I assume Apple could make it very difficult, if not impossible, to detect what they're searching for when they are using hashes created and transmitted by all their own hardware and software.

But, even if they did publish the hashes and those were somehow verified in free-press countries by a trusted 3rd party, that does nothing for countries with no free press. Such places would have no knowledge of what's being searched for, and that's the whole point. I won't support an American company that helps oppressive countries stymie what little freedom their people have left to connect via the internet. To the extent they are successful, the results of those tools will eventually be aimed at us, either via uninformed people or by using the tools themselves on us.

> And iOS is a modular operating system. They could easily swap out the Photos.framework for different state actors and support that in perpetuity. They were already doing this when cross-building for ARM/x86.

Sure. And I expect if there were something nefarious there working on behalf of foreign governments then we would eventually hear about it, one way or another. It's a terrible idea that would be abused, and humans are natural pattern recognizers.