Opinion: We built a system like Apple’s to flag child sexual abuse material — and concluded the tech was dangerous - The Washington Post

^{( August 19, 2021; The Washington Post )}

The authors built a similar system - with a protocol that supports end to end and encryption for all traffic except that matching "harmful" content, but ultimately concluded that the risks outweighed the benefits. Although Apple's child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is likely well-intentioned, the authors report the following risks, and argue that Apple has not adequately acknowledged or addressed them:

• The system could easily be repurposed for surveillance, censorship, and targeting of political dissidents
• The system can have false positives.
• False positives can even be injected by malicious users as tools of harrassment.

Earlier this month, Apple unveiled a system that would scan iPhone and iPad photos for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The announcement sparked a civil liberties firestorm, and Apple’s own employees have been expressing alarm. The company insists reservations about the system are rooted in “misunderstandings.” We disagree.

We wrote the only peer-reviewed publication on how to build a system like Apple’s — and we concluded the technology was dangerous. We’re not concerned because we misunderstand how Apple’s system works. The problem is, we understand exactly how it works.

Read the rest from The Washington Post: Opinion: We built a system like Apple’s to flag child sexual abuse material — and concluded the tech was dangerous

Related:

• Identifying Harmful Media in End-to-End Encrypted Communication: Efficient Private Membership Computation - ( 2021; USENIX; Anunay Kulshrestha and Jonathan Mayer )

-h/t OS News