone is co-opted into the surveillance network. https://twitter.com/...
Sarah Jamie Lewis / @sarahjamielewis: Let's start by talking about those hashes. Those hashes are not cryptographic hashes. They are *perceptual hashes*. That is to say that unlike the “hashes” you have mostly heard about they are not designed to be collision resistant...in fact mostly the exact opposite.
Sarah Jamie Lewis / @sarahjamielewis: Even if you 100% trust Apple I think you could sketch up a dozen or so scenarios in which they are forced to use a different database set to compare against and *bam* all of a sudden it's a decentralized mass surveillance network, every authoritarians dream.
Sarah Jamie Lewis / @sarahjamielewis: So, there is our first (small) privacy leak. Each account will be associated with a number that relates to how many images they have that have perceptual hashes collisions in the database - with no way of knowing the actual odds of those collisions occurring.
Sarah Jamie Lewis / @sarahjamielewis: At the highest level there is your phone and Apple's servers. Apple has a collection of hashes, and your phone has...well tbh if you are like a large number of people in the world it probably has links to your entire digital life. We can draw a big line down the centre. https://twitter.com/...
Kevin Mitnick / @kevinmitnick: Well, it looks like @scottmcnealy was right - you have no privacy, get over it. How far will Apple go to monitor your device to make sure you are being a good boy/girl. I'm all for putting the pedophiles in prison, but what's Apple's next spyware move? Ready to update to IOS 15?
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: @ncweaver @migueldeicaza @benadida @dinodaizovi @alexstamos The hash function will leak out. And that will leave “the secrecy of NCMEC's database” as the only remaining technical measure securing Apple's encryption. But I'm going to tell you a secret: the really bad guys already have that database.
Matt Blaze / @mattblaze: Another frustrating aspect of anything involving CSAM is the implication that those warning about unintended consequences or technical failures are unconcerned about the problem or with protecting children. In fact, many of us have ourselves been victims of child abusers.
Matt Blaze / @mattblaze: A frustrating thing about most discussion of the Apple CSAM scanning scheme is the conflation of three different questions: - Will it have a significant impact on CSAM? - What new risks does it expose users to if it works correctly? - What are the new risks if something fails?
Wayne Dixon / @waynedixon: @gruber @BriannaWu @gruber @BriannaWu Or you can do it right from a device. You have to verify it's you by answering security questions. But once you have done that, the birthdate will be changed. It does require parental approval to change a birthdate.
Joe Rossignol / @rsgnl: There seems to be quite a lot of negative reaction to Apple's CSAM plans. I would be surprised if Apple doesn't respond somehow, be it a Tim Cook interview or delaying the plans entirely.
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: Something I hope everyone on every side of the Apple photo surveillance issue can agree on. When I ran for Congress, I learned how little we know about what government can force giant tech companies to do behind closed doors. FISA courts, NSA, there is VERY LITTLE oversight.
Wayne Dixon / @waynedixon: @gruber @BriannaWu Actually it's not that difficult. You just login into https://appleid.apple.com/ and change the birthdate. I do not recall if you a parent has to confirm it or not. I have a test child iCloud account for development and I change it on a somewhat regular basis.
Aral Balkan / @aral: If you were to ask me who is a bigger threat to our human rights today, Google or Apple with these new plans, it's Apple, without a doubt. If you know anything about me or my work in the past decade you will understand exactly what that means. I'm as shocked as you (1/2)
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: There's a very direct read-across to FLoC as well, and all the Tracking that-Apple-says-isn't-tracking that your iPhone does. Apple has chanted the mantra 'if it's on the device it's private' for a decade and now it's got them into a muddle
Kontra / @counternotions: If you must read only one article to see the absurdity of the bombastic headline regurgitation currently being spewed about Apple's new child pron alerting system: https://daringfireball.net/...
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: Vital point to keep in mind for anyone who cares about the Apple CSAM scanning issue: https://twitter.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: The Chinese government just destroyed the $120B online learning industry including complementary apps like Duolingo because it wants tighter control of education. That Apple can or will resist their demands is not credible based on everything we've seen. https://www.reuters.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: This is clearly what everyone is concerned about and for Apple & it's defenders to misdirect about the complex cryptographic tech is gaslighting. 1. Apple has bent over multiple times to 🇨🇳 on human rights. 2. The 🇨🇳govt has shown no qualms about tanking billion dollar companies https://twitter.com/...
Glenn Fleishman / @glennf: Looking to understand Apple's confusing and complicated new “child protection” initiatives? We at @TidBITS wrote a detailed set of questions & answers with what's known—and our concerns about Apple eroding its privacy promises. https://tidbits.com/...
Edward Snowden / @snowden: Currently writing: Under His ‘i’ If you own an iPhone, you should probably make sure you're on the mailing list at https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/. https://twitter.com/...
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: How long, exactly, did Tim try to see the other point of view here? https://twitter.com/...
Roger McNamee / @moonalice: A terrific analysis of Apple's child safety initiatives by @gruber. Read it and you will understand. https://daringfireball.net/...
Kate Bevan / @katebevan: This is good on Apple's move on CSAM: it captures the 3 diff things it's doing, & explains what's happening. I share its “slippery-slope” concerns, & will add that I dislike Apple's “if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear” response to critics https://daringfireball.net/...
Lawrence McDonald / @convertbond: How did Apple go from refusing to open locked iPhones for law enforcement in 2017, to scanning users photos for governments in 2021? https://www.google.com/...
Steven Aquino / @steven_aquino: I learned a helluva lot just now about Apple's upcoming child safety features by reading this brilliant @GlennF and @rmogull FAQ for TidBITS. A must-read story. (h/t @jsnell) https://tidbits.com/...
John Gruber / @gruber: @BriannaWu So I *think* this is why the Messages feature gives so much control to the kids, even those 12 and under. Control meaning that they always get a clear warning upon receiving or attempting to send a flagged image that proceeding will result in a notification to their parents.
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: @gruber Strongly agree, I can live with the design of iCloud as it exists - though what could happen next concerns me. It's the iMessage component that gives me far more pause.
John Gruber / @gruber: @BriannaWu That said, I *think* it's very difficult to change the age of a child's iCloud account. I forget why I tried that for my son a few years ago, but I gave up. (I wanted to make him “older” for something, but don't recall the details.)
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: 2/ I have a family member who enacted total lockdown on *everything* her child read. So when her child would go to the library to check out books, upon returning home she would pass them to my family member. She would then research *every single* book online and clear it.
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: 3/ Any discussion of sex, certainly any discussion of homosexuality, anything promoting a secular worldview would be censored. If you don't think parents like that are going to change their child's age in iCloud to create a permanent surveillance state, you're just wrong.
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: 1/ RE: Apple's plan to scan every photo in iMessage with machine learning and alert parents to nudity. I think a lot of well-meaning Silicon Valley people don't understand what life is like in the Religious Right South. Let me share so you can imagine how it will be misused.
John Gruber / @gruber: @BriannaWu Good thread. It has occurred to me that while the CSAM iCloud photo detection is the feature garnering the most attention, the Messages image detection for kids has more potential to be problematic *as it exists*.
Sarah Jamie Lewis / @sarahjamielewis: Clearly a rubicon moment for privacy and end-to-end encryption. I worry if Apple faces anything other than existential annihilation for proposing continual surveillance of private messages then it won't be long before other providers feel the pressure to do the same.
Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie: If you're still confused by Apple's CSAM initiative, try looking at it through this lens: Apple can't abide known CSAM images on, or trafficked through, their servers, but they don't want to scan actual private user libraries to catch them, and this system solves for that
Jean-Louis Gassée / @gassee: Very useful/detailed John Gruber explanation. Also points to hasty/wrong/prejudiced WaPo article. https://twitter.com/...
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: This is my point. You can't think about these systems *AT THEIR BEST.* You have to ask hard questions about how they could be misused. As an industry, we massively suck at considering the downside. In this case, the downside is outed, potentially dead children. https://twitter.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: @benedictevans Apple has insisted on defining privacy as “we can't see your data” then criticized Google & Facebook on privacy. However there's also “we protect your data from governments” where their track record is worse than others which is the elephant in the room for on-device scanning.
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: @benedictevans @eric_seufert @TreyTitone Governments can ask them to scan for XYZ you've uploaded to iCloud today. Apple has opened the door to scanning content on your device. Even Gruber concedes this is new and now depends on how much you trust Apple to say “no” to various governments. https://daringfireball.net/...
Thaddeus E. Grugq / @thegrugq: @Paxxi @pwnallthethings And yet there's only 250 cases from iPhone. Which suggests that something isn't adding up with that narrative. The CSAM database can only find known CSAM photos that have been added. So new content won't get flagged, only existing content that has to come from somewhere
Thaddeus E. Grugq / @thegrugq: @Paxxi @pwnallthethings I'd like to know what those Facebook numbers represent. New CSAM? Or people uploading CSAM that gets flagged by the db? And how many users are doing this? I saw one number was 20m, but that can't be right. That's like the entire adult male population of Great Britain.
Thaddeus E. Grugq / @thegrugq: @Paxxi @pwnallthethings The real number is 236 in 1yr for iPhone. Which is a bit lower than 17m a month.
Pär Björklund / @paxxi: @thegrugq @pwnallthethings I meant that if Facebook detects that much, that's an indication of how prevalent it is on regular sites, no “dark web” required.
Pär Björklund / @paxxi: @thegrugq @pwnallthethings These numbers suggest it's common on regular services which is easily accessible on an iPhone. https://twitter.com/...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: @thegrugq @Paxxi @pwnallthethings The minority, but worst reports are those that involve the live abuse of a child. Those are often reported to NCMEC and also referred live to the relevant authorities by a combination of the child safety investigator (was part of my team) and law enforcement response (in legal).
