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Apple Disables Group FaceTime as Temporary Workaround to Major Privacy Bug

bobob said:
4 separate articles on the front page in 4 hours - - MacRumors editors smell clicking $$$!
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And not just articles talking about it but providing specific instructions on how to re-create it.

Do we know how many people have actually been impacted by this bug? And I’m not talking about people who intentionally tried to re-create it.
 
It was the right thing to do and thank goodness they could control it server side. Rushing an iOS update to millions of devices in a few hours is not a good idea, and many people upgrade after days, or don't upgrade at all.
 
curmudgeonette said:
As I feared, Apple may be relying too much on server side security. This may be fine in a walled garden, but unacceptable out in the wild. Each client device needs to assume the worst and perform its own full security.

Wonder how long until someone reverse engineers the FaceTime protocol and uses it to directly attack targets? Suspect that such an attack could nearly instantly advance the connection to getting a video snapshot. It could then terminate, wait a few seconds, and then repeat. The result would be stop-action video, but the victim wouldn't notice a continuing connection. All they'd see is that they missed a FaceTime request.
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I think you are extrapolating quite a bit here - the reason they can turn it off is just because any kind of call between two users is going to require it to first connect through Apple. Every iPhone doesn’t know the address of every other iPhone - they don’t operate on a mesh network, so they must first connect through a central repository - meaning Apple can just disable it if they see it is a request to add a third line.
 
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“Good for apple”?

...Why is there a hot mic FaceTime bug to begin with?

Considering all their privacy PR differentiation / push, they don’t seem to have it down very well

I have a feeling this won’t be the last time this sorta thing happens.
 
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shareef777 said:
Glad to see they were quick with a mitigation to prevent privacy issues (not sure why they’re calling it a fix/workaround). Hoping they’re just as quick with a fix.

Edit: reading it’ll take a week. If so, that’s pretty shameful. A company of Apple’s size/stature shouldn’t take an entire to fix a known bug that concerns privacy.
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A week isn't that bad. Just because a bug is "known" doesn't mean that the cause is known. If you know anything about software development, you'll know that first the developers have to investigate and find out what exactly is causing the issue. They then have to develop a solution which needs to be code reviewed. This then gets passed to testers who do Functional/Regression testing. Finally it needs to be signed off. This can take a week to go through the process.
 
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Sevanw said:
Just non-stop hardware/software issues with this company, yet the diehards still like to chant the mantra of, "it just works." SMH...
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Hardware and software issues have ALWAYS been around and will continue to be around.

Do you see any company or product with no software/hardware issues? Do other companies not come out with regular updates to their products that patch insecurities/bugs?

Jeez...
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markbyrn said:
Outrageous. Cook grandstands as a social activist and prattles on about privacy while his bungling engineers have turned the iPhone into a remotely controlled eavesdropping device.
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Yeah I don’t think anyone should be screaming “the sky is falling” because of this bug. How many people have even encountered this? How often do you add yourself to a FaceTime group call?

Relax.
 
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shareef777 said:
Glad to see they were quick with a mitigation to prevent privacy issues (not sure why they’re calling it a fix/workaround). Hoping they’re just as quick with a fix.

Edit: reading it’ll take a week. If so, that’s pretty shameful. A company of Apple’s size/stature shouldn’t take an entire to fix a known bug that concerns privacy.
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I understand where you are coming from but Apple did very quickly address the problem by shutting group FaceTime. I will cut them some slack and give them a few days (or a week) to test their permanent solution to make sure the fix to this problem doesn't sow the seeds of other problems.
 
cuencap said:
So who do you want to see fired? A Tim Cook level person or one of their thousands of programmers?
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Maybe Craig.
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henrikhelmers said:
Based on my experience, one of the qualities of good leaders is the ability to be calm and supportive when unpleasantries hit the fan. Tim Cook might stop by to thank the team for their efforts in fixing this, and pledge his support if there is anything he can do.
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Yes, to the team, particularly the people that do the work. The common vote of confidence.

