| > Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent You consent when you agree to use their software. The information is encrypted and stays on your device. One of many notices over the years is here: https://www.apple.com/ios/photos/pdf/Photos_Tech_Brief_Sept_... And, they've been analyzing your local image files for over a decade for numerous OS purposes. > The media erroneously reported this as Apple reversing course. The article you are quoting (whose author you infer has poor reading comprehension) is from December 2022. CSAM was put on pause in 2021. They have announced as of last month it is no longer being developed. You criticize Lily's ability to understand Apple's statements, and yet: > At the beginning of September 2021, Apple said it would pause the rollout of the feature to “collect input and make improvements before releasing these critically important child safety features.” In other words, a launch was still coming. Now the company says that in response to the feedback and guidance it received, the CSAM-detection tool for iCloud photos is dead. Is this a lack of reading comprehension? Or did you just not read it at all? > Today, Apple scanned my local files and those scanning programs attempted to talk to Apple APIs, even though I don’t use iCloud, Apple Photos, or an Apple ID. > This is your first and only warning: Stock macOS now invades your privacy via the Internet when browing [sic] local files, taking actions that no reasonable person would expect to touch the network, with iCloud and all analytics turned off, no Apple apps launched (this happened in the Finder, via spacebar preview), and no Apple ID input. You have been notified of this new reality. You will receive no further warnings on the topic. You are inferring (and I'm using the term infer to be very charitable) Apple is sending data to its servers based on the media it analyzes. It's clear that packets are coming in the form of GET requests (406B/s) not outbound requests (6B/s). IIRC that API endpoint is for searching to process your input before actually searching your local machine to get Siri suggestions and what not. > Integrate this data and remember it: macOS now contains network-based spyware even with all Apple services disabled. It cannot be disabled via controls within the OS: you must used third party network filtering software (or external devices) to prevent it. I'd call their advertising network-based spyware, but this isn't. And you absolutely can disable these features. I trust you will update the article now. |