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AirDrop cracked by China, revealing phone number & email (9to5mac.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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The Beijing institute developed the technique to crack an iPhone’s encrypted device log to identify the numbers and emails of senders who share AirDrop content, the city’s judicial bureau said in an online post. Police have identified multiple suspects via that method, the agency said, without disclosing if anyone was arrested. “It improves the efficiency and accuracy of case-solving and prevents the spread of inappropriate remarks as well as potential bad influences,” the bureau said.

Further read: https://sfj.beijing.gov.cn/sfj/sfdt/ywdt82/flfw93/436331732/index.html

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[–] 116 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

Or China is just saying they cracked Air Drop to try to scare protestors from using this feature. If they cracked it, why would they make it public that they cracked it when they could catch dissidents using it without their knowledge? Not to mention making it public puts pressure on Apple to patch it, which would destroy their access. Doesn’t make much sense to make this public if it is true.

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  • [–] 97 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Whenever a government or government agency announces a successful exploit, I presume they've already exhausted it and moved on to another one that won't be patched or publicly divulged for many years.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I don't buy it. This smells like a way of causing fear in those who want to share information.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    It would be easy for apple to debunk this if it wasn't true. I'd stay away from it and use proven secure means.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    There’s no way to prove that something is secure. (It reduces to the halting problem.)

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    How can Apple debunk it?

    If I told you I know of a way by which I can "hack" the lock of your house to enter it, how can you prove whether I'm lying or not? Specially if I'm not willing to show you how I do it, and I haven't given you any proof of having actually done it that you can try to dispute.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    sending email and phone number with each airdrop doesn't sound right. Apple isn't a good company but they aren't dumb. Why would you send that info?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    They aren't saying that the email/number is part of the message. What the are saying is that they are able to decrypt the logs in order to identify the senders .

    It could be they cross-reference matching some internal ids / tokens / physical addresses of the devices together with all the data the Chinese government already has (or can obtain) ...or it could be a bluff.. who knows... there's not enough information, and what we know is probably distorted.

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