Gadgetory

a bug and apples FaceTime app lets users listen in on someone's phone without even the person knowing it's not looking good well you know Apple they've been pointing fingers for a while a lot of privacy talk recent tweet from Tim Cook you know talking about privacy and then the other thing happens the FaceTime bug the bug of all bugs I mean there's bugs that happen with smart phones software but this one has gotten people's attention because of the type of invasion of privacy that takes place someone can call you up via FaceTime and without you picking up the call they can hear what you're saying in advance of you ever accepting the call but also can view also can view if the person hits the power switch during the call to shut down the phone screen then that enables the camera what a weird bug how many people's lives have already been ruined when they're getting a call from someone and then you just sit there and listen for reason to change your relationship status to single significant other they're like oh geez maybe the boss at work Apple has turned off the group FaceTime server group FaceTime is is shut down until they can fix the software they're just turning it off completely the interesting thing with this story is that Apple was alerted of this in advance of the whole news breaking there were smaller stories mm-hmm that kept coming up it was this mist there's no feedback now that doesn't really surprise me so the reason that this is interesting specifically is because it is Apple obviously Apple already garnering so much attention in this space they've gone out of their way to kind of accuse other manufacturers of you know not being careful enough with people's data our customers trust means everything to us and we spent decades working to earn that trust and anytime you point fingers you leave yourself open to more extreme criticism when the finger swings back around it points at you from my perspective anytime you have like a big story like this you can't help but have it impact your perception of the product this exact type of flaw could instill fear in people around FaceTime as a product so am I gonna second-guess pop and open FaceTime absolutely I think other users will as well you look at the Billboard I mean what happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone that was that was Apple's play at CES they leaned into the idea that this was where they were better I don't think it's anything nefarious I don't think you know it was part of a master plan to get access to phones without people knowing my intuition is that it's a mistake and mistakes happen too all big companies there have been breaches Google had a breach recently through Google+ they're just shutting the whole thing down as a consequence so anyone can be impacted by this and it's a consequence of us sharing more and being connected more than we ever have before it's not an excuse for it by any means it's terrible we're gonna see more of this I really believe it we're gonna see more and more of this weird stuff going down you know when people start to cover the webcams on their laptops you see like the webcam cover I mean we might see a future in which some of these devices might have Hardware shut offs to make us feel comfortable that we actually have privacy in certain moments a Google assistant in the background you got the the Alexis in the background look at that Google just came up on the phone when I said it like this one I'm talking about and then you get the cameras always looking at you could we see a future in which hardware devices actually have physical shutdowns to instill confidence in users that they can have a private moment at certain times I know some people on Twitter we're getting bombarded with unknown calls and those people didn't even need to be picked up to be granted access to your to your life to the point where they have to turn off their phones well you could be anywhere you could be doing anything who knows what a guy like you gets up to you don't want to know exactly so that's the main thing that's the lesson learned that's the moral of story today don't do anything you wouldn't do if you were on FaceTime because you probably are