Antonio García Martínez / @antoniogm: @benedictevans What about the on-device nature of it makes it worse? Assuming the cloud implementation scanned the same set of photos...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: @thegrugq @Paxxi @pwnallthethings The vast majority of Facebook NCMEC reports are hits for known CSAM using a couple of different perceptual fingerprints using both NCMEC's and FB's own hash banks. What constitutes a “report”, which can have multiple images and IPs, is one of the data challenges.
Andrew Burke / @ajlburke: Here's a level-headed and detailed explanation about all the new Apple bad-image-detection features, including when one should actually start to worry, a startling revelation about existing FBI back-doors, and a good ol' take down of a sloppy journalist https://daringfireball.net/...
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: The irony of Apple's theory that any analysis done on the device is automatically private and anything analysis in the cloud violates your privacy - they built a CSAM detection system that is *potentially* much worse for your privacy *because* it happens on your device
Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie: @charlesarthur @benedictevans My guess is that 1 is mainly Apple no longer being willing/able to tolerate CSAM on their servers and this is their engineering solution to that
Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur: @reneritchie @benedictevans I agree with Gruber's take that the 2018 delay on E2E iCloud backup encryption was done in order to incorporate this. The timings all feel right. I think there's probably been CSAM but it's been hard to action (can't be seen to root through iCloud photos). Now it can.
Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur: @benedictevans I doubt 2 would have much effect? Why do you think it would? Seems like 1 should have a dramatic effect of identifying offenders, if the proportion holding is anything like the FB/WApp numbers would imply.
Benedict Evans / @benedictevans: What's the net effect on CSAM on iOS of both: 1: on-device scanning of images uploaded to iCloud for matches to known CSAM and 2: iOS internet traffic going through a double-blind encrypted relay, so IP addresses can't ID users (And could Apple, politically, do 2 w/out 1?)
Carl Howe / @cdhowe: Unlike most of the alarmist pieces published this week, John @Gruber writes a comprehensive analysis of how Apple's new child safety initiatives actually work. Bottom line: while not perfect, it protects personal privacy a lot more than you think. https://daringfireball.net/...
Fernando / @fromjrtosr: Apple saying they will “reject any such demands from a government” is laughable at best and a flat out lie at worst. Once any government makes it a law for Apple to use a different set of hashes, what then? Are they stopping business in China? In the US? In the EU? Ridiculous. https://twitter.com/...
@simardcasanova: I'm a big fan of @apple and I use a ton of their products and services But on top of being creepy, we currently has zero *credible* reassurance that this system won't be weaponized by authoritarian regimes or used for unrelated purposes Maybe bc such a reassurance cannot exist https://twitter.com/...
Patrick Beja / @notpatrick: Probably the best summary I've seen of Apple's recently announced child safety initiatives, including where critics are excessive or plain wrong, as well as genuine concerns for potential abuse in the future. https://daringfireball.net/...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: Let's talk about Apple's new controversial child safety proposals! Join @Riana_Crypto, @kingjen, @matthew_d_green and me at 4pm PT / 7pm ET at this live stream. We will take questions from the live chat or tweet to us here! https://www.youtube.com/...
Aral Balkan / @aral: are. I do not say this lightly or take any pleasure whatsoever in saying it. I cannot stress enough how important it is that this line does not get crossed. https://appleprivacyletter.com/ (2/2)
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: We are now at over 3,000 screeching voices of the minority! We tried to vet every signature. Our open letter now illustrates a very strong opposition to Apple's new content screening measures. Thanks @Snowden for keeping me and @georgionic up all night! https://appleprivacyletter.com/
Thaddeus E. Grugq / @thegrugq: @pwnallthethings Is CASM on iPhones a big problem? How do they get it there from the dark web? Don't pedos believe this capability already exists and avoid iPhones to begin with?
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: NCMEC also needs to dial it down a lot. This is offensive. Your job is not to toss civil society and Apple's customers under the bus. https://www.google.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Arnold Kim / @arnoldkim: Great overview and take on Apple CSAM stuff by @gruber - Apple's messaging/clarity on this could have been much much better, but it's not entirely a messaging issue. https://daringfireball.net/...
Matt Rosoff / @mattrosoff: Amazing how many sources got this story completely abjectly wrong. The slippery slope arguments are reasonable and worth considering—but if you don't get the technology, you can't even begin to plausibly make those arguments. https://daringfireball.net/...
Curtis Herbert / @parrots: If you're like me you might have had a hard time cutting through the noise to understand exactly what is going on. This is a very good piece breaking down exactly what Apple is doing, and what they can and cannot see. A good 101 before convos about pros and cons and slopes. https://twitter.com/...
@migueldeicaza: The EU is actively working on legislation on this regard, so I am now convinced that this is Apple influencing the outcome so we don't end up with the equivalent of the cookie pop up for photos and messages: https://ec.europa.eu/... and https://www.consilium.europa.eu/ ...
Tim Culpan / @tculpan: Apple 2021 is starting to feel like Microsoft circa 2000. Strong with overtones of bully. Use a known atrocity to push acceptance of their own tech agenda. Stand up against the agenda and you're painted as in favor of the atrocity. Back then it was anti-P2P, now pic scanning.
Matt Blaze / @mattblaze: The only think preventing this scheme from scanning local photos (which Apple never previously had access to) is the policy and the integrity of the code. Both those things warrant close scrutiny.
Profdeibert / @rondeibert: Apple's solution to a serious, harmful problem (child sexual exploitation) is alarming b/c of the door it opens to other surveillance, and the risks around what countries like China will do with it, once opened. As @josephfcox points out, these are not hypothetical concerns: https://twitter.com/...
Sami Fathi / @samifathi_: What isn't getting talked about is the real-world impact CSAM scanning will have. Think about the children who have been exploited and the scars they'll have for the rest of their lives. If finding pedophiles means Apple needs to do on-device processing of photos, then so be it.
Julian Sanchez / @normative: I should add, because a couple folks have noted this: IF this were implemented only as Apple intends and for the purposes it states, then yes, this would be functionally identical to the sort of scanning that's routine on platforms & cloud storage services....
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: I spoke to talk radio in LA about Apple's scanning system. I was steeling myself to explain how the tech is problematic even if it might catch some bad people. I didn't need to. They asked me how to disable it.
Peter Sterne🌹 / @petersterne: @SwiftOnSecurity The memo demonstrates that Apple is proud to work with NCMEC, a group that disdains privacy and security advocates. But it's a bit of a leap to say that Apple shares NCMEC's extreme views. Apple itself didn't refer to critics as a “screeching minority”.
Jon Prosser / @jon_prosser: This is what the NCMEC said in a memo to Apple in response to the backlash to Apple's photo scanning 👇 Absolutely gross to frame this as “good vs. evil” and call fair criticism “screeching voices” Fuuuuuuuck that. Read the full article here: https://www.frontpagetech.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Runa Sandvik / @runasand: The fact that we are all struggling to understand what Apple is doing on our devices and with our backups is concerning. Even more so when we don't know how this will impact our lives in the future.
Julian Sanchez / @normative: And a whole bunch of the arguments Apple deployed in the San Bernardino encryption case don't obviously apply if they've already built the scan architecture & a government is just adding items to a preexisting list.
Joseph Menn / @josephmenn: We have so many important fights taking place in secret courts that it is theoretically possible that Apple's surprising device-scanning system was hatched to settle some hidden legal demand. Probably not, but still. Not a good method for technology or democracies to develop.
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: @lazerwalker The external note was attached to a team memo from Apple VP Sebastien Marineau-Mes, who introduced it with: “I wanted to share this note that we received today from NCMEC. I found it incredibly motivating, and hope that you will as well.”
Nicholas Weaver / @ncweaver: @migueldeicaza @mattblaze @alexstamos I think the bigger collision problem is the ML porno-detection in iMessage. You can bet someone is going to tweak an image of Elmo so that it shows up as porn, and kids are going to think it is so funny to spread it around...
Julian Sanchez / @normative: I'm curious how far they've thought out the legal end of this. A government (ours or an uglier one) approaches Apple with a court order saying “here's a list of hash values we want you to add to the scan list you're pushing out”. Can they refuse? Or even tell anyone?
| Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: |
[Thread] Apple's child safety protections announcement hurt the effort to find a policy balance on safety and privacy aspects of e2e encrypted comms products — The chatter around Apple's recent announcement of new child safety protections is rather frustrating, as the amplification/knowledge ratio seems rather high on this one. Apple's docs: https://www.apple.com/... A discussion with friends: https://twitter.com/...
Tweets: @matthew_d_green, @swiftonsecurity, @swiftonsecurity, @matthew_d_green, @benadida, @alexstamos, @chriseng, @pinboard, @chrismessina, @alexstamos, @robduhart, @reneritchie, @vickerysec, @howelloneill, @daphnehk, @pinboard, @dinodaizovi, @pinboard, @pinboard, @pinboard, @lukolejnik, @josephmenn, @elegant_wallaby, @pwnallthethings, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, and @wagatwe
More:
Stephen Warwick / iMore: Epic Games CEO criticizes Apple's iCloud, claims Child Safety scans emails
Sabina Weston / IT PRO: Privacy concerns mount over Apple's plan to scan iPhones for child sexual abuse images
Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider: Open letter asks Apple not to implement Child Safety measures
Tweets:
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: I really want a “screeching voice of the minority” Apple T-shirt, but I'm graphically challenged.
