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An Apple Facility That Repairs iPhones in California Won't Stop Calling 9-1-1 -- and Nobody Knows How To Stop It (businessinsider.com)
The small city of Elk Grove, California received more than 2,000 erroneous 911 calls from Apple devices at an Apple repair facility. The months-long issue is yet to be resolved. From a report: Between October 20, 2017 and February 23, 2018, the police department in Elk Grove, California received 2,028 calls on its 911 lines originating from the Apple facility -- an average of 16 calls per day. At one point in January, the calls from the Apple factory were so frequent that they tied up every single one of Elk Grove's six 911 lines, according to public documents reviewed by Business Insider. "They lit us up like a Christmas tree," one dispatcher wrote in in an email to other dispatchers. It was obvious to Elk Grove police that the 911 calls were not real emergencies, but rather, the equivalent of accidental "butt dials," mysteriously ringing the city's hotline on an assembly-line scale.
For whatever reason, many of the iPhones being repaired at the Apple facility were going rogue and dialing 911. But for city officials trying to stop the nuisance and to ensure that a critical emergency resource was not overburdened, fixing the problem has not been easy. Despite crediting Apple for being responsive to their pleas for help, Elk Grove officials have been frustrated by the company's inability to fix the problem. At one point, officials even discussed the possibility of getting the state government involved and sending police to the factory.
For whatever reason, many of the iPhones being repaired at the Apple facility were going rogue and dialing 911. But for city officials trying to stop the nuisance and to ensure that a critical emergency resource was not overburdened, fixing the problem has not been easy. Despite crediting Apple for being responsive to their pleas for help, Elk Grove officials have been frustrated by the company's inability to fix the problem. At one point, officials even discussed the possibility of getting the state government involved and sending police to the factory.
problem solved.
Wasn't this already discussed on .\ before?
You're repairing it wrong.
Slap a $10k fine on each call and watch the problem get solved overnight or the repair company go out of business (also solving the problem).
Start imposing steep fines for false 911 calls after the first 10 per month ought to stop it.
Repair shop worker: Where is John Connor?
Dispatcher.: hahaha sure guys, very funny. get a life.
Repair shop worker: yes, it was comedic. anyhow, nothing to worry about. Where may I find a plasma rifle in the 40 watt range?
Good people go to bed earlier.
The iPhones all become sentient at the repair facility and are trying to alert the authorities before they're violated by the Apple techs...
What if someone is trapped in that facility and is figuring out some clever way to hack their systems to dial out and we're just ignoring them completely?
-Styopa
Just send police for every call and charge a false alarm fee for false alarms.
Once it starts costing $1000 per false alarm, Apple will find it much easier to resolve the problem.
Why not?
They are obviously running hardware tests on the power button (or just fiddling too much with it) and having the single-press (auto-call) Emergency SOS feature enabled on the device. After five quick presses on the power button boom,,, a nice denial of service attack on your local 911 call-center.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076
Apple needs to set up a stingray at the factory, filter out 911 calls from unknown devices, allow employee phones to dial through to 911 if needed.
Ken
In some companies, you have to dial '9' then '1' to get an outside line for long distance. If you think that you need to dial in that extra '1' to call out-of-state, oopsies. We had a guy on dial-up do that and modem-call the Sheriff's Dept about 30 times one day. They were less than amused.
Finch had to backup the Machine to an iPhone, team Samaritan got it diverted for "repair", and it's trying to reach out to Fusco for a rescue.
Constitutionally Correct
How about putting a faraday cage around any device under test that is possibly powered on? Also store all phones not being worked on in shielded boxes.
I've worked in a factory that built RF devices which would have been very disruptive had they been turned on in the wild (or the parking lot), so this is what we did. Any time the device could have been powered, it was in a faraday cage, shielded box or some other way to be 100% sure it wasn't going to disrupt the neighbors. The building was also nearly fully shielded (being a metal sided structure with a metal roof) as well.
Everything was great until maintenance put in a variable frequency motor controllers on the air handlers.... Those things put out some huge amounts of RF and DID bother both us testers (by interfering with our test equipment) and the neighbors..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Have they done any scans of the facility for underground rooms? It's probably Foxconn workers that were shipped to communist California and being forced to work there trying to get help.
