A Chinese firm, Beijing Wangshendongjian Technology Co Ltd, claims to have developed a technique to identify users employing Apple’s AirDrop feature to share inappropriate content.
According to a report from the Beijing Judicial Bureau, the firm successfully cracked the encrypted device logs of iPhones, revealing the numbers and emails of AirDrop senders. This method, hailed by the Chinese as a ‘technological breakthrough,’ is poised to improve the efficiency and accuracy of criminal case-solving.
As we are talking about China, questions about individual privacy and government intervention are of no consequence.
The firm assisted the police in tracking down individuals using AirDrop for sending “inappropriate speech,” particularly on public transportation like the Beijing subway. The term is vague and can include almost any speech, including the suppression of free speech by the CCP.
Wangshendongjian’s forensic analysis involved examining the iPhone’s logs to uncover sender details in hash values. Leveraging a ‘rainbow table’ of cracked passwords, the firm decoded enough information to identify several suspects, according to the reports.
This new development can be seen as an extension of the increasing tensions between Apple and China. Apple, facing pressure in China, implemented limitations on AirDrop for Chinese phones in 2022 after using it to spread images during the Hong Kong protests in 2019.
In November 2022, the company imposed a 10-minute limit on sharing AirDrop content, seemingly aimed at complying with China’s strict internet censorship rules. The Cyberspace Administration of China introduced new regulations in July 2023 to further restrict AirDrop’s use to safeguard national security.
China has been known to break the dissidents and engage in questionable surveillance practices. In October, the Five Eyes chiefs accused China of IP theft and AI hacking. The country has already banned Micron chips, citing national security issues.
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