SoS / @swiftonsecurity: Apple leadership did not fully and clearly engage with the problems, and screwed everybody including employees who designed some actually thought-through implementations. I'm not even going to fight people about this stuff. This stupid boxing ring was built to collapse on us all. https://twitter.com/...
SoS / @swiftonsecurity: #MUSTREAD on recent child-focused Apple features and their disastrous rollout that has destroyed so much nuance and legitimate issues from all perspectives. By someone who has has to deal with the victims and the technology. Thought provoking and strips away theoretics. https://twitter.com/...
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: @benadida Tough when you spend two years thinking and writing about an issue, engaging in workshops with people like @alexstamos. And then you're handed the decision by a faceless multinational company operating a PR operation.
Ben Adida / @benadida: So many needlessly tribal fights. Voting: security vs. accessibility. Covid+kids: learning vs. safety. CSAM: privacy vs. protecting kids. We all need to commit to engaging with open minds. We have more common goals than stark differences.
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: I also don't understand why Apple is pushing the CSAM scanning for iCloud into the device, unless it is in preparation for real encryption of iCloud backups. A reasonable target should be scanning shared iCloud albums, which could be implemented server-side.
Chris Eng / @chriseng: Finally something that isn't a knee jerk reaction to the new Apple child safety features. There are complex tradeoffs and this thread captures many of them. https://twitter.com/...
@pinboard: The governance problem here is we have six or seven giant companies that can make unilateral decisions with enormous social impact, and no way of influencing those decisions beyond asking nicely for them to come talk to the affected parties before they act.
Chris Messina / @chrismessina: Is it Apple's turn to move fast and break things? https://twitter.com/...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: I think this is a real shame. I hope that @wcathcart doesn't just use this misstep as a revenge for Apple's preachy privacy marketing, and instead commits WhatsApp to exploring ML mechanisms that work on behalf of the user with their consent. https://twitter.com/...
Rob Duhart Jr / @robduhart: This is an important and nuanced discussion. I began my career investigating Digital Crimes Against Children at the FBI. It was a life altering experience. Not choosing sides but well worth critical analysis considering victims, user privacy, and E2EE platform responsibility. https://twitter.com/...
Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie: Irony is Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. been scanning for CSAM for a decade. Apple didn't want violate privacy by scanning full server libraries, so they waited until they could engineer what they believed to be a privacy-centric solution And many see it as a worse violation https://twitter.com/...
Chris Vickery / @vickerysec: I will absolutely do it. I will roll my eyes and let out a heavy *sigh* every single time a tech company, politician, or law enforcement agency leverages “for the children” in order to place yet another boot on the throat of privacy. https://twitter.com/...
Patrick Howell O'Neill / @howelloneill: This was a good conversation on Apple's new child safety announcement. Very smart folks with a variety of expertise and POVs including @alexstamos who has worked in the trenches of trust and safety and talks about the horrifying reality of the harm https://www.youtube.com/...
Daphne Keller / @daphnehk: My colleague @alexstamos unpacks the wealth of nuance being lost in discussions of Apple's sudden, weirdly designed CSAM scanning change. https://twitter.com/...
@pinboard: But the problem is there's no way to close the loop right now, to make it so that if Apple or Facebook or Google inflict huge social harm, their bottom line suffers, or their execs go to jail, or they lose all their customers. Profits accrue while social impacts are externalized
Dino A. Dai Zovi / @dinodaizovi: Reading through Apple's Platform Security docs for iCloud*, it seems like server-side CSAM scanning of iCloud Photos would be cumbersome and expensive for Apple, so I'm betting client-side scanning is an optimization. _________________________ * https://support.apple.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@pinboard: The way we find out about these technology impacts is by rolling them out worldwide and then seeing what social and political changes result. It's certainly a bracing way to run experiments, with no Institutional Review Board to bog everything down with pessimism and bureaucracy
@pinboard: Since these platforms and devices are global, sometimes that impact takes place in contexts that none of the people working on the technology even know exists. If Facebook moves groups to full E2E, or Apple shifts content monitoring from to devices, the decision is unilateral
@pinboard: I attended one of these meetings (working on an article that later got spiked), listened to FBI, big tech, and privacy advocates all speak up, and was very impressed with how it was conducted. The issue is genuinely difficult. Alex Stamos's thread here is very much worth reading. https://twitter.com/...
Lukasz Olejnik / @lukolejnik: @alexstamos ... I pay attention to these. But nothing could prepare anybody to a pretty much all-out-of-sudden announcement of a system shipping in a few weeks, with powerful capabilities but rather unclear governance/oversight structure. I'm pretty surprised in light of previous messages.
Joseph Menn / @josephmenn: Thoughtful thread by @alexstamos on this. He has been working on these issues for years, trying to protect kids from horrible abuse without serving the cause of mass surveillance. Apple not participating and then coming out of nowhere with its own elegant/odd thing is so...Apple. https://twitter.com/...
David Thiel / @elegant_wallaby: Anyway, thanks to @Riana_Crypto @matthew_d_green and @alexstamos for the thoughtful discussion. Good points all around, even if we're on slightly different pages. 15/15 https://www.youtube.com/...
@pwnallthethings: @alexstamos Yup. EU, India, and Brazil are probably the main motivators. AUS/UK/US are noisy but with little bite. China is regularly invoked, but tech's relationship with PRC is v bespoke and the options investigated and deployed there are mostly orthogonal to the rest of the discussion.
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: I have friends at both the EFF and NCMEC, and I am disappointed with both NGOs at the moment. Their public/leaked statements leave very little room for conversation, and Apple's public move has pushed them to advocate for their equities to the extreme.
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: I have an entire lecture on live abuse, and I can't replicate the whole thing here, but here is a very stark description of what that can look like. Content Warning: Really horrible child abuse. https://storage.courtlistener.com/ ...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: Instead, we get an ML system that is only targeted at <13 year-olds (not the largest group of sextortion/grooming targets in my experience), that gives kids a choice they aren't equipped to make, and notifies parents instead of Apple T&S.
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: Likewise, the leaked message from NCMEC to Apple's employees calling legitimate questions about the privacy impacts of this move “the screeching voices of the minority” was both harmful and unfair. https://9to5mac.com/...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: One of the basic problems with Apple's approach is that they seem desperate to avoid building a real trust and safety function for their communications products. There is no mechanism to report spam, death threats, hate speech, NCII, or any other kinds of abuse on iMessage.
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: This is also a good reminder for privacy and security folks to pay more attention to the global regulatory environment. While the PRC has been invoked a lot, I expect that the UK Online Safety Bill and EU Digital Services Act were much more important to Apple's considerations.
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: In any case, coming out of the gate with non-consensual scanning of local photos, and creating client-side ML that won't provide a lot of real harm prevention, means that Apple might have just poisoned the well against any use of client-side classifiers to protect users.
Wagatwe Wanjuki / @wagatwe: There's already been a lot of smart commentary on why this is a terrible idea. But I also wanted to add another piece of context: Violence against women and children is often used as an excuse to expand state surveillance without actually helping. https://www.apple.com/...
| Apple Privacy Letter: |
More than 5,500 individuals and organizations sign an open letter asking Apple to halt the implementation of its proposed content monitoring technology — Security & Privacy Experts, Cryptographers, Researchers, Professors, Legal Experts and Apple Consumers Decry Apple's Planned Move …
Tweets: @aral, @aral, @suw, @snowden, @migueldeicaza, @snowden, @ambodnar, @kaepora, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, @jimhansondc, @snowden, @snowden, @austen, @mantia, @mantia, @mantia, @mantia, @mantia, @mantia, @briannawu, @briannawu, @feross, @davezatz, @feross, @friedrichpieter, @kaepora, @reckless, @kaepora, @kaepora, @kaepora, @matthew_d_green, @stevestreza, @khaost, @danny76lopez, @11rcombs, @pinboard, @samadlerbell, @tirsales, and @elcomsoft
More:
Stephen Warwick / iMore: Thousands sign open letter to Apple demanding halt to CSAM scanning
Kevin Shalvey / Insider: Open letter criticizing Apple's plan to scan iPhones for child sexual abuse material attracts 5,000 signatures
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Philip Elmer‑DeWitt: Apple's new CSAM detection features pass John Gruber's smell test, but...
Andrew O'Hara / AppleInsider: Apple's child safety initiative & leaked Thunderbolt 5 specs — This Week in Apple
Mohammed Abubakar / fossbytes.com: Apple Explains New Photo Scanning Feature: Defends Its Goal To Protect Children
Tweets:
Aral Balkan / @aral: on the App Store... If Apple goes ahead with its plans to have your devices violate your trust and work against your interests, I will not write another line of code for their platforms ever again. https://appleprivacyletter.com/ (2/2)
Aral Balkan / @aral: the minority." Join us! Let's show King Tim what the screeching minority thinks of his plans to violate personhood in the digital network age. https://appleprivacyletter.com/ (2/2)
@suw: I just love all the people who say “Just ditch your Apple products” in response to their screwing with our privacy (details: https://appleprivacyletter.com/ ). Sure, you wanna give me the $$$ it would cost me to replace all my Apple gear, software and compensate for lost productivity?
Edward Snowden / @snowden: If you have a @github account, you can co-sign this letter for technologists and security experts opposing @Apple's plan. I did. https://appleprivacyletter.com/
@migueldeicaza: I only caught the last part, but this was a great conversation, I did like the parting thoughts from the speakers at the end: https://twitter.com/...
