You can brick recent iOS devices just by setting them to a specific date

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Exterminator

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You can brick recent iOS devices just by setting them to a specific date

In case the infamous “Error 53” wasn’t enough to contend with, there’s now a new threat being leveraged against iOS devices, one that could easily brick most of Apple’s phones and tablets.

The trick, or rather operating system flaw, in question simply relies on a user resetting a device’s date to January 1st 1970. Once set, if the device gets rebooted it gets permanently stuck. Connecting it to a PC in iTunes or booting into DFU mode seems to work but doesn’t actually fix the problem. The phone remains bricked. In fact, except for some random anecdotal evidence, there doesn’t seem to be much that a user can do to fix the issue. Some have suggested the device recovers by itself after a number of hours, while others claim to have had success in reviving their phones by switching out the SIM card.

It’s not clear what’s causing the device to crash in such a spectacular manner, though there is some speculation that this might have something to do with a security feature, as replacing a device’s battery resets its date to 1st of January 1970. So just like with Error 53, this might be some anti-tinkering system that’s malfunctioning. So far, Apple hasn’t addressed the issue publicly.

Things get even worse when you consider that virtually all of Apple’s modern iOS devices seem to be affected: anything running on a 64-bit chip, so going from the iPhone 5S to the most recent 6s Plus, as well as all iPads starting with the original Air. In terms of operating systems the flaw has reportedly been confirmed on all versions of iOS from 8.0 up to 9.3.

The only good news here is that this flaw would be very hard to trigger accidentally, as a user needs to manually scroll for a few minutes before eventually landing on the 1st of January 1970 date in the iPhone’s time settings. Still, it's probably best if you keep your iPhone away from your friends until this issue gets resolved.

Source: 9to5mac
 

Vasudev

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Nov 8, 2014
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Maybe iphones are trying to open a portal to the past, that's why they're failing because of insufficient energy to support the portal. On wp8.1, I fast forward time to clear some old cache.
 
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upnorth

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Quote : " An iPhone Bug has arisen, as they do from time to time, that will render your device completely unusable. In this case if you set its clock to January 1, 1970, it’s brick city. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, why would I ever set my iPhone clock back to the Nixon administration. To which I say, you have forgotten that this is the Internet, a place full of unspeakable trickery!

The following image, which reportedly first surfaced on troll haven 4Chan on Thursday, encourages users to seek out an iOS “easter egg” that puts a retro Apple logo theme on your display.


Iphone.jpg

Do not do this! Firstly because it makes no sense, Apple didn’t even exist until 1976. More importantly, though, don’t do it because it will turn your iPhone into a very expensive rock until you’re able to finagle a Genius Bar appointment. Restoring through iTunes won’t help. You’ll need an actual physical fix, or possibly a new phone. "

Source : Don’t Set Your iPhone Back to 1970, No Matter What
 
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Kantry123

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jamescv7

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Interesting, we should know that date and time influences the overall functionality not just on apllications but from OS itself. And this bug may considered critical then few people will suffer on that case, usually the phone will reset to manufacturers date but not 1970's when problems occurred.
 
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