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Facebook's WhatsApp Takes Aim At Apple Over Child Safety Software Plan (wsj.com) 51

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Facebook's WhatsApp messaging unit blasted Apple's plan to monitor sexually exploitative images of children on iPhones as bad for privacy, opening a new front in the battle between two of the world's biggest tech companies. From a report: "This approach introduces something very concerning into the world," Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, said Friday. "We will not adopt it at WhatsApp." Apple a day earlier said it planned to release an update for U.S. users later this year designed to identify and report collections of sexually exploitative images of children, as part of a series of changes it is preparing for the iPhone to protect children from sexual predators.

WhatsApp's position deepens the battle between Facebook and Apple about data. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has long bemoaned what he sees as too much power Apple has over the social-media giant's business. Apple has made the protection of user information on the iPhones and some other devices a key part of its pitch to consumers and taken shots at Facebook for its data-collection practices. Tensions have intensified in recent months as Apple rolled out a new privacy feature for the iPhone that restricts Facebook's ability to collect data. Mr. Zuckerberg said Apple was using its platform to interfere with how Facebook apps work. At the heart of the latest dispute is the question of whether tech companies can insert software that identifies inappropriate or illegal content without compromising privacy. Apple claims to have found a way to do this. WhatsApp, and Apple's critics, liken this software to a surveillance system.
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Facebook's WhatsApp Takes Aim At Apple Over Child Safety Software Plan More

Facebook's WhatsApp Takes Aim At Apple Over Child Safety Software Plan

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  • Credibility (Score:5, Insightful)

    by goldspider ( 445116 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @04:15PM (#61664891) Homepage

    If we can trust anyone as a responsible steward of our personal data and privacy, it's Facebook.

    • But of course!

      I am absolutely sure that Facebook guards any data they have on you well. If anything would leak, that threatens their business model.

      I mean, who'd pay for data you can just grab on pastebin for free?

    • The Uighurs have no problem with Facebook....with Apple it's a little bit different.

    • That's not as bad as you think. WhatsApp has always been held at arms length from Facebooks traditional hoovering up of all your data. It was the first platform to provide proper end to end encryption, and even not Facebook's meddling in WhatsApp is limited to the contact list and not the content.

      TFS goes to great pains to point out that this is WhatsApp's view, and not that of Fuckerberg.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by sglines ( 543315 )

      Shouldn't that be modded funny?

  • Yeah, OK (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @04:18PM (#61664897)

    Privacy Rapist pretending to care about user privacy.

    That's rich.

    • Re:Yeah, OK (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @05:21PM (#61665131)
      Say what you will about FB (you're not wrong)
      But at this juncture, they haven't found a way to scan my personal possessions for evidence of a crime, yet.

      This is by far the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard.
      I mean, we're all against CP, right?
      We're now being notified that Apple, serving as an agent of the government (because that's where evidence goes if they find any) will be privately circumventing the 4th amendment for them.

      But it's for the kids.
      This is worse than what FB does, as far as I'm concerned, at least precedent-wise.

      • Re:Yeah, OK (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @06:25PM (#61665303)

        But at this juncture, they haven't found a way to scan my personal possessions for evidence of a crime, yet.

        True, and you're right that Apple is setting a bad precedent - in fact I think they ran headlong into a trap, because now government officials will be all like "See? You were able to do that, so that means you can also do [long list of privacy invasive things] too!". I didn't think Apple would be that stupidly gullible.

        But I just find in absolutely tone-deaf that FB, of all "people" (thank you, Citizens United) would choose to scold others about "respecting user privacy".

        • But I just find in absolutely tone-deaf that FB, of all "people" (thank you, Citizens United) would choose to scold others about "respecting user privacy".

          Oh you're not wrong.
          In fact I'd argue it's worse than tone-deaf.
          They're just trying to capitalize on someone else's descent into enforcer for a police state.

          Tone deaf to me would imply some amount of innocence. They definitely know what they're doing.

    • Privacy Rapist pretending to care about user privacy.

      That's rich.

      Not quite. This is the WhatsApp head's view, not Fuckerberg. The two have been at odds with each other for years.

