Are you trolling? What Federighi proposed before was scanning "for CSAM" on device [1]. Same angle.
> Doing it on device is probably preferable to on cloud and at worst no different.
Please elaborate. How is it better to force users to run software they don't want than to let them decide whether or not to have their photos scanned when they choose to upload them to the cloud?
Anyway it's a false dichotomy. Apple isn't doing on-device scanning, and now they've announced they won't do it in the cloud either.
> None of us would know if Google was doing ad-hoc scans of particular users' photos at the behest of random LEOs.
Not your device, not your software. You should assume anything you upload unencrypted is scanned. This distinction was clearly voiced by the majority during the debacle of Apple's on-device scanning proposal. They basically said, "Scanning in the cloud is [choose one: fine, skeezy], but we draw the line at doing on-device scans. I don't want that software on my device."
The point of the feature is to use the data in court cases, which are public record. So word would get out there, via journalist, a whistleblower, etc. They had to make the proposal public before implementing it.
> Something about the US Constitution, but I can't remember what.
The first amendment comes into play. The government cannot compel Apple to write software in a certain way, such as "write your encryption so you have keys that access all of users' data". That would be "compelled speech". So if the government provides Apple with a warrant, Apple can only provide encrypted or whatever meta information they have, not decrypted content.
> Scanning on-device is compatible with Apple never having access to your data in an unencrypted format.
Only if you exclude the following network transmission, which is the easy part that needs no special code. The privacy concern comes in with those two things together. So yeah if you take away one half of a bad thing such that the bad thing no longer becomes possible, it's not bad anymore. The concern is the whole process, on-device scanning being the key not-yet-implemented component.
> If Apple has a legal obligation to ensure that iCloud does not store CSAM/etc. then either you have to scan on device before upload _or_ you have to store iCloud data without E2E encryption.
Apple does not have that legal obligation. If they can't decrypt the content on their servers, then their only response to a government-issued warrant would be to hand over encrypted data.
Also, CSAM is not the concern. The concern is this would be used against dissidents in authoritarian countries. On-device scanning takes us a step towards becoming one and further empowering the existing ones.
You'd have a hard time verifying that said on-device scanning would only have been run only on iCloud-uploaded content.
Once the feature exists your local data might become accessible to a government warrant, which would make the iPhone the opposite of a privacy oriented device.
If it's only for iCloud uploaded data they can simply do the scanning there. There's no reason to use customer's CPU/battery against them.
ISPs took tons of taxpayer dollars, often have lousy service, maintain regional monopolies, and lobby municipalities out of building their own networks with shady dealings. Who would be satisified with that? We can do better.
> But given the state of the market, I don't know a _single_ ISP or customer that would confuse DIA for regular bandwidth.
You brought up DIA. I didn't see anyone else comment on it.
> this feels like a theoretical concern as of yet.
This was Ajit Pai's argument. That we should regulate nothing until there's a problem. There are two problems with it,
(1) It's already a problem. There have been documented examples of ISPs throttling, favoring their own partnered content. Also they are actively expanding or seeking to expand zero rating which is anti-competitive.
(2) At the point you actually have a barren landscape in which competitors cannot grow, you've already sucked in a slew of investors on the idea that these monopolies' business models are sound. If the government steps in at that point, they risk being seen as the bad guy for destroying all that investment, which can have political consequences.
We can avoid all that by acknowledging the existing problems, and encouraging competition among ISPs. There should be very few people advocating for monopolies, and we outnumber them.
> Prioritizing non-streaming-service (e.g. throttling Netflix at prime time) packets could, for example, help a regional ISP stay competitive.
That only helps Netflix and that ISP maintain their grip. It's only competitive if by competitive you mean stomping out any new ISP or content provider that is unable to make such agreements.
Have there been no attempts in Germany at introducing net neutrality?
Also, does the ISP who wrote that linked article, Hetzner, still support net neutrality? I can't find anything else in English about it since the linked article from 2015 (archive [1], and new link [2]), but maybe that's because other content hasn't been translated.
> Hetzner Online stands for high-performance and high capacity Internet. In the last few years, our network infrastructure has expanded little by little in order to provide our customers with optimal performance. Currently, about two-thirds of our network traffic is directly exchanged with cost-neutral peerings of various partners. Among them are privat peerings with large network operators.
> For this reason, we have been increasingly concerned with DSL and cable providers who have no open peering policy themselves but are also not connected to other Tier-1 carriers with sufficient capacities. During the peak traffic period of 7 pm to 10 pm in particular, the concerned DSL and cable providers hit their capacity limits and thereby impede the fluent data stream between individual networks. This has lead to increasing complaints from the providers' customers because the customers cannot access their servers with the level of performance that they are used to having from Hetzner Online.
> These customers already paid for comprehensive and quick access to the Internet with their monthly DSL and cable fees. However, providers are no longer satisfied with just this source of profit. They now also want to collect revenue by charging large content providers fees for access to their network. For this reason, interfaces are being operated at their highest capacity -- to make paid access to the DSL and cable providers' networks attractive for content providers. The end consumer is then forced to pay double for unlimited access to the Internet. We at Hetzner Online do not support such policies and declare our support for full net neutrality.
> I don't agree with what the ISP is doing, but I can rationalize how they think it makes sense.
It only makes sense if they perceive no backlash for overreaching.
We need to look closely at what they are currently doing. They're expanding zero rating on mobile, and also on broadband in some areas by claiming that their network is "proprietary technology" and not subject to such net neutrality laws.
Meanwhile, municipalities are prevented from building their own networks to compete with regional broadband monopolies. It's internet-highway robbery.
I think the imaginations of some who would strike down net neutrality go far beyond that.
They would disconnect the net at every border imaginable and charge for access along every gateway. It's an authoritarian's wet dream to have such control, and we the people should oppose it at every turn.
Setting up a framework that cements existing monopolies isn't capitalist, it's anti-competitive.
Are you trolling? What Federighi proposed before was scanning "for CSAM" on device [1]. Same angle.
> Doing it on device is probably preferable to on cloud and at worst no different.
Please elaborate. How is it better to force users to run software they don't want than to let them decide whether or not to have their photos scanned when they choose to upload them to the cloud?
Anyway it's a false dichotomy. Apple isn't doing on-device scanning, and now they've announced they won't do it in the cloud either.
[1] https://youtu.be/OQUO1DSwYN0?t=426