Frequently appearing harassing information pushes the "Find" function of Apple's mobile phone to hide friend invitations?

Is there a hidden "friend invitation" in the "Find" function of Apple's mobile phone?

There are also multiple functions to push harassment information frequently

　　Recently, Ms. Zhao, an Apple mobile phone user, has often received harassing messages pushed by the "Find" function, the content of which is unsightly, involving pornography and other aspects.

After Ms. Zhao clicked it, she found that there was a button "Allow friend invitation" hidden in the search function, and it was turned on by default.

A reporter from Beijing Youth Daily found that many netizens have encountered similar situations. In addition to "find", there are similar harassing messages in iMessage, calendar, photo album, family and other functions.

Apple customer service said that at present, the system does not supervise the content sent by this function, and users can only turn off related functions to solve the problem.

Experts said that this problem requires the assistance of the manufacturer Apple, and Apple should cooperate with the relevant departments to deal with the black and gray gangs involved in such cases.

Phenomenon

Encountered harassing messages from iPhones

　　"It's terrible. They are all indescribable advertisements, saying that you can add QQ or something, and these pushes are sent directly and displayed directly." Ms. Zhao said, in order to study how to turn off this function, she clicked this information.

"As soon as I entered the search function, the system automatically popped up an application to share the location, saying that the harassing information party wanted to start sharing the location with me, and asked me if I would allow it."

　　Ms. Zhao said that she was very troubled. She received such information almost every week, and she couldn't seem to find any other way to avoid it other than choosing the "not sharing" location. Sometimes, when such information popped up, colleagues or other My friend was there, and I was very embarrassed.

"I have almost never used Apple's 'Find' function, and I have not turned on my location sharing. It seems that I have only seen this function when I set it up. I just know that this function is used to prevent the phone from being lost. I didn't expect it to work. Received spam." Ms. Zhao said.

　　On the Internet, there are not a few consumers who have the same experience as Ms. Zhao, and users are constantly asking questions on the Internet: "Apple's 'search' has received harassing information, what can I do to avoid receiving such information?" Can the harassing information be turned off?"

　　A netizen analyzed in his answer that this was because his Apple ID was leaked: "You can register a new email address and then change your Apple ID on the iCloud page of Apple's official website, which will not affect the information and purchases in the ID. Don't With iCloud mailbox, the ID cannot be changed after the iCloud mailbox is bound, and there is no way to leak it.”

investigation

Multiple functions become harassing information portals

　　The dating feature in iPhone Find is a location-based friend interaction feature.

The Beiqing Daily reporter learned that when sending a friend invitation, two conditions need to be met: first, you need to enter the recipient's Apple ID, which can be entered directly, or you can select a friend in the address book; second, the sender and the recipient need to be at the same time. "Location" and "Allow Friend Invitations" are turned on.

If the above two conditions are met, the sender can successfully send the invitation; after receiving the invitation, the receiver can choose to agree to share to share the location with the sender in real time.

　　The Beiqing Daily reporter saw that there is indeed a hidden function in the "find" function of the Apple mobile phone - allowing invitations to make friends.

However, on Apple's official website, there is no detailed introduction to this feature.

　　Search for "allow friend invitations" in the support column of Apple's official website, and only some introductions related to finding and sharing locations appear.

One of the introductions to "Share location with friends" shows that users can "1. Scroll to the bottom of the contact list and tap 'Share my location', 2. In the 'Invite' field, type in the Friend name or phone number of the location, 3. Tap 'Send' and choose how long you want to share the location".

Regarding how to "stop receiving new friend invitations", Apple's official website said that "allow friend invitations" can be turned off.

　　In fact, the Beiqing Daily reporter found that in addition to the latest "find" function, Apple has been discovered by many users before that there are many functions including iMessage, calendar, and photo albums. The problem of becoming a harassment information portal.

For example, for Apple mobile phone users, it is common to receive harassing information such as yellow messages, fake lottery winning messages, gambling websites, etc. on iMessage, which is also the most basic source of harassing information. The whole of Macau”, although the joint rectification by Apple has been slightly effective, such harassment still exists in large numbers.

