Thread by @ccneill

It might seem like security/privacy people wail and complain at every little thing tech companies do to surveil their users

Be glad they do. Once it starts, software-based surveillance only ever ratchets up

One software update away from global, opaque, unaccountable tyranny

"Oh, but we SUPER pinky-promise to only use it for good"

Okay cool, give me the source code and let me decide if I want to run it then

eff.org/deeplinks/2021…

apple.com/child-safety/

> The threshold is set to provide an extremely high level of accuracy and ensures less than a one in one trillion chance per year of incorrectly flagging a given account.

🤣 one in a trillion. Oh, you make me laugh, Apple

In fact, they CAN'T let you vet what they're scanning your phone for - that would involve sending you illegal material

All you get is "trust us 🥺👉👈"

https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/1423102933076484096

"You're just fear-mongering"

Okay, please show me:
1) anything preventing this from being used for other purposes
2) how you would know that Apple had decided to use it for other purposes
3) how you would push back on Apple if they did

I'll wait

Here's what they want you to say: "well, they tried really hard, and this is probably as good as it can get. I guess it's fine."

And my reply is:

I've (mostly) been a fan of @Apple's stance on privacy and security in the last 5 years. I hope they listen to the feedback from their users: despite the best intentions, this is not a good idea

https://twitter.com/ccneill/status/793484156625833984?s=21

https://twitter.com/ccneill/status/1140379863595081729?s=21

https://twitter.com/ccneill/status/810728241870815232

Does not give me confidence... I'm gonna keep screeching, thanks

And thank you to @matthew_d_green for tracking this issue so thoroughly

https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/1423741623826059268

Glad to see others more reputable than me are joining in on the "screeching" about this 😊

https://twitter.com/normative/status/1423744003267338241

Head of WhatsApp...

https://twitter.com/wcathcart/status/1423701473624395784

Former head of security at the New York Times...

https://twitter.com/runasand/status/1423767947684761603

Lest you think fears of creeping surveillance / censorship enabled by this feature are overblown...

https://twitter.com/sjmurdoch/status/1423397219491852291

Can't imagine any interest in this feature from governments that already surveil their citizens extensively 🤔 Nope, not one bit...

https://twitter.com/josephfcox/status/1423714337676480513

Glad to have another voice in the symphony of screeching! 😁

https://twitter.com/evacide/status/1423748333001080833

Let's be clear about what this is and is not:

This is not a massive potential privacy problem counterbalanced by a massive social good

This is a massive potential privacy problem that will deliver, at best, mediocre results on the problem it hopes to solve, IMO

Apple has done major damage in one day to the privacy-conscious image it spent years of effort (and money) cultivating for a single ill-conceived feature that *almost certainly will not move the needle on the problem it hopes to solve*

I honestly can't believe Apple decided to outsource an important privacy guarantee about their devices to a third party. They put their fiercely-guarded reputation in the hands of... whom, exactly?

$1,000 says NCMEC does not operate its own HSMs, bug bounty, etc

https://twitter.com/zackkanter/status/1423804277093457922

I cannot imagine Apple engineers are signing up in droves to do quality assurance on abhorrent CSAM material. So again:

"Trust us 🥺👉👈"