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

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

220 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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[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

The way this article is framed sounds like bullshit to me. 18.1 was released less than 2 weeks ago. Any phone running this version of iOS would have had to already been in custody and somehow upgraded to this version, or otherwise brought into custody very recently—too recently for this to have already posed such a problem that law enforcement is “freaking out” and reporting it to the media.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Don't they auto update the OS when connected to a charger? But even then, that would have triggered a reboot already.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

This is the easiest thing for people with money, and motivation to avoid happening.

Remove the sim card if it's an older device, use a Faraday cage (your microwave is one) or a jammer. If you are the government you can also tell the telecom to block the phone from connecting

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Police may be leaving phones online in case it continues receiving relevant evidence (texts, emails, etc).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

I think you're seriously overestimating the technical prowess of the average law enforcement officer...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

The ars article mentioned 18.0 had a bug that caused random reboots so it might've been mostly that

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

iOS has auto update for a while and iOS users update their devices more often than Android. 2 weeks is not a long time for adoption of new version for iOS.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

The way this article is framed sounds like bullshit to me. 18.1 was released less than 2 weeks ago. Any phone running this version of iOS would have had to already been in custody and somehow upgraded to this version, or otherwise brought into custody very recently—too recently for this to have already posed such a problem that law enforcement is “freaking out” and reporting it to the media.

A non-insignificant amount of people have been running the public betas because of Apple intelligence, RCS / iMessage toys, UI customization, etc. For example, MixPanel reported about 2% of the iOS install base running 18.0 before 18.0's launch. IMHO, that's pretty crazy for a beta OS.

https://mixpanel.com/trends/#report/ios_18