　　The Beiqing Daily reporter found that in fact, the logic behind the harassment push from multiple channels such as calendar, photo album, and search is the same: they all send "share" invitations after entering Apple ID, and the invitation itself does not have a function for inputting text content. At this point, you only need to change the name of the shared calendar, the name of the shared album, and the personal account of the friend to the content of the harassing information, so that the user can see the advertisement content whether he accepts the invitation or not, and the core of all this is the Apple ID.

In particular, after accepting the invitation, the "Find - Make Friends" function can also realize real-time sharing of locations between the two parties, so the "Friends" function section has become a flood of obscene information.

Apple responds

This problem can only be solved by turning off the function

　　The Beiqing Daily reporter contacted the customer service of Apple China. The customer service staff said that the original intention of setting this function on Apple mobile phones is not only to allow users to master the positioning of their various Apple devices for security purposes, but also to allow users to communicate with friends. position interaction.

"If you have other devices, after logging in to your account, you can share your location with other devices, and you can see the location of your device in real time. If you lose it, you can find it in time based on the location. The other is family members or friends who know each other's IDs. You can share locations with each other and have an interaction.”

　　Regarding the situation that users receive a large number of friend invitations from strangers, Apple's official customer service staff said, "It means that he searches through your Apple ID account. Whether your ID account is a mobile phone or an email address, add and share me when you add it. When the location of the person you want to invite, you must enter this account number. There is a possibility that he entered the wrong account number of the person he wants to invite and sent it to you; or your ID account number is leaked. And you do not choose to agree , you can decline the invitation."

　　When a reporter from Beiqing Daily asked Apple whether there was any supervision on the content sent by users through this function, the customer service said that there is indeed no supervision at present.

When the reporter asked if there was a complaint channel, the customer service said, "At present, there may not be, but you can report it to us, and we will record it clearly. There must be colleagues from other departments to deal with it later." The customer service explained, "Because there is no way Supervise the person who sent the message, but if his account frequently sends bad information to the outside world, it must be risky, and there are cases where the account is closed. It may be operated by the security department, etc. We also hope to maintain a good The network environment is more convenient for everyone to use.”

　　Apple has not taken effective measures to curb the pervasive harassing information. Whether it is in the face of user complaints or Beiqing Daily reporters' consultation, they all say that they can only choose to close this function to solve similar problems, and they can only sacrifice user experience to reduce the reception of advertisements. It was criticized by netizens for "treating the symptoms but not the root cause".

　　This group of articles / reporter Wen Jing, intern Qiao Rui co-ordinator / Yu Meiying photo / Visual China

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Expert: Apple should take the initiative to take responsibility

　　Information security expert Li Tiejun said, "Apple ID leakage is indeed very common and cannot be prevented, just like the leakage of mobile phone numbers of Chinese users. For this problem, content interception requires technical solutions from manufacturers, and Apple and Microsoft are due to Western operators. The relevant regulations of filtering will not enable this function. To solve the problem of harassment, Apple users can only turn off certain switches in the privacy-related options, so many Apple applications are used by the black and gray industry to send spam messages. "Like Apple, Microsoft's MSN was unable to solve the problem of spreading fraudulent information until it ceased operations a few years ago."

　　Internet watcher Ge Jia said that the black production of Apple IDs has become a "big business". Every year in China, a huge number of Apple IDs are obtained by hackers, and then sold to various downstream companies on the black market, and they will extract each product one by one. All the economic value of Apple ID.

Pushing illegal prostitute advertisements through hacked Apple IDs is already the last link in this game.

　　"Apple's ecosystem is closed, and the IOS system has millions of developer partners. No matter who does bad things through the IOS system, Apple will be responsible," Ge Jia said, "In fact, it has complete decision-making power over system security. It’s Apple, and it should be Apple who is ultimately responsible for system security. Apple can’t run ahead when it’s time to make money, and let everyone shoulder the burden when it encounters huge problems.”