> If CSAM scanning is going to (or is already) mandatory, I vastly prefer Apple's method here.

This is such a good point. The US government has been heavily pushing for backdoors, and can gag discussion under threat of national security.

It also seems counter productive to punish the one corporation who is apparently being transparent about this. Nobody here likes marketing BS, but this reaction here on HN is why we get marketing BS instead of technical details.

Edit: Legally, these searches do not violate the 4th amendment because the government pretends hash scans are entirely voluntary. Most ISPs and email companies "voluntarily" choose to hash match. I can't remember the specifics, but ISPs that refuse to do this have been threatened with legal action.

https://www.bjcl.org/blog/hashing-it-out-how-an-automated-cr...