As always when talking about security and privacy, you need to understand the threat model. Apple protects users from some threats while also becoming itself the biggest threat to users. And this is exactly what Apple wants. This is how you use Stockholm syndrome to entrench a feudal system.

The relationship is not 3-way as Apple wants users to believe (Apple the defender, users the victim, third-parties the aggressor). The map of the territory is a lot more complex.

Framing relationships in this "triangle" is not new. As parent says, reality is a lot more complex, and this kind of frame-of-mind can be very detrimental:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle

In what case is the software not the biggest threat, though? Software is completely malleable. How many people update their systems by downloading the source diffs of all the libraries and apps, reviewing them line by line, and compiling locally? For the vast majority, the underlying software is considered a trusted system out of necessity.

The surprising thing to me is that there have been so few critical reviews on the system as it exists today - they are 99.9% "what if" scenarios.

To put it a different way, the possibility has always existed that your trust could turn out to suddenly be misplaced in a single, near-instantaneous policy change. So most of the discussions are actually about reevaluating whether they should consider Apple devices to be a trusted system or not based on this policy change, and trying to predict future policy changes based on it.

The reality is that Apple's spat with the FBI was possible because the US legal system allows it. Other countries can demand anything they want, and Apple has to negotiate with them or decide whether they have to leave that market. The scanning is a US-only feature to comply with US regulations.

If say China adopts a policy Apple does not want to abide by, their choice is exclusively to leave the Chinese market and to potentially adapt to no Chinese manufacturing or even Chinese suppliers. But this is no more or less true than last week.

> is also the world leader on consumer privacy

is also an early PRISM adopter and well known on cooperation with totalitarian regimes. Censoring Belarus protesters happened several months ago.

Apple also dropped the idea of E2EE iCloud backups at the FBI's behest. They've also handed over iCloud in China to GCBD creating an incredible apparatus for the surveillance state.

And now we are supposed to believe they can resist adding a hash to a list if the government asks? Are they serious?

They never said they will resist adding a hash. They just implied it with weasel words. They also said they will accept hashes from “other child protection organizations.” Which clearly means each country can define, with its own horrendous laws, what they think children need to be protected from… content showing children being put in unislamic situations (Saudi Arabia), content showing children living happily in a family with gay parents (Russia), content showing a child being abused by being forced to hold a Taiwanese flag (China), etc.

Apple isn't the Dutch East India Company. It is better to ask the citizens of the American democracy to keep their government accountable than it is to ask Apple to be so powerful that it can shrug off national governments.

You don't want CSAM scanning in the USA? Then ask your national government to change its laws requiring companies to be so vigilant against CSAM. Or we can ask that Apple become so powerful that they can shrug off the government.

That Apple cannot resist the government does not negate the observation that Apple is also a leader in consumer privacy.

The US government is NOT forcing Apple to scan customer data, in fact the entire legal framework of this scanning in the US critically depends on Apple performing the scanning without Government coercion. If the Government forced the scanning or even substantially incentivized it, then it would require a warrant per the fourth amendment.

> The US government is NOT forcing Apple to scan customer data

Unfortunately we do not know that for certain. Companies were compelled to sign up to PRISM against their will. Yahoo in particular tried to resist and were threatened with financial destruction [1]. The Feds can essentially levy any sum of daily fines on a company like Yahoo or Apple any time they see fit, with a rubber stamp from the FISA court; they effectively demonstrated that with their confrontation with Yahoo. And it clearly terrified Yahoo.

We have no idea if what's being put into place by Apple is the start of a new program by the powers that be and Apple has little choice but to comply realistically, or be hammered financially (or worse, the Feds might just get dirty and target executives personally). If they were working on PRISM 3.0 and attempting to implement it, we would never know it at this juncture.

It's worth being suspicious of what's going on given the one certainty is we know very clearly what the authorities want, what they'd like to see happen, and that they never stop trying to prod things in that direction. They're always up to something shady, always looking for ways to advance the surveillance state. The Biden Admin years will see that effort turbo charged once again, as with the Bush & Obama years. Whatever they're up to right now (again, they're always working on new programs like PRISM, always), you can be sure it's big, likely illegal and a gross violation of human rights.

https://www.wired.com/2014/09/feds-yahoo-fine-prism/

> Unfortunately we do not know that for certain.

If they were forced the searches would be an unlawful violation of the constitution. Various tech companies have repeatedly testified under oath that they are performing the searches of customer data of their own free will and for their own benefit.

I wouldn't argue that it's an impossibility-- but if true it would be a shocking revelation that would result in hundreds or even thousands of cases being overturned once it was exposed. And if it were true it shouldn't improve our opinion of Apple's actions in the slightest: instead of being just an unethical invasion of privacy for commercial gain, they'd instead be complicit in a secret conspiracy to illegally violate the rights of hundreds of millions of Americans.

FSF is a world leader in consumer privacy, Apple is a world leader in replacing things that could be used privately with things that cannot be.

Apple failed to deploy E2EE iCloud because the FBI asked nicely (with a wrench in hand probably).

The leading narrative on /r/apple is now that "oh this invasive spyware has to exist so that apple can do E2EE iCloud", which is nonsense.

If they had done their job and deployed E2EE iCloud we wouldn't "need" this system in the first place.

It's a classic government pattern:

1. Create the problem (blocking E2EE such that providers have unencrypted copies of your content)

2. Screech and complain about this

3. Demand they do the thing you really wanted in the first place to solve the problem you created

Steve Jobs would have told the FBI he was doing E2EE and he'd see them in court.

Only because they found a common enemy in the likes of FB, etc al. If privacy didn't benefit them in some way, they wouldn't care.

You get the feeling though that this held water, until recent news thought right?