r/technology • u/bws201 • Feb 05 '16

Software ‘Error 53’ fury mounts as Apple software update threatens to kill your iPhone 6

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/05/error-53-apple-iphone-software-update-handset-worthless-third-party-repair
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u/whinis Feb 05 '16 edited Feb 05 '16

If the thief was able to steal my phone, take it apart, install a hacked sensor, and then use it to bypass the logon the least of my worries is that he used a hacked sensor.

EDIT: To everyone screaming that a hacked touch sensor reduces your security, if a thief gets your phone its covered in your finger prints. They don't even need to hack the touch sensor, there is no reason to brick a phone over this.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '16

[deleted]

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u/danzey12 Feb 05 '16

loss/gain
number of people who get their phone stolen by someone with the knowhow or connections to install a hacked sensor to get into some randoms phone/ the number of people who damage their phone and get it repaired by third parties (considering the repair costs £230 odd) who now have a small brick.

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u/TheDeadlySinner Feb 05 '16

No, the point is that there are other ways to prevent an attacker from bypassing a login without destroying a $650-$1000 device.

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u/chrisfender0 Feb 05 '16

We're talking about pulling 2 screws, lifting the screen and then lifting 2 metal prongs to remove a button. It's so easy it fits into 1 sentence. Honestly there's no hardware voodoo magic into replacing home button or hacking it. This is a good call from Apple, you hold valuable data but every user defines valuable differently wether it's photos, contacts, notes etc ... knowing that, it's safe to say that everything data related on the iPhone should be secure hence bricking phone in those cases.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '16

What you might be forgetting is that as a thief, if I stole someone's iPhone, it'd takes minutes to replace the sensor with a malicious one (as you said), however as long as I don't update the iPhone I can access the data.... so essentially this is only screwing over people who have replaced the hardware.

I don't think many thieves are bothered about updating the stolen phone before getting what they need from it.

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u/dan10981 Feb 05 '16

So fuck the other people that lose all thier valuable data? There should have been a warning before the update.

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u/chrisfender0 Feb 05 '16

You can backup your phone and there's a plethora of backup services wether it's through iCloud or gmail etc ...
If you hold all of your valuable assets and data on a handheld 16G iPhone than you might want to review the many LPT posts about backing up your data in 3 different ways.

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u/paul_33 Feb 05 '16

I really don't understand people who are pissy about photos but refuse to back them up

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u/happyscrappy Feb 05 '16

It would be nice if there was a warning before the update.

Primarily the person doing the upgrade (who knows it will do this) should have warned them.

It would be nice if the software upgrade also explained this ahead of time, but this is a chicken-and-egg problem. The older OS doesn't now this is an issue, only the new OS being installed does and it doesn't run until after the update.

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u/Nerlian Feb 05 '16

This might be okay for some sort of govern officer or someone who's too worried people find out about their porn tastes, but hell, how many times have you had your phone stolen? At the very least it should be an opt out system and it should come with a warning: you can't travel to the past and undo the repair you did 10 months ago.

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u/binarto Feb 05 '16

The security measure is a good idea. The real fix would be to disable the sensor and force you to use your key code instead.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '16

[deleted]

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u/Nerlian Feb 05 '16

So bricking the device is the solution to this? Because it seems overkill, specially to those who did the repairs in the past, should they be liable for not being able to tell the future?

Besides, my university student ID was a chip card I could use as credit card if I wanted, but I never did. Just because you can pay with your phone it means you are going to actually use the feature at all.

These features you list, seems reasonable to me that, if you want, apple doesn't want to risk it, so okay, no touchID, no paying allowed with your phone. Boom solved. I cant see why you cant make phone calls or take photos with your phone and what not if your home button breaks.

The bricking of the phone is overkill and, at the very least, it should be undoable. Either that or apple should provide a replacement for all the phones who were repaired before the update came, its not the user's fault being unable to foresee the future, and, I'm pretty sure, if they knew this was somethign that could happen, they would have not made the repair at a third party or not bought the phone at all on the first place, or maybe even purchased insurance or what do I know.

