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FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up

9to5mac.com

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Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up

#3

Post by 0x0 »

That's a pretty huge flaw. Millions if not billions of people can suddenly remotely spy on almost any other ios or mac anywhere in the world, just by knowing their email address or phone number?

Perhaps Apple should simply pull the plug on the facetime servers for now.

Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up

#6

Post by xfitm3 »

0x0 wrote: post #5
qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #4

Not for long. Will be patched in hours, I bet.

They would probably need to at least blacklist every affected ios version from the facetime servers, there will be a long trail of devices not updating soon

This is assuming there is no possible server side mitigation.

Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up

#7

Post by 0x0 »

xfitm3 wrote: post #6
0x0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would probably need to at least blacklist every affected ios version from the facetime servers, there will be a long trail of devices not updating soon

This is assuming there is no possible server side mitigation.

Even if there is a server side mitigation, it's a big black eye to have devices being remotely tappable with no user interaction.

The devices are obviously not trustworthy anymore with the current software, and you are at the mercy of apple's servers. So a spying apple could always undo the server side mitigation (if even this is mitigatable server side).

It's also a wakeup call to see that it is even possible for devices to start sharing audio or video with no user interaction. Obvious in hindsight for a software engineer perhaps, but the public perception might be forever changed.

Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up

#9

Post by gpm »

0x0 wrote: post #3

That's a pretty huge flaw. Millions if not billions of people can suddenly remotely spy on almost any other ios or mac anywhere in the world, just by knowing their email address or phone number? Perhaps Apple should simply pull the plug on the facetime servers for now.

Unless Apple decides they face significant legal exposure over the bug somehow I don't see them doing that. It would attract so much more attention that it would almost certainly not be worth it economically.

I wonder if they (executives? engineers? the company itself?) could be charged with aiding and abetting wiretapping or something now that they know it's happening and are letting their servers keep doing it.

Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up

#10

Post by preinheimer »

As an apple user I'm concerned. I hope it doesn't turn out that Apple has known about this for weeks/months/whatever.

On the upside I have a lot of confidence that they can fix this, and that I can receive that patch in a timely fashion.

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