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I wonder why most of the comments take it very casually and say may be issue with digitizer/ghost touch. Had it been any other OEM, this would have been such a

I wonder why most of the comments take it very casually and say may be issue with digitizer/ghost touch. Had it been any other OEM, this would have been such a big issue with anecdotes of why people trust apple products.

jeppester 3y ago
Exactly. This comment section really is a display of the Apple bias on HN. I don't doubt that this might be nothing, but seeing all these commenters completely dismissing it is rather odd. Hopefully Apple is less dismissive of this potential security issue.
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- account-5 3y ago
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nicolas_t 3y ago
It’s because a lot of people on HN have dealt with bug reports from users that were clearly fabulations after investigating thoroughly
numpad0 3y ago
I had been locked out of iPhone in my pocket in hot summers due to presumably ghost touches. Maybe people know it happens with Apple products.
rpy 3y ago
If you were genuinely remotely hacking a smartwatch, you’d be executing background processes to exfiltrate data entirely invisible to the user, not doing some bizarre remote desktop thing randomly tapping around on apps. The claim doesn’t pass the sniff test irrespective of the manufacturer.
- caleb-allen 3y ago
  Unless the attack vector is the "screen mirroring" feature of the Apple Watch? https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/watch/apd890848603/watchos https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/watch/apd890848603/wat...
yreg 3y ago
Many commenters might be confident because they are familiar with the device, its security and perhaps even development for it. If this is a software (or somehow even a hardware) issue, than it's still not positive for Apple.
Astraco 3y ago
If you have access to control the touch interface or to type a message on the screen you already have full control to the device. Look at the video, the input is so random, it's a software bug.
clawoo 3y ago
I would have said the same thing if it wasn't for the recording in the forums which shows it pretty clearly as "random touches".
superb_dev 3y ago
I do not believe the comments would read any different if it was an android watch
jmull 3y ago
From experience, you really can't just take user reports at face value. There's almost always something there, but it may or may not be what the user thinks it is. So it's a good idea to apply Occam's razor. Digitizer/ghost touch is probably the simplest explanation. The only thing the hacked/pwned idea has going for it is the "We are in control" message, which is still a bit marginal if the watch really was hacked. (None of the other posts mention this and why would a hacker type that message in? Could be because it's a practical joke or maybe part of a phishing attack, but those are tenuous and nothing else mentioned supports those.)
tovkal 3y ago
iOS developers who have done work for watchOS know that, during development, you are barely able to connect an Apple Watch to Xcode. It is flaky as hell. So thinking that someone can remotely control an Apple Watch is a bit hard to believe. Ghost touches and typing "we are in control" with predictive text, sounds more plausible but still raises an eyebrow.

jeppester 3y ago

Exactly. This comment section really is a display of the Apple bias on HN. I don't doubt that this might be nothing, but seeing all these commenters completely dismissing it is rather odd. Hopefully Apple is less dismissive of this potential security issue.

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account-5 3y ago
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nicolas_t 3y ago

It’s because a lot of people on HN have dealt with bug reports from users that were clearly fabulations after investigating thoroughly

numpad0 3y ago

I had been locked out of iPhone in my pocket in hot summers due to presumably ghost touches. Maybe people know it happens with Apple products.

rpy 3y ago

If you were genuinely remotely hacking a smartwatch, you’d be executing background processes to exfiltrate data entirely invisible to the user, not doing some bizarre remote desktop thing randomly tapping around on apps. The claim doesn’t pass the sniff test irrespective of the manufacturer.

caleb-allen 3y ago
Unless the attack vector is the "screen mirroring" feature of the Apple Watch? https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/watch/apd890848603/watchos https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/watch/apd890848603/wat...

yreg 3y ago

Many commenters might be confident because they are familiar with the device, its security and perhaps even development for it. If this is a software (or somehow even a hardware) issue, than it's still not positive for Apple.

Astraco 3y ago

If you have access to control the touch interface or to type a message on the screen you already have full control to the device. Look at the video, the input is so random, it's a software bug.

clawoo 3y ago

I would have said the same thing if it wasn't for the recording in the forums which shows it pretty clearly as "random touches".

superb_dev 3y ago

I do not believe the comments would read any different if it was an android watch

jmull 3y ago

From experience, you really can't just take user reports at face value. There's almost always something there, but it may or may not be what the user thinks it is. So it's a good idea to apply Occam's razor. Digitizer/ghost touch is probably the simplest explanation. The only thing the hacked/pwned idea has going for it is the "We are in control" message, which is still a bit marginal if the watch really was hacked. (None of the other posts mention this and why would a hacker type that message in? Could be because it's a practical joke or maybe part of a phishing attack, but those are tenuous and nothing else mentioned supports those.)

tovkal 3y ago

iOS developers who have done work for watchOS know that, during development, you are barely able to connect an Apple Watch to Xcode. It is flaky as hell. So thinking that someone can remotely control an Apple Watch is a bit hard to believe. Ghost touches and typing "we are in control" with predictive text, sounds more plausible but still raises an eyebrow.