China claims to have found way to identify AirDrop senders

A Chinese state-backed institution claims to have devised a way to identify users who send messages via Apple’s popular AirDrop feature, the Chinese Communist party claims, amidst broader efforts to root out what it sees as “undesirable” content.
Bloomberg News:
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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.
The declaration again drew attention to an iPhone feature that activists around the world have employed to spread their message. Requiring just a nearby bluetooth connection, it was widely used by protesters to share pro-democracy slogans during 2019 protests in Hong Kong. An Apple representative didn’t respond to requests for comment.
AirDrop allows the quick exchange of files like images, documents or videos between Apple devices. The company has limited the feature on Chinese iPhones since 2022, after the service was used by protesters to spread images to fellow device owners.

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MacDailyNews Take: We’ll see how well this claim holds up. Regardless, as Justice Potter Stewart said so well:
“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.”
The bottom line is that the Chinese government is so deathly afraid of its own citizens that they’re (quixotically) trying to keep them from being exposed to new ideas, fearful that one day they’ll think for themselves. Wonder why? (smirk) — MacDailyNews, November 7, 2019
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