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A comment on Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to? by 0x0 on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @10:48AM (#28221733)
macOS has been announced to scan just like iOS
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Re:Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to? by gjsman-1000 on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @10:49AM (#28221768)
Incorrect. It will use a generic model to warn children that they could be exposed to nudity, but that runs on-device and sends nothing to Apple. (It's just a generic nudity detection model).

On iOS and iPadOS, they will implement the iCloud Photos CSAM scanning, but Apple left out macOS as having that for now. Rumoredly according to GitHub reverse-engineers of the system, it's due to the mathematical precision of the NeuralHash algorithm being processor-dependent on ARM and not Intel.

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Re:Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to? by 0x0 on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @10:51AM (#28221793)
From https://www.apple.com/child-safety/ :

> These features are coming later this year in updates to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey.

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Re:Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to? by gjsman-1000 on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @10:53AM (#28221833)
In that case, I'm not sure. The people reverse-engineering the algorithm say they aren't quite sure if that's because the system hasn't shown up in MacOS Developer Previews yet (where it has in iOS and iPadOS), or if that's because they are referring to the generic nudity detection instead of the database matching system.

For now, the security experts looking at this say that the nudity detection model is on all platforms, but the database matching in iCloud Photos is only on iOS and iPadOS and it's unclear whether it will come to macOS.

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Re:Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to? by tpush on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @11:09AM (#28222118)
It's a bit confusing; 2 paragraphs above that line:

"Next, iOS and iPadOS will use new applications of cryptography to help limit the spread of CSAM online, while designing for user privacy."

That implies macOS isn't getting the CSAM scanning stuff (yet?).

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Re:Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to? by djrogers on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @11:04AM (#28222063)
That's at the end of a summary of all 3 features. Each one has the specific OSs listed though:

> iOS and iPadOS will use new applications of cryptography to help limit the spread of CSAM online

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Re:Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to? by rvz on Wednesday August 18, 2021 @11:51AM (#28223003)
> Rumoredly according to GitHub reverse-engineers of the system, it's due to the mathematical precision of the NeuralHash algorithm being processor-dependent on ARM and not Intel.

If true, it's highly probable that Apple can just port it to macOS and have it work especially for the Apple Silicon line up rather than Intel.

But only Apple knows. But so far, it seems like ignoring the M1 hype was the smart thing do.

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