Apple wants to scan iCloud to protect kids, can't even keep them safe in its own App Store – report Apple, having recently invoked the "think of the children" defense against rivals seeking to open competing iOS App Stores, has been accused of not thinking of the children. In a report released on Wednesday, the Tech Transparency Project contends that Apple "is failing to take even the most basic steps to protect children" in …
I remember being a child and I thought about it a lot when I raised my child in today's world. Child pornography is an adult problem, it's the terrible way that adults act and think. As a kid I was raised wearing the equivalent of a dress (I'm a guy now but I was just a kid back then). We all were just kids regardless of our genders and back then as a kid by the seaside you dropped your clothes on the sand and headed into the sea. Was that a crime? No it wasn't, we were just kids playing in the sand - the kids virtually never did anything bad to each other, it was only the adults that were pains.
Now Apple wants to make life hell for the kids - they are saying that child pornography is bad but adult pornography is fine when you are "old enough" - that illustrates the "adult" problem.
When I was young my mum too a picture of us (I have a sister) in the bath, if that happened now would she and the person that developed the picture be charged with child pornography? In my opinion there is nothing wrong with pictures like that.
What about the scene in "The Meaning of Life" when the children are standing in the bathtub, when they are singing "Every Sperm is Sacred"
I think people are overreacting.However, if the pictures are clearly intended to provoke an aroused reaction in the viewer, that's different.
With kids at the beach should be fine too I'm sure I went undressed, I'm not sure what the age limit should be though.
There should be nothing wrong with being unclothed.
The CSAM has been used as a target of this change to limit the discussion about it. If you saw any videos about what Apple is doing, people talking about it are quite careful about the language so that their content won't be buried by algorithms and generally you may risk getting misrepresented and being targeted by people thinking in binary terms (doesn't want content scanning = has something to hide)
If they said from the outset that this feature will be scanning for any content that is deemed illegal, then that would have caused a completely different scale of outrage but currently I doubt most casual Apple users know about what is coming.
It is quite obvious that once mechanism is there, government will ask why do you only scan for CSAM?
Those of you who have read my comments on the CSAM posts know that I'm against their surveillance changes, and think it's all sorts of bad.
But _this_ article isn't about the CSAM change.
This article is like calling BS on an arc welder manufacturer who claims it's safe enough for a 10 year old to use. I think we've (by and large) let Apple and Big Tech somehow become that ultra-slick electrical supply salesman i.e. buying into their line that computers are safe for young kids to use without an adult supervising them backed by sound security advice.
But that's the problem, innit?
A) Few parents are IT security professionals, yet computers such as iDevices are so complex that only an IT pro is competent to design effective parental controls. Separately, only parents should be making the call of what is or is not appropriate for their child. Since those two things are things don't often coexist in the same brain, this can result in well meaning (but inexpert) parents to design bad security plans for their kids.
B) There isn't anything like an 'IT doctor's office.' I don't mean that there aren't consultants out there, but it's not the same. Medical doctors are subject to codes of ethics, licensing, and credentialing requirements before being legally allowed to give parents advice on child health. That isn't true of Geek Squad et al. Even high paid and trained security professionals like myself don't have anything like a legally binding fiduciary duty to the patient, nor do we have medical licensing boards to make sure we're giving up-to-date advice and/or keeping us honest.
Bottom line, most parents aren't equipped to make good computer security plans, and kids shouldn't be left to their own devices.
I still can't shake the idea that all these checks and balances are put into place because parents hand over smartphones to children without oversight.
Heck, most parents don't know the first thing about technology, yet are willing to hand over $1200 iPhones to 10 year olds here in Tokyo and most of the phones I see them using are unrestricted, with Line, instagram and so on. I asked my students about their phones and they all said they just lie and say they are over 13 so that they can access the various services.
I have also seen one or two girls casually browsing "questionable" comic book content on their iPhone 12 pros (which everyone over the age of about 10 seems to have) and contacted their parents with my concerns directly. However, as many may know, Japan has a somewhat different outlook when it comes to that sort of content.
Still, I'm in a tiny minority here who is reluctant to let our girls (both of secondary school age) own a smartphone and I believe my kids are the only ones in their class to not have a smartphone.
They have access to a pair of iPads in the lounge which they use for homework and listening to music, but we are still opposed to giving them free access to a smartphone with all its attendant applications and web browsers until they are of an age where their actions will have less serious consequences.
My son uses one of my old iphones to play games on. It has no SIM card in, so is generally only useable around the house, on the WiFi network. Only I can install new apps on it, and I make sure that everything is suitable for his age. However, adverts do not seem to have any link to the age rating of the app, and I have often seen completely inappropriate ads being shown in the middle of a what is supposed to be an age 4+ rated game. (He is somewhat older, but that is what some of the apps are rated.) Looking at various Apple forums, this seems to be a problem going back years, but Apple never do anything about it.
I'm guessing here, but the content in the apps comes from other users of the app, not the app itself.
For example, I use Signal and have never seen any explicit content. But I'm sure that I could send and receive naked photos, if I wanted to... The same with WhatsApp and Telegram, when I used to use those. That seems a bit spurious.
Access to gambling applications or porn and dating applications, I can understand the thinking there, but general chat apps? That sounds like grasping at straws. If you want to go that far, ban children from using smartphones until they reach the age of consent!
What about the web browser? Or the camera app? If the user is under 16/18, block it from making nude selfies... /sarcasm
Holding Apple or the app developer responsible for the content in general purpose chat apps is silly.
To be honest, I'd be more worried about violence than nudity (excluding sexual acts). But, there again, I live in a society that finds nudity normal and violence abhorrent...
It's never been about the children. It's just a convenient cover when companies and governments want to sneak something by the masses. I've been watching Rob Braxman's Odysee channel and he is doing a good job of showing the technologies that are coming out and some of the purposes they can be put to. He has been blowing the Apple cover story on this new scanning scheme. The framework is far more flexible than just something that hunts down bad kiddie images. It will also be able to track dissidents, journalists, politicians and any other group that stands out from the "norm".
While I'm a Mac user, I've avoided iOS and I'm glad I have. My phone is just a phone. I don't install apps willy nilly, I leave BT, Wi-Fi and data off when I'm not using them as well as having gone through the painful process of having text blocked (they really don't want you to do this). I'm contemplating a new phone which will be a de-Googled Android device. The sorts of applications that won't work on that configuration of phone are ones I don't use any way. I take photos with my real camera. I use a Garmin SatNav when I travel which is regularly purged of its history. My car is a few years old so it isn't broadcasting every little thing all of the time. My new car will be radio quiet too when I'm done with it and I'm not even tempted to sync my phone to it. I don't see the point.
Anybody remember the "blanks" on Max Headroom?
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