> It’s all an invasion of privacy until you’re sitting on the other side of the table where you have a vested interest in getting access to the information.
That's why it's so insidious. People keep making it about children, which are a very worthy cause. Nobody wants child abuse. But the problem is that the technology can be used for anything. Wouldn't it be nice to read all of the internal Slack messages at a company you're about to acquire? Wouldn't it be nice for Apple to have a copy of Google's source code? Wouldn't it be nice for a political candidate to cause their opponent some legal trouble? Spying on other people is always very valuable and governments (and corporations, probably) spend billions of dollars a year on it.
If we want to make this just about detecting abuse of children, I'm totally on board. Pass a law that says using this technology to steal corporate secrets or to gain a political advantage is punishable by death. Then maybe it can be taken seriously as something very narrow in scope. That, of course, would never happen. (Death penalty arguments aside; I'm exaggerating for effect.)
I can't believe that once this technology is out, it's only going to be used for good. (I imagine politicians will love this. Look at the recent Andrew Cuomo abuse allegations -- he abuses women, and then his staff try to cover it up by leaking documents, to discredit the abused. Sure would be nice to see what sort of things they have on their phone, right? Will someone like Cuomo NEVER have a friend that can add detection hashes to the set and review the results? I would say it's a certainty that a powerful politician will have loyal insiders in the government, and that if this system is rolled out, we're going to see colossal abuse -- flat-out facilitation of crime, lives ruined -- over the next 20 years.)
I have to wonder what Apple's angle is here. It would cost them less money to do nothing. They could be paying these researchers to work on something that makes Apple money, and banning users from their platform (or having them hauled off to prison) doesn't help them make money. I really don't want to be the conspiracy theory guy, but doesn't it seem weird that the Department of Justice wants to investigate Apple's 30% app store cut, and right about that time, Apple comes up with a new way to surveil the population for the Department of Justice? Maybe I read too much HN.
That's why it's so insidious. People keep making it about children, which are a very worthy cause. Nobody wants child abuse. But the problem is that the technology can be used for anything. Wouldn't it be nice to read all of the internal Slack messages at a company you're about to acquire? Wouldn't it be nice for Apple to have a copy of Google's source code? Wouldn't it be nice for a political candidate to cause their opponent some legal trouble? Spying on other people is always very valuable and governments (and corporations, probably) spend billions of dollars a year on it.
If we want to make this just about detecting abuse of children, I'm totally on board. Pass a law that says using this technology to steal corporate secrets or to gain a political advantage is punishable by death. Then maybe it can be taken seriously as something very narrow in scope. That, of course, would never happen. (Death penalty arguments aside; I'm exaggerating for effect.)
I can't believe that once this technology is out, it's only going to be used for good. (I imagine politicians will love this. Look at the recent Andrew Cuomo abuse allegations -- he abuses women, and then his staff try to cover it up by leaking documents, to discredit the abused. Sure would be nice to see what sort of things they have on their phone, right? Will someone like Cuomo NEVER have a friend that can add detection hashes to the set and review the results? I would say it's a certainty that a powerful politician will have loyal insiders in the government, and that if this system is rolled out, we're going to see colossal abuse -- flat-out facilitation of crime, lives ruined -- over the next 20 years.)
I have to wonder what Apple's angle is here. It would cost them less money to do nothing. They could be paying these researchers to work on something that makes Apple money, and banning users from their platform (or having them hauled off to prison) doesn't help them make money. I really don't want to be the conspiracy theory guy, but doesn't it seem weird that the Department of Justice wants to investigate Apple's 30% app store cut, and right about that time, Apple comes up with a new way to surveil the population for the Department of Justice? Maybe I read too much HN.