this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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A British man is ridiculously attempting to sue Apple following a divorce, caused by his wife finding messages to a prostitute he deleted from his iPhone that were still accessible on an iMac. 

In the last years of his marriage, a man referred to as "Richard" started to use the services of prostitutes, without his wife's knowledge. To try and keep the communications secret, he used iMessages on his iPhone, but then deleted the messages. 

Despite being careful on his iPhone to cover his tracks, he didn't count on Apple's ecosystem automatically synchronizing his messaging history with the family iMac. Apparently, he wasn't careful enough to use Family Sharing for iCloud, or discrete user accounts on the Mac.

The Times reports the wife saw the message when she opened iMessage on the iMac. She also saw years of messages to prostitutes, revealing a long period of infidelity by her husband.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

If I have multiple devices synced, and I delete something from one of them, it's not unreasonable to think it should be deleted from all of them.

For example, a shared calendar item on my phone, tablet and laptop. If I delete it on one, it should be deleted from all of them.

If Apple synced the messages, but not the delete operation, yeah... that's a problem.

But it's also on the guy for setting up/not disabling sharing in the first place.

[–] locuester@lemmy.zip 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It depends on how you look at these things. Traditional, fat-client POP3 email was not syncing, it was just downloading from the server. In such a case, I would not expect it to be syncing.

In this particular case, I wouldn’t expect a sync at all. These are messages received on, and managed on, distinct devices.

That said, I did get a MacBook last month and have learned that these things synchronize. Which is cool but I didn’t expect that. Still wouldn’t expect it on deletes.

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[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

The article tries to say that this is ridiculous, but I don't see it.

Sure, he's a cheater, and he got caught. Not particularly sympathetic.

But, Apple markets their products as privacy-respecting, he deleted something he wanted to keep secret, and his Apple products betrayed him and revealed his secret to someone else, resulting in real-world consequences.

Apple should be held to account for the privacy violation at the very least.

[–] WhatIsThePointAnyway@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I use Apple sync on all my devices including my computer and it does delete from one device to another IF you have sync set up properly. And it’s not instantaneous, it happens when the cloud sync happens. When the computer is off or in sleep, it’s not syncing and once it’s woken up, sometimes it takes a minute to sync up. My guess, it was either not set up right or it hadn’t sync’d yet.

Other possibility, he didn’t know about the deleted folder where deleted messages sit for 30 days unless you clear it (like a computer trash can).

[–] KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Except he used the same account for his prostitute texting device as for the family pc.
It's simple user error. You can't have privacy from someone else who shares the same login.

[–] baatliwala@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I don't have any Apple devices so I don't understand why deleting the message from one device doesn't delete it from another. What is the point of a sync in that case?

[–] KISSmyOSFeddit@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I'm not sure about the specifics in the Apple ecosystem but I imagine it's like an email address that's connected as IMAP on one main PC, and as POP3 on your phone.
You can download the mails you need to your phone to read them and answer them on the go.
But the mail server is synched to the PC. So deleting stuff on your phone just deletes the messages on your phone, not on the server and not on the PC.

[–] Petter1@lemm.ee 0 points 5 months ago

You can "delete for all" since one or two years, but the Standard has long been "deleting from this device only"

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Nah, it's more like Dropbox. It's a multi-way sync between all devices. Dropbox, Google drive and Microsoft one box all have the same kind of problems. Stuff that's supposed to be deleted ends up not getting deleted, stuff that's supposed to be overwritten ends up getting multiple copies with conflicts Even though nothing else has any changes staged. It's totally possible to do it without all that, but there are cost savings are wrapped up in trying to add intelligence in there to make it communicate with the server less.

I don't really give a rat's ass about the guy cheating, but if a company is going to drag me into their distributed ecosystem I fully expect deleted things to delete everywhere and stay deleted. This isn't the first time that they've been in the news recently for deleted things reappearing.

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[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Deleting messages from an iPhone WILL delete them from other devices - assuming you’ve opted to let it to do that, and then even still, there may be a delay until the next sync happens.

I’ve deleted messages on my iPhone and they’ll linger on my MacBook for a good while, depending on circumstances. (ie, if the MacBook wasn’t on network when the messages were deleted).

[–] naticus@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

Yep, instant sync is never a guarantee. There still has to be a queue for command messages along with authentication plus authorization of said commands. And just like you said, you must be connected to a network that then can reach their cloud to even receive the command queue.

I run a sync service between multiple Active Directory domains as a result of a merger and the directories haven't been cutover yet. Along with this sync is a password sync that is normally instant. Most of the times (> 90%), less than a second. Sometimes 3 seconds. Other times? 2 minutes. Even when things are within the same LAN, there's the possibility of a backed up queue.

So yeah, this is purely on him trusting the sync implicitly and not verifying. In my case, I trust it too but will on occasion have to assist users because it's not infallible. Karma got him and I have zero sympathy.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 0 points 5 months ago (11 children)

revealed his secret to someone else

I generally don't like Apple, but I think crying about privacy violation because someone you're willingly sharing your account with saw your stuff is not reasonable.

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[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (5 children)

it doesn't sound ridiculous to me. regardless of the backstory, the issue was that he deleted something and it didn't work. it could have been a password or picture of his balls or something. Apple should pay up

[–] die444die@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

No it sounds like he (and you) didn’t understand the technology and thought it acted in a way it didn’t. Expecting Apple to be liable for this is buffoonery.

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[–] bookcrawler@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Declaring it a "very brutal way" for his wife to find out, he believes that there could've been a chance of the marriage continuing had he been able to "talk to her rationally."

I'm not sure if he means he could continue his behaviour without being caught or if he planned on lying and saying it was a one time thing. Either way I highly doubt he had any plans to be honest.

The "talk to her rationally" bit is hilarious. Yes I've been expensively unfaithful, have possibly been exposing you to a number of diseases without your knowledge, and have been physically unavailable regularly for years. What self respecting person wouldn't "rationally" see that as perfectly acceptable! /s

[–] LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 5 months ago

You're forgetting that they're british

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Not OK with his behaviour, definitely OK with Apple coughing up 100 million quid for the bloke and his wife

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