“Apple Inc. was sued by a Houston lawyer who claims his iPhone inadvertently allowed an unknown person to eavesdrop on his private conversation with a client,” Laurel Brubaker Calkins reports for Bloomberg. “Apple has come under fire for a bug in its iOS 12.1 iPhone software that lets outsiders listen to conversations held during live video group chats using the company’s FaceTime feature.”
“Attorney Larry Williams II said the glitch intrudes on the privacy of ‘one’s most intimate conversations without consent,’ according to the complaint he filed in state court in Houston,” Calkins reports. “He said he was eavesdropped on while taking sworn testimony during a client deposition.”
“Williams is seeking unspecified punitive damages on his claims of negligence, product liability, misrepresentation and warranty breach,” Calkins reports. “The bug allowed a user to call someone on FaceTime and automatically begin hearing the other person before they picked up the call. The other person wasn’t aware that the caller can hear them. ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Like clockwork the ambulance chasers chase, yet Tim Cook’s slipshod Apple deserves as much pain as it takes in order to approximate the critical gaze of the exacting founder that it so desperately misses.
SEE ALSO:
Apple was alerted about FaceTime eavesdropping bug days ago, did nothing – January 29, 2019
Apple, champion of ‘privacy,’ utterly blows it with massively stupid FaceTime bug – January 29, 2019
Apple to patch audio bug in FaceTime that allows users to hear audio and see video from users who have not yet accepted a call – January 29, 2019
Apple CEO Cook calls for U.S. Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation in TIME op-ed – January 17, 2019
Apple CEO Cook promotes privacy as ‘fundamental human right’ via tweetstorm; asks ‘What kind of world do we want to live in?’ – October 24, 2018
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015
I see very little light between MDN and the ambulance chaser it criticizes
I’d rather have those who strive for perfection than a weak-kneed apologist anyday.
Steve Jobs set a high bar. Tim Cook has far less exacting standards.
So your solution is to be a Steve Jobs apologist, living in the past when Apple was much much less complex?
A serious tech failure enabling eavesdropping is one thing. Repeated shipping failures; involving expected/normal, simple and strategic timeframes are another. Tim Cook, the vaulted operations genius, has over seen the list. ripcity…Yes, increased “complexity” is is surely at a new level now, but so are resources enabling “cover” for sidestepping such mistakes in this new Apple. (Btw, the shipping point has nothing to do with delays related to the innovational).
Nobody, including Steve Jobs, could have predicted the enormous growth and complexity over past dozen years, essentially led by Tim Cook. Yes mistakes have been made, but the successes far outweigh the petty nitpicking that goes on by some this website. I believe Apple is at an inflection point but I never underestimate Apple…. I can live with petty oversights because the proof is in the pudding.
It should be a violation and incur a stiff fine to put “exacting standards” and Tim Cook in the same sentence. I read lower down the foaming at the mouth Apple Apologists are out in force, with only unimportant excuses as usual…
My condolences on your blindness.
Nice try, Timmy.
Here’s a hint:
Less attention to gay pride marches, rainbow watch bands, global warming bullshit (ruse to transfer wealth from the producers to the shitholes of the world), cisgender nonsense, and other SJW virtue-signaling and more attention to your core products and services.
Quality has slipped noticeably during your tenure which, if it ended today, would trigger a stock rally and several major Apple MUG parties around the world.
Lord Vader, Apple under Steve Jobs never appealed to homophobic scientific illiterates. That hasn’t changed under Tim Cook. Sorry that offends you.
Mr Vader must be deeply closeted, just like the movie
@Lord Vader, an emphatic YES to the PERMANENT SUSPENSION of SJW liberal political distractions Tim indulges in that Steve avoided and warned AGAINST!
Concentrate on the job you were hired to do and keep the trains running on time and for God’s sake — do everything necessary to maintain the quality and EXACTING standards of Apple not so long ago when Steve was in command…
MacDailyNews demands Apple perform exceptionally. Ambulance chasers look to profit from the legal system. There’s your difference, genius.
Expectations are high for Apple because they should be. We are committed to exceeding those expectations every day. That has always been the Apple way, and it always will be. – Tim Cook, January 2, 2019
When you’re the IT department, who’s fault is it?
When you promote privacy and security and you’re the only store, who’s fault is it?
When you censor, in the name of safety and security, who’s fault is it?
I can forgive the technical difficulties, the sales and marketing I cannot.
MDN:“Tim Cook’s slipshod Apple deserves as much pain as it takes in order to approximate the critical gaze of the exacting founder that it so desperately misses.”
Well said, MDN. The lawsuits are what Apple deserves.
Leave off the preamble, though. If Apple doesn’t want to be harassed by “ambulance chasers”, they should shovel their sidewalks. They have hundreds of billions of dollars with which to hire the best shovelers in the world.
Mr Apology, lots of shoveling in your comment
Well then, please line up to sue MicroSoft for all their privacy bugs.
It’s software, it will always have bugs that need to be found and fixed. Apple has shutdown the feature already.
I want to know what lawyer is taking sworn testimony while the phone is ringing for the other participants. If you read about how this actually happens, you have to be very lucky to hear a few words over the sound of the ringer.
Ringer??? You do realize there’s a physical silent switch on every iPhone, right? Incoming calls will buzz, but make no audible sound. It could very well be a short distance away from the person, in a coat pocket, handbag or briefcase, and wouldn’t disturb the proceedings at all.
“Apple Inc. was sued by a Houston lawyer who claims his iPhone inadvertently allowed an unknown person to eavesdrop on his private conversation with a client,”
Couldn’t a caller be easily recognized from the recent calls list?
Also, if the person is unknown, how is the plaintiff going to prove that he overheard anything?
Aaaand
“automatically begin hearing the other person before they picked up the call”
It’s not sitting there with an open line. What might that other person be able to hear? Two seconds? Not good, but hardly an earth-shaking disaster. And, I think, utterly trivial compared to Winblows, Facebook and Gaggle.
Its a bug. Lawyer dude needs to get over it, and himself.
The Lawyer said. the glitch intrudes on the privacy of ‘one’s most intimate conversations without consent,’
Doesn’t that sort of thing happen in a bedroom! Not on a phone.