  • Facebook telling you off on privacy? (Score:3)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @04:20PM (#61664903)

    If you got that, you're really low down. That's like getting a lecture on decency and morality from a pimp.

    • No. Facebook didn't tell anything. WhatsApp did. You got the lecture on morality from the whore who the pimp is forcing to do his bidding. WhatsApp and Facebook have been at odds with each other on the privacy front for many years.

      Facebook: Fuck users, all your data belong to us.
      WhatsApp: You want end to end encryption so not even we can see your stuff? You got it!

  • if ... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by e**(i pi)-1 ( 462311 )
    the last time I counted I have more than dozen apple devices here at home only including phones, tablets, laptops, imacs. If apple really does do law enforcement on our devices, this will be then end. I have already several linux boxes. It would be a bit of pain to move everything over to linux and android but not impossible. The biggest change would be to change from final cut to da vinci resolve which runs on linux. Doing law enforcement without court order on private devices is a drastic step and would b

    • Hackintosh VMs are a lot easier to set up these days than they used to be. I think there's still some restrictions re: cloud services and such, but running local apps should be doable.

      • They work fine, and even a bare metal Hackintosh is set up quickly and easily if you pick the right hardware. I built one around an i9 and good MB, memory and disks, and that machine screams. Really... why doesn't Apple offer anything as good for a more or less reasonable price? Because the problem with Hackintosh is that in a lot of cases it's a pain in the rear to ugrade to a newer major release of MacOS. Not a big deal if you're just using run of the mill software, but for app development you need to

    • You are aware that Google has been doing this sort of scanning for years, right?

      https://www.pcworld.com/articl... [pcworld.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 605dave ( 722736 )

        Yeah. It's easier to scream about things than to actually know what going on. This is nothing new.

      • Re:if ... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DamnOregonian ( 963763 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @06:49PM (#61665371)
        Negative. They have not.
        Google scans their platform for contraband. I have no ideological argument about that. It's theirs, period.
        Apple is scanning my phone for contraband.
        They are nothing alike, unless you try to argue that my phone is Apple's platform.
        Which is funny to say in a cynical fashion, but it's not funny at all when our personal property is now informing on us.

        So really, fuck you for the false equivalency.

  • How dare Apple do what we already do! (Score:5, Informative)

    by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @04:28PM (#61664929)

    https://www.cnet.com/tech/serv... [cnet.com]

  • Slippery slope (Score:5, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @04:31PM (#61664941)

    What about terrorism? We can all agree terrorism is bad right, especially right after a mass casualty incident? Will that not be asked to be included, after something bad happens? Or are you a terrorist?

    OK ...

    Then what about homicide? We can all agree homicide is bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a killer?

    OK ...

    What about domestic violence? We can all agree domestic violence is bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a misogynist?

    OK ...

    What about racist attacks? We can all agree racist attacks are bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a racist?

    OK ...

    What about tax evaders? We can all agree tax evasion is bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a tax evader?

    OK ...

    What about internet trolls? We can all agree internet trolling bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you an troll?

    OK ...

    What about pornography? We can all agree watching porn is bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a perv?

    OK ...

    What about cheating? We can all agree cheating is bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a cheat?

    OK ...

    What about lying? We can all agree lying is bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a liar?

    OK ...

    What about slacking off at work? We can all agree slacking off is bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a slacker?

    OK ...

    What about traffic violations? We can all agree hazardous driving is bad right? Should that not be included? Or are you a bad driver?

    OK?

    • No need to scan your phone for internet trolls, just scroll through /. if you want to find some

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 605dave ( 722736 )

      Whataboutism is not a good argument, and the slippery slope argument can be made against anything.

      Do you think child exploitation in the digital world is an issue? If so what do you suggest doing about it? Obviously you are against this new approach. Could you please spell out an approach to combating child exploitation that would be acceptable to you?

      • Whataboutism is not a good argument, and the slippery slope argument can be made against anything.

        I disagree entirely.
        What do you think the 4th amendment exists for, if not to stop descent down a slippery slope?
        This is a private company offering to circumvent the 4th amendment for the government.

        Do you think child exploitation in the digital world is an issue?

        Yes.

        If so what do you suggest doing about it?

