Apple has released the Private Cloud Compute (PCC) server system for on-demand and non-identifying user authentication. The software comes preloaded on macOS Sequoia 15.1 Developer Preview on all devices, but it needs to be activated manually to execute the pccvre command.
The image provided serves as a security testing image, but it also includes a prototype LLM that enables the actual running of LLM. However, the true purpose of the software distribution is to allow researchers to verify the security of the virtualized environment as advertised by Apple.
In addition to the distributed environment, Apple has also opened the source code for certain modules on GitHub such as Thimble, an agent connecting to PCC to confirm a genuine server, and CloudAttestation for server verification. These modules have open-source code for inspection only and cannot be used for any other purposes.
The image requires a minimum of 14GB of RAM and 64GB of disk space to run, hence a minimum machine requirement of 16GB of RAM, but it is recommended to have 24GB or more (the pccvre binary is already on the machine, but the image needs to be downloaded separately in a docker format).
This PCC module is part of the Apple Security Bounty program, with a maximum reward of 1 million dollars for running any code in the system.
TLDR: Apple introduces Private Cloud Compute for secure authentication with open-source modules for server verification and offers high rewards through the Apple Security Bounty program.
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