Last week, a developer discovered that the iPhone has the capability to quietly connect to Apple’s servers to check an application blacklist, and then disable any installed apps that are on the list. The story was quickly defused by blogs, but today the Wall Street Journal says Steve Jobs has confirmed that there really is an application “kill switch.”
Mr. Jobs confirmed such a capability exists, but argued that Apple needs it in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program — one that stole users’ personal data, for example — to be distributed to iPhones through the App Store. “Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” he says.
What do you think—are you okay with Apple being able to directly control what apps are on your iPhone?
“IPhone Software Sales Take Off: Apple’s Jobs” [The Wall Street Journal via MacWorld]
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@gqcarrick: I have to agree. They must be worried that there may be a hole in their system that can be exploited.
Most people who would worry about an app “Kill Switch” are those who’ve jailbroken their phones. In that case, I’m sure that the code has been combed over and it is/will be disabled when you jailbreak your phone.
I don’t see it as a privacy thing, either, so long as it’s just my phone checking in with an Apple Server and not Apple polling phones to see what’s installed. By the way it’s described, your phone goes to Apple and asks for a list of “killable” apps and then checks to see if they’re installed (and disables them if they are). None of your data is leaving your phone and going to Apple.
reason #138 that I don’t own an iphone.
it’s really not that bad if you stop for a moment to think of it. Yes, there’s a kill switch in your phone. No it’s not sending your personal data to Apple. It is, however, another safety net that is designed to keep people from, say, stealing all the cool personal info that is being stored on your phone. What’s the problem here?
@Bakkster_Man: Mistakes happen. They always will. Something will eventually get through, and in that case, people will be happy to have the kill switch in place. Now think of the protocols your phone manufacturer has in case somebody finds a way to get malicious software on your phone… oh wait, there are none. Replace the phone. Wonderful.
I hate this feature…until the first time it saves me.
There’s a lot of private data stored on a phone, and unlike a PC, it’s all stored in the same format/location on perfectly identical hardware. Learn to exploit one iPhone and you can exploit ALL iPhones. I’m glad Apple doesn’t have its head in the sand, pretending that the iPhone is somehow perfectly secure. No device is.
I would _expect_ a feature like this in a phone where all software comes from one sandbox and bears the Apple ‘seal of approval’. 5 million phones suddenly sending all their private data to a third party would be a disaster for Apple that would completely ruin their image. Worse yet, what if someone figures out how to use the GPS to track you, the camera to watch you and the microphone to bug you?
Given that they haven’t used this to wipe Netshare off my phone or to kill jailbroken phones, I’m not worried. Apple would lose a lot of customers if they started using this feature willy nilly, so I’d expect to see it used only if a deliberately malicious app gets into the store.
There are lots of great phones out there if this concerns you, though.
I don’t have an Iphone, but won’t be comfortable with any phone having a feature like it. It getting to be to much like 1984.
Don’t like, it reminds me too much of 1984
sorry about the double post, actually now triple
wish they had an edit button here, I thought my first post was eaten
@CaliforniaCajun: What need would there be to kill that? not widespread, doesn’t have anything Apple would want to theoretically kill, there’s just no cause to do it, especially when they can drop it at the source easily.
@eismcsquare2: It appears that you and many others make the basic incorrect assumption that you actually *own* your iPhone. Not at all. You simply own the license to *use* it.
@weakdome: Probably not. A handful of apps have been removed from the store, either permanently or temporarily – a movie showtime app, a tethering app that let you use the phone as a modem, a light saber app, and a certain game that scanned your address book without asking.
But those apps have *not* been added to this blacklist. Anyone who had them still has them, apple just stopped distributing them.
Say for instance that my iPhone was hijacked by a bunch of genetically enhanced human leftovers from the Eugenics Wars…
I’d like Steve Jobs to be able to use command codes to disable the shields on the iPhone…. although ultimately, I realize the malicious application would eventually be taken care of in the Mutara nebula, it would at least make things a little easier for Mr. Jobs.
@ppiddy: Correction: they haven’t used the kill-switch on jailbroken phones yet. If something gets very popular and just happens to be jailbroken, I’m relatively certain Apple will kill it — especially if it makes some of their carriers nervous.
Plus there may be very little stopping legitimate apps from using the kill switch. And how does the kill-switch work? Do the iPhones check in periodically with Apple to see what apps, if any, are to be killed? If so, how does the iPhone talk with Apple? What’s to stop some malicious h4x0r-type from redirecting an iPhone’s kill-switch check to a random site that instructs the phone to kill EVERY app, then install a bunch of malware?
Yes it’s all a bunch of speculation, but just having the ability to kill an app means eventually someone will find out how that works and exploit it.
If Microsoft was doing this there’s no kind of PR that would save them.
There’s something very big brotherish about this. What happens WHEN some dude figures out how to hack the “Kill Switch.” Soon everybody will lose their copy of Super Monkey Ball!!!
OH NOES!
{puts on tinfoil hat}
For all the crackberry, treo, palm, smartphone users out there who are all “wow i’m glad i didn’t get an iphone because MY service provider wouldn’t do that to ME”
How do you know? How do you know they haven’t already, and just haven’t told you about it? It’s perfectly possible, and just as everyone else has mentioned, it’s probably spelled out in the EULA that you didn’t bother reading.
