Apple will remotely install software to scan all US phones for child sex abuse images

[FrgMstr]

On Topic Please.

 

[Nasty_Savage]

As has been explained to you multiple times, the only reason the scanning was legal in the first place is because the scanning was taking place on Apple servers. Apple will no longer be scanning their own property but instead someone else's property and thus it's not legal.

Correct answer in my opinion. Forcing unwanted software on your own device means they should immediately reimburse every Iphone purchase of every active phone. I find it entertaining that anti Apple android users think this is the apocalypse. Yo! Google!!! Pinko commie organization too!

Until a competitor cones along thats viable…you can only choose between mustard and ketchup on your turd sammich…

 

[jahsoul]

Correct answer in my opinion. Forcing unwanted software on your own device means they should immediately reimburse every Iphone purchase of every active phone. I find it entertaining that anti Apple android users think this is the apocalypse. Yo! Google!!! Pinko commie organization too!

Until a competitor cones along thats viable…you can only choose between mustard and ketchup on your turd sammich…

Before app developers paved the current landscape, we had these options. I miss BB10 so much. *staring at BB Passport*

 

[Nasty_Savage]

Before app developers paved the current landscape, we had these options. I miss BB10 so much. *staring at BB Passport*

I was rooting for Librem 5, but its still a steaming pile unfortunately

 

[Usual_suspect]

I wonder how often these scans will take place? Once a day? Once a month? Every time you take a new photo/download a photo? What kind of effect will it have on battery life?

I think it's BS but what options are there really? Android which is ran by the "Do No Evil" Google, or "The not-1984" Apple? Sucks when there's what seems to be an oligopoly in the smart phone section with little to no choice for the end-user.

 

[jahsoul]

I was rooting for Librem 5, but its still a steaming pile unfortunately

Yeah....*sigh* I was rooting for a lot of alternatives but at the end, we only have 2, which will then pilfer everything that made the other systems awesome and folks who have never looked outside will act as though it is the greatest thing to ever hit a mobile device.

 

[Nasty_Savage]

Yeah....*sigh* I was rooting for a lot of alternatives but at the end, we only have 2, which will then pilfer everything that made the other systems awesome and folks who have never looked outside will act as though it is the greatest thing to ever hit a mobile device.

If Librem actually got it together one of those two jerks would buy it 🤪

 

[1_rick]

I find it entertaining that anti Apple android users think this is the apocalypse. Yo! Google!!! Pinko commie organization too!

It sucks that Apple is threatening to do it regardless of what anyone else does.

 

[cybereality]

I tried the KDE phone, it was okay. I mean, you could do basic stuff like browse the web or use a terminal, but you miss out on a lot of useful iOS/Android apps.

A phone these days is almost nothing without the apps. So while there do exist Linux privacy phones, they are really only for hardcore desperado hackers or something. Not anything that is relevant for normal people.

 

[Red Falcon]

Ressurrecting this thread from 2021 in 2023 to say yet another "conspiracy theory" turned out to be true.

https://sneak.berlin/20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-now/

I use a program called Little Snitch which alerts me to network traffic attempted by the programs I use. I have all network access denied for a lot of Apple OS-level apps because I’m not interested in transmitting any of my data whatsoever to Apple over the network - mostly because Apple turns over customer data on over 30,000 customers per year to US federal police without any search warrant per Apple’s own self-published transparency report. I’m good without any of that nonsense, thank you.

Imagine my surprise when browsing these images in the Finder, Little Snitch told me that macOS is now connecting to Apple APIs via a program named mediaanalysisd (Media Analysis Daemon - a background process for analyzing media files).

To recap:

In 2021, Apple said they’d scan your local files using your own hardware, in service of the police.

People got upset, because this is a clear privacy violation and is wholly unjustifiable on any basis whatsoever. (Some people speculated that such a move by Apple was to appease the US federal police in advance of their shipping better encryption features which would otherwise hinder police.)

Apple said some additional things that did NOT include “we will not scan your local files”, but did include a confirmation that they intend to ship such features that they consider “critically important”.

The media misreported this amended statement, and people calmed down.

