On Thursday 404 Media reported that police were freaking out about mysteriously rebooting iPhones. Now multiple experts have found that Apple introduced code that reboots locked phones after a period of time.

Apple quietly introduced code into iOS 18.1 which reboots the device if it has not been unlocked for a period of time, reverting it to a state which improves the security of iPhones overall and is making it harder for police to break into the devices, according to multiple iPhone security experts.

On Thursday, 404 Media reported that law enforcement officials were freaking out that iPhones which had been stored for examination were mysteriously rebooting themselves. At the time the cause was unclear, with the officials only able to speculate why they were being locked out of the devices. Now a day later, the potential reason why is coming into view.

“Apple indeed added a feature called ‘inactivity reboot’ in iOS 18.1.,” Dr.-Ing. Jiska Classen, a research group leader at the Hasso Plattner Institute, tweeted after 404 Media published on Thursday along with screenshots that they presented as the relevant pieces of code.

  • @[email protected]English
    10•23 days ago

    Yeah but that would imply they are bringing the phones to the person multiple times to use their face/finger, or they are keeping the phone active so it never locks, unless they are actively changing the settings to never lock somehow. Seems like an easier fix to just require you to enter your pin to change your lock setting to indefinitely.

    Side note: the last time I was arrested the officer asked me if I wanted to reboot my phone or turn it off before handing it over so I knew they weren’t going to go through it. Was surprised

    • @[email protected]English
      5•23 days ago

      The more full reason is that the device is still encrypted prior to first unlock and is harder to extract any information from. As to what you said about police requiring you to enter your PIN, they can’t. You can’t be forced to reveal your passwords/PINs but they can legally force you to unlock biometrics (fingerprint/face ID)

      • @[email protected]English
        3•23 days ago

        I never said they could require you to enter a pin, my words are often a jumble. I was saying cops actually asked me if I wanted to restart or shut down my phone so I had peace of mind that they wouldn’t go through it.

    • @[email protected]English
      4•23 days ago

      I don’t know how the procedere would be executed, but I imagine that police could have the phone present during an interrogation and try to nlock it there (possibly by making you to look at the phone to unlock it, if the phone has been set up to unlock this way). Once unlocked, it would be sufficient to have a peek into the camera roll or messages, until the phone locks again. I don’t know about the law, but I can imagine that if a police officer had a look into your phone, even briefly, it may be held against the one who is being interrogated.