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I've found that it's pretty easy to get people to inadvertently accept FaceTime calls if you continuously spam them. (I was on the receiving end of this attack.
by abalone 7y ago
I've found that it's pretty easy to get people to inadvertently accept FaceTime calls if you continuously spam them. (I was on the receiving end of this attack.) Here's how it works.
1- It's very easy and instantaneous to redial someone on FaceTime if they decline your call. You can just spam the call button and the target will get a continuous ring, basically.
2- Even if they turn on Do Not Disturb, many people have "Repeated Calls" enabled, which lets repeat FaceTime calls break through Do Not Disturb. Neat!
3- Now they are frustrated and want to throw their phone in a bucket of water to shut it up. The only way to block you is now to get your "info" in the recent callers list, scroll down and hit the "Block this caller" option. However the constant stream of incoming FaceTime calls takes over the UI every couple seconds.
As they fiddle with their phone trying to navigate to your info and/or hit decline, eventually they inadvertently hit accept, and you see their face.
- Phenomenit 7y agoAirplane mode in quick action bar to the rescue!
- VvR-Ox 7y agoJust wrap your phone into some tinfoil and it's over ;-)
- dewey 7y agoLuckily that feature was built in on the iPhone 4 ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4#Antenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4#Antenna
- Blackstone4 7y agoAre you doing this to your friends or strangers? The attack requires plenty of effort and an Apple iCloud account so not the eeasiest thing to scale.
- cma 7y agoStill had if it doesn't scale. The people who are going to want a quick peek at camera are stalkers, political opponents (get a view of compromising activities or visitors) , drug dealer conflict retribution (get location), etc.
- dijit 7y agothere's a block caller option in the contact area/recently called, someone did this to me before and it wasn't frequent enough to prevent me using the phone. Even if it was, enable airplane mode, block caller, then disable airplane mode.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thepangolino 7y agoFor me the most annoying bit is how it’s impossible to do any action others than accepting or declining the call on the iPhone. It’s basicall a phone DOS.
- unnawut 7y agoThis happens to me on Android as well and it has always been like this. Would love to know why a phone call needs to block all other actions except accept/reject a call.
- anchpop 7y agoIf I'm getting a call while using my Pixel, I just get a notification with quick-action button for accept, deny, and screen.
- thfuran 7y agoTo be fair, the device is nominally a telephone with a few extra bells and whistles.
- gowld 7y agoI didn't pay $1000 for a "telephone with a few extra bells and whistles"
- ViViDboarder 7y agoHuh. What manufacturer? When unlocked, stock Android has had incoming calls as a notification rather than whole screen for years. When screen is locked it is probably still full screen.
- Avamander 7y agoMany crap reskins (Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei) break the ability to hide call notifications. It's absolutely awful.
- 7y ago
- snarf21 7y agoAbsolutely. There needs to be a block this user right on the accept/cancel screen. Apple also needs to track who is doing this and repeat offenders lose access to FT in general or that iTunes account. I really don't understand why calls and texts don't have a default mode to only ring or pass through if they are from a contact. Depending on the government to prevent robo calling seems foolish. We need technology built into the device.
- wlesieutre 7y agoiOS 13 adds this for phone calls: https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/06/ios-13-silence-unknown-callers/ https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/06/ios-13-silence-unknown-... Don't know about FaceTime, it's not mentioned so I'm guessing no change on that front.
- abalone 7y agoThis is a nice option but a totally different problem. It basically turns incoming calls from strangers into texts. It's for the "millennial" phone user that rarely takes calls and then only from friends. Wouldn't work with FaceTime since there is no mailbox for FaceTime (might be cool if there were though...) No, the problem here is much simpler. iOS has features for Do Not Disturb as well as blocking spammy callers which both should help here. The problem is they just aren't implemented quite right for this scenario.
- nvrspyx 7y agoThey also need to change it so that an incoming call doesn’t takes over the entire screen of your phone. I could be doing something on my phone like typing this comment and next thing I know, I’ve answered a call.
- mcintyre1994 7y agoThis is still the stupidest thing having moved from Android to iOS. Why would anybody want incoming calls to block the entire UI?
- bb123 7y agoCouldn't you just put the phone into Airplane Mode while you block the caller? This would be my first action.
- gowld 7y agoPeople who pay the Apple tax don't accept "couldn't you just" as a reasonably solution.
- Razengan 7y ago• Go into Airplane mode. • Tweak whatever settings you need (like disabling DND Repeated Calls) to let you block that person.
- rickyc091 7y agoEven worse, FaceTime calls get routed to your desktop so as you're typing a message or an email, you can easily hit enter or spacebar to accept it accidentally.