        What we currently are. We appear to be quite successful.

        Obviously you are against this new approach.

        Of course. I'm concerned about the fascist tendencies of anyone who is not.

        Could you please spell out an approach to combating child exploitation that would be acceptable to you?

        The FBI seems to be knocking those fuckers down world-wide like gangbusters. Keep up the good work, guys. Continue policing without utilizing any loopholes in the Bill of Right

  • Apple isn't scanning online pictures, just the ones on iphones, most likely because the ones online are encrypted, much like on whatsapp, i'm guessing...

  • Apple claims to have found a way to do this.

    This is the kind of claim which should not just be repeated uncritically on a site like Slashdot, similar to claims of "self-destructing chat messages" or "copy protection". It's bullshit on two points: There's no way to make this encryption-bypassing only work for Really Bad Things(tm), and conversely if it runs on phones under the user's control there's no way to guarantee the app snitches as it "should".

    Our feelings about whether this is good or bad doesn't eve

    • They have found a way to do this! Just like the whistleblowers told us about Siri- you just hire a bunch of people to weed out the false positives.
      Privacy is protected because those people would never divulge what they've seen.
      Interesting data point if you plan on getting your teenage daughter an iPhone.
    • From what I've read about the process, it's not encryption-bypassing, but that there is a database of images that produce a "fingerprint" of the encrypted image (file) that can be used to find the same "fingerprint" on a iphone. I don't own an iphone so I don't know how you encrypt a file, but I guess if it always uses the same encryption method, then each image would have a unique "fingerprint".

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        If the same encryption produces a recognizable fingerprint no matter what key is used, then it is very weak cryptography.

        Good cryptography gives no hint as to the contents. Great cryptography is indistinguishable from random values.

    • y if it runs on phones under the user's control there's no way to guarantee the app snitches as it "should".

      Apple already solved that problem. The phone isn't under the user's control.

      They did allow the user to turn their Covid tracking feature off, but I doubt they'll have a "don't scan my phone for kiddie porn" option. Pedophiles are the scum of the earth, but can we please stop using them as an excuse to violate innocent peoples' privacy?

  • Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Discord to name a few have been doing this for 7 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
    • I'll take false equivalencies for 100, Alex.

      If my daughter uploads her stupid teenage nudes, then she should accept that unwanted people will be looking at them.
      Proactively scanning her device for things that look like a young nude child is another thing entirely.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 605dave ( 722736 )

        I will take didn't read the article for 100 Alex.

        Apple is scanning things that are being uploaded to their cloud. If cloud sync is turned off, no scanning.

        • I will take didn't read the article for 100 Alex.

          I did, but given the first 2 articles I read didn't say that I chalked it up to confusion over unknowns in the reporting.
          So, I went looking and found this. [apple.com]
          Which would corroborate your claim that it only happens on uploaded material, and has the benefit of not being subject to really terrible tech reporting.

          So that being said, I withdraw my complaint. As long as it stays that way.

          • I appreciate the respectful dialogue

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            So it's OK for drooling perverts at Apple to look at her stupid teenage nudes just because she had the good sense to keep her phone backed up?

            • Not one little bit.
              However, that's the cost of storing your shit on someone else's property.

              You don't need to use iCloud Photos, and you don't need to back your phone up to iCloud (though it's not clear that's also "scanned")

              My objection stops at the point where they're protecting their property, and not searching mine for evidence of wrongdoing.
              Honestly, stop backing your shit up to the cloud.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          So his daughter doesn't have to foolishly choose to publish her stupid teenage nudes to have drooling perverts at Apple reviewing them for signs of illegality, she just has to have her phone backed up like everyone should?

  • ...the only thing the search would do is do search a huge database with known signatures from known images and videos.

    Police and FBI do this already.

  • Not their job (Score:3)

    by sentiblue ( 3535839 ) on Friday August 06, 2021 @07:06PM (#61665419)
    I applaud Apple's intention to protect privacy but on this one I think they went too far. Child pornographic falls under law enforcement's purview. Apple may choose to honor their request for data in their investigations but they shouldn't be the one that detects the contents. Their time and effort should be focused on more productive things, related to their own products and services.

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