Then fire someone at the top.
 
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I wonder what happens when Apple releases 12.1.4 though? Will they enable group facetime again since there will still be weeks upon weeks before everyone on 12.1.3 and earlier updates? Or could they possibly enable group facetime ONLY for users running 12.1.4 or later?
 
otternonsense said:
Right move by Apple, BUT:

1. I find disconcerting that bugs of this severity not only happen but do so at a degree of frequency: it's like every week there is a different bug, defect or "gate" ranging from a minor annoyance to a major failure. Their QA is insufficient or outright broken and that is what needs fixing.

2. Has this snooping been happening for THREE MONTHS now unnoticed? :eek:
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The bad guys have a bigger incentive to find it, and an even bigger incentive not to inform apple about it.
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jclardy said:
I think you are extrapolating quite a bit here - the reason they can turn it off is just because any kind of call between two users is going to require it to first connect through Apple. Every iPhone doesn’t know the address of every other iPhone - they don’t operate on a mesh network, so they must first connect through a central repository - meaning Apple can just disable it if they see it is a request to add a third line.
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Sure, but it’s nice that they had sufficiently easy to access granular controls to address two connections vs more than two connections.
 
fredrik9 said:
I wonder what happens when Apple releases 12.1.4 though? Will they enable group facetime again since there will still be weeks upon weeks before everyone on 12.1.3 and earlier updates? Or could they possibly enable group facetime ONLY for users running 12.1.4 or later?
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^See highlighted. It's more than probably a server side switch they can toggle to say "only allow this feature on 12.1.4+."
 
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fredrik9 said:
I wonder what happens when Apple releases 12.1.4 though? Will they enable group facetime again since there will still be weeks upon weeks before everyone on 12.1.3 and earlier updates? Or could they possibly enable group facetime ONLY for users running 12.1.4 or later?
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That seems the most likely.
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gsurf123 said:
Big todo about nothing. Bug found, Apple notified, action taken to disable functionality, fix to be delivered in a week. All good.
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Except for the three months where this was apparently in the wild and exploited how many times? And the fact that Apple was allegedly notified about the issue on January 20?
 
Sevanw said:
Just non-stop hardware/software issues with this company, yet the diehards still like to chant the mantra of, "it just works." SMH...
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And when they take it offline and say they need a week to fix it people here start giving them a standing ovation. So many are proud that they “did the right thing”. SMH indeed.
 
Rob_2811 said:
How would that be quantifiable?

Potentially impacts anybody with a device able to run iOS 12.
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True but it seems like most people know about this bug via reading about it on sites like this or hearing about it via social media. That’s nothing like the cellular bug that basically bricked phones after an OTA software update.
 
YaBe said:
True, but as pointed before, they took their sweet time releasing the feature (possibly to iron more bugs out....amd did not work that well) and the issue is not a small one, they simply should have tested more.

No sw is 100% bug free, but there is bug, and there is bug, now imagine if it was another company, people here would be all over it.
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Simply testing more doesn't guarantee that there won't be issues. It's fairly basic reality, as unfortunate as that might seem.

People here are all over it too, just like they are with most other companies which also have all kinds of issues too just like any company does at one point or another.
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otternonsense said:
Right move by Apple, BUT:

1. I find disconcerting that bugs of this severity not only happen but do so at a degree of frequency: it's like every week there is a different bug, defect or "gate" ranging from a minor annoyance to a major failure. Their QA is insufficient or outright broken and that is what needs fixing.

2. Has this snooping been happening for THREE MONTHS now unnoticed? :eek:
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What bugs of this severity are happening with frequency?

shareef777 said:
And when they take it offline and say they need a week to fix it people here start giving them a standing ovation. So many are proud that they “did the right thing”. SMH indeed.
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Based on the posts seems like most of the people have the opposite feelings.
 
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