In a startling new revelation, the Chinese government has claimed to have cracked Apple AirDrop and can now identify the sender's and recipients' phone numbers and email addresses. AirDrop is Apple's proprietary file sharing tool that allows iOS and macOS users to share files with other Apple users. The file sharing tool is end-to-end encrypted and only displays the device name (which can be customized). The new method of bypassing the encryption is directly against Apple's policies.
China claims to have cracked Apple AirDrop's encryption to identify senders
As reported by Bloomberg, China's Judicial Bureau shared an online post detailing that the Beijing Institute has devised a technique to extract records of AirDrop transfers and track sender and recipient details. The reason China has gone after AirDrop is that many people in China use AirDrop to share inappropriate videos and photos on the Beijing subway and in other public places.
In a recent iOS 17 update, Apple launched a feature that allows AirDrop to be used to share files without an internet connection. This makes it impossible to track AirDrop content with modern surveillance methods.
In the online post, China's Judia Bureau shared that forensic experts from the Beijing Wangshendongjian Forensic Identification Institute analyzed the iPhone device logs and found that the sender's device name, email address and mobile phone number were recorded in the form of hash values. In fact, some of the hashed values were hidden.
