Typing these four characters could crash your iPhone | TechCrunch

dsilverz , 2 hours ago

Sounds like SQL injection, actually more like a JSON injection… As if it’s trying to concatenate the input directly inside the value of a JSON dictionary, without proper escaping and/or encoding (base64 or hex, for example).

Possibly the input is being stored for user history (and, therefore, auto completion) purposes? Be it or not, something JSON-related is taking place here, from a kernel level or sufficiently deep so to cause a kernel crash (and rebooting).

(Sorry for jargons, I’m a developer seeing this issue through a developer lens)

ramble81 , 3 hours ago

Confirmed it exists even in 18.1 Beta 2. Reloads faster than I can even time it though.

Prox , 5 hours ago

“You won’t believe character #3!!!”

conciselyverbose , 8 hours ago

“”: + anything in spotlight.

It crashes springboard and reloads in about half a second.

A_A , 8 hours ago

it means you could type any of :

<span style="color:#323232;">“”:a  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">“”:b  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">“”:c  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">...  
</span><span style="color:#323232;">“”:(any other characters)  
</span>

Sanctus , 7 hours ago

For me “”:: was enough to crash it instantly. Rebooted in ~3 seconds.

cheese_greater , 8 hours ago

Inb4 someone screws their phone permanently