Being fired seems like a very mild punishment, I hope the authorities got involved too.
Exactly. And since the activity was in fact illegal, I'm hoping the authorities are just developing a case, but given the time frame, I suspect not. Which is unfortunate.
We can't assume the activity was illegal under the criminal code in California. In fact, I suspect it was not.
If the student was under 18 there are serious felonies in play. Child pornography carries a lot of prison time.
There is no mention of that, and the article describes her as a "woman." But if she was under 18, yes.
In 2016, an unnamed student in Oregon sent her iPhone to Apple, as part of the repairs process. The device was then handed over to a Pegatron facility in Sacramento, California, where it was examined by technicians.
Two of the technicians then posted "10 photos of her in various stages of undress and a sex video" to the woman's Facebook account, to make it seem like she posted the images herself, according toThe Telegraph. The explicit content was later removed once friends of the victim told her of their publication.
According to some reports, "often, Apple service centre executives ask users to provide them a device’s pass code, which may be required at certain stages during repair". This seems really open to abuse if true and I don't see why it would be necessary for a hardware repair.
Assuming it's the case that hardware repairs at some point need the device unlocked, the software needs better protections. Banking apps usually allow the app to be locked on leaving the app. The photos app doesn't necessarily need to have this by default but it could have a more visible way of securing photos and videos behind biometrics and/or pin code. iOS can even use on-device AI to detect nudity or just NSFW content and have a popup that recommends protecting it behind some security.
For repairs, the workers should only be allowed to boot the device into a safe mode that isn't allowed to access user's apps. Maybe something in iCloud could generate a second unlock code. On setting up an account on iOS, both would be generated. Then when a device failed, the user would get the repair code from iCloud to give to the repair people.
I completely agree 👍🏽 Similar to DFU and Recovery mode, could create a Repair mode (Safe mode would indicate the device is unsecured/less secure in standard mode 😵💫) invoked by the owner of the device prior to handing the device over for support. Repair mode would lock down everything and only enable access to systems specifically needed to complete the repair process, including booting the device to verify the device functions as expected (please excuse my very limited knowledge of hardware in the context of repairing and testing). The Secure Enclave could keep a log of all systems accessed during Repair mode, something the staff at Apple authorized support companies would welcome (I assume), as this log would document that no violation of policy occurred. And in the sickening case reported here, a means to pursue such offenses legally with the log as evidence.
And thus no need to disable the pass code on your device for support 👍🏽
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Similar to DFU and Recovery mode, could create a Repair mode (Safe mode would indicate the device is unsecured/less secure in standard mode 😵💫) invoked by the owner of the device prior to handing the device over for support.
Repair mode would lock down everything and only enable access to systems specifically needed to complete the repair process, including booting the device to verify the device functions as expected (please excuse my very limited knowledge of hardware in the context of repairing and testing).
The Secure Enclave could keep a log of all systems accessed during Repair mode, something the staff at Apple authorized support companies would welcome (I assume), as this log would document that no violation of policy occurred. And in the sickening case reported here, a means to pursue such offenses legally with the log as evidence.
And thus no need to disable the pass code on your device for support 👍🏽