9 ms·

Apple needs to explain that bug that resurfaced deleted photos

68 points by busymom0 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
resource_waste 2y ago
Worst fears come true. Its never deleted, its just marked as deleted. All your baddies are organized for Apple and the FBI.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- aendruk 2y ago
  They said it’s caused by database corruption. Easy enough to imagine that the thing tasked with doing actual deletion just couldn’t traverse to all of its targets.
  - primedteam 2y ago
    I like this theory. I wonder the "Delete after 30 days" part used to work and then they added some more security features which made it not work unless the phone was unlocked. i.e. it could delete out of the DB but failed to delete the file if the phone was locked when the job ran.
  - smolder 2y ago
    Yeah, though it's plausible that database corruption could just mean "the deleted flag was accidentally unset."
  - resource_waste 2y ago
    10/10 PR Spin. I love the answer and can sleep well.
- valentinemsmith 2y ago
  Is anything ever truly “deleted” or just presented to users as such? I imagine once an image has been synced to the cloud, it’s stored somewhere forever, for reasons you hinted at. I work for a large internet/tech company, and all images uploaded by users must be permanently retained somewhere per our legal policies, even if that means sending it to long-term storage after it’s been “deleted”. And if law enforcement submits a request asking for your files, we can pull it back up.
nextworddev 2y ago
Probably soft deleted or with TTL + archiving. Hard delete is very technically challenging at that scale.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Can you elaborate on what about the scale of "a few devices and one user's iCloud backup" makes hard delete challenging? A 30-day period seems like plenty of time to propagate the "Alice really does want to delete this photo on 6/21" message to all devices and all servers where you might have backups. And even if it is challenging, it shouldn't even need to be said that soft deleting photos of all things would be completely and totally irresponsible. This isn't some metadata in a business app, some of those deleted photos are extremely sensitive.
- fallingsquirrel 2y ago
  The bug happened offline, on devices with cloud syncing disabled. Hard delete isn't challenging in a single-device scenario.
  - smolder 2y ago
    It's technically unchallenging, but is challenging to the goals of surveillance capitalism/states.
- lnxg33k1 2y ago
  They should say it, so people could find alternatives for their photos, if they’re incapable of handling that, is understandable, the surprise, makes it annoying
spullara 2y ago
My best guess is that they were on another device and they are syncing via iCloud and somehow the new iOS fixed a bug that was previously failing to resync photos that were only deleted locally.
standardUser 2y ago
I have had instances where previously "archived" photos reappeared among my regular photos on Android devices. It's a faith-shattering moment. Let's face it, most of us have some amount of photos or screenshots we don't want unexpectedly popping up when other people may be able to see them. In my case, it may have been user error resulting from the confusing interplay between my camera app, the default Samsung photo album, and Google Photos. I guess. Ultimately, I removed permissions for accessing photos from every app except for Google Photos to reduce the chance for confusion. Does anyone have a simple, cross-platform solution for storing (yet easily accessing) private photos and videos? Or do most people just resort to living dangerously?
- anonymous_union 2y ago
  the obvious solution, local storage.
- barbazoo 2y ago
  https://github.com/immich-app/immich https://github.com/immich-app/immich
- leptons 2y ago
  You have two choices if you take a photo you don't want others to see - do it on a point-and-shoot (without any wireless capability) camera, and only import the photos to a permanently air-gapped computer with all I/O ports disabled, ideally encrypting them on the computer and destroying the original digital copy. Or use 35mm film and develop the film your self and store the photos inside a safe. Anything else is "living dangerously".
  - smolder 2y ago
    I think that's a little extreme and there is a 3rd option that would be adequate for most people: using software on a normal non-airgapped computer that simply doesn't exfiltrate your data. Most people do NOT need security from state level threat actors, they just need software that respects them, which of course no longer includes mainstream operating systems or applications, today.
politelemon 2y ago
> If anything, Apple ought to comment simply because it markets itself as a company that cares about your privacy. The clue is in this sentence. The privacy is marketing. Seeking an explanation from them reeks of coping desparation, but not unexpected if you have bought heavily into it. I'd say this could be a lesson for many, but looking at similar past incidents with them, I am not very hopeful.
- khazhoux 2y ago
  I worked there for years, and privacy was taken very very seriously. It was in the DNA of every project I saw. There was open contempt for companies that extract value from your personal information.
  - busymom0 2y ago
    > There was open contempt for companies that extract value from your personal information. Maybe back in the day. However, for the last few years, Apple is in the business of personalized ads in App Store, Apple News, and Stocks etc. So they do "extract value from your personal information" just like other companies such as Facebook, Google etc.
    - TechRemarker 2y ago
