[Njtechdiv] Sunday: iOS flaw

Sun May 31 19:53:04 UTC 2015

sometimes I run across articles like this:

-----Original Message----- From: Dr. Harshit Jaithwar
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2015 2:37 AM
To: viphone
Subject: How to be safe from iOS flaw that crashes iPhone by a single 
message

Apple's iMessage platform has been subject of a new bug that shuts
down your entire iPhone after receiving a particular message.

The message, whose second half is in Arabic, can send your phone into
a reboot no matter what task it is performing -- it's proved very
frustrating for
some users and it's not certain what th
e long term effects are.

Here's the fix: head into your Settings app, then the Notifications
tab, Messages and then switch off the slider called "show on local
screen and under
"alert style when unlocked" choose "none".

It's a pretty simple fix but it means if you're sent any more pesky
iMessages you're not going to be sent into the reboot again.

This is the text of the message

Over and over

A bug that means a specific string of text can completely crash
iPhones has led people to take extreme measures to keep their phones
safe.

A problem with the way that iOS handles notifications means that if
people are sent the code -- which includes strange words and unusual
symbols and Arabic
characters -- their phone grinds to a halt and restarts itself, before
becoming unuseable. Apple has said that it is aware of the problem and
is working
on a fix, but until then users have been forced to take the problem
into their own hands.

The most dramatic way of avoiding the problem is to turn off
notifications entirely for the Messages app.

That is done by heading to Settings and choosing Notifications and
then Messages, and swiping the toggle button so that "Show on Lock
Screen" is off and
the alert style when unlocked is set to "none". Messages will still
show up in the notification centre and as a small badge on the app on
the home screen,
but won't be able to load up as banners and shut down the phone.

The problem also seems to hit the Apple Watch. Turning off
notifications in the same way seems to remedy that.

An easier and less dramatic way of avoiding some of the chance of it
happening is to filter out unknown senders. That can be done from the
Messages options
in the Settings app.

Turning that setting on means that if a stranger sends a text, it is
sent into its own conversation and doesn't bring up an alert. That
means that people
who aren't in your contact book won't be able to make the bug happen --
you'll still get alerts from your friends, for better or for worse.

If the problem has already happened, it can be got around by either
sending a message to the person who you received the problem one from,
or sending yourself
a text. But since the Messages app is broken by the bug, users have to
take a roundabout route to do either.

You can either ask Siri to send a text, or do so from the share sheets
that can be found in most apps, such as Photos. It doesn't matter
what's said in
the text, as long as it's sent to yourself or the offending "effective
power" message sender.

Once that's done, the Messages app should come back to life and you
can head in and delete the conversation.

Apple has said that it is aware of the problem and is working on a fix.

Hundreds of forum users are reporting the issue. JoeyTheBoey on Reddit
said, "I have an un jailbroken iPhone 6 and it resprings my phone, but
only if I'm
not in the messages app, then it will show the message notification
badge when I get back in."

Jjc123cj on Reddit said, "Don't test this on your iPhone 6! I sent it
to myself and now my messaging app crashes when I try to open it ):"

Apple News on Twitter has spoken to Apple's senior engineers who
admitted they know there is a problem and said that they are hard at
work trying to fix
it.

Sent from my iPhone

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On 5/29/2015 11:29 AM, Mario wrote:
> Trisha, press Control+g to switch DropBox's dialogues from a graphic 
> mode to a more manageable mode which is somewhere between graphics and 
> text mode. you might try issuing the shortcut right after launching 
> the installer. I don't know if the control+g has any effect on the 
> functionality of using Dropbox. if you run into problems, let the list 
> know.
>
>
> On 5/25/2015 7:42 PM, Patricia Ebel via Njtechdiv wrote:
>> Hello Gang,
-----Original Message----- From: Dr. Harshit Jaithwar
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2015 2:37 AM
To: viphone
Subject: How to be safe from iOS flaw that crashes iPhone by a single 
message

Apple's iMessage platform has been subject of a new bug that shuts
down your entire iPhone after receiving a particular message.

The message, whose second half is in Arabic, can send your phone into
a reboot no matter what task it is performing -- it's proved very
frustrating for
some users and it's not certain what the long term effects are.

Here's the fix: head into your Settings app, then the Notifications
tab, Messages and then switch off the slider called "show on local
screen and under
"alert style when unlocked" choose "none".

It's a pretty simple fix but it means if you're sent any more pesky
iMessages you're not going to be sent into the reboot again.

This is the text of the message

Over and over