Edward Snowden / @snowden: If you have a @github account, you can join me in co-signing the first letter uniting security & privacy experts, researchers, professors, policy advocates, and consumers against @Apple's planned moves against all of our privacy. https://appleprivacyletter.com/
Adam Bodnar / @ambodnar: @Techmeme That headline should be clarified that most of the signees are individuals, not organizations. Saying orgs puts a lot more weight than actually is.
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: The Apple Privacy Letter's raised 4200+ signatures within 24 hours. Interested to see whether Apple will turn a deaf ear (having already called folks “a screeching minority") next week or whether they'll address the issue. If you still haven't signed: 👇 https://appleprivacyletter.com/
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: Likewise, I am both happy to see Apple finally take some responsibility for the impacts of their massive communication platform, and frustrated with the way they went about it. They both moved the ball forward technically while hurting the overall effort to find policy balance.
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: Apple was invited but declined to participate in these discussions, and with this announcement they just busted into the balancing debate and pushed everybody into the furthest corners with no public consultation or debate. https://twitter.com/...
Jim Hanson / @jimhansondc: Great marketing @Apple How dare you screeching proles think we'll abuse your privacy while we're snooping in your files What are you hiding? Say no to #ThoughtPolice https://appleprivacyletter.com/ I own a ton of Apple gear & storage I will sh*tcan all of it if they do this https://twitter.com/...
Edward Snowden / @snowden: Unbelievable: @Apple now circulating a propaganda letter describing the internet-wide opposition to their decision to start checking the private files on every iPhone against a secret government blacklist as “the screeching voices of the minority.” This has become a scandal. https://twitter.com/...
Edward Snowden / @snowden: The media is beginning to write with noticeably more skepticism about @Apple's plan to transform your iPhone into a spyPhone. Keep pushing! https://www.mediaite.com/...
@austen: No no no. Apple isn't doing something nasty like having a back door on your phone that uploads your images to the cloud scanning and calling the police on you. That would be evil. Big brother! Instead, no backdoor is needed because the phone does it automatically. Privacy! https://twitter.com/...
Louie Mantia, Jr / @mantia: If you work for Apple and they value you, they won't fire you. And if they do, then you have a really good reason for being fired. You probably have enough money saved until you find a new job. What good is having power and privilege if you don't use it when it's needed?
Louie Mantia, Jr / @mantia: I haven't worked at Apple in 10 years and *I* feel bad about this. I feel bad that I contributed even the most trivial visual details, that in the aggregate work to gain customers' trust. Now Apple seeks to erode that trust? I feel bad for contributing to it.
Louie Mantia, Jr / @mantia: Apple employees who don't speak up when something this bad happens are protecting their own best interest. They don't want to say anything that could jeopardize their employment. But the alternative is taking money to stay quiet while your coworkers build a surveillance tool.
Louie Mantia, Jr / @mantia: I haven't seen any Apple employees publicly criticize this new policy. I know we shouldn't expect that. But it's also kind of... horrible that we cannot expect that. Apple employees surely are themselves angry, but are silenced by their employment.
Louie Mantia, Jr / @mantia: Apple making a process to scan hashes won't solve many actual problems, but gives up everything they stood for. I'm uninterested in debate or replies. If you wanna argue with someone, argue with someone else.
Louie Mantia, Jr / @mantia: I have no patience for people who won't see how this is going to do more harm than good. Apple building any way to scan images will become a larger problem. There's no reason to believe people who possess these images won't... just simply stop using Apple products.
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: 2/ It's a hard subject to talk about, but I do think teenagers having some measure privacy and autonomy on figuring out their sexuality is normal and healthy. It's just so easy to imagine ways this could be abused.
Brianna Wu / @briannawu: I spoke with @MissEmmaMcG about the ways Apple's “child protection” technology could be used to hurt LGBT children. Also, @Snowden showed how these technologies are used to spy on other countries in the name of “national security.” https://blog.avast.com/...
@feross: I'm incredibly disappointed that this was approved and built by @Apple. The short-sightedness is staggering. How can they think governments won't demand to expand this? Before today, I believed that Apple genuinely cared about my privacy. But no more. This is a disaster. 5/5 https://twitter.com/...
Dave Zatz / @davezatz: @Techmeme @rsgnl How many photos does Apple process through iCloud in a given year? Is an actual user-uploaded photo presented within the report for Apple employees to view? https://twitter.com/...
@feross: Now that Apple has willingly built spyware into iOS and macOS, within 10 years this tech will: (1) be mandated by government in all end-to-end encrypted apps; and (2) expand to scan for terrorism, disinformation, “misinformation”, then eventually political images and memes. 1/5
Pieter Friedrich / @friedrichpieter: Aside from the shock that @Apple plans to expose every user to snooping powers which can & will inevitably be used to target dissidents, I still don't understand how the US thinks a good way to stop child abuse is to create a centralized database full of pictures of child abuse. https://twitter.com/...
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: @cronokirby This memo genuinely makes me angry. Not Internet angry, not outrage angry, but genuine real anger. Imagine being so blind and short-sighted, imagine standing up the entire security & privacy community and then writing that off as “the screeching voices of the minority.”
Nilay Patel / @reckless: Really seems like Apple tried to protect customer data in the cloud by scanning for illegal material locally on the phone, thereby creating a new kind of risk for customer data on the phone.
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: If you too want to be part of the screeching voices of the minority, sign the open Apple Privacy Letter: https://appleprivacyletter.com/
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: Pretty incredible how quiet all the folks who were angry at Apple for hiring Antonio Garcia-Martinez are being now that Apple's setting a radically different precedent for local content privacy and then calling the security community “the screeching minority” for pushing back
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: I'm not only going to die on this hill. I'm going to die on this hill, become a remnant ghost unable to ascend from the mortal realm, haunt the hill, and keep tormenting everyone else on the hill until Apple walks back this insanely short-sighted precedent.
Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green: The fact that internal memos about content scanning are leaking from Apple does not say good things about support for those policies internally. https://www.google.com/...
@stevestreza: Ah yes, the Apple that infamously and repeatedly has bent over backwards to give China deep access to device and cloud data, we're supposed to trust their spyware because lawyers got involved. Apple is not a privacy company. https://twitter.com/...
Khaos Tian / @khaost: It's really cute that Apple keeps defending the system like this, as if once an authoritarian government passes the law to require device manufacturers to scan for other stuff, the system itself will prevent that from happening. https://twitter.com/...
Danny Lopez / @danny76lopez: @MacRumors @rsgnl So @apple wont unlock a mass shooters Iphone citing privacy and the slippery slope but they are happy to scan everyones images for potential child porn. Kinda like the double standard for privacy they have in China. What am I missing?
@11rcombs: NCMEC executive director calls people worried about tech companies scanning every photo on your phone “the screeching voices of the minority”, in a note an apple VP calls “incredibly motivating” https://9to5mac.com/...
@pinboard: @charlesarthur @mathewi It's the same issue as with FaceID; the fact that the locus of the scanning has moved to the device is highly significant no matter how many safeguards Apple thinks they're putting around it, or how limited the initial scope. It is a big deal and people are correct to freak out.
Sam Adler-Bell / @samadlerbell: “Child pornography is so repulsive a crime that those entrusted to root it out may, in their zeal, be tempted to bend or even break the rules. If they do so, however, they endanger the freedom of all of us.” (US v. Coreas) https://twitter.com/...
| Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: |
Tweets: @snowden, @kaepora, @wcathcart, @pwnallthethings, @josephfcox, @wcathcart, @rondeibert, @wcathcart, @wcathcart, @krzyzanowskim, @markv, @roach, @vessonsecurity, @preusslerberlin, @j_t_saeed, @oliverjhaslam, @garyleff, @mugunthkumar, @brendan_dharma, @malwarejake, @mattblaze, @pwnallthethings, @somegadgetguy, @wcathcart, @ukzak, @josephfcox, @alexstamos, @thegrugq, @raistolo, @zhenech, @roi, @ellajakubowska1, @mikeisaac, @shivamshankars, @aditi_muses, @normative, @wcathcart, @sunchartist, @lapcatsoftware, @avibarzeev, @can, @can, @can, @can, @justinschuh, @pwnallthethings, @pwnallthethings, @timsweeneyepic, @pwnallthethings, @pinboard, @pwnallthethings, @pinboard, @pinboard, @floorter, @bcrypt, @bcrypt, @bcrypt, @pwnallthethings, @swiftonsecurity, @blakereid, @tihmstar, @wcathcart, @wcathcart, @bascule, @bcrypt, @willhamill, @saranbyte, @susanlitv, @st_eppel, @tim, @charlesarthur, @chrismessina, @sarahjamielewis, @kurtopsahl, @mikeisaac, @omanreagan, @luke_metro, @earcos, @mikeisaac, @tomwarren, @mikeisaac, @wcathcart, @wcathcart, @annemariebridy, and @chrisbhoffman
More:
Asma Hussain / iThinkDifferent: Facebook-owned WhatsApp slams Apple's Child Safety plan, says it will not adopt to CSAM plan
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents: Privacy and hypocrisy: Apple wants to know your location to sell you music, but governments must not ask you to scan QR codes to fight the pandemic
Cortney Drakeford / International Business Times: Apple Launches System Flag Child Exploitation Images And Report It To Police
Stephen Warwick / iMore: WhatsApp says it won't adopt Apple's CSAM plans, misses on some facts
Prasid Banerjee / Livemint: Experts share concerns over Apple's new child-safety tool
Usama Jawad / Neowin: Apple VP on iCloud Photos scanning: We know people have misunderstandings and are worried
Meghna Dutta / BGR India: WhatsApp head slams Apple over tracking iPhones for child sex abuse photos
Tweets:
Edward Snowden / @snowden: No matter how well-intentioned, @Apple is rolling out mass surveillance to the entire world with this. Make no mistake: if they can scan for kiddie porn today, they can scan for anything tomorrow. They turned a trillion dollars of devices into iNarcs—*without asking.* https://twitter.com/...