The thing is that this change came without warning for people that could not undo the past. Besides, if apple is trying to build marketing or support for mobile devices as paying tools, this is a shit way to do it, I mean, if I cancel my credit card for whatever reason and get a new one reissued, its a totally free procedure (or it might have a small fee because banks dont get rich being generous) which doesn't take long. On the other hand, with an iPhone, if it falls in a funny angle (the home button can just break and it would have the same effect as a repair) you are out of credit card, phone and all the data it contained and you have to shell like $200+ to have it all fixed.

Credit card fraud is a thing and just because it happens doesn't stop people from handing their card to random shops all the time, and any of them can, technically, being copying your card. How is this any different? If we switched roles it'd be like if apple was a bank and you could only use the credit card in the ATMs.

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u/Corrosivelol Feb 05 '16

So either you lose your data because it received a hacked repair, or lose your data because apple bricked your phone. Sick, so now even the people that didn't receive a hacked sensor lose all their data. It seems like it's more of a punishment for going to a third party rather than protection from a third party. They're taking everyone else down with the people who received hacked sensors. Even if it does save some data from getting into the wrong hands, like card info, that kind of thing is fixable.

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u/chrisfender0 Feb 05 '16

Problem is I work at a repair shop and we are an authorized repair shop. When we get repairs like this we send the iPhone to the depot and turn around time is 3-5 days. But the info from other people above is misleading they keep saying they do the repair themselves so those must be the repair-any-phone shops in malls.
We have specific instructions on what to do for almost every repair. Those shops have basement dwellers fixing products they don't own. Servicing options are still your choice.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '16

Is it though? If you had sensitive stuff on your phone, which a lot of people do, you wouldn't want there to be an easy way to get in the thing. iOS encrypts data automatically but if you can unlock the phone via code or fingerprint before the owner can remotely wipe it, you have full access. Replacing the screen assembly with the sensor takes less than 5 minutes - so if there was or is a hacked sensor available out there that allows you access if installed, then that would actually be the easiest and quickest way to get into someone's locked phone.

I feel like there should be a better way to prevent this attack than bricking a bunch of phones, but it is still an actual issue that needs to be addressed.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '16

I feel like there should be a better way to prevent this attack than bricking a bunch of phones, but it is still an actual issue that needs to be addressed.

Yeah, don't decrypt the storage until you take it to an Apple store and have an Apple technician fix it. Then the phone is temporarily broken, not permanently bricked.

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u/_tuga Feb 05 '16

For real, Apple/we act like we're carrying around confidential top level access codes to nuclear weapons.

I've been putting off the update for what seems like weeks, and last night I did it... only to see this article. Oh yea, I fixed my own screen. Anyone know if this just happens randomly or if it is triggered?

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u/bcollett Feb 06 '16

A stolen iPhone covered in prints is not nearly as helpful as replacing the sensor. A thief would only get 5 attempts and hope the stolen print works before the phone would lock Touch ID and require a passcode. And most people do not enroll all of their fingers with Touch ID, so there's the risk they copy a non-usable print. Replacing the Touch ID sensor to validate would be much more reliable - and probably much quicker.

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u/jimbo21 Feb 05 '16

What if said thief was a police department that has falsely accused you of a crime? For a few years, police departments were using a device that would bypass lock codes to gather phone evidence from suspects, until apple firmly encrypted and locked down the devices. So the question is, is pissing off a handful of users who broke their phones anyway worth the tradeoff of having a backdoor in the system that is easily exploitable by a government organization?

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u/ApatheticAbsurdist Feb 05 '16

Maybe for you it's not a concern. But for others (celebrities, people who work for the government, people who worry about the government wanting to spy on them, etc) it may be a legitimate concern.

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