Apple lock mode is useful for safety – but his notifications are confusing

As a crazy journalist, I am an enthusiastic user of the Apple “extremist protection” feature, Lock.

apple I launched the lock mode In 2022, since then the security advantage is an imperative for dissidents in corrupt countries, human rights defenders in repressive regimes, and journalists who speak the truth to power.

Lockdown mode is designed to stop some features in iPhone, iPads and MACS devices, with the aim of limiting Spy programs or Zero days – Disadvantages can be unknown in systems that allow attackers to surreptitiously exploit them – breaking the Apple operating system protection and spying on its users.

In practice, Lockdown mode removes some of the features of regular Apple devices, such as the lines loaded from the Internet that can follow you, the ability to receive certain types of files, your site data from the images that share it, support the cellular connection 2G, and allow people who did not contact you before reaching you on the face and iMessage; Although it is unclear whether the latter is the case (more later).

For this inconvenience, the Lockdown mode makes it difficult for you to hack, even by some of the most advanced infiltrators there.

Lockdown has already has a busy record in preventing those advanced attacks. Apple says He is not aware of any successful penetration Against its users who enabled the lock mode, and the Citizen Lab Digital Laboratory Laboratory The spyware attack documented It was blocked by lock mode. I personally heard some people in the offensive security industry complain of a closing position, which makes their exploits more difficult.

But three years after its first appearance, how to make a Lockdown mode surrounded by mystery and lacks interpretations of thinking behind the status of procedures. Some of the locking mode notes are confusing, not interpreted, or random, which may be completely inhibited by some users.

It is prohibited, but why?

Allow me to present this by saying that people who are at risk of government infiltrators should use the lock mode, even given the restrictions that come with them.

These restrictions are not the problem. The lock mode notifications are increasingly confusing.

An example of this: On the last day, I received the notification of this lock position (below) from nothing, and I remember someone with the name that I have not spoken to for months, and I did not receive a message or call after that. After this notification, when I asked if she was trying to contact me, she said she was not, she did not.

One of them also told me that while passing through their contacts, one of their friends saw “a banned lock mode …” a notice of his name, indicating that the lock mode can be operated simply by displaying a person’s connection.

But … why?

For several months, I received the same notice that I told me that the lock mode prevented a person from “contact me” every time I use iMessage, and always mention someone I know and who is already in my contacts.

These notifications often emerge when I already contact this person on IMessage, which makes it unclear whether I will stop getting their messages, or what is worse, that some of his messages have already disappeared thanks to the lock mode.

Hell, perhaps this means that I am hacking, or at least targeted? Should I check my phone every time I get one of these notifications?

It turns out that I could still continue chatting with people who claim Lockdown mode that he was banned. These people literally call me, and I am talking to them. What is the lock mode already here?

Encouragement on the lock mode notes do nothing. You have not been re -directed to the Apple website that explains what Lockdown Mode mode or does not explain what these notifications mean specifically.

“I don’t think these messages are useful. It does not include any context and cannot be implemented, and there is no way to know what is going on,” Rona Sandfik, The infiltrator who has an emerging This helps journalists and other people at risk to protect themselves, according to Techcrunch. “I would like to see Apple either share more information until we know what to do with them, or not to display it at all.”

I and Sandvik are not the only ones who let us scratch our chin every time we see the lock mode notifications. When I wrote about my fears about the lock mode on social Mediumand numerous the people Respond Publicly – and in the private sector – they say they have similar experiences and they are also confused.

For example, my Zack Whittaker had had intermittent months on the lock mode notes that say “an unknown contact tried to share Apple music control”, as well as notification that the lock mode “sharing the banned focus” and “will not be shared with other people when they are also in this notification from time to time).

To the laboratory we go

I decided to have an experience with the help of Harlo Holmes, chief information security official and director of digital security at Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non -profit organization that helps support free Press. I wondered whether it had made any team – in terms of running confusing notifications – whether someone was not in my contacts had tried to contact me while enabling the lock position on my phone, and the type of content that will prohibit it.

We have deleted each other from our contact lists (we are still friends, and we started chatting for the first time on IMESSAGE. When Holmes sent me a text message – none of us were on the lists of contacts for each other – I received a notification “the banned lock mode …”, and this time she shows her phone number. I still receive her message.

We exchanged text, emojis, cat image, and “stickers”. All passed, with the exception of stickers, which turned either to the letter Unicode for a question mark, or the Nondescript file, which cannot be opened, even if you click:

When this happened, I can still see both Holmes for the stickers that we sent from our own phones, which means that the ban was only visible to the recipient. This is also the case to notify the “banned lock mode …”. I received the notification, but Holmes did not know that I got it.

This is logical, because Apple does not want to remove government infiltrators that their attempt to penetrate a person not only succeeded, but also alerted the target individual that there is something wrong.

It is good to know, and again, I am happy to put Lockdown that prevents something, and makes me safer, but I still do not know what these notifications are supposed to tell me.

I contacted Apple, who asked them for some interpretations, but a spokesman for Apple did not provide registration notes at the time of the press. At least the spokesperson admitted to receiving my message, so I know that the lock mode did not prohibit it.