System-wide ad blocking on Apple Devices
summary
Apple’s new systemwide URL filter provides full URL blocking using private information retrieval (PIR), oblivious HTTP and a local Bloom prefilter; lookups are ~30 KB and can take >100 ms unless sharded, updates push every 45 minute update interval, and only blocking (no request modification) is supported. Implementation exposes two privacy risks: issuer and origin under one developer can reidentify users, and shard counts can leak queries. AdGuard ships testing tools: a CLI simulator, a Swift Bloom generator, and a Go-based OHTTP reference.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction and context
- 1:38Defining system-wide filtering
- 2:31Importance of app-level filtering
- 4:15Evolution of filtering techniques
- 5:50Challenges in modern filtering
- 8:53Criteria for an ideal solution
- 10:27Apple's new filtering API
- 12:31Privacy technologies under the hood
- 17:41Security and integration process
- 19:50Evaluating Apple's implementation
- 23:09Tools and developer resources
- 24:47Q&A and closing discussion
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