On Reliance and Digital Fire
Friday, around 11 PM. Cynthia's going to bed and I'm about to re-watch Agents of Shields (I'm halfway into season 2). My Watch buzzes and a message appears on the screen: something about my Apple ID. I need to re-enter my password for some reason. So I do.
And just like that, I'm locked out—on all my devices.
You may have heard about this bug over the weekend, you may even have been bitten yourself—there's quite a few of us out there, including some high profile developers and online personalities. I had to reset my password in order to get iCloud functioning again, which is not insignificant. I then resumed my viewing: Skye's real name is Daisy, and her dad is Kyle MacLachlan. Gotcha.
Saturday, around 10 AM. I sit at my Mac to check something. There's a message that refuses to go away: something about my Apple ID. I need to re-enter my password for some reason. So I do. And just like that, I'm locked out—AGAIN.
Same deal, but I needed to wait one hour because I apparently had Stolen Device Protection enabled on my iPhone. Ok. Thank god for weekends and a lack of urgency. When the timeout finally ended I was able to unlock my account without resetting my password this time. Small mercies. I immediately proceeded to turn Stolen Device Protection OFF.
Monday, around 7 PM....
I'm not even kidding. I was just minding my own business, listening to music, when my Apple Watch suddenly asked for my Apple ID password. I entered it, was locked out (for security reasons, of course), had to use my iPhone to re-enter the same password, verify my identity, unlock my ID. Had I not turned off the stolen device setting I would've waited another hour.
Incidentally, this bug isn't just an annoyance: it also either deletes, or disables, all app-specific passwords from the affected account. (1) Fixing this requires a trip to Apple's appleid page, more passwords, more verifications, generating new app-specific passwords for all apps that use them, then updating each app in question.
Loads of fun.
As more and more of our lives move to the digital realm, cloud services don't merely offer superficial benefits anymore: they hold the keys to our homes. If I lose my Amazon account, I lose my books and the use of my reader. Backblaze holds terabytes of backups. iCloud? Today my Apple ID is the gateway to most of my purchased apps (and their content). To all my subscriptions. It holds files, settings, passwords, contacts, movies, music, notes, pictures...and on, and on, and on. The permanent loss of this account wouldn't be a mere inconvenience: it would be like a digital fire. And in the case of apps requiring authentication, a lockout could potentially be both catastrophic, and irreversible.
Problems happen. Life is like a box of chocolate. But as of Tuesday morning Apple has yet to even acknowledge the issue and that, frankly, is hard to swallow. To badly paraphrase a supremely overused quote: with great data comes great responsibility. This isn't just about fun and games anymore. If Apple wants to handle our lives, fine. But this implies accountability, assurances, and trust.
I'm hoping this is over—fingers crossed. But I'm now looking at iCloud in a much different light: Apple can f$% this up. And apparently, when they do, they don't owe us an explanation. Good to know.
Time to triple-check those fire alarms.
Update Just noticing this: Apparently my Apple Watch is no longer recognized, despite being logged in. Which means it can’t unlock my Mac anymore. I imagine the solution is to unpair and start over. Nope.
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1: I'm not certain: after the password reset they were deleted outright, but after the Monday evening incident they simply didn't work anymore (despite being listed). I still had to generate new ones.