      Apple offers personalized ads, but as you can see from all their quarterly results, that is not their business but rather a tiny portion compared to companies such as Meta and Google that advertising is their business. Apple shows what they do with your data even at a per app level: https://www.apple.com/privacy/labels/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/labels/ as well as reviewing Apple's Privacy Policy vs Meta/Google and see they are night and day from those companies. Again this doesn't make Apple better/good, and others worse/bad, as that depends on who one is and what they value. For instance Google offers far superior services in many aspects than Apple because they take advantage of all that customer data in ways Apple chooses not to. > Maybe back in the day Assuming you may not be an Apple customer or familiar with all the constant flow of new features in the current day Apple has been releasing focusing on Privacy. https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
smolder 2y ago
If I recall correctly from messing around via dev tools, deleting contacts from my android phone just "soft deletes" them as well. It might not have been contacts but there was something in a database I did not expect to be there. I feel like this kind of stuff would be an actual scandal as recently as 2010 but we've just accepted living in a panopticon and false ownership of tech.
ksec 2y ago
Surprised that "a" Media followed through. All other media brushed it off as tragic, rare, database corruptions as mentioned in release notes etc. I wish someone could tell me how a corrupted DB would have old deleted photos resurface, going as far back as 10+ years. From a company that claim themselves as defender of Privacy is a Fundamental Human Right (when they see fit, i.e let's ignore China). This is from Victoria Song, but given The Verge still published it I am going to give them some credit as well. Strange as Apple's PR machine doesn't seems to be working. But you can also pick up all the other media who had Apple's PR influence. And for those who still dont know, you should read The Submarine from Paul Graham https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html.
- turquoisevar 2y ago
  There’s not much to tell to the average user beyond “database did an oopsie”. A post mortem would be fun for me as software developer, but is ultimately of limited value to me or lay people because the cause is already communicated. I understand that the subject of the issue, it being photos, might be a bit touchy, but the mechanics and the nature of the bug is nothing special and anyone who moved past their “Hello, world” phase will immediately understand the kind of bug that was in play here. Photos are stored “in” a photo library. On Apple systems the photo library is just a package (i.e., essentially a folder) and in it is an SQL database that keeps track of photos and their attributes based on a GUID in some 70 odd tables. The photos and videos themselves are stored in folders within that package (i.e., the file system). But it is ultimately the SQL database that is deemed authoritative and that decides what you see in the Photos app. Different daemons and chron jobs use the database to sync photos to and from the cloud and to clean up photos when marked for deletion. All it takes for this to occur is for a photo to be marked as deleted, without it actually being deleted in the underlying folder, for it to seem deleted. And all it takes for it to show back up is for 17.5 to index through the folders and based on what found “repair” the database. The database also gets changed from time to time, so it could also simply be a new way of keeping track of deleted photos and in the process of migrating to the new database version taking a conservative approach and assuming that photos that are still present to be wrongly marked as deleted. It’s always better to restore and let the user decide than to make destructive assumptions. After this process resurfaces photos then they get synced with iCloud, just like any other photo. The implication that this doesn’t explain the resurfacing of old photos from years ago and many devices ago is rather weird. Most people don’t start fresh when they get a new Apple device and instead transfer data over or restore form a backup, putting in place the corrupted database. To say nothing of the database file being synchronized across devices via iCloud. In fact, that only makes the corrupted database explanation more likely. In the earlier days of iOS, Apple was still finding its way on how to effectively manage the library, making some significant overhauls in addition to overhauls to switch from Photo Stream to iCloud Photo Library. So it’s not unlikely it was during that period this issue snuck into the database. Like I said, it’s unfortunate that it affects photos, but otherwise not a shocking bug by any means and the solution to include orphaned photos back into the library as opposed to destructively deleting them is good practice. The only thing that might’ve been better is if the user was provided with a prompt informing them of the find and perhaps asking them to make a choice. It’s clear however that they didn’t think it would be an issue that would affect many users and using scary technical words like “corrupted” go against the kind of language and UX Apple tries to stick to. A miscalculation perhaps, but hardly worthy of the drama that it’s being milked for.
Hizonner 2y ago
Apple doesn't need to explain anything to you, peasant. What are you going to do, buy Microsoft?
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: Apple Releases iOS 17.5.1 with Fix for Reappearing Photos Bug https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40426557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40426557 Troubling iOS 17.5 Bug Reportedly Resurfacing Old Deleted Photos https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40366091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40366091 iOS 17.5 is allegedly resurfacing pictures that were deleted years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40372867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40372867
- busymom0 2y ago
