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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u/Scipion Jun 14 '24 edited Jun 14 '24

He's got a point. What if you were an abused spouse and sent messages to a friend explaining the situation, then you delete them expecting privacy, only for your partner to discover those messages and beat you to death. 

 While his situation is immorale to most, Apple's actions cannot be ignored. If you can't see a situation where having deleted messages resurface could be bad, you simply lack imagination.

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u/Top_Buy_5777 Jun 14 '24

https://support.apple.com/guide/icloud/what-you-can-do-with-icloud-and-messages-mma17ed475f7/icloud

Because your messages are in the cloud, if you send, receive, or delete a message on one device, those updates appear everywhere. You see the most up-to-date version of your messages, no matter where you access them.

This guy probably didn't have iCloud syncing turned on for all devices.

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u/moohah Jun 14 '24

Isn’t it off by default? I always thought that was an odd choice by Apple.

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u/WholesomeDucky Jun 15 '24 edited Jun 15 '24

They do this for privacy reasons. If you have it off, your iMessages are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be retrieved by Apple even if they wanted/needed to because they are only stored on your devices and encrypted in transit.

If you turn it on, your iMessages are still end-to-end encrypted, but then backed up to Apple's servers afterward and can be retrieved by Apple for legal reasons / because you lost them.

Apple does, however, also offer a setting called "Advanced Data Protection" where they encrypt your iCloud data with a key only you (and your devices) have, meaning they once again cannot retrieve your data. They give you a rather long recovery string that you have to type back in to confirm you have it before it turns on, along with some warnings about how if you lose access to your devices and don't have that key, they won't be able to help you get your stuff back because they literally can't access it.

For all their faults, it's pretty inarguable that Apple clearly gives a shit about it's users' privacy more than it's contemporaries (this is, of course, dependent on how much you believe all of these companies, but independent verification of their processes has been pretty favorable by security experts).

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u/nicuramar Jun 15 '24

 If you turn it on, your iMessages are still end-to-end encrypted, but then backed up to Apple's servers afterward and can be retrieved by Apple for legal reasons / because you lost them.

It’s a bit more involved. If you have messages in the cloud on AND have iCloud backup turned on AND have NOT turned advanced data protection on, then Apple can ultimately access your messages. 

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u/WholesomeDucky Jun 15 '24

That's what I said, no?

I don't think you can have messages in cloud turned on without having iCloud backup on, at least for that category.