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How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

rambo.codes

51–60 of 126 posts

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#51
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t it in OS X before that?

Documentation claims 10.6, which is the equivalent OS X version (both are the 2009 releases).

That's actually just for the block-based APIs like notify_register_dispatch(), the other notify APIs have no availability annotations at all.

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#53

The exploit as described doesn't "brick" the device; that would require permanently disabling it. A tethered restore would be all that's required to recover in this case.

From observation, "brick" has evolved, as things do in language. In practice, it rarely means the traditional definition you refer to, but the softer one used here.

And for that reason I wouldn't hassle laymen over it but among the HN crowd I expect a bit more care. An "anything goes" attitude makes communication more difficult.

"Soft brick" is the correct term that already exists.

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From observation, "brick" has evolved, as things do in language. In practice, it rarely means the traditional definition you refer to, but the softer one used here.

Almost like a "soft"-brick, if you would.

Thus, perhaps "loafed" as in something brick-like, but which may also be soft. And a "loafed" device, being idle, would be loafing.

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#55

The exploit as described doesn't "brick" the device; that would require permanently disabling it. A tethered restore would be all that's required to recover in this case.

More importantly, the single line only forces a reboot; even if we consider needing external fixes to be a brick, the title is still incorrect.

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#56
post #55

The exploit as described doesn't "brick" the device; that would require permanently disabling it. A tethered restore would be all that's required to recover in this case.

More importantly, the single line only forces a reboot; even if we consider needing external fixes to be a brick, the title is still incorrect.

It doesn't just force a reboot, it forces a never-ending loop of reboots, rebooting each time you reboot it.

> The result is a device that’s soft-bricked, requiring a device erase and restore from backup.

Requiring a device erase isn't a full brick, no, but it's still pretty serious.

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#57

The exploit as described doesn't "brick" the device; that would require permanently disabling it. A tethered restore would be all that's required to recover in this case.

Correct. The terminology is wrong. It's an annoying, repeated DoS that doesn't ruin the device permanently but could lose user data if it must be erased.

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#58
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a comment under the story about the recent YouTube vulnerability where one could unmask the related Google account and its owner using the standard YouTube API (something similar to that anyway), and they explained a lot of lesser-known nuances in establishing values for bounties like these, and it helped explain a lot (not all) of the reasons for what might seem like low-ball/high-ball valuations on the surfa…

is this the one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43025038

That’s definitely the one I thought of

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#59
post #41

The exploit as described doesn't "brick" the device; that would require permanently disabling it. A tethered restore would be all that's required to recover in this case.

“Bricking” isn’t a rigorously defined term, it’s more like “realtime” in the sense that it comes with an implicit “(for this particular user in this particular scenario)”. For most users a device is bricked if it doesn’t turn on and work when you press the power button. For most readers here, using dev tools to re-flash a bootloader would be fairly easy but if USB stops working it might be game over. I’m sure there a…

Incorrect. Bricking means a device becomes a doorstop that cannot be resurrected or repaired by the user non-invasively. That's the whole point of the term.

Re: How a single line of code could brick your iPhone

#60
post #3

Neat, $17,500 is pretty good, I’m so used to these blog posts being for peanuts, or where companies fix the vulnerability but don’t pay out at all. Apple’s gotten better about this since 2019.

Maybe Zerodium would've paid $75k but that would be less ethical because Israel and America would weaponize it.
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