Apple’s locking mode is good for safety – but its notifications are confusing

As a paranoid journalist, I am an enthusiastic user of the Opt-In “Extreme Protection” function of Apple, Locking mode.

Apple launched the locking mode in 2022, and since then, the safety characteristic has been considered a must for dissidents in corrupt countries, human rights defenders in oppressive regimes and journalists speaking of the truth.

The locking mode is designed to deactivate certain features in iPhones, iPads and Macs, in order to reduce the probability that armed hackers of sophisticated spy software or zero -day – unknown defects in systems that allow attackers to stealthy – can succeed in breaking Apple operating system protections and hope on its users.

In practice, the locking mode deletes certain normal Apple device features, such as the internet fonts that can follow you, the possibility of receiving certain types of files, your location data from photos that you share, the management of 2G cell connectivity and of leash the people who did not contact you before reaching the facetime and iMessage; Although it is not clear if the latter is the case (more about it later).

In exchange for these nuisance, the locking mode makes you more difficult to make you hack, even by some of the most advanced hackers.

Lockdown mode already has a blocking history of these advanced attacks. Apple says that it is not aware of successful hacking against its users who activated the locking mode, and the group of digital rights Citizen Lab has documented a Spyware attack attempt blocked by the locking mode. Me too, I personally heard that some people in the offensive security industry complain about the locking mode making their exploits more difficult.

But three years after its beginnings, exactly how the locking mode works is always surrounded by darkness and lacks explanations on the reasoning behind the actions that the locking mode takes. And, some of the notifications of the locking mode are downright confusing, unexplained or apparently random, which could discourage some users from using it completely.

Blocked, but why?

Let me preface this by saying that people who are at risk of government hackers must use the locking mode, even considering the restrictions that accompany it.

These restrictions are not the problem. The notifications of the locking mode have become increasingly confusing.

Example: the other day, I received this notification of locking mode (below) from nowhere, mentioning someone by name to whom I have not spoken for months, and to whom I have not received a message or call later. After this notification, when I asked if she had tried to contact me, she said no, she didn’t do it.

Someone also told me that by scrolling his contacts, one of his friends saw a “blocked locking mode …” With his name, suggesting that the locking mode can be triggered simply by visualizing someone’s contact.

But… why?

For months, I have received the same notification by telling myself that the locking mode has blocked someone “to contact me” every time I use imessage, and that always mentions someone I know and who is already in my contacts.

These notifications often appear when I already send a message to this person on iMessage, which makes it not very difficult if I will stop receiving their messages, or worse, that some of their messages have already disappeared thanks to the locking mode.

Hell, maybe that means that I am hacked, or at least targeted? Should I have my phone checked every time I get one of these notifications?

It turns out that I can always continue to chat with people even that the locking mode claims to have blocked. These people literally contact me and I chat with them. What does the locking mode really do here?

Taping on notifications in locking mode does nothing. You are not redirected to an Apple website which explains what the locking mode is, or explain what these notifications specifically mean.

“I don’t think these messages are useful. They do not include any context and are not exploitable, and there is no way to understand what is going on, “Techcrunch, Runa Sandvik, a pirate who has a startup that helps journalists and other people at high risk. “I would love to see Apple share more information so that we know what to” do “with them, or not display it at all.”

Sandvik and I are not the only ones scratching our mentions every time we see notifications in locking mode. When I wrote on my concerns about the locking mode on social media,, several people replied Publicly – and in private – saying that they have had similar experiences and are also confused.

My publisher Zack Whittaker, for example, has for months notifications of locking fashion mode saying that “an unknown contact has tried to share control of Apple music”, as well as a notification that the locking mode “Blocked development sharing” and “will not be shared with other people during locking” (I also get this time notification.

In the laboratory, we will

I decided to manage an experience with the help of Harlo Holmes, director of information security and digital security director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non -profit organization that helps support the free press. I was wondering if it made a difference – in terms of triggering confusing notifications – if someone who is not in my contacts tried to contact me with the locking mode activated on my phone, and what type of content it would block.

We both deleted our contact lists (we are still friends, however) and have started to chat for the first time on Imessage. When Holmes sent me a text – and none of us was in the contact lists of others – I received the notification “Blocked locking mode …”, this time displaying your phone number. I have always received his message.

We have exchanged text, emojis, a cat image and omeing “stickers”. All these elements have been passed, with the exception of the stickers, which turned to a unicode character of a question mark, that is to say an indefinable file attachment, which cannot be opened, even if you press it:

When this happened, Holmes and I could still see the stickers we sent from our own phones, which means that the blocking was only visible for the recipient. This is also the case for the notification “blocked locking mode …”. I received the notification, but Holmes didn’t know I had it.

It makes sense, because Apple would not want to have the government’s hackers reject that their attempt to hack someone not only did not work, but also alerted the targeted individual that something went wrong.

It’s good to know, and again, I am happy that the locking mode blocks something, and makes me safer, but I still don’t know what these notifications are supposed to tell me.

I contacted Apple by asking them for explanations, but an Apple spokesperson did not provide on the record remarks in press weather. At least, the spokesperson admitted having received my message, so I know that the locking mode did not blocked it.