If this is indeed a security feature I'm about to buy my first iPhone.
this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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CalyxOS and GrapheneOS have this as a feature.
Two hours seems extremely low.
On grapheneos it's a setting, 18 hours by default I believe, but adjustable from 10 minutes to 72 hours.
That seems much more reasonable. Thanks for the info.
Wouldn't this make your phone reboot all night while you're sleeping?
Just set the time too longer than you would be asleep. So in this screenshot above you could set it to 18 hours and most people at least that I know do not go 18 hours without unlocking their phone at least one time which would then reset the timer.
Yes. Alternatively, you can just.. power it off.
I keep mine on in case of family emergencies, it's also my alarm clock
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Don't switch to a privacy-violating platform just for a feature found in open source operating systems.
Oh yeah, see they've done it perfectly by having it based on the last time you unlocked your screen.
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Android has it as well. It's customizable, too.
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Android has an app that you can install that auto wipes a phone after X amount of time if the phone hasnt been unlocked:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.lucky.wasted/
Also theres an app that allows you to set a fake password that wipes the phone:
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.lucky.duress/
All open source, I have tested these apps on my phones, they work great. The second app about the duress password is a bit glitchy and didnt work on some of my phones.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and setting your phone to automatically wipe itself may be considered destruction of evidence in a court of law.
Thanks but I literally cannot figure out how to use these apps after installing
For the "Wasted" app:
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Check the box saying "Wipe Data" (you can optionally check wipe eSim if yiu also want that to happen)
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Tap the bottom button saying [Off] which would ask you to give permission to the app as a Device Administrator, giving it the power to wipe your device.
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Tap the gear button on top right
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Scroll down to the "Lock" and check that
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Tap the upper left button with the 3 horizontal lines
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Tap the "Lock" menu option
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Enter a value. I personally would use something like 24 or 48 hours. Note that 24H automatically becomes 1D in the app, idk why but thats just some weird quirks with the app.
For the Duress app, it doesn't really work anymore on the phone I'm using, so you might have to do your own testing.
Edit: Make sure you dont get drunk and passed out for 24 hours because then your phone gets wiped lol. Good luck, I didn't make the app so be careful with it, don't blame me if your accidentally get your device wiped when you didnt want it to.
Edit 2: Also you cant really know if these apps works on your particular phone unless you test it yourself, that means wiping it. So you might wanna back up your phone then trigger the wipe to see if it works. Dont wanna get caught at a protest only to find out the app failed.
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Speculation is that ios 18 is communicating with other phones while locked to determine security. This can more likely be a NSA/US empire backdoor than a user protection feature. Lowly police systems are just not on the "hacker list". One way the backdoor could work is that if a "NSA/Mossad list phone" is present, protect the other phones, unless the phones are in an NSA/Mossad secure facility.
Or it could just be using the inactivity reboot feature that was recently added to iOS.
ok. I'd suspect spy agency back doors if the feature was unannounced. If it was an announced feature, then that is reasonable explanation.
It’s literally a documented feature AND it’s weird super secret spy agency shit is the easiest answer for you tbh.
I thanked you for explanation. OP did not suggest that as an explanation.
You did though. Lmao
Anything to make their job harder is perfectly okay by me. The only thing that would be needed would be for this to be a feature and to have a cool down period of like 48 hours where the phone would reboot twice in that time so that if it was held it would still reboot itself.
Edit: Even better idea. Turning off the feature requires a reboot.
Note to those wishing for such a function, it’s possible by creating an iOS Shortcut - New Shortcut > Shutdown > Change it to ‘Restart’.
From there, you create an automation in Shortcuts to run based on time, location, etc.
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this is the police we're talking about, they probably just forgot to charge them and are trying to shift the blame
Whatever it is, incompetence, bug, or feature, I love it.
Hot take: this is actually a bug not a feature.
Which is the saddest part, honestly. If it was a feature, that would be fantastic news. And especially if it had a cooldown feature of like 48 hours, where it would reboot twice in that timeframe, so that if a cop turned off the setting, while it was in their possession, it wouldn't matter because it would reboot anyway.
Someone said it in another thread yesterday, baseband memory leak. The firmware for that shit is terrible, I've had to deal with it in the past.
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"new security feature" "warning"
🙂
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