Comment by viktorcode
4 years ago
What I find disturbing is that almost all commenters here took that rumour for a fact. There's nothing to substantiate it, there's no evidence of scan actually happening, and there's no historical precedence of similar thing done by Apple. And yet, people working in tech with supposedly developed critical thinking took the bait.
Why? Is it simply because it fits their world view?
The world has changed. May not be completely accurate yet, but fits 2021 like a glove:
https://sneak.berlin/20210202/macos-11.2-network-privacy/
https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
You’re right of course but I think in this case it was due to the reputation of the poster on Twitter. At least, that’s the only reason I would take this rumor seriously. But yeah, a rumor is a rumor still.
I found another source (https://www.macobserver.com/analysis/apple-scans-uploaded-co...) saying apple was already running these scans on iCloud using homomorphic encryption… in 2019. It doesn’t really make sense for them to run it on device. Apple has the keys to unlock iCloud backups on their server and a sizable portion of users have those enabled, so why bother to run these on device?
I’m not sure if it’s a rumor or not but there was a thread on HN the other day about Facebook exploring homomorphic encryption for running ads on WhatsApp and I wonder if wires got crossed?
The article said they could see Apple using homomorphic encryption. Not currently.
Scanning on phones is a step toward end to end encryption for photos probably. Or scanning not uploaded photos. Or both.