  This is not a dupe of those 2 posts you provided. This post is about the update issued by Apple yesterday (those 2 posts are from 6 days ago) and is also a more broader discussion calling for Apple to release details of the bug.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Yeah, @ChrisArchitect, you're often a bit overzealous about marking things as dupe. I hope that you weren't the one who flagged this off the front page, either, because this deserves to be seen and was making a lot more progress than the previous discussions before it suddenly fell off. EDIT: I appreciate your attempt to clean up your comment in response to feedback, but your top link currently is the same as your bottom link, and even if it were correct it still only has either 2 or 1 comment depending on which of the two submissions by that title you meant to link to. That is well within the range of non-uptake that deserves a second chance.
    - ChrisArchitect 2y ago
      nothing flagged it 'fell off' because other things replaced it. Natural. Discussion still ongoing here. More discussion last week on a number of other threads, when it was news.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        No, this wasn't natural. You may not have triggered it, maybe it was software, but I watched it rapidly rise from nothing to position #7 and then it dropped from #7 to #76 in 5 minutes. That's not natural churn, that was caused by user or software flags. https://hnrankings.info/40433384/ https://hnrankings.info/40433384/
hammyhavoc 2y ago
"Bug" or "working as intended"?
- TechRemarker 2y ago
  Not sure what you mean, as yes, this is a bug they note they have now resolved. The bug presumably isn't that when you delete something on most any device that it's not actually deleted, but rather the bug is that something in their code allowed for a marked as deleted item (no longer accessible to the user), to become accessible to the user again without the user doing any data recovery services. While only Apple currently knows, but the most obvious answer would be that while they want to wait until enough users have applied the fix since perhaps even though incredible rare, it might be something a technical person could replicate on others devices if they know the bug. I would be very surprised if they don't eventually disclose it, but assume will be after it's no longer exploitable to the vast majority of people. All speculation of course.
masto 2y ago
Ehh. I really dislike this paragraph: > Sure, you could push your glasses up your nose and say, “Well actually, no file is ever really deleted until it’s overwritten...” And while that is true, a reasonable customer would expect that when Apple says a deleted file is permanently deleted, this sort of thing shouldn’t even be possible. You could stereotype it as well-actuallying, sure, but the reality is that "deleted files aren't actually deleted" has been the way computer storage has worked and still works, in the majority of cases, for a very, very long time. I don't disagree that a reasonable customer would expect that when they delete a file on their hard drive, it's gone forever. But if I were a writer for a tech publication, I don't think I could credibly write an article indignantly demanding an explanation for an undelete utility.
milliams 2y ago
Relevant Qwantz from today: https://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4194 https://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4194
fhub 2y ago
I wonder if the database corruption stemmed from the job responsible for deleting photos after approximately 40 days. This job likely involves two main steps: (1) deleting the actual file and (2) updating the database. At guess, in some rare cases, step (2) might occur even if step (1) fails. Could this issue have arisen because step (1) occasionally failed due to changes in iOS's security model over the years? Did the photos reappear when the database was rebuilt or reindexed from files stored on the device? With the messaging based hacks exploiting images encoders, pdfs etc it seems plausible to me that they added some protections that could have made file I/O more sandboxed and accidentally over-sandboxed it in some scenarios and the error codes weren't being checked.
- brokenmachine 2y ago
  Some people said that they wiped the device and subsequently sold it, and their photos reappeared for the new user! https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/ios/comments/1cspwh2/my_old_photos_appeared_on_an_ipad_i_sold/ https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/ios/comments/1cspwh2/my_old_p... That wouldn't fit the scenario you described.
skygazer 2y ago
If you were to assume a dystopian cause, you assume a bug accidentally revealed the nefarious plan, and the charitable view would assume a bug broke proper deletion of physical files when their db record was set for removal, or some such. Either way, we assume a bug. But, the conspiracy theory requires additional assumptions and is, all else being equal, less likely, overall. I think the POV chosen, one way or the other, reveals an interesting bias, like that white/gold/blue dress. But I find this even more interesting because probably most of us here have worked at software companies as developers, and know personally how utterly normal unintentional bugs like a failed deletion bug would be, particularly if black-box QA is oblivious to it because everything seems fine. No company is immune, and Apple has had some pretty embarrassing bugs over the years.
bastard_op 2y ago
Apple was keeping shadow copies of files of pictures on iphones at least 10 years ago I witnessed myself that you couldn't access through conventional means (windows or mac, but linux worked), and I'm certain little has changed still but better hiding it. If the US or China tells Apple to give them the contents of your phone now or ever, they damn well likely can and will. Same as Google or as Microsoft would.
- bastard_op 2y ago
  Hah, pretty much what I said, nothing gets truly deleted on an Apple without some extraordinary measures. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/apple-clarifies-ios-17-5-bug-that-exposed-deleted-photos/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/apple-clarifies-ios-...

