iPhone iOS5 iMessages remote wipe privacy issue

Scrolling through some Apple Mac forum threads I couldn’t help but notice some issues people were having with iMessages (this is a new Apple service for iOS 5 which aims to compete with the ever popular Blackberry BBM service), when using the remove wipe service. This has been picked up by the media in the past few days, but I thought I’d add some thoughts to this.

Remote wiping is a useful security and privacy option (most mobile handsets have this function) if your mobile device is lost or stolen. Remote wipe* will completely wipe your handset (and in some instances provide a lock function) however it appears some iPhone4(S) and iPod Touch iOS 5 users whose phones/iPods have been lost/stolen activiate the remote wipe, but then find the new iPhone user can send and receive iMessages as the original owner (and using the original Apple ID – yikes!). This iMessages flaw also works if the lost/stolen device is provided with a new mobile number/SIM, which makes this rather interesting. So what might be going on here? Read more...