December 2011
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About iMessage and FaceTime Phone Number Registration
An interesting report from Ars Technica this week:
Some unlucky iPhone owners are beginning to discover that, despite their best efforts to remove all information from their stolen phones, thieves and unsuspecting buyers are still able to send and receive iMessages as the original owner — even after the device is registered under a new account. Almost nothing seems to work — remote wiping, changing Apple ID passwords, or even moving the old phone number to a new phone — and users are becoming more than frustrated that thieves are so easily able to pose as them.
This actually makes some sense — not that it isn’t a security issue that Apple should address. This has actually been a problem with FaceTime since iOS 4.0, BTW, but obviously is less of a concern there since you can generally see who you’re talking to :)