68 points by busymom0 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

resource_waste 2y ago

Worst fears come true. Its never deleted, its just marked as deleted. All your baddies are organized for Apple and the FBI.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aendruk 2y ago
They said it’s caused by database corruption. Easy enough to imagine that the thing tasked with doing actual deletion just couldn’t traverse to all of its targets.
- primedteam 2y ago
  I like this theory. I wonder the "Delete after 30 days" part used to work and then they added some more security features which made it not work unless the phone was unlocked. i.e. it could delete out of the DB but failed to delete the file if the phone was locked when the job ran.
- smolder 2y ago
  Yeah, though it's plausible that database corruption could just mean "the deleted flag was accidentally unset."
- resource_waste 2y ago
  10/10 PR Spin. I love the answer and can sleep well.
valentinemsmith 2y ago
Is anything ever truly “deleted” or just presented to users as such? I imagine once an image has been synced to the cloud, it’s stored somewhere forever, for reasons you hinted at. I work for a large internet/tech company, and all images uploaded by users must be permanently retained somewhere per our legal policies, even if that means sending it to long-term storage after it’s been “deleted”. And if law enforcement submits a request asking for your files, we can pull it back up.

nextworddev 2y ago

Probably soft deleted or with TTL + archiving. Hard delete is very technically challenging at that scale.

lolinder 2y ago
Can you elaborate on what about the scale of "a few devices and one user's iCloud backup" makes hard delete challenging? A 30-day period seems like plenty of time to propagate the "Alice really does want to delete this photo on 6/21" message to all devices and all servers where you might have backups. And even if it is challenging, it shouldn't even need to be said that soft deleting photos of all things would be completely and totally irresponsible. This isn't some metadata in a business app, some of those deleted photos are extremely sensitive.
fallingsquirrel 2y ago
The bug happened offline, on devices with cloud syncing disabled. Hard delete isn't challenging in a single-device scenario.
- smolder 2y ago
  It's technically unchallenging, but is challenging to the goals of surveillance capitalism/states.
lnxg33k1 2y ago
They should say it, so people could find alternatives for their photos, if they’re incapable of handling that, is understandable, the surprise, makes it annoying

spullara 2y ago

My best guess is that they were on another device and they are syncing via iCloud and somehow the new iOS fixed a bug that was previously failing to resync photos that were only deleted locally.

