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Oh, this is a painful topic. A couple of years ago my son forgot the (3-digit!) PIN for his iPod touch. He tried various possibilities, with the device respond
by cannam 8y ago
Oh, this is a painful topic.
A couple of years ago my son forgot the (3-digit!) PIN for his iPod touch. He tried various possibilities, with the device responding with increasingly long lockouts between attempts, until it locked him out permanently. I'm not an iOS user and I had no idea it would do that. I am still angry that it did. It wasn't associated with a Mac, so we couldn't unlock it that way.
He eventually shrugged and we ended up resetting the device, but he lost various pictures and videos. He had iCloud backups of some things, but it turned out he had been dismissing "your storage is full" warnings for some time.
Then the next day he came home from school, plonked himself down on the sofa, and without a moment's thought typed in the PIN he had forgotten. Of course it didn't work, as we had reset the device by then.
It still makes me wince but at least, unlike in this story, the device could be reset and reused and we didn't lose access to the iCloud backups that did exist. And ours was just operator error, facilitated by an uncaring machine.
- csomar 8y agoThen you don’t understand why this feature exists. The 3 digit pin will get hacked given enough time. The erase was to garantuee that your data is safe.
- seba_dos1 8y agoThen you don't understand that when the user is unaware of such feature and can't easily opt in/out, then it's an anti-feature, because sometimes not getting locked out from your own device is way more important than data being safe.
- csomar 8y agoI disagree. If the user doesn’t understand the technicalities, then, I argue that Apple should take control. The user might think that access is more important until the case where you have sensitive data (like intimate photos) at the wrong hands. Apple picks to destory the data of all users. It annoys the majority but protect the minority which has sensitive information. Also users underestimate the sensititivty of their data until the hammer hits.
- wolfgke 8y ago> I disagree. If the user doesn’t understand the technicalities, then, I argue that Apple should take control. I disagree: If the user doesn’t understand the technicalities, then I argue that the device is not for them.
- RugnirViking 8y agoThere are plenty of other operating systems and devices which allow for users to make the choice. For example, I know many people myself included who make the choice to keep their android device with no password at all.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pdkl95 8y ago> forgot the ... PIN Schneier on passwords[1]: >> Simply, people can no longer remember passwords good enough to reliably defend against dictionary attacks, and are much more secure if they choose a password too complicated to remember and then write it down. We're all good at securing small pieces of paper. I recommend that people write their passwords down on a small piece of paper, and keep it with their other valuable small pieces of paper: in their wallet. Maybe not the wallet for a portable device's PIN; the wallet could easily be included with the theft of the phone/pad/portable. However, it's still a good idea to write down passwords (and maybe print out your private key in an OCR-friendly font) and store them in the fire-safe or safe deposit box or whatever you probably already use for important documents. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/06/write_down_your.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/06/write_down_yo...
- madaxe_again 8y agoI keep a few critical passwords in my wallet - but they’re encrypted - simple OTP type cipher I can hand crank in a few minutes - but useless to anyone who finds the scrap of paper covered in cryptic utterances.