iPhone 12 camera module is paired to phone and can only be replaced by Apple

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY7DtKMBxBw

by sschueller • 6 years ago

31 14 6 years ago

sschueller• 6 years ago

With face id and the battery they claim it's about security and safety. How is this anything other than preventing repair?

If you don't let people fix your device you can not claim you care about the environment. Not including a charger is about making more money and nothing more.

bootlooped• 6 years ago

I don't care if they (or any other phone company) omits the charger purely for profit. It's still true that almost everybody already owns one and doesn't need another.

ganoushoreilly2• 6 years ago

A lot of arguments being made now are that they include a USB-C cable. Most people don't have a USB-C charger.

millzlane• 6 years ago

Same issue with the logic board and touch id.

floatingatoll• 6 years ago

Can I put a replacement camera into your phone that transmits a spy signal feed continuously without you realizing it?

Before this change: Yes, without any barriers or chance of detection.

After this change: Not easily, and the hardware and OS are looking out for that attack.

This seems like a targeted defense against blackmailers and state-sponsored attackers. I’m glad to see it.

ganoushoreilly2• 6 years ago

If state sponsored attackers targeting your hardware is an issue for you.. you have bigger issues. The number of people buying the phone that are targeted specifically is probably in the small hundreds vs the millions they'll sell.

This is clearly about Apple controlling repairs.

mandragon• 6 years ago

If these tamper-resistant mechanisms were also part of an effort to allow the camera to reliably sign photos and videos in a manner that faciliated a digital defense against deep fakes, this would be a remarkable innovation. This seems unlikely, though, as such a mechanism would probably be disclosed as a feature, and the existence of any such associated signatures in the metadata would be obvious.

It could still be the case for instance, as an undisclosed feature, if there is a steganographic method to surreptitiously sign photos for this purpose. This seems unlikely, but is a fun topic to consider, particularly as we move towards indistinguishable convergence between fake and authentic content. And, any such mechanism would be quite difficult to protect from eventual extraction/cloning of associated signing mechanisms for inclusion in a sophisticated deep fake pipeline.

There are potential upsides to reducing the self servicability of these supercomputers, yet it is an unknown whether Apple has any such agenda to help consumers increase information assurance as a result of such couplings noted in the video.

mensetmanusman• 6 years ago

Yes, if they are going to do this, I hope they can sign images as not altered, that would be great...

easde• 6 years ago

These changes are more about protecting the average user from shady repair shops that use fake parts. There are some particularly egregious examples such as cheap LCD replacements for OLED iPhone displays. Someone getting their iPhone fixed or buying one from the secondary market would likely be quite unhappy to end up with such a display on their expensive phone.

It would be nice if Apple made genuine replacement parts more generally available, but that's kind of an orthogonal issue - a shady repair shop might still go with the aftermarket LCD for $40 rather than the genuine replacement for $100.

pcdoodle2• 6 years ago

False, you can not move a camera from a iPhone 12 to another iPhone 12. This is not about parts quality. Shame on apple for perpetuating our throw away culture.

95014_refugee• 6 years ago

This also means there’s less value in stealing your iPhone 12 for parts...

xt00• 6 years ago

Moving the entire logic board from one phone to another is not the same thing as just replacing one of the cameras. They may do some cross camera calibration. So one camera is used to help the other camera. So if you replace the whole set and that data was stored on the flash storage, then it’s probably totally wrong now. 2 or 3 cameras have the wrong calibration.

If Apple does the service they probably have an operation to download the cal data and transfer it. Or for a new module they have cal data that they store into the phone. I totally agree with the right to repair but it’s possible in this case it’s a bit more complicated.

Another thing another commenter mentioned that if the images store some magic bits that water mark your image which could be matched to your phone that’d be super crappy and Apple should say that otherwise it would damage their image they are trying to push as caring about privacy..

iPhone 12 camera module is paired to phone and can only be replaced by Apple

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