A British man is ridiculously attempting to sue Apple following a divorce, caused by his wife finding messages to a prostitute he deleted from his iPhone that were still accessible on an iMac.
In the last years of his marriage, a man referred to as “Richard” started to use the services of prostitutes, without his wife’s knowledge. To try and keep the communications secret, he used iMessages on his iPhone, but then deleted the messages.
Despite being careful on his iPhone to cover his tracks, he didn’t count on Apple’s ecosystem automatically synchronizing his messaging history with the family iMac. Apparently, he wasn’t careful enough to use Family Sharing for iCloud, or discrete user accounts on the Mac.
The Times reports the wife saw the message when she opened iMessage on the iMac. She also saw years of messages to prostitutes, revealing a long period of infidelity by her husband.
On the one hand, I don’t know that it’s fair to sue a company over your poor understanding of technology, or user error. On the other hand, if he worked for DARPA and was using imessage to talk to his boss or his team about a project that was then leaked or sold by someone living in his home who had access to his home laptop because he didn’t know that the messages he deleted weren’t deleted in real time, and he was fired from his job, that seems like something the company should make very clear when deleting the messages in the first place. A simple warning “Delete this message? Please be aware that deletion is not instantaneously across devices.” Would do.
Incognito mode actually has to tell users that it doesn’t prevent your ISP from seeing what you Google or what websites you visit while using it. They literally had to add a notification so people would know because people didn’t know.
If you work for DARPA and send anything near sensitive materials over iMessage, and something happens over it, that’s on you for being dumb.
People who work with sensitive information should know better than to use personal communication methods. If they don’t that’s their fault.
Any workplace where this is a worry, this should and probably will be drilled into your head from day one.
The point is to divorce the situation from the cheating aspect, so that people can be less emotionally invested in the outcome. Plenty of jobs that handle industry sensitive information do so over normal communication lines. DARPA was possibly a poor example because the assumption from you is that anything handled by them requires a clearance (which I wouldn’t consider to be true). Something as simple as tracking the whereabouts of a naval ship can and has been done via Facebook posts from people onboard or their families.
The point is that it wasn’t clear to the user that their information wasn’t being deleted in real time and that’s poor transparency on the part of the company because a lot of users probably assume the same just based on the comments I see here.
The way iMessage works is really broken. It’s like back in the old days when email was done by POP, so you would have to delete the email separately on both your laptop and your desktop otherwise you’d have inconsistencies.
Apple has never put any effort into it. Virtually every other messaging system is superior. People only used it because SMS was so limited back in the day but now there’s no reason for it to exist.
You can sync your messages by enabling iMessage in iCloud. Or you can just not sign into iMessage on devices that are shared with other people.
It’s not broken, it works this way by design. If you don’t want your messages stored in the cloud, then they aren’t synced. This is a choice that many messaging apps don’t give you.
What an idiot on multiple accounts.
No no you see, the issue was precisely the lack of multiple accounts
No that’s the problem, he was an idiot with a single account.
Should have used Signal.
Signal also has a similar problem. If you choose the “delete for me” option, it only deletes it on one device and leaves it on the others, last time I checked.
He would have to set up disappearing messages aswell.
I think there is a three hour window where you can delete for all.
You can only do that for your own messages though. I’m guessing the messages from the prostitutes would be more than enough for the wife to notice.
Also I think the window is longer than 3 hours. Maybe a day?
Just get one of the free texting apps or get a burner. Dumb people.
Or don’t cheat on your partner in the first place.
I mean people doing things they shouldn’t using their own phone. Like, serious trouble is a thumbprint or a passcode away.
The article tries to say that this is ridiculous, but I don’t see it.
Sure, he’s a cheater, and he got caught. Not particularly sympathetic.
But, Apple markets their products as privacy-respecting, he deleted something he wanted to keep secret, and his Apple products betrayed him and revealed his secret to someone else, resulting in real-world consequences.
Apple should be held to account for the privacy violation at the very least.
I use Apple sync on all my devices including my computer and it does delete from one device to another IF you have sync set up properly. And it’s not instantaneous, it happens when the cloud sync happens. When the computer is off or in sleep, it’s not syncing and once it’s woken up, sometimes it takes a minute to sync up. My guess, it was either not set up right or it hadn’t sync’d yet.
