According to the latest reports, a few days ago, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney criticized Apple’s iCloud photo and SMS child safety measures, and he also put forward the idea that this is a way for the government to monitor. On Thursday, Apple released a set of tools. According to Apple, this is a set of tools to help protect online children and reduce the spread of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM).
As part of the tool, the plan will introduce the functions of iMessage, Siri and Search and a mechanism for scanning iCloud photos of known CSM images In a large number of criticisms of Apple, Epic CEO Sweeney once again complained about Apple’s actions on Twitter. Following his work on the Weibo service last Friday, Sweeney said in a statement on Saturday that Apple may provide assistance for the government to monitor user data in the future.
I try to look at this from Apple’s point of view, Sweeney wrote in a tweet, but it is inevitable that this is the government system software installed by Apple based on the presumption of guilt. Although the code is written by Apple, its function is to scan personal data and report it to the government. This is completely different from the content review system on public forums or social media. Before operators choose to host data publicly, they can scan it for any data they don’t want to host. But this is people’s private data.
I’ve tried hard to see this from Apple’s point of view. But inescapably, this is government spyware installed by Apple based on a presumption of guilt. Though Apple wrote the code, its function is to scan personal data and report it to government.https://t.co/OrkfOSjvS1
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 7, 2021
However, Sweeney’s allegations of personal data scanning are somewhat contradictory to how Apple’s system actually works. The scanning system does not actually look at the image itself but compares the mathematical hash of the file stored on iCloud.
The hash value generated from the file is checked against the known hash value of the CSAM image, and then the account number marked by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is notified. In addition, scanning is only available for iCloud photos, and the tool cannot check images stored only on devices with iCloud photos turned off in this way.
Sweeney also said that Apple uses the dark mode to turn on the iCloud upload function by default, thereby forcing users to accumulate unnecessary data and implying that if users delete iCloud.com email accounts, they will lose everything they bought in the Apple ecosystem.
Sweeney pointed out, Apple is now likely to become a branch of national surveillance wherever it is needed. Freedom is based on due process and limited government. The threat here is an evil alliance between the government, the monopoly that controls online speech, and everyone’s equipment. They evade constitutional protection under the guise of private companies, he said. Wrote in the tweet.
