Hey Tim Cook: Power corrupts…
I have actually been wanting to write this article for quite a while and thanks to recent events it’s either too late or timely.
Turn key tyranny doesn’t just apply to governments.
Earlier this year Android’s market share in the US has dropped below 50%. Google will live as their main stream of revenue is advertising and even while using an iPhone, you’re likely still seeing Google’s ads. What concerns me is that the rest of that market share goes to Apple, a company with an almost fanatical control over their ecosystem. Sideloading is not an option on iPhones and even if you can in effect “sideload” on MacBook’s they could just as easily remotely disable software on MacBook’s by disabling developer certificates. This is exactly what they threatened to do to Epic, which is troubling as this was not a case of malware, but a case where Apple is just having a dispute with another company. Apple is the gatekeeper to all that happens with their products, both iPhones and MacBook's, and as they gain market share this will make them the de facto gatekeeper to all things in tech.
I don’t want a tech world where one company gets to play gatekeeper because that’s a world where innovation slows down dramatically. Could Netflix have started streaming under today’s conditions with 30% of their streaming revenue going to Apple? Microsoft and Google are slowed down getting cloud gaming off the ground because Apple wants a cut of their business and a say in which games they are allowed to publish, all the while not offering anything comparable themselves. Even the big companies are having trouble innovating in the face of Apple.
Some may say that the level of control that Apple has in their ecosystem is a good thing as they can for example more effectively cut down on the information apps are able to collect about you. The one thing that I find funny about this situation is that, while this is great we can limit our exposure to the likes of Facebook, no pun intended, Apple is still the company that more or less has access to ALL of our data. What happens when one day they decide to change their privacy stance?
Speaking of which, privacy advocates are already getting a taste of this potential turn key craziness from Apple with their new controversial photo scanning system. I have to be VERY clear, that it is a good thing when there is less of the type of material Apple is trying to cut down on. HOWEVER, the WAY in which they are doing it, is problematic.
In short they will distribute a database of hashes for illegal content to iPhones, hash the photos that exist in iCloud, and match the hashes of your photos against this database on device, notifying Apple and potentially the authorities only if they find anything suspicious. This has it’s benefits in that:
- Apple does not have to distribute ACTUAL illegal content.
- Apple does not have to break server-side encryption for this to work as it all happens on device.
- All legal content never needs to leave devices.
- Apple likely does not have to pay for the compute power that services like OneDrive likely has to for a similar service.
One limitation I see here is that this is really only known content. I can see that changing if Apple were to become more confident in their algorithms. A lot of people are really afraid that their photos will be unfairly flagged and I understand that. It is not clear if there is enough information to tell definitively if this will not happen, even if Apple swears it won’t. It does sound as if they are doing everything they can to ensure that it doesn’t.
The most concerning problem for me however is what happens when a government wants to upload their own hashes for flagging. I would not be surprised that as I write this, a certain president in a certain communist country is trying to negotiate with Apple to upload content they’ve been trying to ban. If I were that president, this would be far too tempting to not pressure Apple since they have already built the tech. Without knowing the full details of Apple’s implementation, they may even pressure Apple to not limit the scanning to just iCloud but to entire devices.
What happens if we have a president that wants so badly to control the distribution of certain content they pressure Apple through the FBI to flag, report, and delete that content using this system. Personally the idea of a piece of software looking over my shoulder at everything that is on my device gives me the heebie jeebies.
On a side note, this does need to be a larger discussion on our tendency to always look for technical solutions for societal problems.
Apple has really opened Pandora’s Box on this one and with 50% market share there is not a lot of incentive for them to turn back. One survey showed something like 88% of teenagers using their devices today. What will be their market share when these teenagers turn 25? What would that mean for the tech world if Apple controls all software and all support for peripherals in the US? Can we trust that Apple will still release amazing new features for their next iPhone and not “phone it in”. Can we trust that Apple will always use the power that comes with being a monopoly on all things tech responsibly?
At the end of the day given all of this you may trust Tim Cook and Craig Federighi to protect your privacy and not use your data for any nefarious purposes. But can you trust the people under them that you do not know and can you trust their successors? Remember power corrupts and I think we’re all better off if Apple was forced to share the market and power that comes with that market. The US needs to get cracking again on antitrust. It might even bring out the best in Apple.