That always made the most sense as the reason for attempting that. I agree with some concerns about it surely being abused (especially in some jurisdictions) bu

That always made the most sense as the reason for attempting that. I agree with some concerns about it surely being abused (especially in some jurisdictions) but on the other hand they can ship whatever software they want to the devices anyway so the idea that this was some sly way to sneak in spying that they couldn't otherwise get away with made no sense. Doing it out of a desire to enable more encryption without instantly becoming the overwhelmingly-preferred platform for child porn enthusiasts was a far more likely explanation. Curious what they're going to do to mitigate that repetitional risk now. Possibly they'll just eat it and say, "look, this is what you fuckers wanted, we tried to solve the problem but you said no." Not thrilled to see what the next showdown between them and e.g. the FBI is gonna look like. I expect it's not gonna look good in the court of public opinion and that might have unfortunate legislative consequences. [EDIT] Actually, wouldn't be surprised if they wait until the first high-profile case involving their inability to deliver data on someone who probably is a disgusting scumbag, and use that as cover to go ahead with the local-CSAM-scanning-for-iCloud-uploads, once it's 100% clear what'll happen if they don't and the no-scanning crowd isn't the loudest set of voices anymore.