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Old 30-08-2013, 16:04
alanwarwic
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This is a joke, surely. You sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Well, I think the 'fun bug' is a joke. We are well used to positivity on all things Apple.

And I'm not sure what you gain by promoting something as a conspiracy theory.
What is the conspiracy as I do not see one?
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Old 30-08-2013, 16:08
hungover
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We don't know how many found it or made use of it.

Obviously it came up in conversations when found to be finally fixed.
Considering it is in OS/X too, this Core Text 'bug' could have been live for a good 7 years now.
had ot been used criminally, it is likely that it would have been discovered before now as customers credit cards etc got caned.

in the event that there was a spike in fraud amongst iPad owners do you really think we would not have heard about it?

criminals surely would use it to the max knowing that the plug would eventually be pulled
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Old 30-08-2013, 16:11
hungover
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Well, I think the 'fun bug' is a joke. We are well used to positivity on all things Apple.

And I'm not sure what you gain by promoting something as a conspiracy theory.
What is the conspiracy as I do not see one?
you mean it is an intentional joke on apple's behalf?

that makes no sense.
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Old 30-08-2013, 16:48
alanwarwic
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you mean it is an intentional joke on apple's behalf?that makes no sense.
A bit of a laugh at Apple's expense maybe but its far more serious than that.
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Old 30-08-2013, 16:54
kidspud
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A bit of a laugh at Apple's expense maybe but its far more serious than that.
You've made several attempts to make it sound "far more serious", but I'm not sure if anyone is taking you seriously
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Old 30-08-2013, 16:56
Stiggles
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Yeah, really amusing. You'll say it's just because I'm an iPhone user and therefore don't have a sense of humour. But if this were about Android or Windows Phone or whatever, I wouldn't even think of sending something to another person with the deliberate intention of causing their apps to crash. It's pretty pathetic, in my view.
Must just be me but it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. In fact i would think i quite funny if it happened on Android.

But then i have a good sense of humour
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Old 30-08-2013, 17:02
IslandNiles
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Must just be me but it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. In fact i would think i quite funny if it happened on Android.

But then i have a good sense of humour
You'd think it was funny if someone sent you a text with the deliberate intention of putting your messages app in a constant crashing loop? Strange sense of humour.
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Old 30-08-2013, 17:07
alanwarwic
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....but I'm not sure if anyone is taking you seriously
Well, you do take it seriously not taking me seriously.

I'm 50/50 whether it was planted there purposely for the security services or it is very old historic unicode translation just accidentally gone wrong.

It is a bug that is extremely easy to date so a little truth may come out.
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Old 30-08-2013, 17:26
Stiggles
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You'd think it was funny if someone sent you a text with the deliberate intention of putting your messages app in a constant crashing loop? Strange sense of humour.
No, not strange. I'm just not a complete bore....
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Old 30-08-2013, 17:28
Stiggles
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Well, you do take it seriously not taking me seriously.

I'm 50/50 whether it was planted there purposely for the security services or it is very old historic unicode translation just accidentally gone wrong.

It is a bug that is extremely easy to date so a little truth may come out.
Whoa!!! To far now!!

It's a bug. A simple bug that Apple knew about but did nothing about oddly. But it's not a backdoor left open for any security services!
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Old 30-08-2013, 17:33
alanwarwic
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But it's not a backdoor left open for any security services!
Well, it is possible that in translating the Arabic Unicode the decision simply went accidentally wrong

Let me know how you calculate that to be true.
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Old 30-08-2013, 17:35
IslandNiles
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Well, it is possible that in translating the Arabic Unicode the decision simply went accidentally wrong

Let me know how you calculate that to be true.
But Alan, what's your basis for thinking it's anything to do with the security services? Quite a few of your posts have unsubstantiated fears about tracking or monitoring. They have the flavour of paranoia on many occasions.
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Old 30-08-2013, 17:36
IslandNiles
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No, not strange. I'm just not a complete bore....
I guess I'm boring then, because I wouldn't expect one of my friends to send me something that he knew would screw up my phone. Bit odd.
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Old 30-08-2013, 17:46
alanwarwic
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But Alan, what's your basis for thinking it's anything to do with the security services?
Why said that? I have plenty of times said I do not know the truth. There are only possibilities.

If it wasn't for the fact that they were all Arabic Unicode characters, I'd have been certain it was just another bug.
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Old 30-08-2013, 18:00
IslandNiles
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Why said that? I have plenty of times said I do not know the truth. There are only possibilities.

If it wasn't for the fact that they were all Arabic Unicode characters, I'd have been certain it was just another bug.
Well, it's not unlike the way you go on about Apple and Google tracking you through wifi assisted location fixing, even though it's been pointed out to you many times by various people that it doesn't work like that.
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Old 30-08-2013, 18:09
kidspud
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Why said that? I have plenty of times said I do not know the truth. There are only possibilities.

If it wasn't for the fact that they were all Arabic Unicode characters, I'd have been certain it was just another bug.
Why did you say 50/50? Based on what
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Old 30-08-2013, 18:11
alanwarwic
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... even though it's been pointed out to you many times by various people that it doesn't work like that.
Knowledgeable people corrected some wrong assumptions on IOS's unique GPS system operation.

I put my thoughts down on how I think things work, which developed into me understanding things better.
Just read this thread to see where comments go well astray.
A gentle bug or not, I personally would not choose to become a guinea pig for it

Personally I enjoy being corrected on things. How it works is fascinating.
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Old 30-08-2013, 18:17
psionic
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Considering it is in OS/X too, this Core Text 'bug' could have been live for a good 7 years now.
Doesn't seem to affect the older versions of OS X just the current Mountain Lion. The Mavericks beta seems fine too.
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Old 30-08-2013, 19:18
hungover
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If the text were posted in Unicode (or hex etc), would it still crash things?

Using a Unicode convertor such as

http://mylanguages.org/converter.php

results in

سمَ....

or is it the translation process that effs up CoreText?

*** Dear mods, I have deleted 90% of the string, if it affects anything then that is a new bug that has been discovered and definitely not my fault***

EDIT_____ ok, so if I post in Unicode the forum translates it automatically... guess I should have posted with code tags

Code:
سمَـ
Nah, that doesn't help either?
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Old 30-08-2013, 20:05
alanwarwic
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Doesn't seem to affect the older versions of OS X just the current Mountain Lion. The Mavericks beta seems fine too.
Seems Arabic was added in OS X Lion so maybe Mountain Lion was meant to remove the niggles.
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Old 01-09-2013, 09:51
hungover
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More codes are being discovered http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013...-from-a-crash/

the shorter codes might be usable as a phone WiFi hotspot ssid
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Old 01-09-2013, 13:21
cnbcwatcher
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Seems Arabic was added in OS X Lion so maybe Mountain Lion was meant to remove the niggles.
I have Lion on my Macbook Air. Does that mean my Air could crash or is it only Mountain Lion? Let's hope they fix this known problem soon.
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Old 01-09-2013, 19:19
alanwarwic
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A small mystery is that a Russian guy tweeted it all back in February so it it is amazing it never went viral back then. I guess he had been studying those new Core Text modules.

"No-one has yet come up with a way to exploit these crashes for code execution, at least as far as I am aware"

The easy part is getting an OS to cause the crash but a fair people in Russia who saw it would have been trying to inject code for 6 months now.
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Old 01-09-2013, 19:36
psionic
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The strings a total gibberish even in Arabic apparently. Looks like cock-up rather then any conspiracy.
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Old 01-09-2013, 20:24
alanwarwic
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Would have been a far bigger cock up if the string was "three blind mice"
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