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If you know someone who would do malicious things with your contact list, I think you've got bigger problems. And playing devil's advocate, sure a thief could
by jayphelps 16y ago
If you know someone who would do malicious things with your contact list, I think you've got bigger problems.
And playing devil's advocate, sure a thief could steal your phone and use this exploit (if he even knew about it), but what's he going to do with the contact list? If someone steals your iPhone, they did it to wipe it and resell it. There are much, much easier and less risky ways of getting large lists of people's contact info if that's what they're after.
Programmers make mistakes. Saying they should get fired over this is a bit silly, IMO.
EDIT: I'm not trying to downplay the seriousness. It's definitely serious. I've known some people who would use this against their "cheating" girlfriend in a heartbeat to see who they've been calling. But I seriously doubt anywhere close to millions will be affected.
- corin_ 16y agoI seriously doubt anywhere close to millions will be affected. In his defense, he was saying that the privacy was potentially compromised, not that they would be affected. All iPhone users have had their privacy potentially compromised.
- uptown 16y agoOkay, how about this scenario. Someone with access to someone's office steals their phone and sells it or its information to the highest bidder. I used to work in the same building as FOX News. One day Rita Cosby's Blackberry showed up in our office space ... totally separate elevator banks, different floor, different everything. Our best guess was that someone from the cleaning crew grabbed it, got scared, and ditched it, but someone with other motives could do some serious damage in a day where smartphones provide portable access to a massive amount of personal and private information.
- pavel_lishin 16y agoAlright, say this glitch didn't exist. Are you telling me that a sufficiently motivated entity couldn't get to the data stored on the phone? Once you have physical access to a device, things like this kind of become moot anyway, don't they?
- uptown 16y agoSufficiently motivated? Absolutely. But I contend there's a huge difference between something that takes technical skill to obtain versus something demonstrated on YouTube and is simple enough that my mom could make it happen.
- pavel_lishin 16y agoWell, hang on, that's not fair. Your first example cited selling a device to someone vastly interested in obtaining extremely valuable data - imagine this happening to President Obama's iPhone. But now you're saying that the concern is coming from someone who can figure this out by watching a YouTube video.
- uptown 16y agoThey're not mutually exclusive. Now there's just an easy hack that both can use to get past the security mechanism.