There’s never been an x.8 release of iOS before, but that’s about to change. Apple is prepping iOS 14.8 for release, and it’s coming soon.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes for ZDNet:
iOS 14 is also different in that Apple has said that will allow users to stay on this release and still get patches after iOS 15 has been released.
MacDailyNews Take: As we explained last month, “Beyond a handful of test devices, we will not be upgrading to iOS 15.”
We’re currently on iOS 14.7.1, but for weeks now we’ve been hearing about an iOS 14.8, but what’s weird is that there’s no beta and only speculation about what the update might contain.
A contact at Apple says that it’s likely to be a bugfix that also contains the framework to allow iPhone users to stick with iOS 14 once iOS 15 is released later this month.
But what about Apple’s child sexual abuse material (CSAM) detection system. Is Apple planning to roll this out to iPhones running iOS 14?
According to what I’ve been told, that’s unlikely at this stage. However, given that iOS 14 will carry on getting updates beyond September of this year, its inclusion in a future update can’t be ruled out.
MacDailyNews Take: Thank you, oh Great and Powerful Apple, for “allowing” us to run the last OS version that preserves user privacy on devices we own!
From now on, for those concerned with privacy, we’d recommend not upgrading to Apple OS releases until they can be vetted by third parties to be free of Photos and Messages surveillance software.
An international coalition of 90+ civil society organizations have called on Apple to abandon its plans to build backdoor #surveillance capabilities into iPhones, iPads and other #Apple products.https://t.co/BeEAuCiNEA
(List of signatories attached)#iPhoneBackdoor #Privacy pic.twitter.com/9kZztCodcV
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) September 1, 2021
Apple must have been placed in an untenable situation to introduce this backdoor, destroying their vaunted claims to protecting privacy, or Tim Cook has completely lost the plot.
“There have been people that suggest that we should have a backdoor. But the reality is if you put a backdoor in, that backdoor’s for everybody, for good guys and bad guys… I think everybody’s coming around also to recognizing that any backdoor means a backdoor for bad guys as well as good guys. And so a backdoor is a nonstarter. It means we are all not safe… I don’t support a backdoor for any government, ever. We do think that people want us to help them keep their lives private. We see that privacy is a fundamental human right that people have. We are going to do everything that we can to help maintain that trust.” — Apple CEO Tim Cook, October 1, 2015
Things that make you go hmmm. When somebody spends years insisting, correctly, that water is wet and then, all of a sudden, claims that, no, water is actually dry, then clearly something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Something caused Tim Cook to kowtow to this backdoor. What was it? – MacDailyNews, August 6, 2021
If you’re concerned about Apple’s recent announcement that the next version of iOS will install a mass surveillance backdoor into Apple devices, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF) has created a petition to let users speak out.
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Mass surveillance is not an acceptable crime-fighting strategy, no matter how well-intentioned the spying. If you’re upset about Apple’s recent announcement that the next version of iOS will install surveillance software in every iPhone, we need you to speak out about it.
SIGN THE PETITION
Tell Apple: Don’t Scan Our PhonesLast year, EFF supporters spoke out and stopped the EARN IT bill, a government scheme that could have enabled the scanning of every message online. We need to harness that same energy to let Apple know that its plan to enable the scanning of photos on every iPhone is unacceptable.
Apple plans to install two scanning systems on all of its phones. One system will scan photos uploaded to iCloud and compare them to a database of child abuse images maintained by various entities, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a quasi-governmental agency created by Congress to help law enforcement investigate crimes against children. The other system, which operates when parents opt into it, will examine iMessages sent by minors and compare them to an algorithm that looks for any type of “sexually explicit” material. If an explicit image is detected, the phone will notify either the user and possibly the user’s parent, depending on age.
These combined systems are a danger to our privacy and security. The iPhone scanning harms privacy for all iCloud photo users, continuously scanning user photos to compare them to a secret government-created database of child abuse images. The parental notification scanner uses on-device machine learning to scan messages, then informs a third party, which breaks the promise of end-to-end encryption.
Apple’s surveillance plans don’t account for abusive parents, much less authoritarian governments that will push to expand it. Don’t let Apple betray its users.
SIGN THE PETITION
Tell Apple: Don’t Scan Our Phones
MacDailyNews Take: The EFF petition, which we have signed and recommend that our readers sign as well, reads as follows:
Don’t Scan Our Phones
The “child safety” changes Apple plans to install on iOS 15 and macOS Monterey undermine user privacy, and break the promise of end-to-end encryption.
I urge Apple to reconsider these systems. Continuous scanning of images won’t make kids safer, and may well put more of them in danger. Installing the photo-scanning software on our phones will spur governments around the world to ask for more surveillance and censorship abilities than they already have.
Sincerely,
SIGNED
Your Name
I understand people’s concern about the scanning of photos on our phones, hence a backdoor to Apple.
However, no matter how much I care about privacy and one of the reason I have an iPhone, I am ready to give it up (to Apple only) so that the lives of many children around the world can be saved. That’s priceless. That’s undeniable. Since I have children also, I maybe feel more about this.
You need to be brave sometimes, and I applaud Apple for being so. 🙏🙏
Until a better idea is formed… it’s the way.
