One of the prerequisites to "discuss the tradeoffs" of this ordeal is the trust that the people behind it, and those in the position to push things further are actually interested in keeping the scope limited.
There are diminishing returns to using the same old excuse again and again. I'd say most people are just tired of the whole "Just think of the children!" into "Ah we got this system in place why not use it against <a little less evil but still illegal thing> too" followed by "It's the law in China/Turkey/Russia/wherever, <Company> can't just ignore it (and thus not help putting reporters, critics and other people into prison)" combo.
What you are saying is basically another rendition of "look the problem of child abuse exists and this could help so it is worth discussing", which is also a variant of the same.
> iCloud image checking compares to known CSAM image hashes - this means effectively zero false positive rate.
Actually we recently had news where an Apple tried to help cover up their errors [1], the system was supposed to be safe™, doesn't mean the people having control over it can't make mistakes, or worse.
What details are being missed here, exactly? Ultimately it is trivial to expand the hashes to compare to, isn't it? What does it matter that they use CSAM for now? It doesn't remove the involvement of humans in controlling the system, so false positive rate will never be "effectively zero", and it can easily be expanded.
We are left with the same two arguments as always:
- Think about the children
- Just trust the company, they use technology™, no you aren't allowed to check. Yeah they can easily abuse it, but we don't know for sure!
I wouldn't say HN is ignoring details, many people are just tired of the same old loop, there is no reason to put trust into these endeavors and it is reasonable to doubt even the motives.
There are diminishing returns to using the same old excuse again and again. I'd say most people are just tired of the whole "Just think of the children!" into "Ah we got this system in place why not use it against <a little less evil but still illegal thing> too" followed by "It's the law in China/Turkey/Russia/wherever, <Company> can't just ignore it (and thus not help putting reporters, critics and other people into prison)" combo.
What you are saying is basically another rendition of "look the problem of child abuse exists and this could help so it is worth discussing", which is also a variant of the same.
> iCloud image checking compares to known CSAM image hashes - this means effectively zero false positive rate.
Actually we recently had news where an Apple tried to help cover up their errors [1], the system was supposed to be safe™, doesn't mean the people having control over it can't make mistakes, or worse.
What details are being missed here, exactly? Ultimately it is trivial to expand the hashes to compare to, isn't it? What does it matter that they use CSAM for now? It doesn't remove the involvement of humans in controlling the system, so false positive rate will never be "effectively zero", and it can easily be expanded.
We are left with the same two arguments as always:
- Think about the children
- Just trust the company, they use technology™, no you aren't allowed to check. Yeah they can easily abuse it, but we don't know for sure!
I wouldn't say HN is ignoring details, many people are just tired of the same old loop, there is no reason to put trust into these endeavors and it is reasonable to doubt even the motives.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27878333