Nadim Kobeissi / @kaepora: Apple distributed an internal memo today which referred to pushback against its new content surveillance measures as “the screeching voices of the minority.” I have nothing to add. https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: Instead of focusing on making it easy for people to report content that's shared with them, Apple has built software that can scan all the private photos on your phone — even photos you haven't shared with anyone. That's not privacy.
@pwnallthethings: OK so a slightly longer thread on how we got to the Apple CSAM thing and why it's not going away
Joseph Cox / @josephfcox: Re-reading all of Apple's compromises in China to cater to the government there is interesting in light of the company making a system to scan for images stored on phones https://www.nytimes.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: We've worked hard to ban and report people who traffic in it based on appropriate measures, like making it easy for people to report when it's shared. We reported more than 400,000 cases to NCMEC last year from @WhatsApp, all without breaking encryption. https://faq.whatsapp.com/...
Profdeibert / @rondeibert: Correction: that memo was by MCMEC and not Apple. Still, poorly thought rollout by Apple.
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: ..."it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect." Those words were wise then, and worth heeding here now.
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: This is an Apple built and operated surveillance system that could very easily be used to scan private content for anything they or a government decides it wants to control. Countries where iPhones are sold will have different definitions on what is acceptable.
Marcin Krzyzanowski / @krzyzanowskim: when facebook is concerned about privacy is another level of hypocrisy, rly https://twitter.com/...
Mark Vletter / @markv: If WhatsApp (Facebook owned) says its bad for privacy it most definitely is. Apple will scan all you private photos 😳 Holy shit no. https://twitter.com/...
@roach: How do so many of you, in leadership roles, not understand how PhotoDNA works? https://twitter.com/...
Vess / @vessonsecurity: That feeling when *bleep* Facebook cares more about your privacy than Apple... https://twitter.com/...
@preusslerberlin: if this is true I see “great” use cases for countries like China, Russia, Turkey. 🤯 https://twitter.com/...
@j_t_saeed: is Facebook really trying to pull the moral high ground when it comes to privacy? lmao https://twitter.com/...
Oliver Haslam / @oliverjhaslam: Facebook trying to claim any kind of privacy moral high ground over anyone is a bit much. https://twitter.com/...
Gary Leff / @garyleff: This seems important. https://twitter.com/...
Mugunth Kumar / @mugunthkumar: It happened. Head of WhatsApp preaching Apple about privacy. That's a new low for Apple. https://twitter.com/...
@brendan_dharma: “Apple's method of eroding privacy while still claiming to be for privacy and e2e encryption is concerning. I much prefer our own method.” https://twitter.com/...
Jake Williams / @malwarejake: Imagine dismissing anyone with legitimate security and privacy concerns as being “screeching voices of the minority.” When engaging these people, let's not pretend they're interested in dialogue. They know better than you and nothing will change that. Do NOT plan for discourse. https://twitter.com/...
Matt Blaze / @mattblaze: It appears that the text quoted here originated from NCMEC, not Apple (but was sent on some kind of internal Apple list). In any case, how dare they? There are serious concerns being raised by serious people here, and dismissing them as a “screeching minority” is just bad faith. https://twitter.com/...
@pwnallthethings: WhatsApp: Apple is bad for scanning for CSAM. This is the wrong approach and we would *never* do this. WhatsApp (but quieter) in 2018: we also do this and have since 2011. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Juan Carlos Bagnell / @somegadgetguy: I'm really trying to keep my reaction measured. I understand the concerns and the challenges facing those wanting to protect the next generation of tech users. I FEEL you're on the wrong side of this issue when you characterize the EFF and security researches as “screeching”. https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: We've had personal computers for decades and there has never been a mandate to scan the private content of all desktops, laptops or phones globally for unlawful content. It's not how technology built in free countries works.
Zak Doffman / @ukzak: Facebook owned WhatsApp (rightly) calling out Apple over its dangerous privacy move. How times have changed. https://twitter.com/...
Joseph Cox / @josephfcox: We previously obtained a sample of malware deployed in Xinjiang that scans phones for 70,000 specific files related to politics, Uighurs, etc. Why wouldn't Chinese authorities try to get Apple to leverage its new child abuse system to instead fulfil this https://www.vice.com/...
Alex Stamos / @alexstamos: @thegrugq @Paxxi @pwnallthethings That's a great question, and Facebook actually did a breakdown this year. I'm hoping to get these folks to re-write this as a peer-reviewed article with more detail. cc @JohnDaveBuckley https://research.fb.com/...
Thaddeus E. Grugq / @thegrugq: @alexstamos @Paxxi @pwnallthethings Can you help make sense of the 12m was Facebook messenger, 18 million overall for Facebook... sort of numbers? Also the “N million a month” stuff? This is known CSAM... traded? Harassment? Assholes???
Stefano Zanero / @raistolo: Thread. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but worth a read like anything by @pwnallthethings https://twitter.com/...
Evgeni Golov / @zhenech: How bad is the new Apple system? “Facebook/WhatsApp calls it a surveillance system” bad. https://twitter.com/...
Roi Carthy / @roi: I literally had to put a story on the front page of the FT to get you guys to remove 120,000 people who traffic in CSAM in **public** WhatsApp groups, Will. https://twitter.com/...
Ella Jakubowska / @ellajakubowska1: When #WhatsApp starts calling out #Apple for privacy violations, you know it's bad... https://twitter.com/...
Rat King / @mikeisaac: (facebook was just waiting for an opportunity like this to hammer apple on privacy. some context from our previous coverage.... https://www.nytimes.com/...
Shivam Shankar Singh / @shivamshankars: Join the screeching voice of the minority, or be prepared to live in a surveillance state! https://twitter.com/...
Aditi Agrawal / @aditi_muses: Not Twilight Zone: Head of Facebook-owned WhatsApp is berating Apple's latest move for violating people's privacy. Pay attention. Apple didn't create a slippery slope; it's now a free fall off a cliff. https://twitter.com/...
Julian Sanchez / @normative: If everything operates precisely as Apple intends, scanning client-side is at worst an accounting detail & at best enables greater privacy. If everything does not operate precisely as Apple intends, moving scans client-side is a dangerous Rubicon to cross.
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: Apple once said “We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications ...” https://www.apple.com/...
Jeff Johnson / @lapcatsoftware: You know you've done something very wrong when even Facebook is creeped out by it. https://twitter.com/...
@avibarzeev: FB has a “concern” with Apple using crypto tech to identify child exploitation photos on local devices, even though it preserves full privacy for anyone who doesn't exploit kids. Meanwhile FB scans your photos in the cloud. “Privacy” to FB means /their/ privacy, not yours. https://twitter.com/...
@can: @sp990 @thijsniks @ranjanxroy And the larger point is that if you have the data and change the policy later, your users are fucked. Signal doesn't have the data to begin with so you can't gotcha people. So not sure if your analogy works here.
@can: @thijsniks @ranjanxroy i guess my bar for trusting FB is p low 1) they've used SMS intended for 2FA for advertising 2) terms can change easily 3) if that's the level of comfort we have, apple doesnt have access to your photos either
@can: @sp990 @thijsniks @ranjanxroy I'm old enough to remember WhatsApp was about never having any ads when founded. If Signal flip flopped constantly on policy, I'd stop using them too.
@justinschuh: I once heard a friend describe the broader problem here as “there is nothing more legally and ethically fraught than running an open bit bucket on the Internet.” https://twitter.com/...
@pwnallthethings: The alternative to this system is not a world where Apple abandons the first principle; its unsustainable. It's one where they quietly drop the second. And if you care about privacy, them bridging the gap in a way that brings the scanning on device instead of on server is a win.
@pwnallthethings: Apples approach bridges the gap to avoid abandoning either. In effect, scanning the content prior to *upload* on *their own service* that until now was functionally breaking principle 2 so that their service can be designed to honor principle 2 in future without the conflict
Tim Sweeney / @timsweeneyepic: It's atrocious how Apple vacuums up everybody's data into iCloud by default, hides the 15+ separate options to turn parts of it off in Settings underneath your name, and forces you to have an unwanted email account. Apple would NEVER allow a third party to ship an app like this.
@pwnallthethings: Most companies resolve this conflict by dropping one of those principles. Some decide to not do scanning; treating the social harm as an externality or pretending it is not real. Others quietly drop plans to not fully encrypt.
@pinboard: The threat is not just individual governments' misuse of this architecture, but that the whole thing in the hands of supranational entities with state-like power who believe in design by YOLO. It's a planetary social experiment with no checks or controls, run by high-IQ idiots
@pwnallthethings: Fundamentally this technology is attempting to bridge the gap between two very strong social principles. The first is that the child abuse image problem is real and very, very large, involving extraordinary damage to a really depressingly large number of children.
@pinboard: The fucked up thing here is that design decisions about a worldwide surveillance architecture of social control get made by a small clique of individual companies, with no accountability to the billions of people their decisions affect, and no consequences for getting it wrong. https://twitter.com/...
@pinboard: @pwnallthethings You're a really smart person and I know you understand the significance of doing this on the device vs. server side. The status quo is a tradeoff (because horrifying amounts of CSEM *do* get uploaded to any image sharing site), and Apple's move is a big shift in that tradeoff
Floor / @floorter: It's a bit awkward to see a Facebook representative dunking on Apple about privacy. But in the end it doesn't really matter if WhatsApp implements this if the underlying OS does. https://twitter.com/...