In late 2022, Apple shipped end-to-end encrypted options for iCloud.

Today, Apple scanned my local files and those scanning programs attempted to talk to Apple APIs, even though I don’t use iCloud, Apple Photos, or an Apple ID. This would have happened without my knoweldge or consent if I were not running third-party network monitoring software.

Integrate this data and remember it: macOS now contains network-based spyware even with all Apple services disabled. It cannot be disabled via controls within the OS: you must used third party network filtering software (or external devices) to prevent it.

 

[sc5mu93]

Louis Rossman did a video on this one and came to the same conclusion, however in a follow up, it looks the mediaanalysisd behavior observed may be a bug.



That said, i dont trust apple.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Ressurrecting this thread from 2021 in 2023 to say yet another "conspiracy theory" turned out to be true.

Scanning through the comments section a bit down turned up this

TLDR: mediaanalysisd is a process that has been around for years; its purpose is to send neural hashes to apple and get information on what those hashes mean. Such as if there's a cat in a photo, a painting, etc. It can be disabled by turning off Siri suggestions by going to System Settings > Siri & Spotlight. Note disabling mediaanalysisd will turn off visual look up. Mediaaanalysisd is apart of visual look up (VLU) which is a system apple uses to recognize objects in photos like buildings, animals, paintings and more and give users information about the photo. VLU works by computing a neural hash locally that is used to distinguish photos/videos by the objects within them. During VLU apple requests a neural hash to compute what that hash represents and sends it back to the user. I'm assuming the database used to compute the hash’s meaning is too massive to be used locally and wouldn't be able to stay updated with new information.

I really didn't like the article this video is based on because it makes claims without any real evidence or research. mediaanalysisd is a process that has been around for years and it's very easy to look up what it's used for and how to disable it.

The author is close to some conspiracy theorist in my opinion.

Anyway a much more in depth read on this topic can be found here: https://eclecticlight.co/2023/01/18/is-apple-checking-images-we-view-in-the-finder/

Would have been a great comment to be pinned at the top, but you're not getting all the clicks/views if your first comment is basically "Welp turns out this was just a conspiracy theory"

 

[GoldenTiger]

Would have been a great comment to be pinned at the top, but you're not getting all the clicks/views if your first comment is basically "Welp turns out this was just a conspiracy theory"

Lol, nope... You sure aren't!

 

[lopoetve]

If you think your phone (or laptop, or even powerful desktop) is doing all that media analysis locally... of course it has to send back some form of hash to a massive cloud service to provide that match. As long as you can turn the feature off, that's not evil - that's just a feature. Now if you CANNOT turn it off, or it does things even disabled... then we have a story and an issue.

Hell, I work in the security field now - it takes a TON of compute to even do serious encryption rate analysis (entropy rate increases) and YARA scans for ransomware/malware identification, and that's with exactly known patterns that are almost always identical, or at least known ahead of time!

 

[DukenukemX]

If you think your phone (or laptop, or even powerful desktop) is doing all that media analysis locally... of course it has to send back some form of hash to a massive cloud service to provide that match. As long as you can turn the feature off, that's not evil - that's just a feature. Now if you CANNOT turn it off, or it does things even disabled... then we have a story and an issue.

This is the situation with Apple. This is also why a number of lawsuits are being filled against Apple. Microsoft and Google probably do the same thing, but at least with Google you can install an open source Android in place of the one that came with your phone. At least for now we can do this.
https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-privacy-4th-lawsuit-1850048418

 

[NIZMOZ]

This is the situation with Apple. This is also why a number of lawsuits are being filled against Apple. Microsoft and Google probably do the same thing, but at least with Google you can install an open source Android in place of the one that came with your phone. At least for now we can do this.
https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-privacy-4th-lawsuit-1850048418

Just curious what proof people have on this? I see lots of talk about it, but haven't seen the proof.

 

[DukenukemX]

Just curious what proof people have on this? I see lots of talk about it, but haven't seen the proof.

From what I remember they data sniffed the packets leaving their home. If the device is on Wifi then you can packet sniff.