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She Sent Her iPhone to Apple. Repair Techs Uploaded Her Nudes to Facebook (2021)
- vinni2 1y agoI never understood why the repair techs need my passcode to repair my iPhone (like replacing display or battery) and they suggest it as a first option unapologetically without even explaining privacy risks.
- tialaramex 1y agoMaybe the benefit of only ever dealing with extremely sketchy places for phone stuff is that they already know I won't give them information to unlock my phone so they never ask. Either the repair can be effected without, or I don't want it done. "Is it OK to wipe this phone?" is also an acceptable question, and sometimes the answer might even be "Yes".
- nashashmi 1y agoCould be standard protocol for all repairs, meaning they don’t discriminate between repair otherwise their staff will get overwhelmed
- LeonB 1y agoRecently I had the screen replaced on my child’s iPad. The tech asked for passcode, and I refused to provide it. The tech complained and said when I came to pick it up he’d need to guide me through some things. Indeed, there were some settings that needed to be set, to ”help” the new screen. Having said that — I’ve previously documented a case (well over 10 years ago) where I caught a local PC repair company who used their access to a machine of mine they were repairing - to quickly scan through the thumbnails of our personal photos, and look closer at any image which showed any flesh. People expect to be trusted but don’t act in a trustworthy manner.
- mattmaroon 1y agoIn my experience you just say no and they go “OK” and do the job just fine.
- maccard 1y agoI used to repair iPhone screens and can answer this. It was the easiest way to check the device worked after the repair and that the screen didn’t have any dead spots. We told people to wipe the phones before they brought them in, and gave people the option of either giving us the PIN code or accepting the device back without us validating the fix. I don’t think I ever had a single person say no to the pin but we did have plenty of people wipe the device before they brought it in.
- eloisant 1y agoWhen I sent my Steam Deck for repair, Steam asked my to factory reset it, which I did. Now I think this is what I would do if I need to send any electronic device for repairs. All my data is backed up to cloud, yes setting it up again is a chore but it's better than risking my data with some unknown contractor.
- kaoD 1y ago> All my data is backed up to cloud How is that less worrisome? Your data is living in someone else's storage, waiting to be compromised.
- gpm 1y agoDepending on the backup mechanism they use it might be protected with cryptography and a private key or strong password.
- SoftTalker 1y agoAssuming they did all that properly of course.... My phone is not backed up. There's also nothing on it that I could not stand to lose.
- hinkley 1y agoThere are also stories of people losing all of their stuff by sending the device in. So the added benefit of suggesting a wipe is that it encourages you to assume total loss and plan ahead. That doesn’t necessarily help with people sending in devices with special nostalgia for the physical hardware, such as a signature. Though whether those sorts of issues were from not paying attention to notes attached to the account or outright theft has rarely been clear.
- Arch485 1y agoIt's crazy that a repair shop needs your passcode. I can't think of any case where it would be necessary. I'm glad this person won the lawsuit though; getting your nudes leaked is a really shitty situation to be in. Apple needs to do a better job vetting their repair shops.
- mschuster91 1y agoThe problem is that Android doesn't offer a pre-boot UI for testing anything unless you flash TWRP (at which point the userdata will be wiped), and I'm not sure if iOS does either. Yes, this sucks hard.
- jayd16 1y agoCan't you restart into recovery mode and run graphics test?
- mschuster91 1y agoRecovery mode on stock Android offers nothing other than wipe userdata and partially update firmware, that's the thing.
- jayd16 1y agoMy stock Galaxy S24 has this option. Its the most popular Android phone of that year, no?
- piperswe 1y agoStock recovery mode on most devices is as barebones as possible - it _might_ have an option to flash a signed image if you're lucky.
- mschuster91 1y agoOften not even that. Samsung wants its proprietary Odin stuff to flash, Mediatek has their own toolsuite. Both need Windows to run. Only ones actually using fully open source tools are Google's Pixel lineup. But none, not even Pixel, allow for anything resembling actual "recovery" for common failure modes. Dead display at least for Samsung and Pixel means you have to install a new display if you want to access the data, otherwise it won't even pass the first bootloader stage, much less boot into the OS or unlock the encryption. Something gone corrupt with the OS? Same case. If you can't manage to boot at least to the Android Safe Mode, you're out of luck. And no HW self-test at all.
