On Nov 23, 2016, at 7:52 AM, Bill Rising <[email protected]> wrote: > The Consumerist had an article pointing out how easy it is to unlock phones > [1]. This could be a good thing for me because I travel out of the country > for work, and it would be nice to drop a replacement SIM card in my phone > instead of paying highway-robbery prices for even minimal out-of-country > roaming packages. > > Here's the question: I was under the impression that unlocking an iPhone > would make it less secure, and one of the reasons that I'd rather have an > iPhone than an Android device is because of the security. > > Is this true? Is unlocking an iPhone a bad idea? I have a hard time > separating the wheat from the chaff [2] when reading online; others here > might have more knowledge.
I think it depends on what you mean by unlocking. There are three terms here that some people get confused and this leads to false junk on the Web. When I hear about unlocking a phone, I think of removing the restrictions that tie it to a particular carrier like AT&T or T-Mobile. This can be done to any phone that’s fulfilled the contractual stuff with which a carrier has burdened the account. I do not see how this would make the phone much less secure and I’ve never seen it even being speculated. Have you seen anything saying otherwise? Unlocking in the sense of opening it with your fingerprint or password is a security thing. If someone is able to get around the fingerprint or password, they can do pretty much anything they want with your phone. That’s what the FBI wants to do with phones and they’re making a big stink about how hard it is and how they have some sort of God-given right to root around in our personal information. That’s why I have a long and weird password for my phone. I’ve heard jailbreaking called unlocking. This is when the security built into iOS is purposely broken so non-Apple-blessed software from anywhere can be installed on the phone. Jailbreaking is definitely a security problem. By its very nature it has to break all sorts of security features. Happy TG, L^2
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