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A comment on Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in the cloud.

Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by ein0p on Monday June 10, 2024 @09:52PM (#40641439)
It is not possible for this to be fully private in the United States because the government not only can force Apple to open up the kimono, it can also forbid it to talk about it. There’s not really anything Apple can do to work around this “limitation”. Thank your “representative” for extending the PATRIOT Act when you get a chance.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by paradite on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:58PM (#40642164)
Slightly off-topic, "open up the kimono" sounds disturbing and creepy to me as an Asian. I suspect I'm not alone in this.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by ein0p on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @12:34AM (#40642372)
That’s even better. I do think it’s disturbing and creepy when someone goes through my private data without my knowledge.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by digging on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @04:11PM (#40650919)
That's not what they meant or what the phrase means. It's mildly racist and misogynist, and the kinds of discomfort it elicits are not the kind that will make people trust you, the user of the phrase.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by ein0p on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @05:44PM (#40651943)
Anything is racist or misogynistic if you’re woke enough
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by digging on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @05:59PM (#40652093)
Not talking about anything, talking about one specific idiom. Are you trying to assert that the idiom is not racist or misogynistic at all?
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by dxbednarczyk on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @12:35AM (#40642380)
Some share your sentiment. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/11/02/360479744...
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by bn-l on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @02:15AM (#40643056)
Is this phrase worth an entire long form blog post from NPR?
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by rpastuszak on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @04:00AM (#40643736)
Honestly, why not? I love reading about etymologies and I know that many people here do as well.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by _heimdall on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @08:44AM (#40645568)
I'm not sure how I've been in tech since before this article was written and today is the first time I've ever even seen/heard this phrase.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by amiantos on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:28PM (#40641972)
Private Cloud Compute servers have no persistent storage so there would be nothing to see upon opening the kimono. You'd need some sort of government requested live wire tap thing to harvest the data out of the incoming requests, which might be a different situation. I'm, of course, just some dude on the internet, thinking up a counter-point to this concern, who knows if I am even remotely in the right ballpark.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by visarga on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @12:10AM (#40642228)
mandatory 30 day retention policies or something like it
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by theshrike79 on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @04:34AM (#40643911)
You can't mandate retention on stuff you're not storing anyway - or because of encryption can't store.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by talldayo on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @11:53AM (#40647804)
You would think that, but cell carriers have been found to retain both plaintext and encrypted traffic for several years in some cases: https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vqkv/how-fbi-gets-phone-da...
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by theshrike79 on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @03:24PM (#40650392)
Cell carriers aren't a bastion of end to end encryption, the tech just can't do it.

That's why you use them just as dumb pipes forwarding encrypted data traffic from one place to another.

No SMS, no phone calls if you can avoid it.

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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by talldayo on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @09:55PM (#40653720)
Speaking of tech, has anyone ever independently audited Apple's encrypted infrastructure a-la what they're promising for Private Compute? I'm unconvinced that the government couldn't crack that if they wanted.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by choppaface on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @01:16AM (#40642618)
Apple already services US Gov cloud data requests, see e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/eqg5gc/apple_compl...
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by transpute on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @03:11AM (#40643445)
> have no persistent storage

How often do PCC servers reboot and wipe the temporary encryption key?

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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by KaiserPro on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @07:27AM (#40644975)
> Private Cloud Compute servers have no persistent storage so there would be nothing to see upon opening the kimono

It doesn't actually say there is no persistent storage, it says that the compute node will not store it for longer than the request. There's nothing to stop the data coming from a datastore outside of the "PCC" in another part of apple's infrastructure.

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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by sciolist on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:24PM (#40641622)
There's a difference between guaranteed privacy and certifiable privacy. Yes, the government can request one's data. However, Apple's system would reveal those intrusions to the public, even if Apple themselves couldn't say it.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by afh1 on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:40PM (#40641717)
How?
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by aalimov_ on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:28PM (#40641970)
Their post sure makes it seam like it’s possible. Was there something that stood out to you?
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by quenix on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @01:41AM (#40642807)
I mean, the software running on the client (phone/mac/ipad) is closed-source and, if we assume Apple is compromised, can be made to circumvent all of these fancy protections at the push of a button.

If pressured by the government, Apple can simply change the client software to loosen the attestation requirements for private compute. And that would be the most inconspicuous choice.

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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by rvnx on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @02:04AM (#40642978)
Or target a device by IMEI or iCloud to be candidate to receive a software update, and push an update that sends data to "dev-llm-assistant.ai.apple.com".

"oh it's our dev version ? what's the problem ? we need data access for troubleshooting"

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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by ls612 on Monday June 10, 2024 @11:51PM (#40642118)
What Apple can do (and appears to be doing throughout its products) is not have the data requested. Or not have it in cleartext. NSLs can't request data that doesn't exist anymore.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by ein0p on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @01:02AM (#40642539)
LLMs work on clear text inputs
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by ls612 on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @01:06AM (#40642569)
But the setup is that Apple doesn't know which cleartexts currently being processed are associated with which user meaning that even live surveillance can't work without surveilling everybody, making any such program very quickly discoverable. Read the section about non-targetability in the link.

Apple deserves credit for correctly analyzing their threat model and designing their system accordingly.

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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by ein0p on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @02:27AM (#40643158)
I’m willing to concede that Apple’s system is the best designed of the bunch. I’m not willing to call it “private”, however, if it processes unencrypted inputs in the jurisdiction of a nation state with pervasive government surveillance.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by ls612 on Wednesday June 12, 2024 @07:54PM (#40664452)
I agree from a technical perspective actually. What this system does to counteract that is use a social strategy. The government couldn't break "this specific system" without a lot of people knowing, and that makes it very likely that they would be discovered. And not in a vague way but in a very specific one.

Would this work in some authoritarian countries? No and Apple doesn't care. Would it work in a western one? Maybe.

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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by tantalor on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:05PM (#40641514)
Warrant canary
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by afh1 on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:40PM (#40641715)
Apple removed theirs year ago.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by sneak on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @01:31AM (#40642705)
The orders in question aren’t search warrants and don’t require probable cause.

70,000+ Apple user accounts are surveilled in this manner every year.

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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by egorfine on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @05:23AM (#40644182)
It makes zero sense for a company of this size. I bet they are served with gag orders like daily, so the warrant canary is going to expire the moment it is published.
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Re:Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in t... by sneak on Tuesday June 11, 2024 @01:30AM (#40642695)
It seems to me that this security architecture is a direct response to the hostile regulatory environment Apple finds themselves in wrt USA PATRIOT and the CCP et al.
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