Apple Unicode of Death news embargo?

This topic was created by imaginarynumber .

[imaginarynumber]

Apple Unicode of Death news embargo?

The Register became aware of the fact that an Arabic string of text could crash iphone and Macs apps since Thursday. Almost 48 hours later they have not covered the story.

Of the organs with sizable readers, Ars Technia, Tech Crunch and even Charles Arthur at the Guardian have covered the story. Mentions in the Reg? NONE.

Why?

I could understand if the exploit was being used to steal confidential info or money from Apple owners, but it is not. At worst it would be an annoyance.

Apple have been aware of the bug for 6 months. they fixed it iOS7 and Mavericks but thus far don't seem to give a toss about current users.

I don't expect this kind of censorship from you guys.

Sorry but p!ssed off..

[jake]

Re: Apple Unicode of Death news embargo?

Censorship? ElReg can't do that. Only a .gov can (try) to do that. They will fail.

Witness that you (and I) have been aware of the bug for a while.

Not censorship, rather a non-story. IMNECTHO, anyway.

Apple's take on BSD, on the other hand? Don't even ask ... Clueless kids ...

[diodesign]

Re: Apple Unicode of Death news embargo?

"The Register became aware of the fact that an Arabic string of text could crash iphone and Macs apps since Thursday. Almost 48 hours later they have not covered the story."

Everyone was working on other stories, then the weekend came and people need a break. It's not censorship. I heard about it on Friday morning; it failed to crash the vulnerable systems I had to hand and (like everyone else) I was busy on other things.

Once I get a moment to work out how the bug works, I'll suggest writing something interesting about it. Or someone else on the team could do it. I'm technically out of office on Monday.

There's also the interest of responsible disclosure, too, but OTOH everyone's blabbed the actual Unicode sequence.

"At worst it would be an annoyance."

Well, OK, now you're already knocking your own pitch ;-)

C.

[imaginarynumber]

Re: Apple Unicode of Death news embargo?

Thanks for the reply, and apologies for the tardy reply.

Apropos " the interest of responsible disclosure" and "At worst it would be an annoyance."- My choice of terms was perhaps ill advised. it was an attempt to circumnavigate the "responsible disclosure" counter argument. By that, I mean that I agree that publicising a flaw that would result in owners' bank accounts or personal data being compromised might be seen as irresponsible. In this case there is no known security risk.

BTW I see that you have now posted the article. Kudos. It certainly seems to be the most in depth that I have seen thus far.

Tnx, and apologies for being impatient.

[diodesign]

Re: Apple Unicode of Death news embargo?

"Tnx, and apologies for being impatient."

No worries :-) Hope it turned out OK.

C.

[imaginarynumber]

I agree that if nobody covers it, it will be a non story. If only 0.0001% of the world know about the bug then those tempted to abuse it will have a negligible effect. Apple owners will continue to believe that Apple's are perfect and impregnable.

A few weeks later a similar bug will be found in WP or Android, this time though the press will be all over it. Apple owners will continue to believe that Apple's are perfect and impregnable...

The degree of disruption thus far has been mitigated not through Apple's actions but because the likes of FaceBook have been blocking the code.

Is this really less of a non-story than who the founder of google is shagging?

[pearbear]

I read carefully the house rules and I didn't see anything about posting text that might not render properly on a minority of devices. Therefore, I offer the following text below for your consideration. You are free to make up your mind whether the story about it was newsworthy or not.

[unicode crash trigger string removed - mod]