I bought my mom an iPad and got her over to an iPhone exactly because of this.
I'd not mind if there was an unlock option, as long as it was tedious enough, such as connecting to a PC to do it. The android option of a few clicks under settings is definitely something I can see someone/some site convincing her to do.
Again, the mythical mother who will follow a stranger's instructions to enable developer mode and then follow detailed instruction to install an app bypassing several warnings along the way, but not one that will simply send money from one account to the other because of some random excuse from a bank "support" agent.
The proof is in the pudding so to speak though - despite every android phone out there having developer mode, this attack almost never happens. And developer mode doesn't give you root access or ability to access other apps data - she would still have to log in into her bank, and if she's willing to do that because a random stranger told her so then it's game over anyway, no need for custom apks.
To be honest, I'd like my open computers to be even more open and hackable, with a secure boot path that doesn't involve any mysterious unpatchable embedded firmware or auxiliary CPUs, but we are slowly getting there with RISC V.
My own parents are still relatively young and my in-laws are sceptical enough of other people that it’s currently safe but it won’t be so forever.
The biggest risk is not elderly people but rather the owner giving their passcode to someone else, e.g. a repair shop, who then enables jailbroken mode without the owner's knowledge and installs malware.
You can mitigate this problem, and the elderly person problem, by requiring the phone to be factory reset. That way any jailbreak would be extremely obvious.
> My own parents are still relatively young and my in-laws are sceptical enough of other people that it’s currently safe but it won’t be so forever.
It is always interesting to me how people equate getting old with becoming dumb. I know there is definitely some age related decline that's inevitable, but if a person has grown up with computers, and maybe more importantly, has had a hacker and curious mindset while younger, it is not likely that they will suddenly become so naive and vulnerable, even when like 80.
What usually happens is that people lose interest in learning new things and keeping up. My own mom (who passed at 73) could never be convinced to use Whatsapp messaging, thinking it is something complicated for the young ones, and yet I currently know people in their mid 70s and even much older who are still as sharp as anything and use all the cool apps.
That’s for Eastern Europe. I heard a similar line of reasoning for banning rooted phones in Asia and it’s easy for me to relate to that. It seems as if first-world hackers here just don’t grasp how low criminals can and will go.
Perfect, I knew this would come up. It always does. "I don't want someone to convince my elderly relative to hack their phone and do something bad". It's such an infuriating argument - no, YOU can't have freedom to do whatever you want with the device you own, because MY elderly relative might get scammed.
>>I would prefer to just give them a device that can’t do that.
There are a number of phones available that can just do calls and nothing else. If your elderly relative cannot follow the most basic advice of "don't listen to people calling you and telling you to do something on your phone" then that's all they should use.
Like, honestly - if you think your elderly relative will follow a 20 step process to go to a dodgy site, run a bunch of commands to jailbreak their phone, then download an alternative store to MAYBE download a dodgy bank app....what stops them from just following instructions from a scammer to send their money urgently to this account they named because the bank is doing maintenance on their servers and the money needs to be moved now or be lost? I love these "elderly relatives" who simultaniously don't have 2 brain cells and will follow jailbreaking instructions but who won't fall for any much easier scam involving direct transfers, gift cards or even good old fashioned cash in an envelope.
iPhone is this phone. Easiest to use, customer-friendly, options for limiting apps, large icons etc.
But for some reason, despite the dominance of Android phones on the market, custom smartphones being released almost every month, you want the foolproof layer to be stripped from iPhone. Why?
And no one is forcing you or your elderly relative to jailbreak it.
>> you want the foolproof layer to be stripped from iPhone
No, I want you(and me) to have the ability to strip it.
>>Why?
Because I want to be able to jailbreak the device I own and run the code that I write without asking Apple for their blessing. It's not any more complicated than this.
That's the problem. There should be no restricted devices at all, not in the way currently presented by Apple and others.
>>It seems like you’re upset I want to buy an EV because you want to put gas in your car.
More like, you want to buy a car that's locked to only charging at Apple provided charging stations. I say every car sold should be able to charge anywhere from any station. But we're stretching the comparison thin.
Like they can try to lock some things down, and some of those barriers we may not be able to get around, but how much of enough of them will we be able to circumvent?
Ideally this would probably not affect newer hardened devices but could unlock a bunch of older otherwise "unusable" hardware that functionally is "e-waste" currently
Also I'd happily jailbreak my iPhone and put an alternative OS on it to extend its lifespan. I'm a living human with nuanced opinions and I'm allowed to like more than one thing.
replacing my hn bookmark.
I'd love to have more control and customizability that the user can initiate, but random executables shouldn't be able to so much as sneeze without my permission. Third party software (yes, even the FLOSS variety due to issues such as supply chain compromises) must be treated as adversarial by default, anything less is foolishness.
Having some way to unlock an iPhone doesn’t at all imply it must be done in a way that reduces security, or trusts the average user with upholding it.
Use your imagination. They could require you to have an apple developer account. Or visit an apple store. Or even limit it to a special developer unlocked iPhone flavor.
But to jailbreak you need to stay on an older iOS version (because Apple patches the bugs enabling the jailbreaks). And that means you don't get security updates.
10, 15 years from now the ability to run your own code will be a distant memory unless you constantly subscribe to an annual Developer Account with BigCorp. Oh no, you've coded something that violates the ToS; account terminated.
On Linux and Windows it doesn't make a huge difference to be admin or not on a single user system. If you have a process on windows running with your user rights it can access all your data, which means game over already. Same on Linux if you aren't using heavily sandboxed flatpaks or do not run all your apps inside jails using tools like landrun or firejail.
The only thing it mitigates really is how easy a malware can hide in the system once already present. But as said earlier once running under your username it is game over, your data is right here ready to be stolen, compromised, altered, destroyed or encrypted.
or does your xterm binary scans your contract list and recently opened apps and upload all that to Facebook servers? because most apps on your so secure phone do exactly that
If I want to run arbitrary software, I have a computer. I am unsure why you care if I want a locked down reliable phone.
I’m not one of those people.
> On a website called Hacker News.
But I still find that unfair. Being a hacker doesn’t mean you want to hack every aspect of your life. I’m perfectly content hacking away on a computer, but I have no desire to hack my toaster and risk burning down my house.
They do have good hardware, but surely the hacker in you is a little sad using an IPhone!
edit: it's like... just give us the same option for the ipads / iphones please?