This Bug Forces People to Receive a Stranger's iMessages

[Phillip Swanson]

This isn’t a hack, this isn’t a new Location-gate or Carrier IQ, this is a rare bug, that lets those affected see every text message sent by a complete strangers phone.

Gizmodo chronicled the troubles of a high schooler who had his iPhone fixed at an Apple Store. When the high schooler got his phone back, he started receiving another man’s messages. Every single one of them, picture's and text.

The problem is actually simple. The man being projected on another person’s phone via text message turned out to be the Apple Genius (well most likely) who worked the boy’s phone. He most likely popped his SIM card in while repairing the phone forever tethering his iMessage account with a phone not his own.

Apparently, Ars Technica threw around the idea that Apple connected iMessage to SIM cards instead of operating like other messaging service accounts by tethering to an email address or screen name.

This isn’t a huge security breach, but it is a genuine bug that has afflicted at least one Apple employee. I myself have swapped out my SIM card and placed it in a display phone at AT&T before in order to send texts/make calls after my phone has died. This was before iOS5 of course. But, the idea that if I did that now, all of my texts forever and ever could be sent to a display phone located in a mall isn’t very comforting. But, there is the possibility that someone could attempt to use this bug maliciously.

Apple must be aware of this bug. Hopefully a fix is issued soon. For this poor kids sanity at least. One person can only take so many stupid picture messages, and late night booty calls that aren't their own.

Source: Gizmodo

[mmaboi21]

Lol these kids are probably drooling over the messages. I know I would... I love hearing other people's drama!

[Dash-2]

I've had this very thing happen to me. I was repairing a friends iPhone, and had put my SIM in (the firmware had expired), and later after putting it back in my phone and returning it to them, I would receive their incoming iMessages. Did a restore (fortunately it was a backup phone) and it went away. Defiantly an issue.

[trebormen]

Man, that explains it! I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out why my wife was receiving all of my iMessage conversations. I tried searching it online but no one knew what I was even talking about. We both have iPhones and both have iPad 2's. I was adding/removing iMessage settings here and there. Good thing I was behaving in my texts!

[GenesisDH]

Gizmodo's take on it will get them in worse [insert word] by Apple or the person they are getting the intercepted messages from.

They were incredibly unprofessional and almost childish in that post. TUAW and even Gizmodo's content partners are crying foul on behalf of this guy.

[flash66]

Modmyi already covered this about a month ago. A little redundant news never hurts though. This did happen to me, which freaked me out to say the least. Wait, It gets better... When I bought a second hand i4 and swapped sims between phones, my messages were coming in on the second hand phone without a sim installed! It started after I removed the sim to put it back into my new 4S. Just restore in iTunes, and it will go away. iMessage obviously marries itself to the sims PUK number. Btw, will someone please fix the modmyi bug so I can see what I'm typing within the app?

[foolish813]

How does this work? If there is phone 1 containing sim1 and phone 2 containing sim 2. If sim 1 goes into phone 2 temporarily, does phone 1 later get phone 2's texts. Or does phone 2 get phone 1's texts.

[guidenes]

this happened to me before

I once pop my sim card into iPhone and set the iMessage account and later took it out to use it on my sgs2. However from then on, i've never received sms in sgs2 instead it appears in my iPhone even without the sim in it. Calling and texting out from sgs2 is fine, but receiving it will all happen in iPhone.

Weirdest **** ever, when my iphone has no service yet receives sms.

The problem is solved after removing the iMessage setup. But it really is very unusual thing to witness

[Legend_master]

You could just sign out of your iMessage account on which ever phone you don't want to receive messages at?

[Trooper Sam]

So what do they tie to with CDMA iPhones?

[AUZambo]

This actually happened to me a couple of years ago with my 3G. Obviously it wasn't tied to iMessage, but for about a day I was getting text messages from complete strangers that weren't even sent to my phone number.

[DJStile]

Wait...do people actually text each other with hash tags in their texts like that? WTF?

[The6uest]

Btw, will someone please fix the modmyi bug so I can see what I'm typing within the app?

You talking about when you type a long message and it goes behind the keyboard? I noticed that too but found that if I do a couple "returns" at the bottom I could then scroll down to see what I'm typing.

[Slyrother]

With textfree if you text one of your contact's textfree numbers, then delete the contact from the contacts app and text them again from your recent contacts (in textfree) it will text a random textfree user lol or at least it did for me. It was pretty funny to stumble on. I thought my friend was messing with me when he told me he was a girl and that i had the wrong number lol that was a hilarious conversation

[A3gOwner]

You talking about when you type a long message and it goes behind the keyboard? I noticed that too but found that if I do a couple "returns" at the bottom I could then scroll down to see what I'm typing.

It also crashes if you change the number of posts per page, every single time.

[n00neimp0rtant]

If I may clarify, this bug in no way forces you to receive these messages. You can go and deactivate any receiving number from your iMessage whenever you want. The clowns at Gizmodo who originally posted this story are just total jenkwads and don't care about anyone's privacy whatsoever.

[KraXik]

Gizmodo's take on it will get them in worse [insert word] by Apple or the person they are getting the intercepted messages from.

They were incredibly unprofessional and almost childish in that post. TUAW and even Gizmodo's content partners are crying foul on behalf of this guy.

+1. Gizmodo crossed the line on that one.

[bradmullins007]

This is true of other apps as well such as eBay and PayPal. I get notifications from iMessage, eBay, PayPal even though the device has no sim in it and I've completely logged out of the programs.

[Mrteacup]

This happened to my bud it's hardly a bug cause all it has to do is logging in with someone else's account and using iMessage on that email therefore you get their messages and your messages

[Crazyj29]

I have received other peoples text messages a couple times but not very many. There has only been one sim card in this phone and that's mine. I couldn't figure out what was going on and my wife thought I was nuts.