“It’s now crystal clear why Apple tried to exclude dozens of its own processes from network monitoring last year; to pave the way for total (and leaky and dangerous) control over our digital lives.”

The hashes get uploaded with the photo up iCloud. You don’t need to prevent a firewall as you could just block both.

This article is a lot of conjecture presented as fact. I’m sad HN is so willing to entertain clickbait these days.