FaceTime Is Eroding Trust in Tech
“Why do you keep calling me with FaceTime instead of, you know, normal calls?” my Georgia Tech colleague Charles Isbell asked me the other week. “I don’t even mean to,” I answered. “For some reason, it just does it that way!”
We thought it was a nuisance that introduced confusion, ringing the phone in a different and unexpected way. But a serious FaceTime bug revealed on social media this week indicates that the service—Apple’s voice and video telephony software—could have been used for more nefarious ends.
The bug allows users to listen in on, , the person they are calling before that party has answered the call. It doesn’t even require any technical knowledge or esoteric hacking. As , following a few simple steps to add the ringing call to a group chat is sufficient. Apple has until a software update can be provided. In the meantime, if you have an iPhone, it’s probably a good idea to until a fix arrives.
