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[flagged] Police to begin regular, warrant-free searches of homes for child abuse material (drewdevault.com)
74 points by als0 on Aug 10, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 26 comments



Eroding rights of citizens when targeting such onerous crimes makes this easily defensible by those who support such intrusions and removal of Rights. Because the crime is so onerous common people want to ignore it or justify it. The battle cry of "for the children" is used to justify a great many abuses while not actually doing anything for children.

Fear not though you now have the right to repair your phone but you still don't have the right to actually own your phone and to dictate what it does in your life.


> Because the crime is so onerous common people want to ignore it or justify it.

To be precise, the wedge is that if you oppose it, it's easy to make it look like you're doing it because you're secretly a child abuser. It's an adolescent tactic that all teenagers learn about early on, and it keeps working throughout adulthood.


About time. The ones protesting about those searches have something to hide and they should be searched first and more frequently. As article stated, children are our most valuable asset and the future.

In addition if this works out well we might be able to detect many other crimes as well, maybe even before they are committed. We could for example do some data analysis to find out which household items criminals are likely to own and we could correlate owning those items with potential criminals.


If you're going to satirize, please make it clear. Not by saying, this is satire, but by making it funny.


Satire is not usually funny. And making fun of someone/something is not usually a satire.


Satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

I'm confused... What exactly do you think satire is???


Just trying to brainstorm ways to make our society safer.


I admire one who can stick to character like a true fascist in the face of an internet of doubt.

May I request a write up on the benefits of a national psychosis?


Great idea, let's also correlate the skin color of those potential criminals too [/sarcasm]


Judging from your stance, I believe your grew up in a fairly free country (I'm guessing the U.S.A ?), and that you never encountered an oppressive regime where everything you say, do, and all your communications are monitored.

Let me start by using an analogy: In physics, and science in general, if you want to understand a system, you have to explore its limits. How does it operate when we vary the cursor of the variables (e.g. temperature, etc.).

Thankfully, for the {communications, cryptography, warrantless access} system, we've already seen some pretty advanced extremes on the two ends.

I grew up in a country where 20 years ago, ALL communications by post were examined thoroughly, and ANYTHING remotely against the regime had you summoned and probably imprisoned. As you can imagine, this is easily weaponisable by the regime.

I've seen and read about the extremes of how "think about the terrorists/pedos" can vary quickly drift a whole fucking country into a situation similar to Minority Report (2002).

We ALREADY have the means to police our communities and societies. There's a reasons why the folks agreed to seperations of power. That reason is documented in history. Assuming you're american, I'll just hint to your constitution and its 4th amendment. The executive powers DO NOT have business deciding whether to search your home (nor your data by extension), if the judiciary does NOT give them the authority to do so.

You cannot tell me that an independant judge will not issue a warrant given solid proof that someone has pedophilic tendencies.

But telling me that we should search everyone who refuses to be searched because they're the most probable ones to be pedophiles is EXACTLY the most Nazi way of doing things.

All in all, your point of view is not very reasonable. We already have means in place to prosecute and hold pedophiles accountable. But unwarranted search and seizure is not the way to go about it.

EDIT: Sorry read before you added the second paragparh, was not aware it was sarcasm ...


I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or if you are being serious? But, in case you were being serious, I think the blog post does not quite come to the same conclusions you seem have come to


I'm pretty sure it was sarcasm and a jab at "Minority Report".


I edited in the second paragraph so it wasn't obvious enough before.


Oh, well still, you’ve got your crow with you today. I can see it.


Poe's law at its finest.


> And the government didn’t ask: they volunteered.

This betrays a very naive understanding of how changes like this come about.


To anyone who looks at headline alone or reads one or two paragraphs of an article and gives up, please read this entire article. The initial story is a satirical take that’s later explained as what Apple has enabled at nobody’s request and allowed warrant-less searches on iDevices with the new (closed) on-device CSAM detection engine.

The first few paragraphs of this post should be shared with anyone who isn’t part of “the screeching minority!”


> And it’s not police officers, but a proprietary machine learning algorithm that no one understands.

That's a pretty good point. We have no idea that the algorithm on the device is even doing what is claimed, and reverse engineering it is ridiculously difficult.


Is this actually real? It feels too much like something that could come from the onion.

> that authorized officers may enter your home at any time and quietly conduct their business without disturbing your day.

That feels too much like satire to be reality now. If yes, then damn, it seems like we are speeding down a very dark path.


No. It's actually a metaphor for Apple's new phone search policy.

But knowing that would require reading the article, something many people on HN never do.


Lol, thanks for pointing that out. I do agree, I did not read past the thick line at the bottom which explained it all, so much for paying attention to detail.


Moderators sometimes turn flags off when they are unfair.


Not gonna lie, i would be glad if this site would not be posted here anymore.

The author is difficult to work with, constantly produces inflammation. To the extent that they left HN due to constant criticism and got banned from lobste.rs for their behavior.


why is this flagged?


iCloud != home


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