4 ms·

One of the things Apple's Lockdown mode does is disable previews of images or links that are sent to you. It seems like the lesson is that you shouldn't be pro

One of the things Apple's Lockdown mode does is disable previews of images or links that are sent to you. It seems like the lesson is that you shouldn't be processing data sent to the device by random strangers without the user explicitly choosing to open the file or follow the link.

thewebguyd 5mo ago
That should be the default behavior, not a special lock down option that also disables other features. Why can't they just make it like most email clients? No preview by default, give a banner with an option to explicitly allow a preview for that specific message or conversation?
- thrownthatway 5mo ago
  I tend to agree. But how does that prevent one from receiving and opening a malicious message?
  - lupire 5mo ago
    Because many people know not trust unknown senders.
    - thrownthatway 5mo ago
      I should have said “a well crafted malicious email” or SMS etc.
      - amarant 5mo ago
        No such thing as completely idiot proof. But I think we can all agree an exploit that requires a click is a lot better for the intended victim than one that doesn't. This way they at least have a chance to not click it. Then we can start tackling the other problems with separate solutions
      - dnnddidiej 5mo ago
        Phishing is big business and ways to combat are not fool proof. Education helps. Spam detection helps.
        brandonwindson 5mo ago
        Education helps, but it puts the burden on the user. The real fix is shutting down the phishing source, not just filtering the symptom.
- marysol5 5mo ago
  You know that E-Mail clients blocking stuff came after right?
- Barbing 5mo ago
  >That should be the default behavior It is! The phishers try to socially engineer their way into getting link previews or in fact clickable links period. Screenshot here of the automatic link/preview disable- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/phishing-texts-trick-apple-imessage-users-into-disabling-protection/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/phishing-text...
jiggawatts 5mo ago
Sorry, but that is an insanely defeatist attitude blended with a hint of blaming users for wanting features. Image decoders are pure functions and all should have been rewritten as 100% safe Rust years ago. Users need functionality. It’s up to us to figure out how to provide that safely. Saying to users they shouldn’t have those features isn’t sage advice, it’s admitting failure.
- michaelt 5mo ago
  The thing is, nobody's happy just previewing jpegs and pngs. Before you know it, people want to preview SVGs, PDFs, video, HTML and so on. And to do that properly means you've got to support obscure formats like JBIG2 and CCITT Fax. Malicious vector images with a billion elements to render. XML that lets one file embed another. And good luck getting the budget to re-implement them all from scratch in a better language, when the only business value the feature delivers is a postage-stamp-sized preview image.
  - amarant 5mo ago
    Perfection is the enemy of the perfectly good. And let's be honest, you'll have what, 0.0001% of users who want to preview CCITT in 2026? Less? Probably less.
    - ValdikSS 5mo ago
      It's a part of PDF, so if there's a PDF renderer which makes preview, it supports G4 and JBIG2.
  - jiggawatts 5mo ago
    Most of these are solved problems to one degree or another. Web browsers have generally switched over to decoding legacy unsafe formats like PDF using safe managed languages, typically JavaScript. > JBIG2 and CCITT Fax Since performance isn't such a critical concern with obscure legacy formats, it really wouldn't be much more than a day or two of work for a competent developer with AI agent tooling to convert an existing decoder to safe Rust. Meta set nearly a hundred billion dollars on fire for a total failure that everybody saw coming, a trillion dollars is what the current AI investment crazy is pouring into concrete and TSMC chips, but... a couple of days for a developer is asking too much!?

thewebguyd 5mo ago

That should be the default behavior, not a special lock down option that also disables other features. Why can't they just make it like most email clients? No preview by default, give a banner with an option to explicitly allow a preview for that specific message or conversation?

thrownthatway 5mo ago
I tend to agree. But how does that prevent one from receiving and opening a malicious message?
- lupire 5mo ago
  Because many people know not trust unknown senders.
  - thrownthatway 5mo ago
    I should have said “a well crafted malicious email” or SMS etc.
    - amarant 5mo ago
      No such thing as completely idiot proof. But I think we can all agree an exploit that requires a click is a lot better for the intended victim than one that doesn't. This way they at least have a chance to not click it. Then we can start tackling the other problems with separate solutions
    - dnnddidiej 5mo ago
      Phishing is big business and ways to combat are not fool proof. Education helps. Spam detection helps.
      - brandonwindson 5mo ago
        Education helps, but it puts the burden on the user. The real fix is shutting down the phishing source, not just filtering the symptom.
marysol5 5mo ago
You know that E-Mail clients blocking stuff came after right?
Barbing 5mo ago
>That should be the default behavior It is! The phishers try to socially engineer their way into getting link previews or in fact clickable links period. Screenshot here of the automatic link/preview disable- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/phishing-texts-trick-apple-imessage-users-into-disabling-protection/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/phishing-text...

jiggawatts 5mo ago

Sorry, but that is an insanely defeatist attitude blended with a hint of blaming users for wanting features. Image decoders are pure functions and all should have been rewritten as 100% safe Rust years ago. Users need functionality. It’s up to us to figure out how to provide that safely. Saying to users they shouldn’t have those features isn’t sage advice, it’s admitting failure.

michaelt 5mo ago
The thing is, nobody's happy just previewing jpegs and pngs. Before you know it, people want to preview SVGs, PDFs, video, HTML and so on. And to do that properly means you've got to support obscure formats like JBIG2 and CCITT Fax. Malicious vector images with a billion elements to render. XML that lets one file embed another. And good luck getting the budget to re-implement them all from scratch in a better language, when the only business value the feature delivers is a postage-stamp-sized preview image.
- amarant 5mo ago
  Perfection is the enemy of the perfectly good. And let's be honest, you'll have what, 0.0001% of users who want to preview CCITT in 2026? Less? Probably less.
  - ValdikSS 5mo ago
    It's a part of PDF, so if there's a PDF renderer which makes preview, it supports G4 and JBIG2.
- jiggawatts 5mo ago
  Most of these are solved problems to one degree or another. Web browsers have generally switched over to decoding legacy unsafe formats like PDF using safe managed languages, typically JavaScript. > JBIG2 and CCITT Fax Since performance isn't such a critical concern with obscure legacy formats, it really wouldn't be much more than a day or two of work for a competent developer with AI agent tooling to convert an existing decoder to safe Rust. Meta set nearly a hundred billion dollars on fire for a total failure that everybody saw coming, a trillion dollars is what the current AI investment crazy is pouring into concrete and TSMC chips, but... a couple of days for a developer is asking too much!?