standardUser 2y ago

I have had instances where previously "archived" photos reappeared among my regular photos on Android devices. It's a faith-shattering moment. Let's face it, most of us have some amount of photos or screenshots we don't want unexpectedly popping up when other people may be able to see them. In my case, it may have been user error resulting from the confusing interplay between my camera app, the default Samsung photo album, and Google Photos. I guess. Ultimately, I removed permissions for accessing photos from every app except for Google Photos to reduce the chance for confusion. Does anyone have a simple, cross-platform solution for storing (yet easily accessing) private photos and videos? Or do most people just resort to living dangerously?

anonymous_union 2y ago
the obvious solution, local storage.
barbazoo 2y ago
https://github.com/immich-app/immich https://github.com/immich-app/immich
leptons 2y ago
You have two choices if you take a photo you don't want others to see - do it on a point-and-shoot (without any wireless capability) camera, and only import the photos to a permanently air-gapped computer with all I/O ports disabled, ideally encrypting them on the computer and destroying the original digital copy. Or use 35mm film and develop the film your self and store the photos inside a safe. Anything else is "living dangerously".
- smolder 2y ago
  I think that's a little extreme and there is a 3rd option that would be adequate for most people: using software on a normal non-airgapped computer that simply doesn't exfiltrate your data. Most people do NOT need security from state level threat actors, they just need software that respects them, which of course no longer includes mainstream operating systems or applications, today.

politelemon 2y ago

> If anything, Apple ought to comment simply because it markets itself as a company that cares about your privacy. The clue is in this sentence. The privacy is marketing. Seeking an explanation from them reeks of coping desparation, but not unexpected if you have bought heavily into it. I'd say this could be a lesson for many, but looking at similar past incidents with them, I am not very hopeful.

khazhoux 2y ago
I worked there for years, and privacy was taken very very seriously. It was in the DNA of every project I saw. There was open contempt for companies that extract value from your personal information.
- busymom0 2y ago
  > There was open contempt for companies that extract value from your personal information. Maybe back in the day. However, for the last few years, Apple is in the business of personalized ads in App Store, Apple News, and Stocks etc. So they do "extract value from your personal information" just like other companies such as Facebook, Google etc.
  - TechRemarker 2y ago
    Apple offers personalized ads, but as you can see from all their quarterly results, that is not their business but rather a tiny portion compared to companies such as Meta and Google that advertising is their business. Apple shows what they do with your data even at a per app level: https://www.apple.com/privacy/labels/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/labels/ as well as reviewing Apple's Privacy Policy vs Meta/Google and see they are night and day from those companies. Again this doesn't make Apple better/good, and others worse/bad, as that depends on who one is and what they value. For instance Google offers far superior services in many aspects than Apple because they take advantage of all that customer data in ways Apple chooses not to. > Maybe back in the day Assuming you may not be an Apple customer or familiar with all the constant flow of new features in the current day Apple has been releasing focusing on Privacy. https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

smolder 2y ago

If I recall correctly from messing around via dev tools, deleting contacts from my android phone just "soft deletes" them as well. It might not have been contacts but there was something in a database I did not expect to be there. I feel like this kind of stuff would be an actual scandal as recently as 2010 but we've just accepted living in a panopticon and false ownership of tech.

ksec 2y ago

Surprised that "a" Media followed through. All other media brushed it off as tragic, rare, database corruptions as mentioned in release notes etc. I wish someone could tell me how a corrupted DB would have old deleted photos resurface, going as far back as 10+ years. From a company that claim themselves as defender of Privacy is a Fundamental Human Right (when they see fit, i.e let's ignore China). This is from Victoria Song, but given The Verge still published it I am going to give them some credit as well. Strange as Apple's PR machine doesn't seems to be working. But you can also pick up all the other media who had Apple's PR influence. And for those who still dont know, you should read The Submarine from Paul Graham https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html.

