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Apple Quietly Introduced iPhone Reboot Code Which is Locking Out Cops (www.404media.co)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Apple quietly introduced code into iOS 18.1 which reboots the device if it has not been unlocked for a period of time, reverting it to a state which improves the security of iPhones overall and is making it harder for police to break into the devices, according to multiple iPhone security experts.

On Thursday, 404 Media reported that law enforcement officials were freaking out that iPhones which had been stored for examination were mysteriously rebooting themselves. At the time the cause was unclear, with the officials only able to speculate why they were being locked out of the devices. Now a day later, the potential reason why is coming into view.

“Apple indeed added a feature called ‘inactivity reboot’ in iOS 18.1.,” Dr.-Ing. Jiska Classen, a research group leader at the Hasso Plattner Institute, tweeted after 404 Media published on Thursday along with screenshots that they presented as the relevant pieces of code.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 days ago (3 children)

You can use GrapheneOS, a security-focused version of Android which includes auto-reboot, timers that automatically turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth after you don't use them for a certain period of time, a duress PIN/Password that wipes all the data from your device after it's entered, as well as many other incredibly useful features.

It's fully hardened from the ground up, including the Linux kernel, C library, memory allocator, SELinux policies, default firewall rules, and other vital system components.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (2 children)

graphene is ONLY for select Google pixel phones though. I wish this was made much clearer by the team and advocates.

its a real shame because pixels, although big in the USA are typically a minority of most android ecosystems elsewhere, and bootloader hijinks keep some perfectly capable phones from being easy to switch over to, even if they were supported.

Even on samsungs, which are much better for flashing than they used to be - my options on a year old flagship for a decent ROM are pathetic compared to the old days.

so I would really love to use graphene, and go back to an open source ROM without crap on it, but pixels are such a bottom tier phone for their price in a lot of places, as much as I really really want the project go gain traction for their transparency and objectives.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

but pixels are such a bottom tier phone for their price in a lot of places

Not sure what you mean, you can get a used Pixel 6a for 120 EUR, which will continue to get updates for another 2.5 years. Show me another phone with such a great value proposition. There's a website that calculates how much each Pixel would cost you monthly (it's basically just price divided by update lifetime): https://pixel-pricing.netlify.app/

There are some really good deals, and I'd rather pay a little more for a phone that can actually be used privately, instead of buying some cheap Chinese, spyware-infested garbage that will fall apart after 2 years, and never gets any security updates.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Not sure what you mean, you can get a used Pixel 6a for 120 EUR, which will continue to get updates for another 2.5 years. Show me another phone with such a great value proposition. That's exactly my point, outside of the EU and north america, you're just very unlikely to find that scenario. I don't want to doxx myself here, but the going rate for the phone you mentioned is at minimum 300 euro equivalent - comparable flagships significantly cheaper. I have nothing against Pixels specifically - before the re-brand, I had nearly every Google Nexus phone ever made, and they were all amazing. They're just not acceptably priced in all markets for what they are, even used.

I'd argue however that there's much more to android than either Pixels OR chinese spyware crap - Samsung, Sony, and LG aren't always perfect, but often make very good products that if running a custom ROM, are every bit as secure as any pixel, while the hardware of pixels is generally a bit worse, but compensated for with better software optimisation. Buying into a false dichotomy that there is only one good android manufacturer puts us no further ahead than apple fanboys beholden to a largely good, but sometimes flawed ecosystem.

My ideal is that development can expand to other mainstream brands and OEMs, and that the interest in the graphene/ROM community picks up steam more broadly, rather than being siloed into pixels alone, and bound to the fate of google-specific hardware going forward.