Remember Apple's initiative to scan photos on user's devices to find child pornography?
Today I finally decided to research this.
The evidence is conflicting.
For context, the database of prohibited material is called CSAM (child sexual abuse material).

“If it finds any CSAM, it will report the user to law enforcement.”
— Futurism

“Apple said neither feature would compromise the security of private communications or notify police.”
— NPR

CSAM initiative is dead. It won't scan photos in iCloud. It won't scan photos on your device. It will be a feature that only works in some countries, only on children's devices, and it will be opt-in. It will only work for iMessage attachments.

This is what Apple actually said at https://www.apple.com/child-safety:
- “Features available in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, UK, and U.S.”
- “The Messages app includes tools to warn children when receiving or sending photos that contain nudity. These features are not enabled by default. If parents opt in, these warnings will be turned on for the child accounts in their Family Sharing plan.”

News outlets telling people they will be automatically reported to authorities, and then telling there can be false-positives is a classic example of fearmongering. I hate this. Remember, anger and fear are the most marketable emotions. They make you click. News are and will always be worded to cause these emotions — it brings in money.

When presented with good news, people think they're not being told the truth. When presented with bad news, even when they're made up, people think it's the truth that's being hidden from them. This is how news works.

Now, a HUGE but:
Apple is a multi-billion dollar corporation. There is no such thing as good billionaires. Corporations will always wait for chances to invade privacy. It's like boiling the frog — one tiny measure here, one there, and just like this, step by step, they will eliminate the privacy completely. It's in their interest to have all the data about you. It brings control.
This is not the first time Apple tries to do shit like this, and it definitely won't be the last. You have to keep an eye on your privacy. If you want your privacy in the digital age, it's necessary to fight back. If you live in Europe, take the action and vote for initiatives that oppose corporate tyranny and privacy invasions.

Privacy on the internet is one thing, but scanning people's devices is a whole another thing. This is unacceptable no matter the rationale behind it. Expect more measures like that in the near future.

Research Linux. Find a distro that suits you. The notion that you can't switch because of apps/UI/etc. may be dictated by our brain's tendency to conserve energy and avoid the change.
Take a look at mobile distros like Graphene OS and LineageOS. The former only supports Pixel devices, the latter supports a wide range of devices including OnePlus and Xiaomi. They'll have FAR better privacy than iPhones.

Consider switching. It's easier than you think. Yes, it's me who's saying this. I do and will always protect people/companies from unjust criticism, and I consider myself an Apple fangirl for personal reasons related to my childhood, yet I won't fight blindly. CSAM initiative is a valid criticism, and there's nothing preventing me from saying this is unacceptable, and Apple deserves the backlash they got.

security fiasco due to a malicious npm package:

Because of a bitcoin miner present in event-stream npm module (https://bleepingcomputer.com/news/...), my entire team and I had to scan all our nodejs apps, repos and the most excruciating one, all node_modules folders across all our dev machines and servers, to see if event-stream and flatmap-stream is present, then not just delete it but update a bu**load of upstream dependencies which internally used event-stream. All due to one malicious package which was hidden several layers beneath.

And, this happened almost 8 months after the aforesaid vulnerability was first found.

So recently a 0-day exploit was discovered in WP plugin Kaswara Modern WP Bakery Page (https://zdnet.com/article/...).

A customer's shared hosting space was taken down (about 6 websites) after this vulnerability had been exploited and although we removed the malicious code, & changed credentials the hosting company demands we update ALL Wordpress plugins to latest AND provide them a virus scan report of our local PC before putting the webspace back online??? WTF???

That just strikes me as outrageous. Thoughts?

It's well known that Amazon uses robots in their warehouses, but I had no idea that they stock them randomly? They just put new products wherever they fit best, scan the box (obviously) and once finished, the robot just drives off on his merry way to god knows where.

And since this is Amazon, they spend the time and money to optimize the entire process in every aspect so this *is* the most efficient way to store (and later pick) products in definitely.

It is kind funny, with all the precise machinery, optimized processes and 1984 like surveillance of their employees, it turns out that distributing things randomly is the most efficient way to run an Amazon warehouse. Like, no AI, or something based on ratings or on historic trends. Just random.

(Link to video https://youtube.com/watch/...)