A Simple Text Can Crash Messages on Any iPhone It's Sent To

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A Simple Text Can Crash Messages on Any iPhone It's Sent To

A newly discovered bug seems to cause Messages on iOS to crash when a specific string of text is received—and if it happens while the phone is locked, it also seems to reboot the iPhone too.

It’s easy enough to find the offending string of text on Reddit, and plenty of Twitter users are already reporting that it’s being sent around to annoy people on a global scale. Verge reports that the trick seems to work regardless of what device it’s sent from—Windows Phone, Android or iPhone itself. Obviously we don’t condone that kind of behavior, but you know, it’s there to use if you feel so inclined.

The damage can, however, be undone. If you have a Mac, you can simply reply to the offending text message in iMessage with any other string of text to stop it from crashing your iPhone. If you don’t have a Mac, you can try sending a text message from a third-party app using its ‘share’ function, ask Siri to send a reply, or beg the sender to send a follow-up text. If you know who the sender is.

“We are aware of an iMessage issue caused by a specific series of unicode characters and we will make a fix available in a software update,” an Apple spokesperson said via email.

We’ll update this post when Apple issues a fix. Until then, that simple line of text could cause some serious headaches.

[9to5mac via Verge]

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Tad-bravo
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Tad-bravoJamie Condliffe
5/27/15 6:00am
Is this a joke? There’s no way an apple product could have such a flaw.

Apple devices don’t crash. They just don’t.

228 Reply
- Bin
  Profile Follow
  
  BinTad-bravo
  5/27/15 6:13am
  
  “There’s no way an apple product could have such a flaw.”
  
  And the ivory tower comes crashing down.
  
  61 Reply
- [[TuNeS]]
  Profile Follow
  
  [[TuNeS]]Tad-bravo
  5/27/15 6:13am
  
  You are a true believer, but as all believers, you are also stupid, go to reddit, also, there is a crapload of other methods to crash iphones and other stuff too. Machines DO crash.
  
  34 Reply
- Jace123
  Profile Follow
  
  Jace123Tad-bravo
  5/27/15 6:14am
  
  Clearly, we were typing wrong, causing a feature on the device to trigger a emergency corrective restart to compensate for our error.
  
  50 Reply
- Tad-bravo
  Profile Follow
  
  Tad-bravo[[TuNeS]]
  5/27/15 6:14am
  
  And you’re a fucking idiot who can’t detect sarcasm.
  
  404 Reply
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Eric the RC guy
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Eric the RC guyJamie Condliffe
5/27/15 8:27am
A lot of Apple users are going to find out which of their friends is a real dick today.

Don’t be that guy.

81 Reply
- TimF101
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  TimF101Eric the RC guy
  5/27/15 8:34am
  
  I starred you for the noble sentiment, but Apple should really try to fix this before next April 1.
  
  9 Reply
- iHateHumanity...and lost burner passwords
  Profile Follow
  
  iHateHumanity...and lost burner passwordsEric the RC guy
  5/27/15 8:50am
  
  Im trying really, really hard to not do this to my CEO.
  
  41 Reply
- aranxa1
  Profile Follow
  
  aranxa1Eric the RC guy
  5/27/15 8:58am
  
  I’m trying real hard not to be. But it’s going to be difficult.
  
  3 Reply
- Yes, I like Jukes
  Profile Follow
  
  Yes, I like JukesEric the RC guy
  5/27/15 9:18am
  
  I already mass-texted it to all of my friends with iPhones.
  
  49 Reply
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mwhite66
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mwhite66Jamie Condliffe
5/27/15 8:18am
This reminds me of that old urban legend about a simple phrase which when spoken drives the listener insane. There was even a Twilight Zone episode about it.

Twilight Zone, Need To Know, episode 121a

“Often the most perplexing mysteries have the simplest solutions, the most complex questions, the simplest answers. Sometimes we seek them long and hard only to find the solutions and the answers lie right before us in a reference book, under “T” for the Twilight Zone.”

16 Reply
- The Stig's graphic designer cousin
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  The Stig's graphic designer cousinmwhite66
  5/27/15 9:11am
  
  There’s a book, Lexicon, about that. It’s actually really good. In the book, you can do more than make people go insane. Using the correct phrase, you can make people do whatever you want. Complete control over them.
  
  http://io9.com/lexicon-could-...
  
  4 Reply
- mwhite66
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  mwhite66The Stig's graphic designer cousin
  5/27/15 9:24am
  
  Interesting; thanks. A similar idea about linguistic viruses runs through Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash.
  
