> This is effectively a virus scanner. Files are hashed (in a fancy way), compared against known hashes, and matches are reported. Your Windows desktop has Windows Defender.
1) I don't run Windows.
2) The principle of antivirus software is different: the software scans your files but does everything locally and with the end user in full control over what happens next, and of their data. Windows Defender does not report you to the fuzz when it finds a match -- yet. Given that it is apparently now enforcing copyright laws in addition to protecting the end user against viruses, that may change.
> The case was dismissed on a technicality.
If the cops want to catch chomos and bring them to justice, they can assiduously avoid bringing the fruit of the poisoned tree into the courtroom. The societal risks of allowing them to bring ill-gotten evidence to trial are too great, no matter how evil we think the defendant is.
> It scans your photos, for known CSAM images, when you are using iCloud backups, in order to comply with the law that they must scan their hosting services for CSAM.
The USA has no such law (yet). Service providers have a duty to report if they find CSAM, not a duty to scan for it. Even if they had such a duty, they could scan the copy that lives on their servers, rather than pushing spyware to users' devices and blatantly breaking the trust that a user's device implicitly serves the user's needs.
> We seem to have taken the idea that sometimes bad things are promoted through "think of the children" to mean we must oppose anything involving the protection of children.
That's a disingenuous strawman. No one is objecting to laws that punish child abusers, or to legitimate forensic techniques to catch them. We're objecting to companies -- and now end-user devices -- being deputized to participate in law enforcement dragnets likely in violation of the U.S. Constitution, other national constitutions, and the principles of a free society (the applicable one being: LE doesn't get to search you without a damned good reason signed off by a judge on a warrant, and by extension they don't get to twist OEMs' arms to build devices to search you on their behalf).
1) I don't run Windows.
2) The principle of antivirus software is different: the software scans your files but does everything locally and with the end user in full control over what happens next, and of their data. Windows Defender does not report you to the fuzz when it finds a match -- yet. Given that it is apparently now enforcing copyright laws in addition to protecting the end user against viruses, that may change.
> The case was dismissed on a technicality.
If the cops want to catch chomos and bring them to justice, they can assiduously avoid bringing the fruit of the poisoned tree into the courtroom. The societal risks of allowing them to bring ill-gotten evidence to trial are too great, no matter how evil we think the defendant is.
> It scans your photos, for known CSAM images, when you are using iCloud backups, in order to comply with the law that they must scan their hosting services for CSAM.
The USA has no such law (yet). Service providers have a duty to report if they find CSAM, not a duty to scan for it. Even if they had such a duty, they could scan the copy that lives on their servers, rather than pushing spyware to users' devices and blatantly breaking the trust that a user's device implicitly serves the user's needs.
> We seem to have taken the idea that sometimes bad things are promoted through "think of the children" to mean we must oppose anything involving the protection of children.
That's a disingenuous strawman. No one is objecting to laws that punish child abusers, or to legitimate forensic techniques to catch them. We're objecting to companies -- and now end-user devices -- being deputized to participate in law enforcement dragnets likely in violation of the U.S. Constitution, other national constitutions, and the principles of a free society (the applicable one being: LE doesn't get to search you without a damned good reason signed off by a judge on a warrant, and by extension they don't get to twist OEMs' arms to build devices to search you on their behalf).