> the researchers find that the Bluetooth chip is not well protected, and its firmware could be analyzed and altered by an iPhone user with privileged access. While this is a complex process, it may also lead to discovering and exploiting new vulnerabilities that would introduce even more risk. It would be great if Apple would address the Bluetooth chip weakness and migrate to better firmware security.
Stop using Apple's products if their "functionality" or "user hostility" is a problem for you.
I used to be a fanboy. But I've moved to a (mostly) FOSS setup now. It's more rough around the edges but if I decide my computer/phone should not do something, then it FUCKING WON'T and I generally have the power to make it so.
I'm not sure how this comment is useful. Most of us here are fairly technically sophisticated and have chosen our operating systems for our own reasons. There's no perfect OS, each has upsides and downsides. As you admit, yours is "more rough around the edges". It's a matter of personal priorities and preferences.
It's frustrating whenever someone points out one problem, and a bunch of responses are "just don't use Apple products". There may be good reasons to stop using Apple products, but no, this Bluetooth issue is not a reason for me. As I'm aware of the issue, I check Bluetooth status after every OS update and re-disable it, problem solved for me. This blog post is just about awareness raising and hopefully pushback to get Apple to change it. I think most people are unaware that OS updates are silently re-enabling Bluetooth. In the grand scheme, it's not the biggest issue in the world, which is precisely why public pushback might get Apple to change it. I would at least like to hear their explanation.
> I think most people are unaware that OS updates are silently re-enabling Bluetooth.
At this point I’d be far more surprised to find more than a small minority of people who care about permanently disabling it, given the number of things Apple use Bluetooth for (i.e. Continuity, Apple Watch, Find My Items, Apple Pencil) on top of the usual uses (like Bluetooth headphones, in-car phone connectivity, portable speakers and so on).
I get there can be security motivations for disabling Bluetooth but my feeling is that reactivating automatically is probably a conscious decision motivated by real world usage patterns and/or support cases from less technical users.
> reactivating automatically is probably a conscious decision
Not probably, definitely. Apple said so in the bug report.
> motivated by real world usage patterns and/or support cases from less technical users
Or motivated by the desire to sell Apple products and services that require Bluetooth? Motivated by the desire to keep pushing people like me until they give up and give in? Anyone less stubborn than me probably would have given up by now and just kept Bluetooth enabled. Clearly, Apple wants you to have Bluetooth on, for whatever reason.
Why even have a toggle in Settings if it keeps getting turned back on? The user has to consciously go into Settings and turn off Bluetooth; it may be true as you say that most users don't do that, but for those who do specifically go into Settings and disable Bluetooth, there's no excuse for undoing their preference. Less technical users aren't disabling Bluetooth in the first place.
If you had a Bluetooth keyboard or mouse, then Bluetooth would have been enabled before installing the update, otherwise how could you type or click to install the update in the first place? Also, the same thing happens on Mac laptops with built-in keyboard and trackpad. Moreover, it happens on iPhone too, which has no peripherals.
Not sure why you changed "every" OS update to "important" OS updates.
The only keyboard I have connected to my M1 Mac Mini is a Bluetooth keyboard and I would be extremely pissed off if I did an update and I couldn't use my computer without having to grab a wired keyboard.
This is completely missing the point. As I said in an earlier comment:
"If you had a Bluetooth keyboard or mouse, then Bluetooth would have been enabled before installing the update, otherwise how could you type or click to install the update in the first place? Also, the same thing happens on Mac laptops with built-in keyboard and trackpad. Moreover, it happens on iPhone too, which has no peripherals."
The point is pretty simple: if you had Bluetooth disabled before an OS update, then it should stay disabled after the update. And likewise, if you had Bluetooth enabled before an OS update, then it should stay enabled after the update! In other words, an OS update should not silently change your settings.
It's astonishing to me that people with Bluetooth keyboards somehow believe that I want their keyboard to stop working. That's absurd.
When I first got this computer basically when it first came out there was a point during the initial setup or it was an update soon after I originally set it up where I had bluetooth enabled and then I rebooted and then Bluetooth wasn't enabled anymore. I think Apple got a lot of complaints about that and now they just want to make sure that it defaults to on no matter what just in case.
That sounds like a bug. It would be strange for Apple to "fix" a bug by introducing a different bug. Why not just fix that bug?
Macs have supported Bluetooth for almost 20 years, as have iPhones since their beginning. It's unclear why, after all that time, this change needed to be made in the year 2020.
Good for radio baseband attackers and harvesters (including nearby Apple devices tracking "Find My Phone") of WiFi and Bluetooth device presence.
https://www.riscure.com/blog/security-highlight-evil-never-s...
> the researchers find that the Bluetooth chip is not well protected, and its firmware could be analyzed and altered by an iPhone user with privileged access. While this is a complex process, it may also lead to discovering and exploiting new vulnerabilities that would introduce even more risk. It would be great if Apple would address the Bluetooth chip weakness and migrate to better firmware security.