Yan / @bcrypt: there's lots of reasons to object to apple's CSAM proposal but “they shouldn't build software to scan your device” doesn't resonate with me. given a choice between plaintext backups scanned in the cloud and end-to-end-encrypted backups scanned on-device, i'd pick the latter.
Yan / @bcrypt: not saying this is the choice we are facing, but i hope this makes it clear that on-device vs in-cloud is not the issue here so much as the scanning itself.
Yan / @bcrypt: sorry this should say “because of eventual plans to do e2e encryption for icloud photos, or at least i hope” :)
@pwnallthethings: The completely perverse thing about the whole discussion is that *on-device* scanning enables you to do equivalent levels of CSAM protection *and then also encrypt everything in the cloud*.
SoS / @swiftonsecurity: Despite being moderately passive or even supportive of Apple's goals yesterday, I had an invective-laden breakdown for leadership on how it was rolled out incompetently and why. I deleted it. It's increasingly obvious they weren't unprepared, it's someone's career stepping stone. https://twitter.com/...
Blake E. Reid / @blakereid: Apple's rake-stepping yesterday is now enabling semi-credible privacy dunks from Facebook 🙃 https://twitter.com/...
@tihmstar: Technically he is not wrong. Yet hearing Whatsapp/Facebook talking about privacy is somewhat ironic afterall. Is really annoying how jailbreaking is still absolutely neccessary to have usable devices. First it was about usability, now it is about security/privacy... https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: Can this scanning software running on your phone be error proof? Researchers have not been allowed to find out. Why not? How will we know how often mistakes are violating people's privacy?
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: Apple has long needed to do more to fight CSAM, but the approach they are taking introduces something very concerning into the world.
@bascule: Oh cool, so the counterargument to people's concerns about Apple devices policing photos using a cryptographic Rube Goldberg machine is... an ad hominem https://twitter.com/...
Yan / @bcrypt: given that CSAM scanning is only enabled for users who opt into icloud photo backups, i'm guessing apple would have built it into icloud if they could. they can't because of end-to-end encryption. https://twitter.com/...
Will Hamill / @willhamill: The danger with using the “Think of the children!” argument to let Apple away with their invasion of your devices and data is it doesn't take a leap to see how once the precedent is established it can trivially be misused. https://twitter.com/...
Saran / @saranbyte: It's not a good look for Apple when the head of WhatsApp even thinks it's a bad move 😬 https://twitter.com/...
Susan Li / @susanlitv: Definitely no love loss between #Apple & #Facebook 👇 $aapl $fb https://twitter.com/...
David Grunwald / @st_eppel: Hey @Apple - when @Facebook is legitimately able to claim the moral high ground against you, you've probably screwed up bad https://twitter.com/...
Tim Bradshaw / @tim: Latest reaction to Apple's child safety plans: EU👍 India 😍 UK 🥳 rest of Big Tech 😱 WhatsApp 🤬 https://www.ft.com/...
Charles Arthur / @charlesarthur: Interesting WhatsApp declaration. Cathcart links to a blogpost (CEI = child exploitation imagery, same thing as CSAM = child sexual abuse material). Note the number of accounts zapped *per month*. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Chris Messina / @chrismessina: Children don't have an absolute right to privacy from their parents. Will children really report CSAM that they receive via iMessage? Regardless, they can only block senders, not report them, presuming they can even figure that out. Curious @wcathcart's take on this. https://twitter.com/...
Sarah Jamie Lewis / @sarahjamielewis: Update: These initial expressions of hesitance from Whatsapp are at least a small sign that there is some fight left in corporate e2e providers to reject mandates of on-device mass surveillance. Some reasons for optimism there. https://twitter.com/...
Kurt Opsahl / @kurtopsahl: WhatsApp gives a strong no to client-side scanning. “It's not how technology built in free countries works.” https://twitter.com/...
Rat King / @mikeisaac: re: some of WhatsApp's statements, apple spent most of yesterday rebutting certain claims that WA is pouncing on mostly pointing out that if users turn off upload to iCloud then the system doesn't work and phones/iCloud won't be scanned I expect more back and forth to come https://twitter.com/...
Michael / @omanreagan: Even the head of Facebook's WhatsApp thinks what Apple is proposing is a setback for privacy. Think about that for a minute. https://twitter.com/...
@luke_metro: How long has Facebook waited for a chance like this to dunk on Apple for privacy violations https://twitter.com/...
Eduardo Arcos / @earcos: 100% agree with Will Cathcart. Wrong approach from Apple to a VERY sensitive problem. https://twitter.com/...
Rat King / @mikeisaac: @joelipper they're loving this
Tom Warren / @tomwarren: the head of WhatsApp has concerns about Apple's image scanning approach. “Apple has long needed to do more to fight CSAM, but the approach they are taking introduces something very concerning into the world.” https://twitter.com/...
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: What will happen when spyware companies find a way to exploit this software? Recent reporting showed the cost of vulnerabilities in iOS software as is. What happens if someone figures out how to exploit this new system?
Will Cathcart / @wcathcart: Will this system be used in China? What content will they consider illegal there and how will we ever know? How will they manage requests from governments all around the world to add other types of content to the list for scanning?
| Washington Post: |
How the cryptocurrency industry gained influence in Washington and became one of the biggest stumbling blocks holding up the passage of the infrastructure bill — The infrastructure bill is in part stalled as negotiations proceed on how closely to regulate the crypto industry
Tweets: @caitlinlong_, @josephzeballos, @reid_yager, @jstein_wapo, @jack, @josephzeballos, @jack, @cperruna, @hshaban, @jack, @jack, @kmsmithdc, @tyler, @carnage4life, @avichal, @techwontsaveus, @aaschapiro, @arrington, @jasonklau, @parismarx, @apompliano, @moneyball, @kmsmithdc, @carnage4life, @gregmike, @avifelman, @kmsmithdc, and @brockm
More:
Maryam Gamar / Vox: How two competing cryptocurrency policies began a conversation on digital rights
Ekin Genç / Decrypt: Crypto Tax Strife Continues As Senate Delays Vote
Russell Brandom / The Verge: New Bitcoin tax plans could stifle greener blockchain tech
Tweets:
@caitlinlong_: Yep & we've proven our power doesn't stem from lobbying money. Our power= there are ~50 million of us (in every Congressional district), we can self-organize fast when we want to & we're not afraid to call out bad DC policy that doesn't understand our tech https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Joseph Zeballos-Roig / @josephzeballos: Spoke w/Wyden about ongoing crypto tax talks: “I continue to feel very strongly I want to crack down on tax cheats and people associated with these centralized programs, crypto exchanges.. I just don't want to destroy the innovation that comes from a decentralized network”
Reid Yager / @reid_yager: “Any industry wants to be involved in regulation discussions,” said @Reid_Yager, a former lobbyist and current director of communications at @BlokhausLLC, a blockchain marketing firm. “But explaining all this to a septuagenarian lawmaker is a huge challenge.” https://twitter.com/...
Jeff Stein / @jstein_wapo: .@mcuban tells The Washington Post on current crypto debate: “Shutting off this growth engine would be the equivalent of stopping e-commerce in 1995 because people were afraid of credit card fraud” Story w/ @tcfrankel @JaxAlemany @hshaban https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Jack⚡️ / @jack: If we can't strike the entire provision so we can have proper hearings and deliberation, then let's simplify the definition of broker to what really matters: where digital assets are exchanged for fiat currency. Broker = Fiat-to-Crypto Exchange.
Joseph Zeballos-Roig / @josephzeballos: Caught up w/Toomey on crypto talks, some issues remain unresolved: “Someone in the business of running a centralized exchange should be required to report transactions for their customers.. but we should not rope in people who are not actually running a centralized exchange”
Jack⚡️ / @jack: Forcing reporting rules on Americans who develop software and hardware, who mine and secure the network, or who run nodes to build resilience and efficiencies, is an impossible ask that will only drive development and operation of this critical technology outside the US.
Chris Perruna / @cperruna: The question is no longer: “Is crypto a fad?” It's now a question of: How do we incorporate, tax and regulate this growing and important industry? https://twitter.com/...
Hamza Shaban / @hshaban: On today's front page w/@tcfrankel, @JStein_WaPo & @JaxAlemany. In the contest over the infrastructure bill, the crypto industry and its allies sprung into action, mounting a campaign on Capitol Hill, and proving their newfound power as a lobbying force https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Jack⚡️ / @jack: If you feel this doesn't go far enough, I'd argue that this at least gets you to 90% of goal. For the remaining 10% of edge cases, let's make a proper well-informed law through committee hearings with witnesses on both sides of the debate.
Jack⚡️ / @jack: To @RonWyden, @SenLummis, @SenToomey, @MarkWarner, @SenRobPortman, @SenatorSinema, @TedCruz, respective staff & everyone who's worked on the Infrastructure Bill “Crypto Tax Reporting” provision: thank you for your work to get this right. May we offer a workable simplification?
Kristin Smith / @kmsmithdc: END/ So.... we urge you to support the @ronwyden-@senlummis-@sentoomey amendment and oppose the @markwarner amendment. Keep crypto innovation here in the US. Crypto. Here for Good. (I promise you it really is.)
