This sounds like a violation of the CFAA per unauthorized use of computer resources. Think Apple would be held liable for it?
What computer resources are being used without authorization?
Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
11–20 of 46 posts
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#12Thanks for telling me about this. It's definitely not acceptable to appropriate such sensitive data without consent.
It’s not being appropriated. It’s E2EE. It’s a bug, but nothing more.
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#13This sounds like a violation of the CFAA per unauthorized use of computer resources. Think Apple would be held liable for it?
What computer resources are being used without authorization?
They gave Apple authorization to access their phone (the phone is not Apple property) in order to copy certain things into the cloud.
They uploaded new software and downloaded data they were not authorized to download without getting permission first.
I'm sure there is some cover your ass clause in the EULA that tries to protect them when they (accidentally or on purpose) violate the CFAA, but, in this case, they pretty clearly did things that exceeded their authorization.
The relevant part of the CFAA is a.1 (I removed the bits that are irrelevant):
> (a) Whoever—
> (1) having knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access, and by means of such conduct having obtained ... restricted data, as defined in ... causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it ...
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#14Thanks for telling me about this. It's definitely not acceptable to appropriate such sensitive data without consent.
It’s not being appropriated. It’s E2EE. It’s a bug, but nothing more.
Doesn't feel like a bug to me. After disabling iCloud Passwords I see a big nag in the Passwords menu asking me to enable it again; I don't remember that there on iOS 16.
And when it was enabled there was a nag for Passkeys or password family sharing or something like that. I guess they want people to use that now.
Also I don't understand how you could screw these things up repeatedly for so many features. iMessage is another one that iOS loves to enable again. I just checked: it's enabled again. Turned it off. And the one with Bluetooth that lapcat mentioned. I don't believe these things to be bugs.
But they really crossed the line for me with Passwords.
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#15Thanks for telling me about this. It's definitely not acceptable to appropriate such sensitive data without consent.
It’s not being appropriated. It’s E2EE. It’s a bug, but nothing more.
Nobody at this big corporation tested the settings before shipping? It should probably require FaceID and some steps.
That said, if you enable E2EE I don’t think it’s cause for much concern. You already use their closed source OS.
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not being appropriated. It’s E2EE. It’s a bug, but nothing more.
Doesn't feel like a bug to me. After disabling iCloud Passwords I see a big nag in the Passwords menu asking me to enable it again; I don't remember that there on iOS 16. And when it was enabled there was a nag for Passkeys or password family sharing or something like that. I guess they want people to use that now. Also I don't understand how you could screw these things up repeatedly for so many features. iMessage i…
> Also I don't understand how you could screw these things up repeatedly for so many features.
Seems like a generic bug in the settings system which is fairly complex. Pretty easy to see how something like that could happen.
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#17I recently got an OS update on my Macbook Pro and after reboot it forced me to change my password because "you can't have the same password on your laptop as in your icloud account". It's amazing how much apple feels the device I bought actually belongs to them :/
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
What computer resources are being used without authorization?
They gave Apple authorization to access their phone (the phone is not Apple property) in order to copy certain things into the cloud. They uploaded new software and downloaded data they were not authorized to download without getting permission first. I'm sure there is some cover your ass clause in the EULA that tries to protect them when they (accidentally or on purpose) violate the CFAA, but, in this case, they pre…
That definition quickly becomes absurd. If I run "cat a.txt b.txt" but only give it authorization to read a.txt, does that mean Richard Stallman (or whoever wrote the program) is breaking the law? You might say consent is implied in that case but:
1. I thought implied consent was out of fashion these days
2. What if it's something like an IDE that reads the surrounding directories? VS code does that and I certainly didn't know that feature even existed before I first opened it, so how could have given authorization? Is Microsoft in breach of the CFAA?
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#19Thank you for taking the time to post, wouldn’t have caught it otherwise
Re: Tell HN: iCloud Password Sync turns on by itself on iOS 17
#20Software has bugs unfortunately.
This is a bad response to Apple stealing personal information from millions of people. OP is not alone when it comes to iCloud partially or completely enabling itself upon updates. The problem is that malware is perfectly legal as long as you have some EULA somewhere to cover it.