turquoisevar 2y ago
There’s not much to tell to the average user beyond “database did an oopsie”. A post mortem would be fun for me as software developer, but is ultimately of limited value to me or lay people because the cause is already communicated. I understand that the subject of the issue, it being photos, might be a bit touchy, but the mechanics and the nature of the bug is nothing special and anyone who moved past their “Hello, world” phase will immediately understand the kind of bug that was in play here. Photos are stored “in” a photo library. On Apple systems the photo library is just a package (i.e., essentially a folder) and in it is an SQL database that keeps track of photos and their attributes based on a GUID in some 70 odd tables. The photos and videos themselves are stored in folders within that package (i.e., the file system). But it is ultimately the SQL database that is deemed authoritative and that decides what you see in the Photos app. Different daemons and chron jobs use the database to sync photos to and from the cloud and to clean up photos when marked for deletion. All it takes for this to occur is for a photo to be marked as deleted, without it actually being deleted in the underlying folder, for it to seem deleted. And all it takes for it to show back up is for 17.5 to index through the folders and based on what found “repair” the database. The database also gets changed from time to time, so it could also simply be a new way of keeping track of deleted photos and in the process of migrating to the new database version taking a conservative approach and assuming that photos that are still present to be wrongly marked as deleted. It’s always better to restore and let the user decide than to make destructive assumptions. After this process resurfaces photos then they get synced with iCloud, just like any other photo. The implication that this doesn’t explain the resurfacing of old photos from years ago and many devices ago is rather weird. Most people don’t start fresh when they get a new Apple device and instead transfer data over or restore form a backup, putting in place the corrupted database. To say nothing of the database file being synchronized across devices via iCloud. In fact, that only makes the corrupted database explanation more likely. In the earlier days of iOS, Apple was still finding its way on how to effectively manage the library, making some significant overhauls in addition to overhauls to switch from Photo Stream to iCloud Photo Library. So it’s not unlikely it was during that period this issue snuck into the database. Like I said, it’s unfortunate that it affects photos, but otherwise not a shocking bug by any means and the solution to include orphaned photos back into the library as opposed to destructively deleting them is good practice. The only thing that might’ve been better is if the user was provided with a prompt informing them of the find and perhaps asking them to make a choice. It’s clear however that they didn’t think it would be an issue that would affect many users and using scary technical words like “corrupted” go against the kind of language and UX Apple tries to stick to. A miscalculation perhaps, but hardly worthy of the drama that it’s being milked for.

Hizonner 2y ago

Apple doesn't need to explain anything to you, peasant. What are you going to do, buy Microsoft?

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Related: Apple Releases iOS 17.5.1 with Fix for Reappearing Photos Bug https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40426557 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40426557 Troubling iOS 17.5 Bug Reportedly Resurfacing Old Deleted Photos https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40366091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40366091 iOS 17.5 is allegedly resurfacing pictures that were deleted years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40372867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40372867

busymom0 2y ago
This is not a dupe of those 2 posts you provided. This post is about the update issued by Apple yesterday (those 2 posts are from 6 days ago) and is also a more broader discussion calling for Apple to release details of the bug.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Yeah, @ChrisArchitect, you're often a bit overzealous about marking things as dupe. I hope that you weren't the one who flagged this off the front page, either, because this deserves to be seen and was making a lot more progress than the previous discussions before it suddenly fell off. EDIT: I appreciate your attempt to clean up your comment in response to feedback, but your top link currently is the same as your bottom link, and even if it were correct it still only has either 2 or 1 comment depending on which of the two submissions by that title you meant to link to. That is well within the range of non-uptake that deserves a second chance.
  - ChrisArchitect 2y ago
    nothing flagged it 'fell off' because other things replaced it. Natural. Discussion still ongoing here. More discussion last week on a number of other threads, when it was news.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      No, this wasn't natural. You may not have triggered it, maybe it was software, but I watched it rapidly rise from nothing to position #7 and then it dropped from #7 to #76 in 5 minutes. That's not natural churn, that was caused by user or software flags. https://hnrankings.info/40433384/ https://hnrankings.info/40433384/

hammyhavoc 2y ago

"Bug" or "working as intended"?

