“Apple’s new ‘Siri’ feature, the voice-activated personal assistant built into the iPhone 4S, leaves owners’ spanking new smartphones partially unguarded,” Graham Cluley blogs for Spohos.
“Even if an iPhone 4S is locked with a passcode, a complete stranger can come up to your smartphone, press the button and give Siri a spoken command,” Cluley reports. “I borrowed a passcode-locked iPhone 4S from a colleague here at Sophos and, with his permission, was able to write an email, and send a text message. If I had wanted to I could have meddled with his calendar appointments too. All without having to enter the passcode.”
Cluley reports, “Fortunately there’s an easy way for security-conscious users to disable Siri when their phone is locked. Enter ‘Settings/General/Passcode Lock’ on your iPhone 4S, and make sure that the ‘Siri’ option is set to ‘Off.’ That way Siri cannot be used when the smartphone is locked with a passcode.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “justin time” for the heads up.]
The question is, which is the default setting?
A very good point, although locking out Siri hinders one of it’s main attributes…. instant and easy access.
If that was a WinPhone or Android, they would call it a useful feature
Simple, don’t leave your iPhone out where someone else can use it.
Exactly.
I will always change what Siri will call you on any 4S I see being left unattended.
Just cause I can, and I want to laugh at the guy when Siri calls them cupcake etc. (and they will not know how to change it back)
1. Love it.
So that puts the 4S/Siri behind in functionality compared to earlier iPhones: I can make a call with Voice Control on my locked iPhone and still be assured that my email, calendar, etc., is still “safe.” Seems that a middle ground is needed.
You could almost believe that someone paid this guy to write this, like a competitor who’s having its ass handed to them.
@SilverHawk. I totally agree. Especially after he said he wasn’t impressed by Siri.
If your dumb enough to leave your iPhone unattended, you will have bigger problems than worrying about Siri. Mainly, your missing/stolen iPhone. Duh.
Siri needs to start recognizing the voice of its “master”, so that Siri can say, “Sorry, Graham, I cannot answer your question as I only assist John.”
Well it’s still in beta, Such a feature should be relatively easy to include in the final product of such an advanced system
It might be tricky feature: imagine that you are running or you have got cold or you “broken” your voice after scream and Siri would all of sudden deny you.
So they have to work on it very well.
It probably should be one and/or both a specific user defined word and voice recognition.
Couldn’t Siri ask you for a password? A phrase of your own choosing?
+1