I also have children – 2 and 4 years old – and I try to do everything I can to prevent the surveillance world we are hurling towards, never for them to enjoy the true freedoms I got to enjoy when I was young.
What Apple is doing here – asking you and me for Trust Us Bro when playing the Think of the Children card – has nothing to do with preventing the spreading of child abuse materials. Up until now, when you uploaded your photos to ICloud they got checked server side for CSAM material, and if say 2 out of a 100 got flagged, they got reported.
In the new situation those checks are moving from their server side to client side on your own device. You get a CSAM hash database on your property and every image gets checked against that. And when you upload to iCloud, those 2 out of a 100 in our example will eventually again get reported.
Same result, same numbers.
There is no improvement at all when compared to the current server side checks. The needle against the noble fight against child abuse has not moved one bit.
Also, there is a reason law enforcement does not seek personnel with iCloud or Google images skills, but are looking for people skilled in the dark web, because that is where they operate, together with all other sorts of scum.
What has changed then is that it has been made very much easier for authorization abuse (governments or otherwise) on your device by making it easier to scan and report client side. They only need to make some local laws to compel Apple by force to using other images or databases, and there you go. Small, incremental steps suffice on the path to authoritarianism.
Going form a walled garden to a barbed surveillance yard is not an improvement.
No Nobel Peace prize for you.
The virtue signaling holy name cause of protecting children is basically a cover excuse used to take away our privacy rights and SPY on Apple users.
Listen carefully, in addition, a COMPLETE APPLE BETRAYAL of PRIVACY!
What part do you not understand?
The woke Left is expert at this gambit, recall lockdowns from all the woke Leftists in charge of blue states and cities where Covid actually spread more quickly to record numbers and deaths.
Flip side of that coin, Red states fared much better. So it all boils down to stoopid politics and not science.
Apple is getting more stoopid and Big Brother everyday…
Also, any perv with ½ of a brain will simply cease to send their photos into the cloud and possibly just have some other crap phone on which to store their evil images. Plus, I have read a few seemingly trustworthy reports that indicate that the percentage of evil photos in the cloud is about 0.0056 which would mean that the entire universe of Apple users would be treated as though they’re guilty of something (in terms of privacy) in an attempt to catch a tiny % of criminals who will just change their previous habits anyway to already have escaped discovery.
The biggest liability to our freedoms is the fact that unscrupulous persons both in government and law enforcement (there are some bad apples, after all, who have been caught planting fake evidence) as well as hackers that can bring about false accusations against innocent victims that they have a grudge against.
Like I’ve said before, Apple already scans your photos. How do you think Memories are created. MDN – calm down.
Not even remotely the same thing. You don’t understand the issue. Biden-Harris voter, I presume.
Does Apple report your “Memories” to the “authorities?”
IT seems you are not really aware of the real problem here!!!
Its about the Active surveillance code that will be in the heart of any device Apple sells.
Its not about iCloud phot scanning … it is about having a a spy IN YOUR PHONE/IPAD?etc.. which has access to your photos and your iMessage.
And all it would take is a slight tweak of code for them to have the ability to watch anything you do! The mechanism will be Embedded in all new Apple products!
It is Akin to buying a house which comes with an agent always residing there.. watching you…
The agent can simply be instructed to look for anything …
Would u be comfortable in such a house… even if like 99% of people u do nothing wrong in YOUR HOUSE.
DITO MDN….automatic updates are off and i wont be upgrading to 15 or buy any Apple product bugged with a mass surveillance code at it core!
AND THANK for the petition reference!
THIS ATTEMPT BY APPLE IS NOTHING BUT A WOLF IN SHEEPS SKIN
A BACK DOOR AND SURVEILLANCE MECHANISM DISGUISED AS VIRTUE!!!!!!!
The false sense of security Apple provided is now gone no matter what is done or not done. Like others have mentioned, the bad guys will just use different methods. Nothing will be safer for anyone. Pandora’s Box has been opened.
I have already turned off ALL updates out of concern for this very thing — Apple sneaking in their scanning algorithm into a version on iOS 14. No updates on Macs, either, and I have already nuked my iPad to sell, if I can find a buyer. Feel kind of guilty selling it to an unwary person. Today is the day to disconnect from Photos and iCloud, too, after making sure all my old photos are safe. I have already canceled thousands of dollars of planned Apple hardware purchases. Canceling TV, Music, and News. So, so, sad.
This is not about CSAM. Everyone is against it. It’s not like nothing is being done against this and so Apple has to do it. We have law enforcement and many advocacy groups who work on this. We are not criminals, we just didn’t like Google, Facebook, and Amazon tracking us everywhere. As has been said ad nauseam, this is about putting a surveillance tool ON YOUR DEVICE to make sure you’re not a pervert. Not only is the on-device scanning a horrible idea for all the many reasons stated by others better than I could, but there is also the element of betrayal. The company that sold us their devices on the condition that they respect our privacy from tracking, is now going FURTHER to undermine privacy than the other companies. Few things hurt worse than betrayal. This sense of betrayal will drive the biggest fans away from the company. I can’t fathom how anyone at Apple thought this would be a good idea.