APPLE: “Family” security doesn’t work

Thursday, November 27, 2025

RECENTLY, my problems with “DOWNTIME” for  youth account have resumed.

It started with:

  • A real child id account with picture
  • A “ghost” child id account without picture
  • An adult id that was duplicated.

Turned on, the child’s account limits and those limits were applied to my iPhone.

Argh!

— more coming —  

In attempting to “fix” the problem(s):

  • Had to wipe the iPhone to get rid of the “account limits”.
  • The restore from iCloud backup never would complete and after three tries just wiped the iphone
  • Restarting basically from a blank slate, WALLET didn’t restore or recover my passport or credit cars. Argh!
  • Also, all the apps had to be reinstalled with lost “history”
  • Every setting seemed to need a reset. Argh!

— more coming —  

 

 

 

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Posted by reinkefj

SECURITY: Don’t just take your power from any source?

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

https://arstechnica.com/security/2025/04/ios-and-android-juice-jacking-defenses-have-been-trivial-to-bypass-for-years/

SON OF JUICE JACKING ARISES

  • iOS and Android juice jacking defenses have been trivial to bypass for years
  • New ChoiceJacking attack allows malicious chargers to steal data from phones.

Dan Goodin – Apr 28, 2025 7:00 AM 

*** begin quote ***

Word that juice-jacking-style attacks are once again possible on some Android devices and out-of-date iPhones is likely to breathe new life into the constant warnings from federal authorities, tech pundits, news outlets, and local and state government agencies that phone users should steer clear of public charging stations.

As I reported in 2023, these warnings are mostly scaremongering, and the advent of ChoiceJacking does little to change that, given that there are no documented cases of such attacks in the wild. That said, people using Android devices that don’t support Google’s new authentication requirement may want to refrain from public charging.

*** end quote ***

This reinforces my personal preference for having an external battery for recharge.  All my cars and my EDC pack have an ANKER power block, my own power plug, and 3 short USB-A cables.  My SOP is to not use “public ports” unless I have no other choice.  Suggest that anyone who values their security should do the same.

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Posted by reinkefj

IOS: iPhone photos are difficult to put names with faces

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Spent a lot of time trying to “induce” my new iPhone 13 Pro Max to identify people.

Argh!

Seems it needs “time to think” about iding people — locked and on power. Argh!  What was it doing last night?

# – # – #

And, there is no way to “tag” photos for future purposes.

# – # – #

I’m not sure Google Photos on Android or the web is much better.

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Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: Wish I could create a manifest of applications

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

https://www.howtogeek.com/778951/why-you-should-get-rid-of-unused-android-apps/ Android
 Android Phones & Tablets
Why You Should Get Rid of Unused Android Apps
JOE FEDEWA
JAN 17, 2022, 8:00 AM EST | 3 MIN READ

*** begin quote ***

Clean Phone, Clear Head

Lastly, cleaning up your phone is a good way to eliminate distractions. A more focused phone experience can make it much more pleasant to use.

We tend to treat email spam and unwanted phone notifications the same way. Rather than spend an extra minute or two unsubscribing, we waste even more time being distracted and deleting them. Don’t let apps you’re not using make your phone more annoying.

Take a few minutes to scroll through your app list and evaluate which apps you’re actually using. Don’t hesitate to delete unused apps. After all, you can just install them once more if you end up needing them again. Your phone will thank you.

*** end quote ***

Now if there was some easy way to create a “manifest” so that apps could be easily tracked.

Same problem exists on IOS!

Argh!

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TECHNOLOGY: APPLE and GOOGLE with suck at tagging photos

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

I like to phot everything that passes through my hands.  ID cards, letters, people, etc. etc.

From time to time I need to find the “needle in a haystack”.  Unfortunately, I can’t “tag” photos to indicate what they are and why they’d be important.

Argh!

I have to create “albums” and “folders” and what not that some developer thinks is “kool”.

Argh!

Why not tags like Twitter and Facebook?  Why reinvent the wheel?  Like labels in Gmail but not in photos.

Argh!

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APPLICATION: Address Book — anyone have a good solution?

Sunday, November 14, 2021

I’m really tired of struggling with various address books  — IOS, OSX, Android, Google.  Does anyone have an evernote template that could be the universal address book.  I remember an old Windoze app “Little Black Book” that just allowed one to print out specialize address books for different purposes.  For example, I used to print various ones for older relatives that only had “their” items of interest.  Now, it just seems to be a virtually impossible to print something that would look like an address book without a lot of manual effort.  Any suggestions?

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Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: YSK When apps have both a web presence and phone client, try both.

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Recently, on both CLASSDOJO and SHUTTERFLY, I was trying to upload a photo.

In CLASDOJO, the web site would only accept a live photo. (MY workaround was to take a photo of my phone. Argh!). In SHUTTERFLY, I was trying to upload a photo from my laptop and couldn’t get it it.

After calling in and wasting time, I found out that if I used the IOS or ANDROID client, I could easily do what I wanted. In my “after action” review, a habit I got in the military, I could NOT find anything in their “help” sections that would let me avoid the phone call.

In the future, I’ll try different versions of the same offering on the off-chance that some developer was too lazy to make all the versions functional equivalent. Argh!

I’m putting this YSK on my blog so I’ll remember to follow my own advice.

FWIW YMMV

WHY YSK: I wasted a lot of my time and that of two support organizations because their sites were not intuitive and, I never thought that their IOS / ANDROID apps would be that different. DOn’t make my mistake and ASS-U-ME that everything is identical. It MAY not be.

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