Apple Can Remotely Disable iPhone Apps

[lifeafter2am]

Just read this on /.

"Engadget reports Apple has readied a blacklisting system which allows the company to remotely disable applications on your device. It seems the new 2.x firmware contains a URL which points to a page containing a list of 'unauthorized' apps — a move which suggests that the device makes occasional contact with Apple's servers to see if anything is amiss on your phone. Jonathan Zdziarski, the man who discovered this, explains, 'This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down. I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation."

Update: 08/11 13:07 GMT by T : Reader gadgetopia writes with a small story at IT Wire, citing an interview in the Wall Street Journal, in which this remote kill-switch is "confirmed by Steve Jobs himself."

Link to /. article

Sorry if this was already posted, didn't see it anywhere.

 

[baggss]

If you dig deeper the guy who found it admits that no one knows exactly what it is for. All of this is speculation and conspiracy theory. Until Apple says what it is we don't know for sure.

Don't believe every rumor you read....

 

[lifeafter2am]

I just saw that article and found it interesting. Not trying in anyway to spread FUD if that is what you are getting at.

What is interesting to me is that the backdoor exists in the first place. Regardless of what it is used for, a backdoor is a backdoor.