Imagine the ramifications of this. I’m not a technician for any secret agents but I can see how this will make black hat attendees very excited.
Yeah that they are confident enough in their chain of trust to allow this says a lot I think
Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
21–30 of 127 posts
Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#22Locked iPhone owned by law enforcement target will accept remote firmware push from trusted device?
Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#23Will this not increase the economic value of stealing iPhones? Right now, in India, iPhone sales compete with used iPhones. With an option to unbrick phones, what methods are preventing a new market of “Chor-Bazaar for iPhones” (market for stolen iPhones)?
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Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
The latest AirPods have usb-c, with the higher tier also including wireless charging. If there was ever a device category to remove usb-c it would be AirPods (which would still be a terrible idea)
I would argue the opposite: AirPods are a pure "client" device — they need to be connected to by something, they don't connect to something; and they have no display, input method, or other means to initiate/change Bluetooth pairing, if the state of the firmware somehow gets in a mucked-up state and they need to be flashed. The only possible way to recover broken AirPods is via tethered recovery. An iPhone is the opp…
> I would argue the opposite: AirPods are a pure "client" device — they need to be connected to by something, they don't connect to something; and they have no display, input method, or other means to initiate/change Bluetooth pairing, if the state of the firmware somehow gets in a mucked-up state and they need to be flashed. The only possible way to recover broken AirPods is via tethered recovery.
Huh?
The charging case (which is an integral part of the system known as "Airpods") has a display (LED indicator) and an input method (a pushbutton).
Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#25Locked iPhone owned by law enforcement target will accept remote firmware push from trusted device?
It _sounds_ like this is just the standard restore path, only now it can be done wirelessly. Restore/DFU is an erase all content path - there are some cases where restore can avoid erasing the old data, but that path requires the device pin, and if you know the pin, then you definitionally don't need to jump through any hoops to unlock the device.
Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#26As a former hardware engineer, if it can be restored wirelessly or otherwise, it's not a brick yet. Keep trying, you'll get there! ;)
semi-brick
Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a chance. iOS installs are cryptographically bound to the hardware itself installed on. It’s not possible to get an iPhone to boot an iOS install without an Apple server providing that cryptographic binding.
Assuming it's implemented properly, that is. The whole reason Jailbreaks exist is due to bugs in Apple's implementations.
Almost certainly not affected; even if this new recovery mode had no signature verification at all, you would have to deal with Apple’s impenetrable-since-A12 secure boot.
Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#28Will this not increase the economic value of stealing iPhones? Right now, in India, iPhone sales compete with used iPhones. With an option to unbrick phones, what methods are preventing a new market of “Chor-Bazaar for iPhones” (market for stolen iPhones)?
No, this is not adding a new version of resetting a device, it's just providing a mode where if your phone is bricked you don't need to find a computer and cable to get back to a working state if you're with someone else who has an iPhone.
The thing the limits the resale/theft value of an iPhone is activation lock - not the ability to reset the device. Resetting or restoring an iPhone does not remove activation lock, and this does not change that.
Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#29If that can be done "off grid," then I welcome it because it's likely a jailbreak vector
Curious what you want from a jailbreak at this point? It seems all of the old things that were actually helpful have found them into first party software, or at least in the sanctioned third party. (internet tethering, emulators, side loaded apps, etc.)
Re: Bricked iPhone 16 Can Be Restored Wirelessly Using Another iPhone
#30As a former hardware engineer, if it can be restored wirelessly or otherwise, it's not a brick yet. Keep trying, you'll get there! ;)
Keep trying to de-dramaticize language, you'll get there!
Seriously though, the last time I truely bricked something was because I overwrote the bootloader on a chip that had no other way to flash, and it was an all-in-one, so I couldn't solder to the chip and reprogram it directly. Now that was a brick. A board that I can still solder to a chip and bus pirate my way to victory, isn't a brick. Being able to do so wirelessly? psh.
Edit: I'm remembering now, that hardware was an Apple keyboard. I wanted to flash the firmware so I could have capslock be left Ctrl in hardware, but I flashed the wrong thing and then could not flash an updated image to it.