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Apple Bug Alert
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alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by IslandNiles:
“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?
hungover
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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
hungover
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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.
alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by hungover:
“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.
kidspud
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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
Stiggles
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by IslandNiles:
“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
IslandNiles
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by Stiggles:
“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.
alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by kidspud:
“....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.
Stiggles
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by IslandNiles:
“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....
Stiggles
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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!
alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by Stiggles:
“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.
IslandNiles
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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.
IslandNiles
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by Stiggles:
“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.
alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by IslandNiles:
“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.
IslandNiles
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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.
kidspud
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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
alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by IslandNiles:
“... 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.
psionic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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.
hungover
30-08-2013
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?
alanwarwic
30-08-2013
Originally Posted by psionic:
“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.
hungover
01-09-2013
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
cnbcwatcher
01-09-2013
Originally Posted by alanwarwic:
“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.
alanwarwic
01-09-2013
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.
psionic
01-09-2013
The strings a total gibberish even in Arabic apparently. Looks like cock-up rather then any conspiracy.
alanwarwic
01-09-2013
Would have been a far bigger cock up if the string was "three blind mice"
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