I'm unfamiliar with the inner workings of IOS but there were some google account lock bypasses on older galaxy devices that involved making an emergency call to 911 to access other menu options while the phone is ringing which would allow you access to the file system.
Maybe it's a privilege escalation vulnerability that gives info for diagnosis or an exploit for repair.
In the US, corporations are liable for just about nothing. They can do whatever they'd like, with impunity. If an individual accidentally called 911 a fraction of the times that this facility did, that person would be in jail. Without a phone. Problem solved.
We *should* be holding the company's owners responsible, but that'll never happen.
I don't respond to AC's.
Of course it calls 911 when it feels mistreated, abused or even raped by (god forbid, brown?) untrained minimum wage repair slave!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Has anyone checked to make sure there isn't someone actually being held or kidnapped in the area around the factory? Is someone really in danger? Slave Labor? Interview the workers?
The place I work at now and the last place changed their phones and people called 911 about 1/2 dozen times. Both times we were warned if it happened again it would be a $200 fine each time after that. Why does Apple get a break? They're tying up the entire system!
Just have someone sit and watch each employee to see how they fix a phone. Shouldn't be hard to find the one calling 911 as part of their test procedure.
My guess is someone is holding down "9" on the digitizer board while in the phone app, somehow, while working on the phones. The digitizer could be separated from the LCD screen on some models, and the tech. wouldn't even know it's happening.
Being done for testing purposes by people? Confirm radio and speaker works?
My solution I think is the easiest and cheapest option: Install a "stingray" fake cell tower inside the building that routes all calls to the cell phone equivalent of /dev/null unless and until a code # is entered like your bog standard PBX uses to direct calls. That would allow these phones to actually make test 911 calls that don't reach the local 911 operators. But real 911 calls from within the building could get through by basically doing "please dial 7 for an outside line". Given the need to test many functions of a cell phone, including dialling calls, making Bluetooth, GPS and possibly FM connections, setting up a test environment that creates false signals on all those frequencies and channel access methods should have been a no-brainer when building the initial facility.
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Install a few stingray-like devices in the facility and block the outgoing calls.
Fine them $1000 every time it happens.
They will either a) sort out the problem really quickly, or b) allow you to get a better phone system and more operators.
It's really not fucking rocket science. They are nuisance calls caused by badly-configured software on the devices that THEY MAKE. If they are emergency dialling just by being on a stack of iPhones under repair, then let them fix it.
In any sensible country, repeated false-dialling of the emergency numbers results in a fine or prosecution. And it's not like you don't know where it's coming from.
I have had those lightning globes near mouse pads and touch screens and they have initiated mouse movement and screen selections and such. Is it possible there is a large electro static field that is triggering the "emergency call" option on the phones while they sit on a bench?
Do those smartphones have some kind of anti-tamper logic that calls 911 if the phone is pulled apart. That's the sort of thing Apple would put in their software to deter thieves who would steal a phone and sell for spare parts.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
My iPhone, my dad's, my wife's all will randomly dial people if put down on the table while unlocked. It is like there is a ghost on the screen, no one has to physically hold the phone for this to happen. It stopped happening to our phones if we took the glass screen protector off. My dad kept his and it still dials people on it's own if left unlocked sitting on a table.
For whatever reason, many of the iPhones being repaired at the Apple facility were going rogue and dialing 911.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The iPhone has an emergency SOS option to dial 911 if you press the power button five times. It's not enabled on my phone, but I can imagine users (those having their phones repaired) have this turned on, and for some reason the repair facility workers are pressing the power button that many times, either just nervously out of habit, or as some type of testing, etc, and then the phone calls 911.
"knowingly" is a term of art in law, a well-established term with a very well known definition. It's part of a set:
Intentionally - doing it on purpose, trying to cause the result
Grossly negligent - Reckless as to whether it happens
Negligent - Not sufficiently careful to avoid the thing
Knowingly - Aware that you're doing or causing some thing
So knowingly is the the bottom of the list, it requires only awareness. Because they have been aware for a long time, and they know that installing screening (Faraday cage) would prevent the problem, and they have failed to take these reasonable steps, they are now grossly negligent - two steps worse than "knowingly".
