Reminds me of the time I FaceTimed my mother (in Australia) only to see the call answered by a total stranger (in Texas).
FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
261–270 of 458 posts
Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#262I'm always curious how a bug like this ships. I mean QA & Testing should catch it, sure. But even before then. Some engineer wrote code for FaceTime that has it open the microphone before the call is accepted. And transmit the audio over the network before the call is accepted. Who did that? And why? I'm not suggesting malice but I do wonder at the lack of defensive programming.
Although others have mentioned state machines I wonder if it’s a deliberate feature with an unforeseen side effect.
The Apple Watch walkie talkie feature allows you to talk with anyone who has approved you and has walkie talkie switched on.
But it appears to use FaceTime under the hood as when it was launched it failed if FaceTime was switched off on your phone.
So the “auto answer” mechanism is already in there, just getting triggered at the wrong time?
Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's not forget https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2013-1050/ and https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2015-7496/ and https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2017-8900/ (to a lesser extent). Check out https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list.php?vendor_id=... for more fun.
This was the worst one for me: https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2017-12712/
I remember an article somewhere about these kinds of bugs. A lot of medical hardware/software combos are/can be compromised. And here comes the problem: do you disclose the vulnerabilities since it means potentially killing people? How long do you wait before manufacturers acknowledge and fix the problem (and they often don't)?
So yeah, these types of vulnerabilities are very very scary.
Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember some people discovered that you could kill the xscreensaver lock screen on Debian with Alt+SysRq+F some years back. Well, a decade back actually — 2009. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=562884
A fee years ago, I discovered that if someone was running dual monitors and using XScreenlock, you could unplug one of the monitors and it would bypass the lock screen. I have no idea if this is still possible, I've not used XScreenlock since then.
That's a feature, not a bug! ;)
Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#265We noticed a similar bug many years ago on a GSM enabled PDA device. I cannot recall the brand/model.
Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#266Rumor mill: FaceTime bug was submitted to Apple on 20 January 2019 by a concerned mother after .. her 14-year-old son discovered it. >My teen found a major security flaw in Apple’s new iOS. He can listen in to your iPhone/iPad without your approval. I have video. Submitted bug report to @AppleSupport...waiting to hear back to provide details. Scary stuff! #apple #bugreport @foxnews [0] https://twitter.com/mgt7500/sta…
If the mother did in fact submit a ticket a week ago, it's pretty shameful that the escalation / verification process took more than a week for a bug of this severity.
Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#267Apple has disabled group FaceTime on their end. https://www.apple.com/support/systemstatus/
Amazing, a status page that automatically converts to the local timezone.
Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#268Rumor mill: FaceTime bug was submitted to Apple on 20 January 2019 by a concerned mother after .. her 14-year-old son discovered it. >My teen found a major security flaw in Apple’s new iOS. He can listen in to your iPhone/iPad without your approval. I have video. Submitted bug report to @AppleSupport...waiting to hear back to provide details. Scary stuff! #apple #bugreport @foxnews [0] https://twitter.com/mgt7500/sta…
Interesting twitter account. First tweet 1/1/19, few followers, mostly politics, then a major bug report (not only in discovery but in knowing how to go through the reporting process). Not saying it’s fake at all - it looks 100% legitimate - but it adds some extra bit of weirdness to this story. Quite the providence, and a really bad bug. (edited for clarity)
Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who bought an iPhone specifically for privacy reasons, I'm not really upset about this. What I'm concerned about is passive, mass-scale corporate surveillance, not a one-off bug that allows an individual with mal-intent to listen through my microphone for a few seconds and also let me know about it.
Are you able to root an iPhone or use one without signing in with an Apple account (that's tied to a credit card, etc)? If not, then I believe the devices are still very much part of a mass-scale corporate surveillance network.
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Re: FaceTime bug lets you hear audio of person you are calling before they pick up
#270I'm always curious how a bug like this ships. I mean QA & Testing should catch it, sure. But even before then. Some engineer wrote code for FaceTime that has it open the microphone before the call is accepted. And transmit the audio over the network before the call is accepted. Who did that? And why? I'm not suggesting malice but I do wonder at the lack of defensive programming.
I'm pretty sure that person also wrote a few lines so the phone being called won't show there's a call... /tinfoil