CSAM?
Almost certainly not. Likely just a metric on how often users utilize finder previews.
macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
11–20 of 26 posts
Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#12Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#13Searched for the original post - it was submitted and flagged three days ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34392391).
The post makes big accusations and extrapolations without proof or research, based on a web request whose contents this 'security researcher' didn't even see. A quick web search reveals mediaanalysisd has been a part of macOS since at least 2017.
It is disappointing to see Louis Rossmann blindly repeating any random claim from any random person. This is the same person who created a 'standard' (https://consoledonottrack.com) and spammed a bunch of popular projects with it with an entitled attitude.
I am not a fan of the Apple Tim Cook is leading, but let's be reasonable and put down the pitchforks for a moment. A single web request does not immediately equate to your files being scanned without consent. Louis should know better, and you should not believe any random crap just because he repeats it.
Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost certainly not. Likely just a metric on how often users utilize finder previews.
A metric for every preview? Sounds like a poor design decision to do metric reporting per usage.
> A metric for every preview?
That is not what the original blog post said. They are basing their whole argument on a single event.
Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#15Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#16The original post:
https://sneak.berlin/20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-n...
Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#17The author of the blog post makes a wild leap (from "A daemon connected to Apple's servers when I used QuickLook on a file" [paraphrased] to "Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent [...] Stock macOS now invades your privacy via the Internet when browing local files [...] macOS now contains network-based spyware"), with the strong implication that information about those files is being sent to…
There is no legitimate reason why quicklook should be hitting an API when I preview a bitmap in the Finder.
Analytics and Siri Suggestions are off. I don't use iCloud.
Text recognition models would likely be served from an Apple CDN, not api.smoot.apple.com.
I don't know what it's sending (an API hostname suggests some dynamic server code, not just a file download), but it should not be sending anything at all. I don't want it to, and I never consented to such transmission.
I didn't make the claim that file information is being sent because I didn't want to publish anything but facts. I have not done any RE on the binary itself as yet.
Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regardless, it shouldn't be pinging the Internet whenever the user previews an image file. No good can come of such behavior.
Agree with gp that this is a astonishingly huge logical leap by the author. I would guess the author left the default “report metrics to apple” on, and apple is noting that “a user leveraged the photo preview feature for the first time in X days.” I do wish these metrics were optin but I somewhat get the decision from a PM standpoint, and to their credit Apple presents this choice to the user during the setup process…
Analytics are off, as is iCloud, the App Store, Siri Suggestions, and every other Apple service there is a knob exposed for.
Live Text is on, because the machine was recently updated to Ventura and it defaults to on and it never asked if I wanted it. (It's a brand new preference setting.)
If you're going to call someone lazy, look first into what it takes to MITM a TLS connection from an Apple system service to Apple. It seems you are unaware. It's not trivial these days.
Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#19Photo hosting services been scanning md5 sums of a database of known criminal images for 20 years. They did that on telecom and isp's since 2000'ish. Google/Apple searched your cloud for mp3s or torrented movies also. Now Apple just moved the search to the OS via an API call to its server, and people are noticing the traffic. When I worked in telecom, if there was a hit on an image it was reported to legal. Legal con…
> Now Apple just moved the search to the OS via an API call to its server, and people are noticing the traffic. I'm not sure how photo hosting services doing this for the past 2 decades is related to this when the author of the post explicitly mentions he doesn't use Apple cloud services or products that would trigger such behaviour. This was the OS analysing someone's images, stored locally on their personal compute…
Not sure how you cant understand, apple just moved it from cloud scanning to local scanning. Its a scummy thing to do, but apple was already doing it.
Re: macOS phones home when previewing local image files [video]
#20The author of the blog post makes a wild leap (from "A daemon connected to Apple's servers when I used QuickLook on a file" [paraphrased] to "Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent [...] Stock macOS now invades your privacy via the Internet when browing local files [...] macOS now contains network-based spyware"), with the strong implication that information about those files is being sent to…
There is no legitimate reason why quicklook should be hitting an API when I preview a bitmap in the Finder. Analytics and Siri Suggestions are off. I don't use iCloud. Text recognition models would likely be served from an Apple CDN, not api.smoot.apple.com. I don't know what it's sending (an API hostname suggests some dynamic server code, not just a file download), but it should not be sending anything at all. I don…
I'm responding to you in good faith in the hope that you will take this with an open mind, but now that I see the previous thread, I'm worried that you might not. I'm not sure if you saw this comment but I thought it was particularly constructive and deserves consideration: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34403107
> I didn't make the claim that file information is being sent because I didn't want to publish anything but facts.
When you say "Apple Has Begun Scanning Your Local Image Files Without Consent" what 95% of people will hear is exactly the claim that scanned data is being sent to Apple. I don't think you can in good conscience say that you're only publishing facts if you are aware of the rate of misinterpretation and don't attempt to clarify.
Ironically you're doing exactly what you're accusing Apple of: saying technically truthful things that say one thing that cause people to believe a different thing (which is, as far as we know, not factual).