As reported by ComputerWorld on July 29th, Apple stated in arguments made to the U.S. Copyright Office that unauthorized modification to the iPhone’s software, known as “jailbreaking,” could potentially crash a mobile phone network’s transmission towers.
Seriously? Individuals messing with the iPhone OS could potentially DoS cell towers?
Is this an attacker’s dream or what?
Or is Apple as delusional as an American Idol contestant?
It is ironic that Apple, the company that celebrates the superiority of its security over Microsoft, should unwittingly create a Weapon of Mass Disruption in a sleek, sexy package called the iPhone.
According to ComputerWorld:
“In short, taking control of the [iPhone] software would be much the equivalent of getting inside the firewall of a corporate computer -- to potentially catastrophic result," Apple said. Apple went on to say that if several phones were modified...it could cause a transmission tower to malfunction or kick phones off the network. Also, operator limits on data transmission could be circumvented, allowing a hacker to conduct a denial-of-service attack and crash the tower.
And what is our response?
Vigilantly police the 30 million or so iPhone users so that one of them doesn’t intentionally (or unintentionally) blind entire mobile cells? Or perhaps Apple should rethink its security design?
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