Re:Nintendo Switch prevents downgrades by irreparably blowin...
by throwaway201025 on Wednesday March 23, 2022 @06:20AM
(#30776914)
> Apple internal iOS devices used by engineers are "dev-fused".
We at Samsung use a similar mechanism called Anti Rollback Prevention (ARP). It is a switch that can be enabled for normal devices if the employees using them are given an approval by their boss. Only a handful of employees have access to it, and the switch turns off by itself after a defined period.
Re:Nintendo Switch prevents downgrades by irreparably blowin...
by saagarjha on Wednesday March 23, 2022 @04:01AM
(#30776128)
Apple does not provide third parties access to developer fused devices. They do have a "security research device" program that allows nominally more access to the device, kind of equivalent to most jailbreaks these days, but definitely falling short of a development fusing or what something like checkra1n would get you.
There have been articles saying that Apple lets some third party security people use these devices.
E.G. https://macdailynews.com/2019/08/06/apple-hands-hackers-secr...
I can see how giving that access that might make sense, but I don't know if that article is true.
Dev-fused devices would also be very useful to Apple adversaries like NSO in developing hacks so I would actually expect Apple to continue to keep tight control over them.