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Comment by iosquestion | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if upgrading to iOS 15 will increase the chance of receiving this spyware when they do roll it out?

I mean 15.X - 15.Y will likely occur automatically while the phone is connected to WiFi and charging.. but 14 to 15 should require user approval, meaning we should be safe as long as we never upgrade >14..?

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Either turn off automatic updates or don't. You're overanalyzing this.

They're not "overanalyzing" it. Turning off automatic updates means you miss security updates. Point upgrades are automatic, full versions aren't. Apple is clearly going to backdoor this in a 15.1 or 15.2 release, which means you then can't get any security updates and your only option is to go back to a backup of your device from iOS 14.

Apple will allow you to stay on iOS 14 and still receive automatic security updates.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/psa-you-dont-have-to...

I think switching off automatic updates and running a few months behind is the safest plan. There are risks around not getting security updates as fast, but they are probably not large for any individual user.

I’m hoping they’ll realise that they confused privacy and trust and get back on track soon enough.

Considering that they got the algo reverse engineered from 14 (it is already in the code running on all those devices) there seems to be a possibility that a security update could bring it online on 14 as well. Just my speculation but it seems plausible.

I honestly doubt it. They will likely roll this out to both latest versions. I think they said as much.

If you look at it as reducing their liability for hosting CSAM, then more likely it’ll become a requirement at some point in order to upload your photos to iCloud at all, no matter which version of iOS you’re on.

Or just don't use iCloud photos since the local device scanning for CSAM is limited to the Photos app and only scans prior to upload to iCloud photo library which is easy to turn off.

It's also not too difficult to have your unencrypted photos synced to Google Photos, Dropbox, One Drive or another provider as an alternative. They will scan your photos in the cloud which people on this site seem to have a vastly strong preference for. If you don't trust any of those then you're probably already using NextCloud or something like it.

> Or just don't use iCloud photos since the local device scanning for CSAM is limited to the Photos app and only scans prior to upload to iCloud photo

For now. It will spread.

Turn off uploading photos to iCloud, and then if they start rolling it out, disable automatic updates.

Yes if you agree to iCloud terms as far as I can tell.

I smashed the iphone I had into pieces, and I'm wondering what to do with my mac. Maybe install some linux or something, but I don't really know much about that! It'll take me a couple months of reading on it.. I am still using Mojave anyways.

That's... overly dramatic.

Crushing a device is a normal response from someone who needs to stop hidden device tracking and cannot afford to possibly get it wrong and have some tracking slip through.

Will never be as dramatic as spying over hundreds of millions of sheeple!!

Use the pieces of the iPhone to smash the Mac

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