TechRemarker 2y ago
Not sure what you mean, as yes, this is a bug they note they have now resolved. The bug presumably isn't that when you delete something on most any device that it's not actually deleted, but rather the bug is that something in their code allowed for a marked as deleted item (no longer accessible to the user), to become accessible to the user again without the user doing any data recovery services. While only Apple currently knows, but the most obvious answer would be that while they want to wait until enough users have applied the fix since perhaps even though incredible rare, it might be something a technical person could replicate on others devices if they know the bug. I would be very surprised if they don't eventually disclose it, but assume will be after it's no longer exploitable to the vast majority of people. All speculation of course.

masto 2y ago

Ehh. I really dislike this paragraph: > Sure, you could push your glasses up your nose and say, “Well actually, no file is ever really deleted until it’s overwritten...” And while that is true, a reasonable customer would expect that when Apple says a deleted file is permanently deleted, this sort of thing shouldn’t even be possible. You could stereotype it as well-actuallying, sure, but the reality is that "deleted files aren't actually deleted" has been the way computer storage has worked and still works, in the majority of cases, for a very, very long time. I don't disagree that a reasonable customer would expect that when they delete a file on their hard drive, it's gone forever. But if I were a writer for a tech publication, I don't think I could credibly write an article indignantly demanding an explanation for an undelete utility.

milliams 2y ago

Relevant Qwantz from today: https://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4194 https://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4194

fhub 2y ago

I wonder if the database corruption stemmed from the job responsible for deleting photos after approximately 40 days. This job likely involves two main steps: (1) deleting the actual file and (2) updating the database. At guess, in some rare cases, step (2) might occur even if step (1) fails. Could this issue have arisen because step (1) occasionally failed due to changes in iOS's security model over the years? Did the photos reappear when the database was rebuilt or reindexed from files stored on the device? With the messaging based hacks exploiting images encoders, pdfs etc it seems plausible to me that they added some protections that could have made file I/O more sandboxed and accidentally over-sandboxed it in some scenarios and the error codes weren't being checked.

brokenmachine 2y ago
Some people said that they wiped the device and subsequently sold it, and their photos reappeared for the new user! https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/ios/comments/1cspwh2/my_old_photos_appeared_on_an_ipad_i_sold/ https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/ios/comments/1cspwh2/my_old_p... That wouldn't fit the scenario you described.

skygazer 2y ago

If you were to assume a dystopian cause, you assume a bug accidentally revealed the nefarious plan, and the charitable view would assume a bug broke proper deletion of physical files when their db record was set for removal, or some such. Either way, we assume a bug. But, the conspiracy theory requires additional assumptions and is, all else being equal, less likely, overall. I think the POV chosen, one way or the other, reveals an interesting bias, like that white/gold/blue dress. But I find this even more interesting because probably most of us here have worked at software companies as developers, and know personally how utterly normal unintentional bugs like a failed deletion bug would be, particularly if black-box QA is oblivious to it because everything seems fine. No company is immune, and Apple has had some pretty embarrassing bugs over the years.

bastard_op 2y ago

Apple was keeping shadow copies of files of pictures on iphones at least 10 years ago I witnessed myself that you couldn't access through conventional means (windows or mac, but linux worked), and I'm certain little has changed still but better hiding it. If the US or China tells Apple to give them the contents of your phone now or ever, they damn well likely can and will. Same as Google or as Microsoft would.

bastard_op 2y ago
Hah, pretty much what I said, nothing gets truly deleted on an Apple without some extraordinary measures. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/apple-clarifies-ios-17-5-bug-that-exposed-deleted-photos/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/apple-clarifies-ios-...