iCloud

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T-Mobile Blocks iCloud Private Relay for Customers in United States

Andrew Orr ·

It appears that carriers in the U.S. and aboard aren’t happy with iCloud Private Relay. The setting, released with iOS 15, likely interferes with surveillance of customers. A report from 9To5Mac says that T-Mobile has begun blocking the feature.

The change does not appear to be network-wide just yet, but rather it appears T-Mobile is in the process of rolling it out. This means that some users might still be able to use iCloud Private Relay when connected to their cellular network – at least for now.

Very shady behavior. I haven’t been using Private Relay because it overrides my DNS. The good news is that carriers can’t prevent you from changing your DNS settings.

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iCloud, Twitter, MineCraft, Cloudflare, All Vulnerable to a Powerful Bug

Andrew Orr ·

According to a report on Friday, major apps and services such as iCloud, Cloudflare, Steam, Twitter, and others are vulnerable to a bug.

On Thursday, researchers noticed that a popular Java logging library (log4j) had a bug that allows for Remote Code Execution or RCE, hacker lingo for one of the most dangerous types of vulnerabilities, one that essentially allows hackers to take control of the target. GitHub labeled the vulnerability as “critical severity,” and many researchers, as well as the Director of Cybersecurity at the NSA, are sounding the alarm.

If the NSA is publicly worried, you know it’s bad. Update: Cloudflare says they are not vulnerable, “We responded quickly to evaluate all potential areas of risk and updated our software to prevent attacks, and have not been able to replicate any external claims that we might be at risk.” The company published a blog post on the matter.

Podcast

iCloud+, OBD-II, and iOS 15 Tricks! – Mac Geek Gab 895

John F. Braun & Dave Hamilton · · Add Comment

Settings get more granular in iOS 15, and your tips help us find a few new places to use that! Other tips include storing your music online for free, sorting out what your car is trying to tell you, and making sense of iCloud+. That’s not all, though, your two favorite geeks answer your questions about taming Reminders, sharing Contacts, and making Numbers and Excel tell time. Press play and join John and Dave in learning at least five new things!

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iMessages are End-To-End Encrypted But iCloud Backups Are Not

Andrew Orr ·

For Lifehacker, Jake Peterson wrote a reminder that under certain circumstances, Apple can theoretically access your iMessages.

Here’s the tricky thing; Messages in iCloud is end-to-end encrypted, just as you’d expect—that’s why there’s no way to access your messages on the web, such as by logging in to icloud.com. There’s one big problem, though: your iCloud Backup isn’t end-to-end encrypted—and Apple stores the key to unlock your encrypted messages within that backup.

Messages in iCloud has been a thing for a few years now, but you can turn it off.