News
iMessage glitch lets stolen phones receive messages
By Charles Starrett
Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Thursday, December 15, 2011
News Category: Apple, iCloud, iPhone
An apparent glitch or oversight in the way Apple’s iMessage SMS replacement service is set up is allowing thieves and unknown buyers of stolen iPhones to continue to receive and send texts via iMessage using the Apple ID of the original owner. Citing separate Mac Rumors and Apple Support forum threads, Ars Technica reports that the problem persists even after the device is registered under a new account. According to the report, neither remote wiping, changing Apple ID passwords, or even moving the prior phone number to a new phone fixes the problem, with the only proven fix to completely cancel the Apple ID that was used for iMessages on the stolen device. Ars contacted Apple to ask why this was happening, but has yet to receive a response.
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1
I recommend everyone with an iPhone to use either a corporate Exchange Server or iCloud to enable remote wiping of their phone.
Posted by Dan Woods on December 15, 2011 at 12:42 PM (PDT)
2
And I recommend that everyone eats all their vegetables.
Posted by mwilgar on December 16, 2011 at 7:43 AM (PDT)
3
The article is pretty clear that remote wiping doesn’t solve this Dan.
Posted by Fanfoot on December 16, 2011 at 12:51 PM (PDT)