Vratislav Holub During today, information about a very interesting apple novelty, which could be presented to the world as early as tomorrow, is starting to appear on the Internet. According to these reports, Apple is set to introduce a brand new system that will scan photos on your device, with hashing algorithms looking for a match that points to child abuse images being stored. For example, it can also be child pornography.
iPhone 13 Pro (render):
Gallery
In the name of security, the system should be so-called client-sided. In practice, this means that all calculations and comparisons will take place directly on the device, when the iPhone downloads the necessary fingerprint database for individual comparisons. If there was a positive finding, the case would likely be passed on to a regular worker for review. At the moment, anyway, we can only speculate how the system will work in the final, what its conditions and possibilities will be. So we currently have to wait for the official presentation. Something similar already works in iOS, for example, when the phone can recognize and categorize different photos through Machine Learning.
Imagine someone sends you a perfectly harmless political media file that you share with a friend. But that file shares a hash with some known child porn file? pic.twitter.com/YdNVB0xfCA
- Matthew Green (@matthew_d_green) August 5
Nevertheless, security and cryptography expert Matthew Green drew attention to the new system, according to whom it is an extremely complicated field. Because hashing algorithms can go wrong quite easily. In the event that Apple grants access to the very database of so-called fingerprints, which are used to compare and possibly identify child abuse images, to governments and governmental organizations, there is a risk that the system could be used for other things as well. This is because these subjects could deliberately look for other fingerprints, which in extreme cases can lead to the suppression of political activism and the like.
But there is no reason to panic, at least for now. For example, even all your photos stored on iCloud through backups are not ultimately encrypted, but they are stored in an encrypted form on Apple's servers, while the keys themselves are again kept by the Cupertino giant. Thus, in the event of a justified emergency, governments may request that certain materials be made available. As mentioned above, it is currently unclear what the final system will look like. Child abuse is a huge problem and it certainly doesn't hurt to have the appropriate tools to detect it at hand. At the same time, however, such power must not be abused.
It could be interest you
Amaya Toman 