Breaking the Mirror – A Look at Apple's New iPhone Remote Control Feature [video] | Hacker News Reader

Breaking the Mirror – A Look at Apple's New iPhone Remote Control Feature [video]

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94 pointsdoener17 comments

1. Siri treating it as unlocked on device

2. setup shortcuts with a timer to access mic when disconnected from a Mac.

3. add BT/Wifi devices when connected to Mac (aka persistence by author).

4. stolen device protection bypass given you have Mac signed in with same Apple ID.

I use this feature a lot. I noticed a month or two ago that it started requiring way more authentication than it did at release, and then it went back to normal a few weeks later. I wonder if that was while they were fixing whatever vulnerabilities this research might have discovered

I thought this was going to be about the remote app you can use to control the Apple TV. I noticed over Christmas it had channel up/down arrows for switching channels.

I'm sorry what? This is by far the least useful feature of Seqoia, it requires you to authenticate on the phone and Mac each and every time you try and use it. If my phone is in my bedroom and I want to check on my Anker battery charging status, I have to get up, put my pin in my iPhpone (16 Plus) and then fingerprint auth on my Mac (mini4 Max). Even if you select auto-auth, you stil have to authenticate each and every time you use the feature. If I have to auth on my phone, why not just save time and use that device for the info I need?

I don’t have to auth on my phone every time. I suspect maybe I do for the first time I use this feature for that boot of my phone, but I haven’t confirmed that yet. This would be useless if you had to auth on the phone every single usage

I use this feature all the time, and never have to auth on my phone... Do you have some higher security setting than default, like requiring passcode and not allowing biometric unlock?

That is absolutely not the case. On phone restart I need to reauth, but that’s about it.

Being able to access iPhone apps I use continuously during the day without having to pick up the device makes this feature hugely useful to me. I only get asked to auth on my iPhone once every few days, if that.

Do you shut down the mini after use or put it in sleep mode?

Interesting presentation, I wish it would have gone deeper on the mechanism that allows a Mac to connect to an iphone.

This is probably much more complex and time consuming than what was done here but it also brings a whole new level to the tracking on iphone.

I could very well see the NSO Group and other pegasus spyware maker abuse it to access iphone, maybe more in situation where you get close to the victim like border checks, police patrols and so on.

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