Tyler Winklevoss / @tyler: The crypto voting block is real. We are no longer a fringe community of technologists, but a rapidly growing industry of millions of people that is fast becoming a major growth engine of the US economy, and will be for decades to come. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: US politicians have grabbed a tiger by the tail. The crypto community spends millions on JPGs and will have no qualms spending significant amounts of money going after politicians for effectively trying to ban crypto. At least one major politician has already figured that out. https://twitter.com/...
Avichal Garg / @avichal: ~20% of US Millennials own crypto. Only 37% own stocks. Imagine Senators and the White House trying to kill the stock market for half of all Millennial shareholders. How do you think that demo would vote in the next election cycle?
@techwontsaveus: An alliance between digital rights groups and powerful corporate interests held up the US infrastructure deal to minimize crypto regulations. “The parallels between cryptocurrency's current battle and how ‘Big Tech’ once approached regulation are notable."https://www.washingtonpost.com / ...
Avi Asher-Schapiro / @aaschapiro: What do Trump staffer Mick Mulvaney, the lefty group Fight for the Future, & Mark Cuban have in common? A fight over a provision tucked into the infrastructure bill revealed an unlikely crew united by skepticism of cryptocurrency regulation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@arrington: I love how senators just have to say “let's fuck this random stuff up” and then all the people in that industry pour money into their coffers to convince them not to. It's a direct analogy to “nice store you have here, what a shame if something bad were to happen to it”
Jason Lau / @jasonklau: @josephzeballos As one of these “centralized exchanges” - we are already regulated and report transactions to the IRS. US users get sent 1099s.
Paris Marx / @parismarx: The effort to stop this crypto amendment has been a good example of how tech and its supporters wield false narratives that sound attractive and empowering, but actually function to protect corporate power and fight regulations that would constrain it. https://twitter.com/...
Pomp / @apompliano: There are tens of millions of people around the world voluntarily working together to build a better future that stands on the bedrock of freedom and transparency. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Steve Lee / @moneyball: This would be infinitely more effective for the IRS to collect taxes and the government to legitimately score revenue for the infrastructure bill. As it stands, no one running a node can comply with filing 1099s, so there would be no additional tax revenue due to this law. https://twitter.com/...
Kristin Smith / @kmsmithdc: 1/ Dear Senators, still confused about why the @markwarner amendments (yes, all 5 of them) fall short of fixing the #crypto provision in the #infrastructurebill? Here are 3 things you need to know.
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: The NRA has a chokehold on gun control regulation with about $3M-$5M in lobbying. The top 5 defense contractors spend about $50M/year to direct trillions in defense spending. The crypto community has the wealth & passion to have similar impact on government. The dragon is awake. https://twitter.com/...
Greg Mike / @gregmike: Nice background 👊 https://twitter.com/...
Avi Felman / @avifelman: Genuinely the most bullish thing I've ever read https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
| Olivia Solon / NBC News: |
Call center operator Teleperformance, which counts Apple, Amazon, and Uber as clients, wants to monitor staff working from home in Colombia, via AI-powered cams — Colombia-based call center workers who provide outsourced customer service to some of the nation's largest companies … Tweets:
Olivia Solon / @oliviasolon: NEW: Contracted call center workers for tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Uber were pressured to consent to intrusive surveillance in their homes, including consenting to their children being filmed https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: @VanityTrophies @thechiaman I can take a picture of a computer screen fairly easily. Should Apple risk a repeat of the Fappening because employees want to work from home? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/...
Dan Gillmor / @dangillmor: Reminder — again — that Apple is fundamentally just as contemptuous of working people as the rest of corporate America. (Amazon and Uber have long been known for this.) https://twitter.com/...
Sarah Goodyear / @buttermilk1: this is the kind of thing i worry about with work from home exploding the way it is. employers are going to assert ownership of people's personal spaces. meanwhile, workers shoulder the cost of creating a functional work environment. https://twitter.com/...
Olivia Solon / @oliviasolon: Uber was the only company to tell me it requested additional monitoring for home workers. Both Apple & Amazon said they did not require this monitoring. Teleperformance said it hadn't yet rolled it out, but was futureproofing its employee data policies https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Jathan Sadowski / @jathansadowski: When asked about workplace surveillance, I always point to call centers as a progenitor for so much of this “productivity monitoring” technology. Once again, that industry is on the cutting edge of the most intrusive innovations on the market. So wild. https://www.nbcnews.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Eva / @evacide: The bossware forced on call center workers who are working from home is frequently unnecessarily invasive. Do executives working from home face this kind of scrutiny? Nope. https://twitter.com/...
Olivia Solon / @oliviasolon: The contract workers (many of whom work out of their bedrooms) had to sign covers off all kinds of AI-powered video monitoring to make sure they don't have phones or paper on their desks - items restricted by Teleperformance's security policies https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Hypervisible Dot Pdf / @hypervisible: “The contract allows monitoring by AI-powered cameras in workers' homes, voice analytics and storage of data collected from the worker's family members, including minors.” https://twitter.com/...
Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life: This is one of those issues with real trade offs that the media rarely frames. Do you want the Apple employee responsible for reviewing the CSAM false positives in your iCloud photos doing so from home without supervision? I doubt it. Should they not work from home then? 😬 https://twitter.com/...
| Reuters: |
China sues Tencent, claiming WeChat's “youth mode” does not comply with the country's laws protecting minors — Beijing prosecutors initiated a civil public-interest lawsuit against a Tencent (0700.HK) subsidiary on Friday, saying the “youth mode” on the company's popular social …
Tweets: @reutersbiz and @brianfagioli
More:
Jon Fingas / Engadget: China sues Tencent over WeChat's ‘youth mode’
| Ankush Das / It's FOSS News: |
Firefox for Desktop lost ~46M MAUs, dropping from ~244M MAUs in Dec. 2018 to ~198M MAUs in July 2021, as users moved to Chrome and Chromium-based browsers — Mozilla's Firefox is losing users big time since 2018, why are users moving away from it? Is this something to be worried about?
Tweets: @thanr, @jotbe, @fabriceneuman, @marktorromeo, @chrisshort, and @campuscodi
More:
Jorge Jimenez / PC Gamer: Firefox has lost 46M users over the last three years
Brianna Provenzano / Gizmodo: Yikes, Firefox Lost 46 Million Users in the Last Three Years
Kevin Raposo / KnowTechie: Firefox is bleeding users - 46 million people ditched the browser since 2018
Jess Weatherbed / TechRadar: Firefox is great, so why has it lost almost 50 million users?
Clayton Cyre / Game Rant: Firefox Web Browser Has Lost 46 Million Users | Game Rant
Rob Thubron / TechSpot: 46 million people have left Firefox since 2018
Tweets:
Than R. / @thanr: I actually moved back to Firefox from Chrome a few years ago. It's waaaaaaaay faster. Plus the Android app supports extensions. I get the built-in tracker blocker + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger everywhere. https://www.pcgamer.com/...
@jotbe: Firefox Lost Almost 50 million Users: Here's Why It is Concerning - It's FOSS News - https://news.itsfoss.com/... @mozilla - go and give Firefox a(nother) try. I've been using it since it was born and use ungoogled Chromium only if a website doesn't work properly in FF.
Fabrice Neuman / @fabriceneuman: @Techmeme @ankush_soul Well I just took the reverse route. #switchtofirefox Everybody should try the @firefox containers!
Mark Torromeo / @marktorromeo: @Techmeme @ankush_soul Throughout the years i've regularly switched to other web browsers and i repeatable find that firefix is consistantly, noticebly better. Considering the privacy and corporate manipulation issues of today, I think its crazy that anyone would use anything but firefox.
| Bloomberg: |
Despite claims of diversity and inclusion, Asian Americans in Silicon Valley still face racism and are least likely to break into leadership positions — Tech companies love to crow about diversity and inclusion. Workers see a racist “bait and switch.” — Silicon Valley executives sometimes seem … Tweets:
Priya Anand / @priyasideas: Asian Americans in Silicon Valley are often told they “dont count” as a minority. Yet they face subtle but ever-present discrimination. @ellenhuet and I dug into what it's like to be the majority minority in Silicon Valley for @BW https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Siri Srinivas / @pjux: Good on @Priyasideas and @ellenhuet for tackling the story almost nobody else wants to touch — all the complicated ways in which Asians (especially women) are pushed back in the tech industry https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Ellen K. Pao / @ekp: Thank you to @ellenhuet and @Priyasideas for covering how tech bias and harm impacts Asian Americans. And also to @bosefina, @ericbahn, @hjzhu and @jzmusings for also speaking up about their experiences so fewer people will have to suffer https://twitter.com/...
Ken Yeung / @thekenyeung: “Making things more maddening for those who experience it is that anti-Asian racism is barely acknowledged.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Ericbahn.Eth / @ericbahn: Thank you @ellenhuet for your thorough work on this big story. Grateful to be featured alongside these fine humans. https://twitter.com/...
Josh Eidelson / @josheidelson: “Being White, she says, is 'like having a skip pass at Disney World. I realized there is a bamboo ceiling, and I'd have to work 100 times harder.'” https://www.bloomberg.com/... @ellenhuet @Priyasideas @BW https://twitter.com/...
