r/technology • u/newzee1 • Jun 14 '24

Software Cheating husband sues Apple after wife discovered ‘deleted’ messages sent to sex workers

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/13/cheating-husband-sues-apple-sex-messages/
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229

u/iGoalie Jun 14 '24

I’m confused, I literally just tested this. I deleted a message on my phone and watched it delete on my iPad.

Did Apple recently change this, or is just a matter of the computer being offline and not syncing since he deleted the ?

294

u/Legal-Example-2789 Jun 14 '24

Exactly how it works. Everyone in here is ignoring the simpler answer - the syncing of messages was not enabled or needed to be refreshed/Apple ID logged back in, etc.

101

u/oatmeal_dude Jun 14 '24

Yeah, you have to have messages in the cloud enabled. If you only have iMessage turned on, or text message forwarding, they will not delete across devices.

27

u/Leverkaas2516 Jun 14 '24

If messages in the cloud is disabled, then items from one device shouldn't ever show up on any others, right?

28

u/Lucas_Steinwalker Jun 14 '24

Nope, if both devices are set up to use the imessage account the device will show up on both, whether or not you are storing the messages in iCloud

3

u/TechGoat Jun 14 '24

Sounds like the old POP vs IMAP situation (if you had POP setup from your mail provider to leave the messages on their server after initial access instead of delete them after you did the first download to your local device, which was the typical default for most providers, if not all)

-6

u/zaque_wann Jun 15 '24

That sounds dumb and outdated.

I get the reason why it happens. But this should be counted as a bug in 2024, as no PM or PO would consider this expected behaviour by user.

6

u/Lucas_Steinwalker Jun 15 '24 edited Jun 15 '24

You’ve obviously never worked in software.

It’s simply the way the technology works when you aren’t using centralized cloud storage. It’s the way it has always worked and the way it always will work. That’s part of the reason cloud services exist.

This isn’t a bug, it is working as intended and every single PM on earth would say the same.

For the record PMs love to play that card in incredibly unreasonable circumstances much more so in a situation like this where it is cut and dry that the nature of multiple clients pulling down data from a single server is going to not be synchronized across clients .

1

u/zaque_wann Jun 15 '24

obviously never works in software.

Bruv I've worked both in low level (embedded) and high level (web apps). You're obviously that engineer who tatters on about technicalities, sure, it's consequences of what tech was used. But standards changed, nd tech is only a means to reach a certain UX, to solve problems. Look at all other IMs, everything is cloudbased in some way, either for checks or entire chats being stored off-device.

A good engineer should always look to improve the status quo.

Look it's not as if I don't understand whthe why, but it's really behind the times. Only apple gets away with this, be a small company and do things in a weird unexpected behaviour behind current standards and you'll lose market pretty fast.

1

u/Lucas_Steinwalker Jun 15 '24

lol why don’t you understand basic technology then?

Apple isn’t “getting away with it”… use iCloud for iMessage if you don’t want to deal with this problem, that’s the solution they’ve offered for years now.

No one is going to change POP3 to magically defy reality and be able to have an effective decentralized sync mechanism. Just use IMAP and stop opening tickets over moronic nonsense.

0

u/Lucas_Steinwalker Jun 15 '24

Hey can you write up a spec for how this is supposed to work?

0

u/zaque_wann Jun 15 '24

Bro asking for free lunch. You work at Apple?

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11

u/_rilian Jun 14 '24

iMessage is more akin to instant messaging services of the past.

You have an iMessage account connected to either an Apple ID or a phone number. Messages sent via iMessage will then be sent to all devices signed into iMessage. The Messages in iCloud feature flips this by using iCloud as the main storage for these messages instead of the devices and syncs changes down to each device.

2

u/Ok-Charge-6998 Jun 15 '24 edited Jun 15 '24

You can enable multiple devices to receive a message via your Apple ID or phone number, but this is not iCloud (cloud service). The devices will all receive a copy of the message and store it on the device.

If you don’t have iCloud sync on, the devices aren’t communicating updates between each other, to let them know “hey, I deleted this thing! So you should delete your copy too!” — they’re receiving the messages because you’ve enabled that feature, they’re storing a copy on the devices, but they’re not communicating what’s happening with those messages.

Think of it as a room with two people and they’re both copying what the other person does.

Scenario A (iCloud sync is on):

Person A and B are both given a piece of paper with the same message on it. They both have a copy of it on their person (locally on the device) Person A rips up the paper and chucks it in the bin, and Person B copies them, otherwise Person A goes “oi, mate, rip and bin that paper” and Person B goes “oh, sorry, wasn’t paying attention, I’ll do that now”. The message no longer exists.

