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I can see the other things but "Apple home button scandal" either does not belong in the same league or there might be something I do not know about. Can you ex

I can see the other things but "Apple home button scandal" either does not belong in the same league or there might be something I do not know about. Can you expand a little bit on your thinking?

Pomfers 3y ago
When Apple introduced a fingerprint unlock in the home button, it wanted to keep the fingerprint scans secure. The security chip that stores the fingerprint scans needs to verify that the home button's fingerprint scanner is trustworthy, to prevent man in the middle attacks. However, when an unauthorized or unofficial button is used as a replacement for repair, the phone will permanently brick itself. No warning is given that the fingerprint scanner's trustworthiness can not be verified, no ability to just use the phone with the fingerprint scanner disabled. Just straight to a permanent bricking.
- Retric 3y ago
  IMO it wasn’t nearly as egregious as the other examples. I only defend them because they didn’t do this when you replaced the screen etc. You don’t want phones to work if someone swaps out that specific piece of hardware without your knowledge. Bricking the phone forever makes it harder for people to find back doors around that security feature as they would risk large numbers of expensive phones. Presumably people developing replacement fingerprint readers would notice the issue before most customers where harmed. Further, anyone actually harmed would have gotten hardware from an very untrustworthy source. They reversed course after a backlash, but I can see an argument for them standing their ground on this one.
- themagician 3y ago
  As a user, that’s what I’d want it to do. If someone is trying to bypass the fingerprint sensor by replacing it because they know that’s where the authorization is stored, that’s exactly what I’d want the phone to do.
  - circuit10 3y ago
    You want your whole phone bricked by an update when it worked before, even though they can just disable the fingerprint scanner instead?
    - halper 3y ago
      Not just bricked but permanently and securely wiped, would be my preference.
      - circuit10 3y ago
        You want your own phone that you paid money for wiped and bricked remotely at random without your permission while you’re using it for no security advantage whatsoever (since it can just fall back to PIN authentication which is actually more secure than a fingerprint) until you give Apple money to “repair” it?
    - lynx23 3y ago
      You are assuming it is fine to swap authentification hardware for incompatible parts? I guess this is from the spirit of "right t repair". While I get the idea in princple, I still think going dark is the best option you have if essential hardware was apparently tampered with. Find a back-alley smartphone shop which at least swaps your FP reader with compatible hardware. But if someone gained access to my phone, and put a piece of hardware in which is not recognized by the OS, I want it to stop right there. That doesn't feel like bricking, more like a security feature.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        This attack scenario doesn't make any sense. If your phone is out of your sight and unsecured for long enough to take it apart and replace the fingerprint sensor, it's unsecured and out of sight long enough to be entirely replaced by a clone that will steal all your credentials and send everything to whatever bad guy you are imagining
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
The the home button scandal I'm talking about is older than that. Circa 2010-15, the iphone home button was having more and more problem: https://osxdaily.com/2011/12/22/iphone-home-button-not-working-or-unresponsive-fix/ https://osxdaily.com/2011/12/22/iphone-home-button-not-worki... For a while, half the users were just using a software button as a workaround: https://osxdaily.com/2012/07/02/broken-iphone-home-button-assistive-touch/ https://osxdaily.com/2012/07/02/broken-iphone-home-button-as... It was funny to see everyone with a very expensive phone just moving around this fake button everywhere on their screen because their physical button was not working. But then people stopped finding it funny. Because Apple said it was a hardware problem, and said the fix was to buy the next iphone generation. However, a few weeks later, jailbreak iphone received a patch from the community fixing the home button problem, showing not only that it was a software issue that was easy to fix, but Apple just conned their entire customer base.

I can see the other things but "Apple home button scandal" either does not belong in the same league or there might be something I do not know about. Can you expand a little bit on your thinking?

Pomfers 3y ago

When Apple introduced a fingerprint unlock in the home button, it wanted to keep the fingerprint scans secure. The security chip that stores the fingerprint scans needs to verify that the home button's fingerprint scanner is trustworthy, to prevent man in the middle attacks. However, when an unauthorized or unofficial button is used as a replacement for repair, the phone will permanently brick itself. No warning is given that the fingerprint scanner's trustworthiness can not be verified, no ability to just use the phone with the fingerprint scanner disabled. Just straight to a permanent bricking.

Retric 3y ago
IMO it wasn’t nearly as egregious as the other examples. I only defend them because they didn’t do this when you replaced the screen etc. You don’t want phones to work if someone swaps out that specific piece of hardware without your knowledge. Bricking the phone forever makes it harder for people to find back doors around that security feature as they would risk large numbers of expensive phones. Presumably people developing replacement fingerprint readers would notice the issue before most customers where harmed. Further, anyone actually harmed would have gotten hardware from an very untrustworthy source. They reversed course after a backlash, but I can see an argument for them standing their ground on this one.
themagician 3y ago
As a user, that’s what I’d want it to do. If someone is trying to bypass the fingerprint sensor by replacing it because they know that’s where the authorization is stored, that’s exactly what I’d want the phone to do.
- circuit10 3y ago
  You want your whole phone bricked by an update when it worked before, even though they can just disable the fingerprint scanner instead?
  - halper 3y ago
    Not just bricked but permanently and securely wiped, would be my preference.
    - circuit10 3y ago
      You want your own phone that you paid money for wiped and bricked remotely at random without your permission while you’re using it for no security advantage whatsoever (since it can just fall back to PIN authentication which is actually more secure than a fingerprint) until you give Apple money to “repair” it?
  - lynx23 3y ago
    You are assuming it is fine to swap authentification hardware for incompatible parts? I guess this is from the spirit of "right t repair". While I get the idea in princple, I still think going dark is the best option you have if essential hardware was apparently tampered with. Find a back-alley smartphone shop which at least swaps your FP reader with compatible hardware. But if someone gained access to my phone, and put a piece of hardware in which is not recognized by the OS, I want it to stop right there. That doesn't feel like bricking, more like a security feature.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      This attack scenario doesn't make any sense. If your phone is out of your sight and unsecured for long enough to take it apart and replace the fingerprint sensor, it's unsecured and out of sight long enough to be entirely replaced by a clone that will steal all your credentials and send everything to whatever bad guy you are imagining

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

The the home button scandal I'm talking about is older than that. Circa 2010-15, the iphone home button was having more and more problem: https://osxdaily.com/2011/12/22/iphone-home-button-not-working-or-unresponsive-fix/ https://osxdaily.com/2011/12/22/iphone-home-button-not-worki... For a while, half the users were just using a software button as a workaround: https://osxdaily.com/2012/07/02/broken-iphone-home-button-assistive-touch/ https://osxdaily.com/2012/07/02/broken-iphone-home-button-as... It was funny to see everyone with a very expensive phone just moving around this fake button everywhere on their screen because their physical button was not working. But then people stopped finding it funny. Because Apple said it was a hardware problem, and said the fix was to buy the next iphone generation. However, a few weeks later, jailbreak iphone received a patch from the community fixing the home button problem, showing not only that it was a software issue that was easy to fix, but Apple just conned their entire customer base.