Truth is, there has never been a device like this before, one that is so small but does so much. Each app is like a widget, and unless you jailbreak the phone you don’t really have access to the back end to see what they’re doing. Sure you can delete the app, but only if you know that it’s doing something it shouldn’t be. That’s why Apple has the switch. They want to be able to fry an app remotely that either through ignorance or malice is doing things it shouldn’t be, most likely while the user is unaware.
Sure, they could send out an email saying “delete this app, it’s sending out bad code and fucking up the network, along with your personal data” and let the users take whatever action they felt necessary, but it would only take 1 app with some sort of back door worm that created a huge iPhone botnet for everyone to go “Oh man where was Apple when this thing got out?”
Yeah, I wish Apple would trust people a little more with their gadgets, but I also realize that the same nightmares of incompatibility that happen in the windows marketplace with 20 zillion people writing shit code that doesn’t work at best and at worst fucks up something important, simply don’t happen anywhere near as often in the Mac world, and it’s that control factor that keeps it that way. Sure you can only use the protected apps from the app store, and maybe they don’t do everything you want your phone to do, but you can be sure that those apps are safe, or at least if they’re not, there are measures in place to help you out.
I’ll guarantee that they’re not looking at the jailbroken apps to see if they’re running malicious code, and that’s where the code will be found, and probably soon.
If this were a desktop computer or a laptop and we were told that Apple had the ability to access our hardware and delete apps off of it, we’d be going ballistic citing invasion of privacy.
What makes the iphone any different?
this reasoning for a kill switch is fallacious.
If the app is already on the phone it’s too late, the damage is done.
Can’t wait for second gen freerunner from Open moko or someother phone maker that has a clue on how to treat customers.
Welcome to Apple Genuine Advantage. You’re a criminal until they say you’re not.
Steve Jobs was and has always been McCartney to Steve Wozniak’s Lennon. Wozniak left the business, and Jobs has staggered on from one embarassment to another.
@JollyJumjuck: Since when? I do not see Apple or AT&T advertising it as such. And even if I believe you for a minute, what you are saying is that after bonding myself for a 2 year contract and paying $$$, all I get is a license?
Seems the RDF is very strong with you.
I’m fine with this. Apple controls almost every thing else on the damn phone anyway. It’s actually pretty reasonable. If a program were malicious they can just kill it before it does too much damage.
Besides, everyone seems to assume that they would use this for their own gain. If they did, that would hurt their image pretty bad. So until they start doing that, I really don’t care.
A bit late to the discussion I know, but today I just found out that a friend of mine, who has an iPhone 1.0 with the new firmware (2.x something) lost access to an app (a free one) he downloaded from the Apple iPhone app store; apparently for some reason this app lost it’s blessing from Apple, and now he can’t run it.
If this was a Microsoft product, people would be outraged at such a capability and flood the stores demanding refunds. But, it’s Apple, so it’s okay.
Did anybody else read about the other app (besides “I’m Rich”) to be banned from the App Store? It was a program that let you tether the iPhone to use it as a modem for your laptop. Apparently this was against AT&T’s rules, so Apple pulled the plug.
I see them just as likely to use the “kill-switch” on those few people who were able to DL the app before it got toasted, as for the claimed use.
What’s so wrong about this? I know you may like your privacy etc, but we’re talking viruses here. Apple would only kill an app if it was malicious, and I know all of you wouldn’t want malicious apps on your phone.
Since it is evidently so easy making apps for the iphone, and someone could make a mistake when screening them for the app store, this is IMO a most welcome thing.
Get a Symbian if you don’t like it
This makes sense to me. What better virus platform than an Iphone – you have enough money to buy one and get the expensive data plan, so you definitely have data worth stealing. I think they did the right thing. If the phone was open sourced and the apps were open sourced, that would be a different story here.
Since you’re all assuming the good side of the coin, consider this:
How many viruses disable your anti-virus? Most of them. And they’ve been doing this for a long time, long enough you’d think AV makers would have improved this portion of the code.
Do you really think that an iPhone virus isn’t going to deactivate what will probably turn out to be an easy to turn off kill-switch? Of course it will, and Apple knows it. They have it in there for other things, like trying to prevent jailbreaks, etc.
@Dobernala:
Yeah, because most virus make it easy for people to remove them.
For those worrying about jailbroken iphones being deactivated by a kill switch, let me just point out an application called little snitch. Oh wait, most of you are probably uninformed pc users, how inconsiderate of me. How exactly do you think the iphone would “phone” home? It’s not going to dial out, that’s for sure. What’s the wonderful tool we all use to block outgoing or incoming internet traffic called again?
Either way you look at it, be it a virus or a jailbroken app, the kill switch will be useless now that it’s been outed.
This is the standard attitude of Apple. Locking down everything. Reminds me of the Mac/PC comparison:
[binaryfractal.blogspot.com]
Great that they are protect their users, but always limiting.
Although Apple’s “intentions” are good I can’t help wondering what it’s real purpose is. I mean in this day and age we are fairly capable to handle any malware/virus’s that are geared for evil purposes. wouldn’t it make more sense to have some sort of software protection instead?
I think just sending a notice to all phones would be good enough.