We recently reported on an earlier emergency call bug on the iPhone; the phone has an “emergency call” mode whereby you can make calls to 911 (or your local equivalent) without having to know the phone’s passcode, if one is set. The bug enabled users to get access to personal information on the iPhone by simply double-tapping the Home button.
Now, another iPhone emergency call bug has been reported. In this case, when the phone is protected by a passcode, arriving text messages will be signaled by a “New Text Message” alert. But as Karl Kraft, who discovered this bug says, “If . . . the phone is placed in emergency call mode, any incoming SMS messages are previewed instead of presented as the generic messages. Thus all I need to do to intercept the messages . . . is to place the phone in emergency mode and wait 30 seconds for the next . . . message.”
While this is not a serious bug – it doesn’t compromise personal data on the iPhone – it does allow anyone to view text messages, which may contain important personal information. We don’t feel you should ever send any sensitive information by text message – after all, these messages, like instant messages, go through a number of servers and can be intercepted – some people may not be happy if their friends or spouses can see some of the messages they receive.
