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.

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.

If I have multiple devices synced, and I delete something from one of them, it's not unreasonable to think it should be deleted from all of them.

For example, a shared calendar item on my phone, tablet and laptop. If I delete it on one, it should be deleted from all of them.

If Apple synced the messages, but not the delete operation, yeah... that's a problem.

But it's also on the guy for setting up/not disabling sharing in the first place.

I know this wasn't iMessage per se (altho its par for the course for that curs-ed app) but this serves as a good reminder for posterity.

Its actually one of the issues with iCloud and the signin process because if you do the normal thing trying to sign into your account anywhere outside of AppStore, it automaticaly opts you in to iCloud and its showtime for all your data in terms of transit and restoring it and activating all of the crappy, leaky things like iMessage and Backup in addition to all 500+ apps you have that automatically synced themself the moment you opened and all times you used them if you didn't de-toggle and delete whatever it shared up to that point

Should have used Signal.

a man referred to as "Richard"

Heh.

it doesn't sound ridiculous to me. regardless of the backstory, the issue was that he deleted something and it didn't work. it could have been a password or picture of his balls or something. Apple should pay up

Geez, has this dude never watched a crime drama before? If you’re gonna be doing bad shit at LEAST get a burner phone. 🙄🙄🙄

What an idiot on multiple accounts.

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.

As many have recently discovered, if infidelity occurs, it's the phone makers fault.

https://lemdro.id/post/9738136

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/new-apple-ios18-feature-meant-banking-privacy-makes-it-easier-cheaters-hide-dating-apps-1724954

Unveiled at the recent WWDC, iOS 18 includes a much-discussed "hide and lock apps" feature that some worry could be misused for privacy concerns related to infidelity.

Critics have dubbed the new feature "a cheater's paradise" due to its ability to hide or lock apps on the iPhone home screen, potentially concealing private hobbies and information.

While Apple's promotion highlights the feature's ability to safeguard banking apps and prevent unauthorized purchases on Amazon, many users perceive it as facilitating infidelity. The new feature ignited a firestorm on social media, with divided opinions.

"Thanks Apple. I will be trying to hide online dating app from my wife," one X user shared. "With lock app and hide app, I can finally do it." Other users joked that the feature "is going to break up relationships."

/s

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

Not OK with his behaviour, definitely OK with Apple coughing up 100 million quid for the bloke and his wife

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.

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!