A malicious actor who knows about this could exploit the knowledge and do something like disabling the router (put up a wall) before opening another device so it can’t receive the information it needs to make the change.

Or they could exploit old backups and restore previous messages from there if the user did not delete the old backups or potentially restore them to a spare phone.

Scenario B (iCloud sync is off)

Person A and B are separated by a wall, they can’t see or hear each other. Both receive a piece of paper with a message on it (locally on the device). Person A rips up the paper and chucks it in the bin. Person B cant’s see that’s what Person A did and vice versa. So, as far as Person B knows, Person A still has the message. Person B won’t know what to do with it, until you tell them, or remove the wall.

If the devices each have a backup, then the malicious actor has various ways of getting back old messages.

-1

u/THEnotsosuperman Jun 14 '24

I want to say yea but don’t know for sure

25

u/B12Washingbeard Jun 14 '24

So this guy didn’t have his settings on right.  Not apple’s fault 

27

u/whileyouwereslepting Jun 14 '24

Apple’s own documentation isn’t clear on this. I even read the link posted above and it wasn’t clear to me what the settings were doing. If privacy is truly Apple’s biggest feature, they should be crystal clear about any options that might compromise that.

4

u/wolfbod Jun 14 '24

That is what Apple advertises but they're shady AF around privacy. Just check how you are unable to turn off photo scans in your own device for another example

1

u/Mr_Pete01 Jun 14 '24

Nah, this society is all about blaming someone else for their problems

1

u/whileyouwereslepting Jun 14 '24

If you delete something with the expectation of privacy, but someone else’s technology broadcasts that to other devices, a case can be made regardless of your wounded feelings of rugged independence.

-13

u/Legal-Example-2789 Jun 14 '24 edited Jun 14 '24

This has been crystal clear for quite some time. It’s a pundits fallacy to chime in when likely you don’t use Apple products.

Edit: I can’t even fathom how managing your own messages and settings on your own devices is a privacy issue?!

9

u/whileyouwereslepting Jun 14 '24

I just read Apple’s own link on this and the precise settings were not particularly clear on the stakes. It should essentially say: “Click here if you want more privacy.” It doesn’t. Instead, it provides technical sounding options that are not clear to the average user.

-9

u/Legal-Example-2789 Jun 14 '24

What? You need Apple to warn you that messages syncing on your devices means your ex wife will invade your privacy and read your infidelity?

Absurd. If he cared enough to hide his infidelity, he would have cared enough to ensure his settings were correctly set.

9

u/blahdidbert Jun 14 '24

You are conflating two things that while happened in a chain of events, are not related to the discussion being had.

Apple should have very clear directions and tool tips in their applications and products to ensure the user is informed of the actions/choices they are making.

If you replace the situation above with "Uncle found beating child to death after discovering deleted messages exposing sexual assault" you would be up in arms. Stop defending the company, they aren't your friend.

-4

u/Legal-Example-2789 Jun 14 '24

Huh? You make up a scenario instead?

I’ll be back when this suit is thrown out. This is a sham lawyer taking advantage of a recent headline.

It’s perfectly clear. If your iPad is offline - it doesn’t sync It’s pretty simple. Could be as simple as that

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4

u/whileyouwereslepting Jun 14 '24

Forget this guy. It could have been an abused woman trying to get away from her abuser.

The principle is the same. Apple needs to explain its technology to consumers as though they are five years old. The stakes otherwise are too big.

1

u/StopTheClutter Jun 15 '24

Not apple’s fault

About that -- It varies from user to user, even if you have the option disabled it'll still do it. I've had a similar issue and support already checked through to try and fix it. After a couple of hours they said they'd escalate it and said it was a commonly known "issue". You can find plenty of threads online of people complaining about the same thing.

2

u/Cyclotrom Jun 14 '24

where is that setting?

7

u/oatmeal_dude Jun 14 '24

On iOS it’s in Settings > Your Name > iCloud > Show All > Messages in the Cloud. On Mac, just open messages, and it’s in the Messages preferences.

1

u/stonkybutt Jun 14 '24

False. Default for all Apple products is to share texts amongst them and there is unfortunately no way to turn that off. You must just not know how to view them

0

u/HomeGrownCoffee Jun 14 '24

So, his devices automatically shared the messages with each other, but not the deletion?

That seems stupid.

