I guess if you really want to get technical, they aren’t explicitly drawing that conclusion. They’re simply saying that Apple announced they’d scan files for CSAM, and now Apple is scanning files for “some reason.” Draw your own conclusion.

I think sending a one-way encrypted hash of a file, a la PhotoDNA [0], is a fair compromise. But if Apple is outright uploading your entire photo library for “analysis” without an explicit opt-in, that’s a different beast altogether. And if Apple today isn’t using this for surveillance, Apple tomorrow may be.

[0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/photodna

Neither description is accurate of what Apple did. On a local match, they would send alternate (encrypted) hashes. If those matched as well, they’d send a downscaled version of the file for human review if I recall correctly. Not quite the same as PhotoDNA but also not as alarmist as “they’re uploading your entire photo library for analysis”. The vast majority of analysis is offline and only the assets that matched local AND remote would get uploaded.

mediaanalysisd has been around for far longer than three years.

that shit was crashing our machines a decade ago