Detail

This is the AirDrop feature that can transfer files between two supported devices in the Apple ecosystem. This tool has its own encryption. By design, your phone should only display the name you specify so that people nearby can choose the correct device. Your Apple ID and its associated phone number and email address should not be shared.

These security conditions have made AirDrop a safe way to share censored information among Chinese anti-government activists. For example, it was widely used in Hong Kong to convey information about dates, times, and locations of upcoming protests.

Although China’s Great Firewall blocks keywords, locations, and dates related to protests when posted online, AirDrop is a short-range protocol that works directly from device to device; This means it is impossible for the government to prevent this.

China has long been concerned about AirDrop’s ability to bypass censorship and has publicly expressed its concerns to Apple. The government even planned to introduce a new law that would ban such distribution of anti-government materials and also force Apple to change the iPhone’s name to the owner’s real name. But it seems the government has found a better solution for itself: The government asked resourceful hackers to break the technology.

As Bloomberg now writes, A government agency cracked AirDrop’s encryption, revealing the identities of file senders. Interestingly, China’s judicial bureau announced this in an online post of its own, saying it “improves the efficiency and accuracy of case disclosure, prevents the spread of inappropriate statements and potential bad impact.”

A Beijing-based institute has allegedly developed a technique to crack an iPhone’s encrypted log to identify the numbers and email addresses of senders sharing AirDrop content. Police successfully identified several suspects using this method, authorities said, without saying whether any arrests were made.

Exactly how this is done is unknown. So far there is no indication that encryption of content has been breached. The post suggests that this may not be a matter of hacking, but the fact that government agencies can receive public AirDrop broadcasts and then match the content to the sender. It cannot be ignored that this is a complete lie spread by the Chinese government to discredit the security of AirDrop and make users doubt it.

Usually, when one of Apple’s security measures breaks, the company releases an update to fix it. You can expect one of these if the company finds a security vulnerability.