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Apple Bug Alert
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hungover
29-08-2013
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...s-x-10-8-apps/
paulbrock
29-08-2013
Quote:
“ if you send the characters in an SMS, it can initiate a revolving crash of Messages on both OS X and iOS. We confirmed this on both operating systems. You can also deliver the string of text via a web link.”

muhahahaha

The TC article seems to revolve around ways to crash other people's devices...
jabbamk1
29-08-2013
I'm so tempted to post the sentence on here.....
hungover
29-08-2013
Originally Posted by jabbamk1:
“I'm so tempted to post the sentence on here.....”

don't think the mods would be too happy
hungover
29-08-2013
Originally Posted by paulbrock:
“muhahahaha

The TC article seems to revolve around ways to crash other people's devices...”

These guys have been having fun with it

https://twitter.com/nickdepetrillo
hungover
29-08-2013
Am sorely tempted to set the SSID of my lumia's wifi hotspot to it and stand outside starbucks tomorrow just to wind up the iOwners...
flagpole
29-08-2013
Oh I had not thought if changing my ssid
alanwarwic
29-08-2013
Bug?

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?
hungover
29-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“Bug?

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/showthre...8#post17805028

It seems that it is Unicode rather than Arabic
IslandNiles
29-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“Bug?

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?”

It's not a hoax. The string was posted on this very thread, but thankfully it's now been removed.
hungover
29-08-2013
Originally Posted by IslandNiles:
“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?
hungover
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by IslandNiles:
“It's not a hoax. The string was posted on this very thread, but thankfully it's now been removed.”

Apple are aware enough of the issue to delete any posts asking about it on their own forum.
IslandNiles
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by hungover:
“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.
Stiggles
30-08-2013
Is it really bad i want to send this to my pals with iphones?
Lidtop2013
30-08-2013
Thought it was something to get worried about for a second. Phew!!
hungover
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by IslandNiles:
“I wasn't denying that Apple are aware of the issue. ”

Sorry wasn't suggesting you were
Lidtop2013
30-08-2013
So is this the same issue I've been having for the past god knows how long? Sometimes safari will just freeze up. Not THAT often just sometimes
psionic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by Lidtop2013:
“So is this the same issue I've been having for the past god knows how long? Sometimes safari will just freeze up. Not THAT often just sometimes”

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.
sancheeez
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by hungover:
“Am sorely tempted to set the SSID of my lumia's wifi hotspot to it and stand outside starbucks tomorrow just to wind up the iOwners...”

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!
Philip Wales
30-08-2013
^^^ No I don't think it is fun, to try to crash other peoples devices. Suppose you think hackers are great and modern day "Robbin Hoods" until they hack your "Play account"
alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by hungover:
“Sorry wasn't suggesting you were”

Well I'm suggesting you post without quite understanding what you are talking about. (re Unicode)

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.
hungover
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“Well I'm suggesting you post without quite understanding what you are talking about. (re Unicode)

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.
hungover
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by Philip Wales:
“^^^ No I don't think it is fun, to try to crash other peoples devices. Suppose you think hackers are great and modern day "Robbin Hoods" until they hack your "Play account"”

fair comment but it only crashes apps not the whole OS. It is more of an annoyance, for now at least
alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by hungover:
“fair comment but it only crashes apps not the whole OS.”

No one knows what it fully does or how it came about.
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)
kidspud
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“No one knows what it fully does or how it came about.
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.
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