iOS 18 added secret and smart security feature that reboots iThings after three days Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 18, appears to have added an undocumented security feature that reboots devices if they’re not used for 72 hours. This has implications for anyone trying to maintain access to a stolen or lawfully seized iOS device without a valid passcode. When an iPhone reboots, it enters a state …
> linux has a similar problem [...] in the 32 bit days. though linux on a dec alpha was immune from the issue
You may have been downvoted for "has" there. While linux had a similar problem due to the jiffy counter being "unsigned long" -which did indeed mean 32 bits on i386 for kernel 2.4- that's a long time ago now.
AFAICT the worst case scenario for a minimal system was seeing unusual uptime reports, although anything in userland/drivers that relied on consistent behaviour from the same clock would have got upset in various ways. I gather design changes (including this, 2003) went into kernel 2.5 and thought important enough to get backported.
(I'm interested in historical kernels at this time but hoping I don't have to build anything quite that old...)
Is a good thing.
Yeah yeah people will say "what about terrorists" but for every legitimate terrorist whose phone the cops want to break into there are probably 10,000 phones of people innocent of crimes they are suspected of or are only guilty of entering the US while having a Muslim name.
I just wish the interval was configurable. 72 hours still gives them too much time as far as I'm concerned. You should be able to configure 12 hours and 1 hour instead of 72 if you want. If I had those options I'd set it for 12 hours because if I go 12 straight hours without ever once unlocking my phone then I'm not going to care if it reboots. And I'd set it to 1 hour anytime I was crossing a border - heck in that case I'd want a 1 hour reboot timer regardless of activity so if they grabbed it out of my hands while it was unlocked they couldn't do much with it!
Supposedly in at least some cases customs agents make you turn the phone on and even unlock it to prove it is a real phone and not a bomb I guess. So you'd want the reboot as a backstop even if your phone was powered down when you stood yourself in line.
You are aware that multiple groups can abuse your privacy at the same time? Sometimes, they even team up to collect the information that they have the easiest access to and exchange it for money or more information. If you, like I, don't like the abuses of privacy, you generally have to know about and try to work against all of the abusers simultaneously.
Judging from your response to people with completely understandable concerns about law enforcement abuse of private data, concerns you chose to dismiss in favor of orthogonal ones, it seemed like you might be unaware. Were you to make a similar comment about sky colors, for example "Strange how you think the sky is something other than gray and refuse to see clouds", I might similarly inform you of the blue option. I assume you are unaware of, rather than willfully ignoring, obvious things which would make your comment unnecessary.
double: Judging from your response to people with completely understandable concerns about law enforcement abuse of private data, concerns you chose to dismiss in favor of orthogonal ones, it seemed like you might be unaware.
cow:
I am very much aware that there arae bad police around the world, but im my country (Australia) basically nobody is worried about the police.
The world is a place full of many different types of people, and organisations. In my country basically nobody has any fear of the police doing anything wrong against them. Nobody is worried about the police shooting them ( i think the Australian police shoots maybe 2 people in a bad year) and all that.
When people think bad of the police, they make everything much worse, because the police generally make my country and many others a better place. By being so any law enforcement, you are actively preventing the police from catching the bad guys. THose bad guys are making your country far worse than the police.
Use your brains, help the police catch the bad guys.
Im not anti governmebt, because today as an adult i contribute back to my country by paying taxes and im trying to do my bit just like my country gave me roads, schools and hospitals and all that other good stuff.
Morons like you who are anti goverment forget the greater good that the gov ernment has done, without the government, you would nt have schools, roads, water, electricity, basically you would be living in a place with shit flowing outside your home and bandits around every corner, and you want to tell me government is bad. This is extremely short sighted.
Well just for the sake of correctness, this also prevents lawful police access via court order. Or makes it much harder. If the target has advanced data protection enabled for iCloud in their iPhone's security settings, or don't use iCloud at all, then Apple can't provide anything in response to a subpoena either.
But I'm fine with that. The police managed to crack cases for decades before suspects carried the equivalent of a tracking device, camera, paper map, notepad, appointment book, medical records, and a nearly complete log of all "mail" conversations and many "talking" conversations and on and on with them wherever they go.
Yes those evil police, trying to arrest bad people.
Im sure your country would be far better without any police, fire stations and ambos... oh sorry i forgot hospitals are socialist scum so you have already eliminated 2 out of 3 fine government services and the fine people who help the community by being a part of those three.
How are those iPads locked? If someone accidentally pressed the screen lock button, do they need to call IT to fix it? If so, then yes, this could be a problem. If these aren't secured with a passcode, though, then it wouldn't affect you. They would just have to unlock it normally after the weekend.
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that many of my friends who prefer iDevices but who are not IT savvy will be confused when their iPhone, iPad, Bluetooth speakers etc, all need a pass code entering before reuse, because these people generally speaking didn't make a note of the pass code they entered first time they used the device.
Help ! I know several who won't even let me change their keyboard to UK....
Or have it explained why you don't simply yank the plug from the wall when you have finished doing their Universal Credit Journal entry. This is usually required once a week, or maybe fortnight, when they get their latest sick note from their GP. It is generally speaking the only time they use their iPad, as everything else gets done on their iPhone.
More embuggeration of those least able to be unbuggered ?
ALF
Is the killer app that keeps me engaged.
I *need* find my phone because it is inevitably discharged wherever I last used it.
Does this enhancement mean that next time I lose my phone it is gone forever?
I really hope this use case is being considered; otherwise I will stop buying a phone every 8 years.
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It always disables security settings (turns on features to leak data)
Always puts new Annoyance features in, pop up when you are trying to do normal stuff, saves things you delete. Like MS they make it so its painful/time consuming to use.
Looking forward to being dead so I don't have to deal with this crap.
GrapheneOS, a security-hardened Andoid fork, has had this for years. Some other flavors also ship with it. Nice that Apple is pushing it to all their new kit at least, I wish Google/et al. would do the same.
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