It's an attack vector for which there will probably shortly be virii and worms. We've all had virii and worms before, I can't see why this one would be much worse. Heck, once in college the animation lab was infected with a virus that wiped out all the image files it found, including every texture file we had on our file server. That cost us days of work. This doesn't seem to have that much payload potential.
So... maybe it would make international calls, silently running up my phone bill? The telcoms would shut that down REAL fast when it starts to endanger scarce international bandwidth. There would be some class action suit filed immediately, the charges suspended until the suit settles, and ultimately dismissed.
It'd all go to arbitration per the cell phone contracts.
I'd be more concerned of the data that people have on their iphones that can be skimmed, and the fact that the conversations can be recorded.. than the running up international phone calls.
What would it do with recorded conversations? It couldn't upload them to a central server because the load of even a small percent of iPhones trying to simultaneously contact any single server would CRUSH the system. It would take a seriously distributed system (that's hard) or the resources of whole datacenters (that's also hard) to be able to do it. And mind you, again, you have only a short time window this is possible before the carriers shut down the connections to protect their own networks from the iPhone load
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I'm seeing numerous industrial espionage options. The ability to operate the camera and video capabilities of the new 3GS also is unnerving.
Remember, someone got into twitter's internal documents because someone else used the same password in more than one spot. Now imagine someone getting someone's saved passwords file from Safari.
Or their email.
You're thinking of this as if someone's going to do this to ALL the cellphones. Certainly that would create a LOT of data.
I'm thinking it would be a useful attack vector for identity theft..
By targeting specific people instead of everyone, you maybe have a few weeks to do damage instead of a few hours. Okay, now we're cooking. So then, how will you target it? Do you solicit for potential victims first, promising you can grab someone's corporate e-mail for a certain fee, and hope you don't get caught before you can make some money? Or do you target your own friends? Or
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That might or might not be overstating the risks :) Obviously if you get by scot free and nothing happens to you it's a mild risk.
If you're someone who has vital information lifted from you or used to cause further harm.. it can be a great problem.
Perhaps it is an overstatement of the risks.. what bothers me is the mentality of a lot of the Apple fans I've talked to who've informed me that the Iphone is running an Apple OS, and Apple OS's "don't get viruses."
Another coworker said that it would be very interesting to watch the effects of this. Might be nothing. All the same, I hope Apple gets a fix out there shortly.
It's an attack vector for which there will probably shortly be virii and worms. We've all had virii and worms before, I can't see why this one would be much worse. Heck, once in college the animation lab was infected with a virus that wiped out all the image files it found, including every texture file we had on our file server. That cost us days of work. This doesn't seem to have that much payload potential.
So... maybe it would make international calls, silently running up my phone bill? The telcoms would shut that down REAL fast when it starts to endanger scarce international bandwidth. There would be some class action suit filed immediately, the charges suspended until the suit settles, and ultimately dismissed.
I, uh, have enemies worse than that. :)
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It'd all go to arbitration per the cell phone contracts.
I'd be more concerned of the data that people have on their iphones that can be skimmed, and the fact that the conversations can be recorded.. than the running up international phone calls.
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Remember, someone got into twitter's internal documents because someone else used the same password in more than one spot. Now imagine someone getting someone's saved passwords file from Safari.
Or their email.
You're thinking of this as if someone's going to do this to ALL the cellphones. Certainly that would create a LOT of data.
I'm thinking it would be a useful attack vector for identity theft..
Reply
Reply
If you're someone who has vital information lifted from you or used to cause further harm.. it can be a great problem.
Perhaps it is an overstatement of the risks.. what bothers me is the mentality of a lot of the Apple fans I've talked to who've informed me that the Iphone is running an Apple OS, and Apple OS's "don't get viruses."
Another coworker said that it would be very interesting to watch the effects of this. Might be nothing. All the same, I hope Apple gets a fix out there shortly.
Reply
Reply
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