There’s been a lot of outrage on social media in recent days about Apple’s decision to scan photos on people’s phones for hash collisions with material that has been reported to them to be CSAM (but as we’re likely talking hash lists originating with states, who knows – as I’ve seen asked online, “How long before the Tank Man photo appears on this list?"). This isn’t a bad blog post on the matter. Aral does also make the point that we can’t really blame consumers for being stuck between a rock and a hard place – it’s increasingly expected these days that everyone has a smartphone (for purposes like 2FA, mobile banking, Covid-19 check-ins…) and nothing outside the duopoly of Apple and Google is supported well enough to serve these purposes. People shouldn’t be expected to choose between privacy violations and living a reasonably normal, modern life… and yet…

We will have to migrate back to a world in which we are not controlled and dominated by our intimate enemy – our mobile phones. We have to try to rebuild our lives, struggles and social movements outside the asphyxiating realm of digital surveillance. We must dislodge the regimes that are deploying it against us. We must do everything we can to prise open their grip on the levers of power, everything we can to mend all that they have broken, and take back all they have stolen.

Arundhati Roy on the Pegasus project.

The EU wants to have all private chats, messages, and emails automatically searched for suspicious content, generally and indiscriminately. The stated aim: To prosecute child pornography. The result: Mass surveillance through fully automated real-time messaging and chat control and the end of secrecy of digital correspondence.

Facebook has such a sweet racket. First, they used the Roach Motel model – data checks in, but it doesn’t check out – to trap you and all your friends in a mutual hostage-taking situation, where you can’t leave because they’re there, and they can’t leave because you’re there.

All those address books they imported, the data they gathered from publishers' websites through the Like buttons (which gather data whether or not you click them), the data they bought or snaffled up through free mobile SDKs is now permanently siloed inside of FB.