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Every single iMessage to and from this man’s iPhone—his friends call him Wiz—has been sent to us by accident. We know about his job, sex life, and address. Apple, you might want to fix this.
The story is simple: a friend’s son had some trouble with his iPhone 4. Being an awesome mum, our friend took it into the Apple Store when her kid was at school. School. Not college or grad school, but I’m-under-18 school. When she got it back, her kid’s phone was in perfect working order—but it had also become a portal into another man’s private life. No matter how many times we’ve reset the phone and entered our friend’s information, every incoming and outgoing iMessage meant for Wiz shows up on her child’s phone. His phone had become her son’s phone—and there was an iMessage bevy of stuff you wouldn’t want your child to see.
The problem of iMessages winding up on the wrong screens isn’t new—we mentioned it back in December. At the time, the worry was that iPhone thieves could pry into your private communications. But that’s not what’s going on here—this is like a wiretap we didn’t ask for—and Wiz has no idea I’m looped in on the whole thing. He texts throughout the day like usual, oblivious to the snooping. Now we see just how big of a deal this obscure “bug” is: Your entire personal life could be flung open, and you’d never know.
Take our word for it—we’ve gotten to know Wiz pretty well.
You probably underestimate how much of yourself you casually pour into texts each day. We know enough about this guy to stalk him, blackmail him, and harass him, using nothing more than what we’ve picked up. Based on only a handful of chitchat breadcrumbs and some Google work, we pinned down Wiz’s home address, his Facebook profile, email address, personal information about friends, where he exercises, and—drumroll—the Apple store where he works. Yep! This Apple bug screwed an Apple employee—at the same store where our pal took her phone.
In all likelihood, Wiz’s messages are being broadcast to a phone he’s unaware of because he swapped his SIM card in while repairing our friend’s phone—permanently tethering his textual life to a phone that isn’t his. The theory that iMessages are deadbolted to SIM cards, rather than just being something you sign into a la Gmail, was bandied around by Ars Technica more than a month ago.
It’s impossible that Apple isn’t aware of this problem.
But as long as it’s the problem of thieves and their victims, maybe it’s not high enough on the shit list to correct.
But again, no wrongdoing was committed here—no lost phone or pilfered login. Just a routine trip to the Genius Bar that’s turned us into unwitting eavesdroppers. Hopefully this will be enough to give apple the message. Please fix this, guys.
Below, a some choice samples:
He booty-texts.
He works at Apple.
He wanted to kiss the legs of a coworker (bad idea!).
He and his friends liked swapping tranny pics.
He once got his blood pressure measured at the grocery store. Cough drops were on sale.
He enjoys splashing around with his girlfriends.
He pulls heartstrings.
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So, in theory, my old iPhone that Apple took off my hands because of a faulty home button could now be in someone else’s possession and still be receiving all my iMessages? Awesome.
Whoopsie.
I’ve had problems – not quite this severe – with iMessage recently. Whenever I received a message from my friend’s iPhone 4, somehow, I got it sent to me as an email via 02, and her message was attached as a .txt file. Anyone know why this might be?
iOS 5, in terms of glitches and bugs, has to be the worst iOS version to date. In terms of features, it is the best. But unfortunately, iOS 5 has made my smooth running (on iOS 4.3) iPad 2 into quite a slow beast every now and again, with frequent crashes, and often, it does not recognise the new multitasking gestures, which is annoying, as they are probably the most used feature of iOS 5 for me. I hope Apple manages to sort things out soon.
Could be worse! I could be rocking an Android phone!
Lame attempt to bring Android in this. Android has flaws and so does iOS. This one has nothing to do with Android. Let it go…
That maybe true, but once it’s fixed on iOS it’s fixed for all, not just a select few on the latest Android release.
That’s great for you and all other Apple users, but still has nothing to do with Android.
And yet this has been known about for a while and Apple have not acknowledged it, sent a warning to users about it or given any indication they are working on a fix. So when exactly are you expecting it to be fixed? Please stop trying to turn this into a fanboy fight, this is an iOS problem.
No Taf, you retard, they would just update the app and everyone would get an updated messaging app, problem solved.
Doesn’t need an entirely new OS version to fix a dumb bug.
How does it feel to be beta testers for Apple? /troll
Siri (beta) iMessage beta etc etc (this is what you would say if the shoe was on the other foot)
And this is why we need more aggressive moderation here; comments like this really do bring the place down; I’m all for free speech, but when you’re being a wanker for the sake of being a wanker….
I won’t have anyone calling one another names in the comments here — if you want to fight it out, take it to Twitter / offline. Consider yourselves put on the naughty step for 10 minutes’ time-out.
Whoa Whoa Whao there, looks like Spatchmo might need to step in her and knock a few heads together yes?
Everybody needs to listen to Kat and play nice!
What was his BP? You kinda left me hanging there Sam…
I would be sorely tempted to drop kick anyone who sent me so many hash tags in a frikkin text message
Agreed, Hashtags are for twitter, not text messages. Why not just say what you mean.
I hope let the poor guy know about this. If you haven’t then posting personal information like this is a bit iffy…
It’s not really personal information seeing as there’s nothing to identify him. I could tell you what company somebody works at, what they like doing in their spare time and whether they fancy boys or girls and you’d never know or be able to work out who it was. I could also give you his date of birth, where he was born and his girlfriend’s first name and you’d probably still be none the wiser. Obviously posting any of these latter things would be a bit dubious but what’s been put here is all with enough precaution that nothing ‘iffy’ has been revealed.
Oh I know how easy it is to fine people (after all most people are on Facebook so really all you need is their name) but there is the matter of data protection in my mind.
Say it was my messages they were receiving – I would definitely be seeking legal advice if Giz uploaded my messages and pictures without seeking permission first.
Obviously I could be totally off mark here with regards to data protection but it would certainly be a courtesy for Giz to let him know at the very least.
*find lol
Does anyone know what is being done to the phone to cause this?
Just saying “a trip to the genius bar” doesn’t really help us understand the “bug” and what’s causing it. Could we accidentally make this happen to our iphones (if we later decide to sell them)?
My understanding is that it may be related to registered products under your name against your Apple ID.
To be sure anyway, if you sell, lose or just generally don’t have your iphone anymore, make sure you keep the SIM (destroy if it is not required) then log into apple service and remove that phone from your registered products.
https://supportprofile.apple.com/
This will prevent iMessage (instead of SMSs) being sent to the new owner/thief.
This guy needs to get away from the hashtag abuser…she’s clearly nuts in the head/bunny boiler!