Hmmmm...
Someone hacked service from Apple, and the hack has serious flaws. Sounds like Apple's problem alright!
iPhone push hack shoves IMs to complete strangers
A German developer has discovered that sending an AIM message to someone who has both jailbroken their iPhone and installed a hack that enables it to receive push notifications may result in your message being read by anyone else who has installed the push-enabling hack. Till Schadde, founder of equinux, tells The Reg that he …
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He knows already
Steve know about it already - via his hacked iPhone.
Why bother Apple with this?
Kids break their toys and go whine to the provider? Yeah makes sense to me.
This just in...
Hack to make the iPhone not work as it was designed... makes the iPhone not work as it was designed. Film at 11.
Umm...
How is this newsworthy? Someone installs some dodgy, non-approved software that rebroadcasts messages sent to it, and it's supposed to be the hardware manufacturer's fault?
@ people not saying Apple should know
This is a security risk potentially allowing people to spoof iPhone ID's because they are demonstratably hackable.
Re: Rolh, Blain, Marvin, AC etc
maybe apple users are used to runnning everything under one uid, but back in the real world you can't normally read someone else's messages without their security details. a mere userID shouldn't hack it.
Let's be a bit more accurate here
The problem is not on an iphone which is jailbroken in itself, it's a problem with an iphone that has been 'hacktivated' to allow non-approved simcards to work in it (NOT the same thing as jailbreaking!).
My phone is jailbroken but still running on the O2 network with the original sim card and push notifications works without any extra hacks. The hacks are only needed to get push notification working with sims from unapproved networks.
Jolyon
what whining?
I didnt see any whining here. its more "hey look what I found! may want to think twice about this hack". Also not particularly Apples problem but something that they should investigate to see if it can affect other services
interesting comments
What I take from this is that there are a couple of user (choice) applied hacks making a particular product not operate as it should. Does that mean apple should fix it so these hacks work? No. But do the implications of this hack extend beyond device supportability and operability? Of course. If you missed that bit, get off the train before you land in the drivers seat and crash us all.
If ones iphone, as a push client, can send any iphone ID to apple and receive all pushes (or copies of pushes) for that particular iphone ID, then the security implications for anyone using push are pretty blatant.
It amazes me that there are people who profess to be wise enough to understand technology, yet read this article without understanding it (see comments further up).
Wat
There's some very dodgy logic in this comment thread. "It's OK for hackers to be able to eavesdrop on push notifications because they've hacked their phones." is the message I got. I am dissapoint.
Heh
Re Simon Newton
Nail on the head, and of course when Apple fixes it so that you can't spoof ID's and therefore breaks the push hacks again, the comments will be filled with "That why Apple is evilz" comments.
Examples like this are one reason I still laugh at Apple fanboys...
...who say their platform is more secure than Windows.
Even LANMAN's crappy security was better than this, and that was 15+ years ago. This isn't secure - hell, this isn't even PRETENDING to be secure. Maybe Apple though the "security through obscurity" plan worked so well for Microsoft, they'd give it a try as well. Too bad the world (and black hats) have largely grown up since then...
And nobody managed...
...to find the actual weak point here, yet.
The hacks are spoofing the phone's ID. That makes it not a manufacturer problem, but a network provider problem, because the network provider's servers are what pushes messages to each and any phone logged in with that ID.
Considering that spoofing a phone's ID seems to be relatively simple (looks like people have already done it...), it's up to the network providers to work out a solution that more securely identifies the phones checking in. iDon't know, maybe check against a hash made from the ID with the MAC, just to name the first thing that came to my mind.
@Simon Newton
You may be right, but the fact that you are missing (or knowingly ignoring) is that the threat is highly mitigated by the fact that the phone--stock, as per manufacturer's specs--won't allow the spoofing to take place.
Perhaps this is why Apple is not contacting this "hacker" in a hurry; at the moment, only those who hack their iPhones are at risk, and so it is not Apple's problem.
I will hazzard a guess that Apple will in time lock down their infrastructure to eliminate this potential risk, but aren't in a rush to do so; nor to acknowledge a theoretical flaw in their system which can only be manifested by those who already circumvented the licensing rules and security mechanisms of the device.
-dZ.
Apple could be nasty here..
..and just deactivate all phones with the 'hack' ID.
This isn't even all phones which are unlocked.. it's phones that haven't been activated on O2 before they were unlocked, so they never got their unique ID . Since apple stores generally don't let you leave the store without activating the phone, that's not going to be a huge percentage of phones.
@Simon Newton
Actually this flaw could be utilised quite easily.
Step 1. Write 'push' app, wait for people to register push on your server.
Step 2. Find a juicy device token
Step 3. Modify your phone to have that token. Install AIM. Wait.
It should be damned near impossible to spoof devices, but it appears to be trivially easy.. which means that something is badly wrong, security wise.
Hack it
So you're telling me that I only need to find out my boss's iPhone's ID and then hack my iPhone to have the same ID then I can secretly receive all the push notifications they my boss gets?
No
If you had your bosses ID he'd still have to have hacked his phone too for this to work
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