Other possibility, he didn’t know about the deleted folder where deleted messages sit for 30 days unless you clear it (like a computer trash can).
Except he used the same account for his prostitute texting device as for the family pc.
It’s simple user error. You can’t have privacy from someone else who shares the same login.I don’t have any Apple devices so I don’t understand why deleting the message from one device doesn’t delete it from another. What is the point of a sync in that case?
I’m not sure about the specifics in the Apple ecosystem but I imagine it’s like an email address that’s connected as IMAP on one main PC, and as POP3 on your phone.
You can download the mails you need to your phone to read them and answer them on the go.
But the mail server is synched to the PC. So deleting stuff on your phone just deletes the messages on your phone, not on the server and not on the PC.IMAP actually deletes an mail for all the clients.
yes, that’s what I wrote.
revealed his secret to someone else
I generally don’t like Apple, but I think crying about privacy violation because someone you’re willingly sharing your account with saw your stuff is not reasonable.
Dunno how it is Apples fault that he didn’t take the time to understand how the tools that he uses work.
If I plow my car into a crowd of people because I mistake the gas for the brake that is not GM’s fault.
And If they label the pedal “stop” and it doesn’t actually stop the car?
I’m not aware of the delete label in iMessage being labeled “delete from every device that you own and have signed into iMessage”.
There are numerous documented ways to avoid the situation he put himself in, he didn’t bother to find one and is now trying to blame others for his stupidity.
Declaring it a “very brutal way” for his wife to find out, he believes that there could’ve been a chance of the marriage continuing had he been able to “talk to her rationally.”
I’m not sure if he means he could continue his behaviour without being caught or if he planned on lying and saying it was a one time thing. Either way I highly doubt he had any plans to be honest.
The “talk to her rationally” bit is hilarious. Yes I’ve been expensively unfaithful, have possibly been exposing you to a number of diseases without your knowledge, and have been physically unavailable regularly for years. What self respecting person wouldn’t “rationally” see that as perfectly acceptable! /s
You’re forgetting that they’re british
The best part is that even if Apple is found liable, the asshole only gets some money. From here on out he will be known as the asshole that he is!
Guy shoulda used Signal
I knew a guy when I served in the US military who got caught cheating in a semi-related way. He got assigned to a base in a new state and his wife refused to relocate their whole family for the few years he’d be assigned there, so he went by himself, leaving his wife and kids in his home state.
Turns out, he was sexting one of his younger subordinates at work. One of his daughters found out when she tried to use an old tablet and found out his account was still synced to it. She saw all his texts updating in real time.
He was ultra-conservative and didn’t believe in divorce, so he was doing everything he could to save his marriage. His wife forced him to install security cameras in every room of his apartment and banned him from going anywhere after work. She knew his schedule and expected him home immediately after work ended. He was basically on house arrest until his job was done and he could move home.
The last I heard, he told his wife the landlord needed to paint the walls, so he removed all the cameras, dunked them in the bathtub, then played dumb when none of them would work when he set them back up again. He was seen inviting young women over to his apartment after that. So, you know… he didn’t learn his lesson.
His wife forced him to install security cameras in every room of his apartment and banned him from going anywhere after work. She knew his schedule and expected him home immediately after work ended.
This is so toxic. Not saying cheaters get what they deserve but if you can’t trust your husband, I think you have bigger problems than infidelity.
That’s conservatism for ya, can’t divorce and just be happier people for it because sky daddy might be mad
It’s probably mostly due to not wanting to pay spousal support and control issues.
Divorce is sin, side chicks are fine. Got it.
You wouldn’t believe how many people think like that, unless it’s the woman caught out.
Well of course she can’t have side chicks. Homosexuality is a sin. Unless he does it
I chuckled. I think there is deep seated shame of being gay, or soft, in toxic masculinity (and toxic femininity), that people probably go to extremes to hide it. Like being a player, spousal “discipline,” etc. and it gets passed down from generation to generation. But that’s a whole other topic.
