Options
Apple Bug Alert
[Deleted User]
Posts: 145
Forum Member
✭
Prepare for a tough weekend Apple owners.
A short unicode string has been discovered that will crash any apple device running anything lower than ios7 or Mavericks.
http://doesmyphonecrash.tumblr.com/
Follow the link at your own risk
More on the story at Techcrunch
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/29/bug-in-apples-coretext-allows-specific-string-of-characters-to-crash-ios-6-os-x-10-8-apps/
A short unicode string has been discovered that will crash any apple device running anything lower than ios7 or Mavericks.
http://doesmyphonecrash.tumblr.com/
Follow the link at your own risk
More on the story at Techcrunch
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/29/bug-in-apples-coretext-allows-specific-string-of-characters-to-crash-ios-6-os-x-10-8-apps/
0
Comments
muhahahaha
The TC article seems to revolve around ways to crash other people's devices...
don't think the mods would be too happy
These guys have been having fun with it
https://twitter.com/nickdepetrillo
Reads like a 'designed within the OS' drive by malware/spy trick to me.
That's the thing with coding. Spotting intended bugs is often near impossible. Yet the fact that it applies to arabic sticks out like a sore thumb.
Not a hoax though?
Hoax?
Only if apple owners have developed a sense of humour
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=17805028#post17805028
It seems that it is Unicode rather than Arabic
It's not a hoax. The string was posted on this very thread, but thankfully it's now been removed.
did it work even though the poster had added spaces?
Apple are aware enough of the issue to delete any posts asking about it on their own forum.
I wasn't denying that Apple are aware of the issue.
Sorry wasn't suggesting you were
As far as I can tell it just causes Safari to immediately crash and dump you back to the home screen. They've already fixed it on iOS 7. Which should be released to the public soon. They may release a separate patch for iOS 6 as this has been widely publicised.
I like your thinking.
So much so, I tried it on my own 920. The string doesn't paste in properly unfortunately. The first couple of characters just don't paste in. Shame.
I did send a page link to it to the guy at work who sits opposite me and has an iPhone. It did indeed crash his browser. I thought sending him a text of it might have been a bit harsh!
Off to see if it will paste in as my bluetooth identity now.
Fun fun fun!
It is a fairly light guess but fair guess that it came from Apple's Israel development team.
Rather than using the arabic unicode for espionage, it could have been an innocent, maybe accidental left, test string.
One thing for sure. Apple's proprietary nature and walled garden policies make it harder for these things to be ever picked by security teams.
It often looks that people making good use of them only bring them to light when they are about to disappear.
Whatever the truth on this, there are certainly many a dozen other ways to spy on/hack you.
erm... What about the ios3.0 SMS hack that gave the sender full control of the phone? Was that an intentional testing string?
I only ask because I am clearly to dumb to understand that Apple are perfect in every way.
fair comment but it only crashes apps not the whole OS. It is more of an annoyance, for now at least
If being the start segment of malware it is likely missing a payload.
The crash could even have now opened a backdoor to everyone affected.
There could even now be a team of people now plundering all these devices remotely. (very very unlikely)
Maybe best if you people don't start speculating.:rolleyes:
I'm not sure why you are thankful it has been removed.
it had spaces so as to not work. the only danger is people knowing about it. and it is linked in the OP.