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Bill Maher declares Apple CSAM tools a 'blatant constitutional breach'

Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher has waded into the debate over Apple's CSAM tools, declaring them a "blatant constitutional breach" against its users.

The CSAM debate over Apple's tools for detecting child pornography has a new high-profile participant, with comedian Bill Maher using a segment of his "Real Time" talk show to complain about the move.

The eight-minute segment starts with the outspoken host describing the tools as an update that will allow Apple to "hack into your phone without your consent to snoop through all your pictures, just in case you're a pedophile."

After saying he is against pedophilia, Maher goes on to say "nosing through everybody's private photo stash is casting an awfully wide, intrusive net." He compares the idea to a safe manufacturer saying they will occasionally check the safe for illegal material.

"Our phones should be like our wallets or purses. Private," he states, before asking "What about probable cause? What about the fourth amendment?" Maher then declares it to be "the very definition of unreasonable search and seizure, which can and will be abused to find evidence of other illegal stuff on our phones."

Maher claims he doesn't see a "strong fight" against Apple's initiative, which he claims is due to people's dependence on their smartphones.

The remaining time of the segment segues away from the CSAM debate to Maher complaining about iPhones and smartphones negatively changing how people act and how society functions.

While Maher's segment largely glosses over what the CSAM tools do, misrepresenting Apple's scanning of file hashes for full-scale phone snooping, it is arguably one of the most public attacks Apple has had over the matter.

Maher joins a long line of civil rights groups, the German government, a German journalist union, and even some Apple employees in complaining about the CSAM tools, and in asking Apple to reconsider their implementation.

Apple SVP of software engineering Craig Federighi admitted on August 13 that Apple's introduction of the tools could have been handled better, with its communication "widely misunderstood." Apple has also been performing damage control, by offering further explanations of the system, and detailing how security researchers can perform their own checks.



106 Comments

DoomFreak 7 Years · 19 comments

Just using this as a good reason to spy on people

5 Likes · 0 Dislikes
tedz98 7 Years · 80 comments

The general public has no understanding of what a file hash is. So the techies at Apple have no understanding of how the general public perceives what they are doing. They just think Apple is scanning their phone. I’m not a huge Bill Maher fan, but I agree with him here. It’s a slippery slope that Apple is embarking on.

9 Likes · 0 Dislikes
george kaplan 17 Years · 169 comments

For Apple to be this bad at damage control is very off-brand.

Just about everything Maher said was incorrect, but it will be passed around as gospel because Apple has done such a poor job getting the fact of the case out. It is time for full-page ads and volunteering to be on shows like 60 Minutes where it can broadcast the details of this feature which (A) has to be opted-in, and (B) which is to be used by parents who have minor children on their same family account. Nothing here about “snooping in the private photos” of adult users.

It is no small amount of irony that misinformation about Apple’s plan will be spread on Facebook, where privacy is an abstract concept and personal information has long since been mined and sold for profit. But that same person will have white knuckles from clutching the pearls so tightly.

8 Likes · 0 Dislikes
fastasleep 15 Years · 6455 comments

Bill Maher is an idiot. 

17 Likes · 0 Dislikes
mac_dog 17 Years · 1089 comments

But I bet he has nothing to say about Israel committing genocide on the Palestinian people. He should stick to comedy. 

6 Likes · 0 Dislikes