Ken Yeung / @thekenyeung: Many Asian Americans in tech, especially women, face subtle yet ever-present discrimination. It takes many forms: sexualized comments, assumptions based on stereotypes..., or perf. reviews that seem to be more about identity than actual performance... https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Rajiv Malhotra / @rajivmessage: Well researched article on racial discrimination against Asian Americans in Silicon Valley. Things were much worse in the 1970s when I was a top corporate executive in tech, at a time when hardly any Indians worked in CEO/COO levels in USA. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Ron Miller / @ron_miller: Excellent report from Bloomberg on the challenges faced by Asian Americans in tech. There is reason diversity is more than a numbers game. It's also about equity, inclusion and especially belonging. We have a lot of work to do. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Tracy Chou / @triketora: “You're so lucky to be Asian,” a man at a meetup told her. “White men here will love to date you.” >> how many times have i heard this....... https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Thequest.Media / @thequestmedia: SILICON VALLEY'S DIVERSITY PROBLEM ‘AA are the least likely of all racial groups to break into leadership in tech companies. At FB, where 46% of U.S. workers are Asian, only 26% are director-level or higher’. What can be done better? https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@kikutowne: This feels infuriatingly relatable from the very first sentence: “Silicon Valley executives sometimes seem to believe they are proprietors of a post-racial paradise. ” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bo Ren / @bosefina: Honored to share my story along other Asian Americans in tech I respect like @ericbahn @hjzhu @ekp @jzmusings about our lived experiences cracking the bamboo ceiling and navigating double standards: https://www.bloomberg.com/... Our stories compound to change ✊🏽
@bw: Tech companies love to crow about diversity and inclusion. Asian workers see a racist “bait and switch.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Ellen Huet / @ellenhuet: really proud of this feature @Priyasideas and I wrote exploring the sometimes-surreal experience of being Asian American in tech: the overrepresented minority huge thank you to @Bosefina, @ericbahn, @hjzhu, @ekp, @jzmusings and others who shared stories https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Amy Chang / @quelquefois: Solid read about realities that Asians and Asian Americans face in tech (and honestly, everywhere): Tech companies love to crow about diversity and inclusion. Asian workers see a racist “bait and switch.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Bloomberg Graphics / @bbgvisualdata: The stereotype of Asian Americans—the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group—as privileged and upwardly mobile is misleading. The reality is more complicated. https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Thanks:@thekenyeung
| Preetika Rana / Wall Street Journal: |
Analysis of e-receipts from 1M+ consumers shows that the average Uber and Lyft fares in the US were 50% higher in July 2021 compared with January 2020 — Data show average fares were at a record in July despite improvement in pandemic-driven shortage of driversTweets:
@domainnamewire: I took taxis twice this week b/c they were cheaper than Uber/Lyft and lined up so I didn't have to wait for them https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ
Preetika Rana / @preetika_rana: Uber and Lyft drivers are returning. But nationwide prices are still at a record high. https://www.wsj.com/... “The average Uber and Lyft fare in the U.S. rose month-to-month from February through July, touching new highs every time.” My latest @WSJ https://twitter.com/...
| The Guardian: |
As Cuba's government tightens its control on internet access, attempts from the US government to bolster connectivity on the island seem unlikely to succeed — After Havana shut down online access for 72 hours, the battle is on to keep the country connectedTweets:
Tren Griffin / @trengriffin: It's physics. The internet is inherently two-way. Even if access is via satellites it isn't hard to shut down a transmitter at a given frequency. Wireless terrestrial service at significant scale requires many sites. Hacking through is more possible. https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
| Rachel Metz / CNN: |
A look at Metaphysic, a company which uses deepfake tech to create ads and restore old film; its founder went viral on TikTok for deepfaking Tom Cruise — (CNN Business)Earlier this year, videos of Tom Cruise started popping up on TikTok of the actor doing some surprisingly un-Tom-Cruise-like stuff … Tweets:
Matt Navarra / @mattnavarra: FASCINATING READ: How a deepfake Tom Cruise on TikTok turned into a very real AI company https://www.cnn.com/...
Hypervisible Dot Pdf / @hypervisible: “The technology is moving forward, whether anybody likes it, really...” https://www.cnn.com/...
Donie O'Sullivan / @donie: How a deepfake Tom Cruise on TikTok turned into a very real AI company, @rachelmetz explains https://www.cnn.com/...
| Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios: |
CB Insights: global corporate venture capital-backed funding reached $79B across 2,099 deals in H1 2021, up from $74B in all of 2020; GV had most deals with 64 — With everything going up and to the right, it's only fitting that corporate venture capital investments did too during the past quarter.Tweets:
Anand Sanwal / @asanwal: Corporate VC has become a very real player in venture Folks will still argue it's “dumb money” or whatever, but the reality is that a lot of startups are benefitting from the capital cvc's are bringing They're here to stay https://twitter.com/...
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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:15 PM ET, August 8, 2021.
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| Mark Feffer / HCM Technology Report: |
| Fred Pennic / HIT Consultant: |
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@smilecdr: We are proud to announce that Smile CDR has secured $20 Million in Series A funding led by 30 North Group and UPMC Enterprises to develop new innovations in healthcare and data management that extends beyond interoperability. Read the full story here: https://www.smilecdr.com/... https://twitter.com/...
| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
| Sean O'Neill / Skift: |
Tweets: @siemensmobility, @sean_oneill, @florian_martens, and @michaelmppeter
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Siemens Mobility / @siemensmobility: We've signed an agreement to acquire @sqills, leader in the provision of ☁️-based reservation, #ticketing & yield management software. We're taking a big step in strengthening our #software business & investing in digitalized platforms. More: https://press.siemens.com/... #movingbeyond https://twitter.com/...
Sean O'Neill / @sean_oneill: Siemens will buy rail software company Sqills for $650 million (€550 million). It's another sign that inter-city train travel is getting renewed interest. @sqills https://skift.com/...
Florian Martens / @florian_martens: An exciting and busy news morning for @Siemens: 👍 very strong Q3 results, raised guidance for FY21 🖥️ acquistion of leading rail software provider @sqills 🔎 staying agile in a challenging environment https://www.reuters.com/...
Michael Peter / @michaelmppeter: .@Sqills will join the @SiemensMobility family! Together with a leading SaaS provider for inventory management, reservation and ticketing software, we will support our strategy of increasing the availability, capacity & utilization of public transportation https://press.siemens.com/... https://twitter.com/...
| Karl Bode / VICE: |
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Ted Cruz / @tedcruz: Given the major flaws in the underlying bill's unworkable and devastating crypto provision, I also filed a separate amendment to strike the whole thing, in the event a bipartisan deal can't be reached. We have to act now to stop this.
| Naomi Nix / Bloomberg: |
Tweets:
Sherrilyn Ifill / @sifill_ldf: .@Lwmurphy is a total boss. Unrelenting and determined, she has transformed the civil rights audit into a powerful and rigorous tool to confront and address corporate anti-civil rights policies and practices. I learn so much from her. https://twitter.com/...
Joshua Brustein / @joshuabrustein: This profile of Laura Murphy by @NaomiNixWrites gets at the tension of racial equity audits: you can explain to a company how its products are racist, but you can't control what it does with that information https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Free Press / @freepress: “The value of the audit is a memorialization of what the challenges were at the moment. That's helpful as we figure out, What do we want to pressure Facebook on? What do we want to remedy through legislation?” - @JGo4Justice via @business https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Laura W. Murphy / @lwmurphy: #Civilrights work takes many forms. @Sifill_LDF @rashadrobinson @NaomiNixWrites @Airbnb @Facebook It takes a village of advocates to conduct an audit: https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Tom Giles / @tsgiles: When Facebook brought in ACLU veteran Laura Murphy to focus on content issues, she initially met with resistance and a lack of access. @NaomiNixWrites provides a fascinating look inside Facebook's racial audit and what it means for other companies. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Earlier Picks
| Stephen O'Grady / Redmonk: |
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Tim Bray / @timbray: Redmonk programming-language readout always worth close attention: https://redmonk.com/... I disagree with the downbeat take on Go & Rust. Both are growing pretty fast almost everywhere I know that core technology is being built.
Payara / @payara_fish: Tech journalists love to write articles about how @Java is dead but the truth is, it's 26 years old and going strong! This @redmonk survey is proof, @sogrady writes: “It's a language that would be difficult to bet against.” https://hubs.ly/... #MovedbyJava #JavaEE https://twitter.com/...
Nicolai Parlog / @nipafx: “What is dead may never die.” (https://redmonk.com/...) https://twitter.com/...
Simon Ritter / @speakjava: The latest @redmonk programming language rankings are out and #Java is in the number 3 spot. Just wondering, though, is CSS really a programming language? Is it Turing complete? https://redmonk.com/...
@webchick: Some great cross-functional developer insight /via @eoinbrazil and @jarednielsen: * Stack Overflow Developer Survey: https://insights.stackoverflow.com/ ... * JetBrains State of Developer Ecosystem: https://www.jetbrains.com/... * RedMonk Programming Language Rankings: https://redmonk.com/... #devrel
| Megan Janetsky / Rest of World: |
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@restofworld: Rappi users increasingly complain about bad customer service, but Colombia's biggest delivery startup might be too powerful to quit https://restofworld.org/...
| Nikkei Asia: |
Tweets:
Luc Mandret / @lucmandret: That battle looks set to intensify in Vietnam between MoMo, Grab, SEA, Zalo, VNPay and dozens of other players in the Fintech industry. The market may eventually consolidate into two or three players : who will be the winners ? https://asia.nikkei.com/...
| Issie Lapowsky / Protocol: |
Tweets:
Biz Carson / @bizcarson: Want to succeed on GitHub? Your odds are better if you're white. Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific Islander developers are also more likely to have their pull requests accepted when the people responding are part of the same racial or ethnic group. https://www.protocol.com/...
@mekkaokereke: Reminder: If you work at a really big company in Mountain View you can set your code review tool to default to anonymous code reviews! This is a super low cost, easy way to mitigate much of this. Recommend. 👍🏿 P.S. Other companies should do this too. https://twitter.com/...