Apple AirDrop shares more than files
One explanation is that Apple has sat on this for 2 years, knowing this is a serious security bug. Another explanation is that they just don't think it's that serious. The article states-<p>> The discovered problems are rooted in Apple's use of hash functions for “obfuscating” the exchanged phone numbers and email addresses during the discovery process. However, researchers from TU Darmstadt already showed that hashing fails to provide privacy-preserving contact discovery as so-called hash values can be quickly reversed using simple techniques such as brute-force attacks.<p>The post that they then linked to is about how, by hashing random phone numbers, you can effectively de-anonymise users of popular messaging apps.<p>So you'd need to be in physical proximity to the person, and what you're getting is details like your phone number which aren't especially private anyway (they literally need to be given to people to be of any use). It's far from the dragnet-level issue facing Signal & Whatsapp and others.<p>I don't know, but that doesn't seem like an especially serious issue to me. It seems just like a research group trying to make some hype for themselves.