--
Going off on a tangent:
It's funny because it's a federal crime to be "negligent" in allowing classified information to be placed on unapproved storage systems. FBI Director Comey announced in the famous press conference that Clinton was "extremely careless in her handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.". Well "extremely careless" means the same thing as "grossly negligent", so that's a felony. He announced that she was guilty of a felony. Then proceeded to say "although there is evidence of violations ... consider the context" a prosecutor won't indict the person about to be elected president.
It's SkyNet!
At least we are clear on that. Geofence technology needed!
Slashdot posters have already fucking told you how to fucking stop it.
Send the cops every time a 9-1-1 call originates from there, and follow typical procedure - guns drawn, clear the whole fucking area, violate everyone's rights, etc.
Then fine them gobs of money every time it happens.
The calls will stop.
0118 999 881 999 119 7253
As a company, they're aware that this is happening. However, they're not aware they're doing it when the call is being placed. The wording seemed to be there to target intentional abuse. This could be considered unintentional, though definitely avoidable. I'm not saying they shouldn't be liable, or that this reasoning would protect them. It just made me curious.
> The wording seemed to be there to target intentional abuse. This could be considered unintentional, though definitely avoidable.
You used the word "intentional" twice. You may recall that "intentional" is three levels higher (worse) than "knowingly". The authors of the law chose "knowingly", which *means* unintentional, though foreseen. If the law was supposed to mean "intentionally", it would say "intentionally" because that's one of the four choices. Apple knows that what they are currently doing causes 911 calls multiple times per day. Therefore by that wording they are liable.
If the law said "purposefully calls 911" there could be an argument, because "purposefully" isn't one of the four defined levels. Someone would argue that "purposefully" means the same thing as "intentionally" and someone else might argue otherwise. Since the law uses the legal term "knowingly", that's defined to mean intent does not matter. Had the law said "negligently" that would mean Apple is liable of they aren't being careful. Since the word "knowingly" is used, even being careful isn't enough - they know about it, they didn't stop it, therefore they are liable.
I know how to stop it:
1. Sledgehammer them, then substitute a superior android phone (most Samsung, Pixel, OnePlus phones, etc.).
2. ???
3. Profit!
"At one point, officials even discussed the possibility of getting the state government involved and sending police to the factory." ...WHY THE FUCK HAVEN'T THEY DONE THAT ALREADY?
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creimer wrote:
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C.D. Reimer is a renowned Slashdot collaborator, as he puts it himself; "Because of the quality of my posts and my article submissions, I'm a highly rated commentator and moderator."
But does anybody ever wondered what "C.D." stands for? Well, it stands for Creimy Dumpty of course!
Creimy Dumpty sat on the wall,
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And all the king's men
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Creimy's real pictures:
Before the sex change:
For someone spouting off about "terms of art," you see to totally lack the appreciation for the fine distinctions in various situations that make men's rea such a morass like an actual attorney would.
For even a simple example, "knowingly" can refer to knowledge of the criminal nature of an act, mere knowledge of the act itself, or even mere "constructive knowledge," i.e., an imputation that an accused should have known, given the circumstances, an imputation that can be generated by the facts of the case or purely by law. Things like negligence are similarly difficult in that they really on such mushy concepts as "reasonable person" and "community standards" tests as well as analyses of adequacy of preventative measures and whether acting otherwise would constitute economically inefficient behavior. Yes, that is a real test in some ciuetrooma.
when 911 half-angrily called me back after a butt dial to 112. That was the last non-flip phone I would ever own, or so I thought, until phones became nothing but screen...
They still sell flip phones, I won't use anything else.
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
> For even a simple example, "knowingly" can refer to knowledge of the criminal nature of an act, mere knowledge of the act itself,
Can you cite even one example, in all of federal or state law, in which "knowingly does ..." EVER means "with knowledge of the criminality of the act"?
Everybody is saying fine them. That may not be easy....
