Taiwan flag emoji crashes iPhones to appease China
Taiwan flag emoji crashes iPhones to appease China
The bug enabled anyone to crash an Apple device by
sending a text message with the Taiwanese flag in it
Joseph Archer The Telegraph • July 11, 2018
Apple has fixed a glitch that caused iPhones registered
in China to crash when they received a message with an emoji showing the
Taiwanese flag.
Devices have reportedly been crashing since the icon was
blocked in 2017, an apparent attempt at censorship because the Chinese
government refuses to acknowledge Taiwan's independence.
Security researcher Patrick Wardle told Wired that the
flaw was a censorship function made by Apple that occasionally read the Taiwan
emoji as an "invalid input", causing the app it was sent over to shut
down.
Mr Wardle informed Apple about the bug and helped the
company to fix it, which Apple noted in a security update in June and fixed on
Tuesday.
Mr Wardle said: “If Apple had never tried to appease the
Chinese government, the bug would never have been introduced in the first
place.”
This is not the first time that the US company has made
diplomatic changes to its devices for China.
Apple have previously moved Chinese users' data to
servers within the country, as well as removed some VPNs from the App Store in
China.
Apple have been contacted for comment.
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