  10 Reply
- hollylujah
  Profile Follow
  
  hollylujahmwhite66
  5/27/15 10:08am
  
  Other great magic phrases of our time:
  
  “... And one of them was assaulted! Peanut.”
  
  “... And miles to go before I sleep.”
  
  4 Reply
- AskYourMother
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  AskYourMotherhollylujah
  5/27/15 11:51am
  
  I had to check IMDb for the name and year of that movie. I saw it in a theater opening week. DAMN I’m old.
  
  1 Reply
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lulzlanta
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lulzlantaJamie Condliffe
5/27/15 7:08am
Isn’t this the same exact string that was crashing Chrome on mac a few months ago?

2 Reply
- Adam Clark Estes
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  Adam Clark Esteslulzlanta
  5/27/15 7:26am
  
  You mean this one?
  
  4 Reply
- lulzlanta
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  lulzlantaAdam Clark Estes
  5/27/15 7:29am
  
  Guess not. Hard to tell one random ass string of characters from another before at least 2 cups of caffeine.
  
  Reply
Burger-Lord
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Burger-LordJamie Condliffe
5/27/15 8:50am
How does this work? Does that text somehow trigger a buffer overflow?

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- dwarfgoat
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  dwarfgoatBurger-Lord
  5/27/15 9:37am
  
  It’s a bug with the notifications. It can’t render that particular text, so gives up (crashes). This is why it only works if the victim isn’t already in a conversation with the sender (notification center doesn’t need to alert you to a new text in a convo you’re already in). Also, another text from the same person will negate it (because notifications will show that latest text, vs. the one it can’t handle).
  
  So you have the power to mess with someone...and then release them from their horror.
  
  8 Reply
- jimothy
  Profile Follow
  
  jimothyBurger-Lord
  5/27/15 10:07am
  
  It summons Charlie, Crasher of iPhones.
  
  20 Reply
- yathatsright
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  yathatsrightdwarfgoat
  5/27/15 10:15am
  
  So if you have your notifications set to notify just the person’s name and not the content of the text would the phone still crash?
  
  4 Reply
- dwarfgoat
  Profile Follow
  
  dwarfgoatyathatsright
  5/27/15 10:22am
  
  Hmmmm...I’d imagine it would not. That probably explains why my phone hasn’t been crashing, as all my friends are heavy redditors and would have seen this—and are a bunch of dicks, so naturally would be trying it out on everyone they could.
  
  3 Reply
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alex beyer
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alex beyerJamie Condliffe
5/27/15 9:59am
“Apple will no doubt issue a fix to the issue pretty swiftly. But until they do, that simple line of text could cause some serious headaches.”

Yup, they’re pretty quick with those fixes, as history would show. /s
Or more likely what will happen is that they’ll deny there is an issue, then fix it, and say “see, there never really was an issue in the first place”. They’re good at making the user out to be the one to blame, and making them feel stupid.

10 Reply
ajdragoon
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ajdragoonJamie Condliffe
5/27/15 7:31am
According to the folks on r/jailbreak, this is a unicode problem that has apparently been around since iOS6. Reference here:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/29/bug...

Wow.

4 Reply
eric_tan
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eric_tanJamie Condliffe
5/27/15 10:28am
Fuck this.

Since it contains Arabic, send it to all ISIS assholes.

5 Reply
- Elysia
  Profile Follow
  
  Elysiaeric_tan
  5/27/15 11:12am
  
  This made my day. LOL
  
  2 Reply
- Tad-bravo
  Profile Follow
  
  Tad-bravoeric_tan
  5/27/15 11:51am
  
  Do you have their phone numbers?
  
  6 Reply
Jaycob619
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Jaycob619Jamie Condliffe
5/27/15 7:49am
Somewhere some terrorist is probably trying to communicate in unicode but keeps crashing their buddies iphones.

16 Reply
- BanjoDonkey
  Profile Follow
  
  BanjoDonkeyJaycob619
  5/27/15 9:29am
  
  Oh God that needs to be a short home-brew comedy video on Youtube right the hell now.
  
  3 Reply
ReforMatt
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ReforMattJamie Condliffe
5/27/15 8:35am
My first thought is that this is how they control the iphone via findmyiphone... there are 3rd party apps that will react to text messages in this manner. If this is the case then this is a very insecure way of remotely controlling the devices and there will be other commands that are found to work as well. example: report gps location, lock screen, etc.

1 Reply
- Blarghinston
  Profile Follow
  
  BlarghinstonReforMatt
  5/27/15 10:15am
  
  wat? it’s because the banner notification can’t render the text. that’s simply all
  
  6 Reply

Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies

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