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

submitted 4 days ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

264 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (2 children)

You joke but people do that. I've seen people repurpose their old android phones to host small services on their home networks. I won't comment on how reasonable it is because battery, but it's a thing.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I really doubt an iOS update will affect people using android phones as servers.

[–] modus@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

It would affect me. I have an android virtual machine running on my iPhone.

[–] BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one 10 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Literally no difference between a low power SOC RaspberryPi or a fucking phone which is the same thing with a built-in display.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What exactly is the phone fucking?

[–] TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Mostly my mental health.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

To shreds we all say. Hope you are well though.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Except the price, which is much lower for the SBC, way much lower if one uses one of the lower end Orange Pi or Banana Pi SBCs.

Also you can put Linux on the SBCs (which always come unlocked) hence do way more with them as servers than if one has to use Android as the OS.

I mean, I can get it if people with the technical chops, love for technical challenges and an old and pretty much worthless Android phone, configure it as a server if only because "why not?!", but it's not exactly a great option considering that a 40 bucks SBC can do the same, only better, more easily and with far more possibilities (given that it will be running Linux rather than Android).

PS: Actually somebody below mention mobile network connection, which, thinking about it, would be a good reason to use an old Android phone as a server since it has built-in support for 3G (unless it's quite old) whilst the SBC needs it add to it which might be a problem for the cheaper SBCs (just wondering about how I would get around to do it, I think you need to connect a USB dongle to it and it has to be something compatible with Armbian Linux)

[–] __matthew__@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

When you consider the price of a used android (ie. Oneplus 6T for $80 on ebay) and compare it spec for spec with a raspberry pi, it's actually a really good deal. Like you get:

Built in backup power supply (battery)
8-core power-efficient CPU (SDM845)
Embedded sensors (microphone, magnetometer, gyro)

The way I set mine up is to run the server directly on Android using Termux, having an app autostart Termux on boot, and making sure to disable battery optimizations on the app. And then I just had the phone always plugged into the outlet to maintain the battery (and of course android would just trickle charge / disable once full charged).

Of course this isn't perfect because you still have much more variability in play (at the OS level) than an RPi (along with not having a standard environment like debian unless you use proot), but it overall is a very powerful setup that works quite well.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I don't think the sensors really matter for a server but the rest makes some sense.

Still, 80 bucks will buy you quite literally a Mini-PC (a really crummy one, granted) which can run more server tasks because it has as much or more memory and storage and isn't hindered by there being an Android OS layer there doing nothing useful, and which is absolutelly and 100% under your control because it boots into your OS of choice.

Half than that will buy you a crummy SBC which probably de facto has as much capability to run server tasks as that Oneplus (it's weaker but doesn't have Android there eating up resources) though in my experience those things tend to be a bit finicky.

I don't think it's actually worth it to spend $80 on an used phone to use as a server (unless you do need UPS-like features or built-in mobile nertwork access) since you quite literally have better options brand new for that money, but if you have one around it can make sense even if it's a bit more work getting it going and is not fully under your control (unless we're talking about something jailbroken where you can install Oxygen or Lineage on, so a Pixel would probably be a better choice).

That said, there is a certain technical elegance in the whole notion of repurposing an Android Phone to be a home server.