- setterle 1y ago[flagged]
- seanhunter 1y agoI’m not sure blaming the victim is the appropriate response here.
- throw939339494 1y agoDid anyone from Apple went to jail? This is clear case of revenge porn and online sexual abuse!
- lostlogin 1y agoIt wasn’t done by an Apple employee. The earlier example in the story was an Apple Genius though.
- lupusreal 1y agoThere is a long and shameful history of repair techs and computer shops doing this to people. From the stories I've heard from people who've been in that industry, looking for nudes on customer devices has been almost an expected and tacitly tolerated norm for decades. Its not going to stop on it's own, so we need to start throwing the book at these people. Very long prison sentences are in order. It's a form of sexual abuse and should be considered a very severe felony.
- Noumenon72 1y agoI think we should continue with the consequentialist approach where the trust violation and right to privacy are considered creepy but not punished as strictly as sexual abuse that actually harms someone or traumatizes them. "Uploads the nudes to Facebook" is not a bad place to draw the line. I spend a lot of time watching TikToks of people in prison and it is a terrible punishment where a few weeks outweighs any harm done to these victims.
- voidfunc 1y agoPrison is a deterrent.
- c22 1y agoNot really. Most people only break the rules when they think they're not going to get caught.
- lupusreal 1y agoI see no material difference between stealing nudes from somebody, and secretly setting up a camera in a bathroom. In both cases the victims don't know, so no harm is done right? Wrong. That's bullshit. Long prison sentences would serves as strong denunciation of their behavior. We need to be sending these freaks to prison so that the rest of society can feel assured that their government takes the matter seriously.
- imglorp 1y agoCriminal yes. But also civil penalties that would mean closing repair shops that don't work ethically.
- CafeRacer 1y agoThis is weird. On one side, why would you give your passcode to a device that contains a lot of stuff, usually financial apps, message history, in a lot of cases access to corporate information... and eventually nudes. On other side, as a technician, how retarded you must be to have access to all this data and to take nudes and post them online. Like whats the end game? What sort of outcome do you expect? This is just like the story that happened few weeks ago, when someone gained access to a popular npm packages and uploaded the most obviously visible crypto stealer.
- throwmeaway222 1y agoThat's what my first thought was too - nudity is everywhere, it's not like you posted the first images of a nude woman ever.
- wizzwizz4 1y agoI'm guessing it's the same reason people rape, when it's relatively easy to hook up with someone consenting: the abuse of power is the point.
- cgriswald 1y agoThere are a lot of stupid techs. Back in the day we had a tech of a consulting firm run l0phtcrack on our network and then brag about it to a bunch of our firm’s employees. He wasn’t even doing it to steal data, which is probably why he thought it was okay. The thing about stupid people is they don’t know they’re stupid. They are either wholly delusional about the legality, morality, or consequences or they reason that because they couldn’t catch themselves there is no way anyone else could catch them.
- nenenejej 1y agoWhy doesnt apple add a repair mode? Access to most settings but not data? Then train users to never give their password to Apple (like banks say never say even to us your PIN or online password)
- richardwhiuk 1y agoThey did. 10 years ago.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- zerof1l 1y ago> This case shows how, even when Apple tightly controls its repair infrastructure, it cannot prevent disastrous cases like this Customers should be able to choose where to repair their device, or even be able to repair it themselves. Just because it's an "official" repair shop doesn't mean its the best and the safest. Louis Rossmann has been saying this for years.
- jdlshore 1y agoAnd they can. https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair
- kelvinjps10 1y agoMy Samsung mode has a repair mode where it sort of creates like a user that doesn't have my files or personal stuff
- richardwhiuk 1y agoApple has had that for 10 years.
- rpdillon 1y agoWasn't it added in the fourth beta of iOS 17.5, which was around April 2024?
