Security News > 2024 > January > China claims it cracked Apple's AirDrop to find numbers, email addresses
A Chinese state-backed research institute claims to have discovered how to decrypt device logs for Apple's AirDrop feature, allowing the government to identify phone numbers or email addresses of those who shared content.
China has a long history of censoring its people, requesting Apple block access to mobile apps, blocking encrypted messaging apps, such as Signal, and creating the Great Firewall of China to control what sites can be visited in the country.
To get around censorship in the country, people turned to Apple's AirDrop feature, which doesn't require cellular service and uses Bluetooth and a private Wi-Fi network to send images and photos between devices.
Apple released iOS 16.1.1, which limited the ability to receive AirDropped images from "Everyone" to only 10 minutes for phones sold in China.
Today, Bloomberg first reported that China's Beijing Wangshendongjian Judicial Appraisal Institute has discovered a way to extract the phone numbers, email addresses, and device names of those who sent and received an AirDropped image from device logs.
The institute says that they conducted this research after Apple AirDrop was used to send "Inappropriate" comments in the Beijing subway.