Apple lock function is good for security – but its alerts are enigmatic

As a paranoid journalist, I am an enthusiastic user of Apple’s “Extreme Protection” Lock function.

Apple began the lock in 2022 and since then the security feature is considered a necessary use for corrupt countries, human rights defenders in oppressive regimes and journalists who speak of the truth in power.

The lock function is designed to disable certain features on iPhones, iPads and Macs, with the aim of reducing the chance of exploiting them hackers armed with sophisticated spyware or zero days-unknown defects in systems that allow the attacks to exploit them to exploit themselves. users.

In practice, the lock feature removes some normal Apple features, such as the fonts loaded by the internet that can watch you, the ability to receive certain file types, your location data from photos you share, 2G cellular connectivity support and leaving people who did not communicate before Face. Although it is not clear if the last one (more in it later).

In return for these nuisances, the lock function makes it harder for you to fly, even some of the most advanced hackers out there.

The lock function already has a history of excluding these advanced attacks. Apple says it knows no successful hack against its users who have activated the lock function and the Digital Rights Group Citizen Lab has documented a spyware -blocked attempt to attack the Lockdown mode. Also, I have personally heard some people in the aggressive security industry complain about the locking operation by making their holdings more difficult.

But three years after his debut, exactly how the Lockdown function works is still surrounded by obscurity and lacks explanations in the reasoning behind the actions taken by the locking function. And, some of the locking notifications are completely confusing, unexplained or seemingly random, which can discourage some users from its use completely.

Is blocking, but why?

Let me show it by saying that people who are at risk of government hackers should use the lock function, even taking into account the restrictions coming with it.

These restrictions are not the problem. The locking notifications have become increasingly enigmatic.

Case: The next day, I received this notice of the lock function (below) from nowhere, referring to someone with the name I have not talked to in months and from whom I did not receive a message or call after. After this notice, when I asked if he tried to contact me, he said no, he didn’t.

Someone also told me that as they moved their contacts, one of their friends saw a “lock state blocked …” the alert by his name, suggesting that the locking function can simply be activated by projection of one’s contact.

But … why?

For months I have received the same notice that tells me that the lock function is blocking someone “from my communication” every time I use the imessage and always reports someone I know and who is already in my contacts.

These alerts often appear when I already have this person in the IMESSAGE person, which makes it unclear if I am going to stop receiving their messages or worse, that some of their messages have already disappeared thanks to lock function.

Hell, maybe that mean I get a hacker or at least targeted? Do I have to check my phone every time I get one of these notifications?

It turns out that I can still continue to talk to the people themselves whose locking function claims to have been blocked. These people literally communicate with me and chat with them. What really does the lock function here?

The execution of notifications for the lock function does nothing. You do not redirect to an Apple website explaining what the lock is or does, nor explains what these notifications specifically mean.

“I don’t think these messages are useful. They do not include any frames and cannot be activated, nor is there a way to understand what is going on, “said Runa Sandvik, a hacker who has a starting start that helps journalists and other high -risk people to protect themselves in TechCrunch.” I would love to see Apple to share more information.

Sandvik and I are not the only ones who left our springs scratching every time we see locking notifications. When I wrote about my concerns about lock function on social media; several people replied Public – and private – saying they had similar experiences and are also confusing.

My author Zack Whittaker, for example, has for months to sporadically get alert notifications by saying that “an unknown contact has tried to share Apple Music control”, as well as a notice that the locking function “blocking the focus on” and “will not share with other people”.

In the lab we go

I decided to perform an experiment with the help of Harlo Holmes, the head of information security and the Digital Security Director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non -profit organization that helps support the free press. I wondered if it made no difference – about the activation of modern notifications – if someone who was not in my contacts tried to reach me with the lock enabled on my phone and what kind of content to block.

We both deleted each other from our contact lists (we are still friends, but) and started talking for the first time in IMESSAGE. When Holmes wrote me – and none of us were in all contact lists – I received the “lockdown mode …” alert, this time showing her phone number. I still received her message.

We exchanged text, emojis, a cat image and IMESSAGE stickers. All of this passed, except for the stickers, which turned either to a unicode character of a question mark or to an attached non -description file that cannot be opened, even if you click on it:

When that happened, both Holmes and I could still see the stickers we sent from our own phones, which means that blocking was only visible to the recipient. This also applies to the notification of “Lockdown Mode …”. I received the notice, but Holmes didn’t know I got it.

This makes sense, as Apple would not want to overthrow the government hackers that their attempt to lose someone not only did not work, but also warned the targeted person that something went wrong.

This is good to know, again, I’m a happy locking mode blocking something and makes me safer, but I still don’t know what these notifications should tell me.

I arrived at Apple asking them for some explanations, but an Apple spokesman did not give the comments on the press observations from the press. At least the spokesman acknowledged that he received my message, so I know that the locking function did not prevent it.