- _fat_santa 1y agoUnfortunately this occurred in 2016, long before they added "repair mode" in iOS 17. But I should mention, I was in the middle of writing a comment along the lines of "apple really needs to add a repair mode to iOS" before going to look it up and realizing that it's actually been there since iOS 17. For me this highlights another issue with iOS which is it has many awesome features that you just won't know about unless you're a techie that keeps up with the news. One great example is the "hidden folder" feature that allows you to hide sensitive apps in an unmarked folder that when set to it's most secure setting, can only be opened with FaceID and no passcode backup. Along with some other features like preventing the app from showing up in your app switcher. This is a genius feature but I see very few people with it enabled, mostly because they just don't know it's a thing. Something like this should be front and center when you first setup your device but instead it's a feature so buried that I had to lookup a guide on how to enable it. And repair mode is equally buried, I had to lookup a guide on how to enable it as well. IMHO Apple really needs to tweak iOS to better surface these features.
- dreamcompiler 1y ago> can only be opened with FaceID and no passcode backup So it can easily be opened by someone who restrains you and holds your phone in front of your face then?
- malfist 1y agoHow many wacks with a wrench do you think it'd take before you gave up your passcode?
- dreamcompiler 1y agoWhich is why phones should have duress passcode capability but that's another rant.
- jen20 1y agoWhat exactly do you think the wrench-holder would do upon discovering the use of this?
- altairprime 1y agoDate article posted: June 8th, 2021 Date Apple announced self-repair kits program: November 17, 2021 I had been wondering what inspired that program — sure, it’s a good idea, but it’s an odd investment for a corporation. Three months is about their usual turnaround from “okay, this is humiliating” to “okay, we’ve announced our intent to fix”. Thanks, Vice!
- lostlogin 1y ago> I had been wondering what inspired that program The EU legislating ‘right to repair’. It has been in the works for a fair while. https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/04/24/apple-wont-have-to-do-that-much-to-comply-with-eus-new-right-to-repair-law https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/04/24/apple-wont-have-t...
- socalgal2 1y agoA "privacy first" company would never ask for passcodes. They still do in 2025. Just goes to show that Apple's privacy claims are theater.
- Aaargh20318 1y agoEvery time I had to send in an iDevice for repair they required me to factory-reset it before sending it in. They never asked me for passcodes.
- socalgal2 1y agoEvery time I've gone to the Apple store they've asked for the passcode
- Aaargh20318 1y agoNo Apple Store near me so I’ve only dealt with their mail-in support.
- hu3 1y agoThey asked for my wife's iPhone passcode last month. I told her to deny it, ofc.
- teekert 1y agoSomewhere in the 2013-14's or something my MBP had a faulty GPU and I brought it in for free repair (that they put in another faulty GPU which failed after the same time as the first one, but it did get them over of the warranty period is besides the point), and they asked me for my root password. I gave it, and felt incredibly dirty. I would never do that again.
- bearjaws 1y agoWas it an Nvidia GPU? I used to work for GeekSquad and we would gladly send the Mac to the Apple store to replace the whole thing with the newer model - always free. People would come back and thank us for sending them to Apple. They even honored them out of warranty due to the lawsuit they faced with Nvidia over the solder failures.
- teekert 1y agoIt was indeed an nvidia GPU, I desoldered something and got the thing working pretty much 100% on the iGPU of the corei7 in there... For 3 days until some update bricked it once and for good. I never heard of any actions to take after the second failure, shame. Was that also valid in the EU? Whole thing did leave me a bit sour about Apple tbh, it was my last macbook.
- bearjaws 1y agoYeah we offered resoldering for a while but after Apple started replacing them there was no point. The settlement was in the US, so that is probably why it didn't apply in the EU. Kind of surprising really. I don't blame you for being upset, the fact that neither party could come to an agreement and left consumers to pound sand was terrible. Apple should have just replaced them while the lawsuit was pending.
- geoffbp 1y agoThis is pretty bad. Surprised they got away with it for so long
- ct0 1y agoOh if you only knew what was happening in the back room when you transferred your device from one computer to another...
- ChrisArchitect 1y ago(2021) Discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27422449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27422449
- 05 1y agoShould have used an asexual repair shop [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XQlZdTEhPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XQlZdTEhPg