Interesting - their approach to hash checking prior to iCloud upload (only when upload was enabled) seemed intended to allow them to support e2ee which they announced today (without the tradeoff of enabling CSAM).

I guess they decided it wasn’t worth it and it’d be good to ship e2ee anyway despite that meaning it may protect CSAM. I had figured they’d enable e2ee first and then reannounce the hash check if you enable it but I guess not.

I can’t see the rest of the article due to the paywall, but I wonder what changed. Maybe the risks with imperfect hash matches or the recent news of Google reporting that guy to police made it not worth it?

It’s in someways to Apple’s benefit to do this, they can’t see the data and are no longer responsible for policing its contents. They can’t accidentally leak it or get social engineered to restore access to a fraudster (how some celebrities got their images leaked).

Whatever it is, it’s nice when the incentives are aligned around user privacy. It’s cool (and a little surprising) to see real consumer device facing e2ee for cloud storage, even if behind an advanced flag.