iPhone users who don’t want to be tracked need Apple’s iOS 17.1 privacy patch

Remember the release of iOS 14 in 2020? Apple introduced a new feature called “Private Wi-Fi Address” that promised to replace the fixed MAC address. (Think of a MAC address as a physical address, but instead of being used to find your home, it’s used to find your device on networks and the Internet.) Starting in iOS 14, this private Wi-Fi address is The default was an address. It randomly creates one for each Wi-Fi network a device is connected to.

This feature protects iPhone users from tracking, which in turn provides more anonymity.

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This feature was broken and useless from the start.

Last week, Apple released iOS 17.1 for the iPhone, a long-awaited update that fixes a host of bugs and headaches. One bug that has been patched is how a device can be tracked by its Wi-Fi MAC address.

The bug was discovered and reported to Apple by security researchers Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakri, and Mysk released a video showing how to extract the actual MAC address of a device using a tool called Wireshark and how exactly this security feature works. It broke through. start.

Speaking to Ars Technica, Maisek said, “[f]ROM get-go, this feature was useless due to this bug. We were unable to stop devices from sending these discovery requests, even with a VPN. Even in locked mode.”

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And it’s not just the iPhone that’s affected. This bug also affected iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV.

For devices stuck on iOS 16, Apple has released iOS and iPadOS 16.7.2 to fix this and other issues.

ZDNET has confirmed that this issue existed in iOS 17 and earlier, and that iOS 17.1 fixed the vulnerability.

Do you need to update your iPhone? to knock Settings And then General And software Update. Then, follow the prompts to update your device.

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OK, time for a reality check. Is this a big deal?

yes and no For most iPhone users, this doesn’t matter much. However, for those who want maximum anonymity, this is a major setback, potentially leaving those who consider themselves safe vulnerable to tracking.

This is also a problem because it destroys trust in Apple’s coding. If a bug like this can go undetected for three years, how many other leaks are there in corporate code?

As for Android, the platform has had a similar feature since the release of Android 8 in 2017. Based on tests conducted by Mysk and ZDNET, the platform does not appear to be affected.