If apple can be coerced by governments to scan photos on the serverside then what is the operational purpose of a frontend scan, given what apple is publicly saying they are trying to do? This is the most confusing aspect for me.
Apple will turn it on eventually for non iCloud destined photos (and documents), you don't build a system like this not to use it.
We know Apple concedes to China's demands, and with another Snowden situation, the US would not hesitate to add classified documents to the scan list and identify individuals.
This system will catch no abusers, because they're not Airdropping photos to each other.
And if they're smart enough to use a VPN, they're not storing that on a phone thats logged into the cloud.
And if they're not using a VPN, they can be caught at download time.