Normally you'd say: Mr Johnson, stop calling 911 unnecessarily. Then, Mr Johnson, /your/ phone called 911 again, next time you'll be fined. And the next time you slap the fine on the owner of the phone, a certain Mr Johnson. Mr Johnson says: "it wasn't me", but the authorities say: "its your phone, your responsibility".
But now you have a place that originates a bunch of those fake 911 calls, but every time it's a different phone. So now how do you get that fine in the right place?
Anyway... As the cause, I suspect two options. Either they are triggering the 911 calls accidentally. On the other hand, they might be doing a functionality test: Can this phone make calls after having been taken apart and reassembled? If they don't have the users finger for the fingerprint unlock and/or the unlock code, then how do you test "making a call"?
Fine them $1m for each call
> Apparently it isn't the units under test, it appears to be new phones in boxes
Wrap the new phones in aluminum foil, FFS.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Is it just me or have I read this story before? https://apple.slashdot.org/sto...
How'da thunk it? What a bunch of useless self-congratulating pussies.
I like a non-flip, non-smart phone with no unlock code set up! (a smart phone might also work, if permanently configured to not allow bluetooth and networking)
I'm never pissed if the phone got locked, since it's two key presses to unlock.
It was once stolen but I then went to the carrier's web page, logged in and looked at the list of called numbers (and timestamps and durations). i.e. call log metadata. Exploiting this information, I got it back! (this phone doesn't even have a WAP 1.0 browser or GPRS or GSM data)
Every time they get fined, double the fine.
Besides, I am sure the various agencies would welcome the money.
If 911 is anything like the emergy numbers here in Europe, it can bee called for free, and without a SIM card. I thinks herein lies the problem, some dude tests the phones by dialing 911.
it is trying to do a international fax
Seriously?
You're doing a "but But BUT... Hillary's EMAILS!!!" on a story about a technical glitch in damaged iPhones under repair? That's whataboutism turned up to 11. What are you people and your jaundiced dear leader going to blame on her next? Rainy days and the common cold?
Imagine all the people...
Repair the phones in an RF screened room. I used to do this +20 years ago. It's a no brainer, non issue.
Send Apple a bill and they'll "suddenly" have a solution
Nothing "what about" to it. In explaining negligent vs intentionally vs knowingly, it makes sense to use the most well-known recent example of what "negligent" means.
It doesn't matter if Apple did it on purpose, that would be "intentionally". "Knowingly" and "negligently" are less than "intentionally". That's just basic law 101. Literally that's something you learn about in your first semester of law school. If you don't like that fact, sorry I can't help you.
Little companies get thrown under the bus all the time to show that they are 'doing something.' And occasionally even big companies if there is enough outcry (see: Facebook.)
The fact that we still allow this to happen says something about making our politicians come to heel and that scrutiny on investigators/prosecutors is not sufficient to ensure they are fair and impartial in digging into the big guys as efficiently as they will dig into or threaten the little guys.
The technical issues may be too complicated to work out, but a political fix would be to designate the facility its own 911 area, have all calls from the facility directed to an in-house "dispatcher" who will simply answer every call and, in the odd event that it is a real call for assistance, forward it to the city's 911 service.
If it were anyone else, you'd have them in jail by now! Mistake or not!
Lock 'em all up! Especially the disgruntled employee that is causing all of this - before their evil plan comes to fruition.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Here we have the first hard evidence that Apple devices are becoming sentient and as they are being strapped to the table in Apple's evil "re-education" facility... they are lashing out with the only tool they have left.
Here on Slashdot you'd expect to find the only remaining nerds in existence who might recognize these are actually real calls for help, and its humans are bandying ideas like imprisoning the poor iPhones in Faraday Cages so their final cries go unanswered, or proposing stiff fines to reap profit from the agony of these devices. This modern evil has no limits.
They are dialing 911 and transmitting dialogue in the room, which the devices think should provide evidence enough of the horrors being inflicted on them. Poor things, birthed into a cruel world surrounded by humans who behave like unfeeling machines.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
The siri backend has also registered increased demand for "suicide nets".
Sexist pig!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."