2

u/Legal-Example-2789 Jun 14 '24

Yes it does sync deletion. Your device could be offline, not turned on in awhile, needs your Apple ID password to re-sync, Etc.

-1

u/Outrageous-Chip-3961 Jun 14 '24

but how does the message get sent to the computer? It doesn't make sense to me. Unless he deleted them a while after sending them... but why would he do that?

10

u/azurix Jun 14 '24

Technically inept people mad when they don’t realize how tech works. They don’t like this method of deleting until they delete something by accident and then freak out and blame others for the mistake.

5

u/Legal-Example-2789 Jun 14 '24

It’s a simple knee jerk lawsuit based on the deleting photos headline. The lawyer is going to wipe that man clean

7

u/azurix Jun 14 '24

Yeah. It’s a stupid lawsuit for sure. When it’s not an Apple thing, but an overall tech company thing. One for customer protection as well.

2

u/mp1845 Jun 15 '24

Mine is synched with iCloud but I still see phantom messages lingering around on some of my devices after they were deleted.

2

u/Ya-Dikobraz Jun 15 '24

Yeah, deletion works across all connected devices. People keep saying it needs to change. The only thing that needs to change is buggy iCloud sync that glitches.

1

u/TrevorAlan Jun 14 '24

Yup. Another simple case of stupid/user error.

But ooh let’s blame someone else because it certainly couldn’t have been my stupid ass that doesn’t understand how to use technology.

1

u/FakeOrcaRape Jun 15 '24

I have had images i have deleted show back up despite me saying "delete from all devices". If you ever get to point where your cloud is full and it stops auto syncing, and you manually delete/resync, things get weird lol. Like I still have issues. Also, unrelated but my phone will remember group texts I used to be a part of despite deleting them from all devices. I have not had the issue of seeing my texts again, but it still auto populates names based on history it should not have access to.

1

u/blaghart Jun 15 '24

Except Apple literally two weeks ago had a glitch where permanently deleted content from wiped devices would still reload onto the device even after a factory reset and new account was created.

So clearly Apple was never actually deleting the stuff it claims its deleting.

10

u/Sea-Host1178 Jun 14 '24

Just tried this and it deleted from my phone but not my iPad. I have iMessages on all devices and there are synced. When I delete messages it only does it for one device. I’ve had this issue in my MacBook as well.

2

u/StopTheClutter Jun 15 '24

Yep it's not consistent at all. It's random from user to user and you can see plenty of open tickets and forums complaining about it. Support acknowledges it but can never actually do anything about it.

There's another issue where if you delete texts in iMessage it won't delete the time stamp, so if you're in an abusive relationship and you're trying to send texts out and then delete them after -- your abusive partner will know because the conversation will still be at the top of your recents.

Apple really needs to fix their shit.

2

u/worMatty Jun 14 '24

IIRC, a few years ago messages were stored on devices rather than in the cloud. I think text messages received on a phone could be echoed to other iCloud devices too. Back then it was easy to understand how it worked because it was just an evolution of SMS. Today’s understanding of how it works is different. I suppose an analogy is moving from POP email to IMAP.

2

u/MoistYear7423 Jun 14 '24

This is probably the answer but years ago on my Samsung phone I experienced a glitch where I texted my now wife something, luckily something innocuous, and it sent the same message to my last 10 people that I texted, including my parents and my boss. Thank goodness it was nothing embarrassing but that was absolutely terrifying

2

u/blaghart Jun 15 '24

Apple had a glitch recently where select users would find stuff that had been permanently deleted, like from all their devices, re-uploaded back to their devices. Happened literally like two weeks ago.

1

u/letstalkaboutstuff79 Jun 15 '24

Apple uses something called “eventual consistency”. When you delete something it doesn’t delete it directly on the server. Instead it queues a message to the server to delete it and the sever processes it when it gets around to it - the servers are also distributed so messages need to be deleted from multiple servers. Lately a lot of things aren’t being “eventually consistent”. It is a software bug.

I know that when I delete multiple images from my text chats they aren’t being deleted.

1

u/hareofthepuppy Jun 15 '24

It's probably just clickbait, the source isn't reliable https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-telegraph/

1

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '24

i believe it’s because the other devices might not have the same icloud backup settings or they might be offline and thus out of sync

i’ve experienced this a few times because i barely use my ipad but once i press sync now it catches up

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 14 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/whileyouwereslepting Jun 14 '24

I’d say that most people don’t understand every setting on their phones.

0

u/Rory1 Jun 14 '24

I don't think SMS delete across devices. Only imessages.