1y ago

Man sues Apple for accidentally exposing his infidelity

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.

84 comments

- 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.
- 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.
  
  My kid sometimes takes pictures of my SO naked because they know how to access the camera. My SO deletes them as soon as they find them. If those pictures were synced to another computer, the expectation is that those pictures would be deleted from that other computer as well. Not deleting those pictures on the other computer is absolutely a privacy concern.
  That's the case here as well. It's reasonable to think of iMessage as one blob of data, where deleting from one device deletes all copies from other devices. In Apple jargon, it should "just work." If it doesn't "just work" as a reasonable person would expect and that results in damages, I think it's reasonable for Apple to share in those damages.
- 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).
- While I don't necessarily agree in this case, you did remind me of something Justice Kirby (an Australia Hugh Court (our highest court) Judge) wrote in his dissent in Carr v Western Australia.^1
  "He was a smart alec for whom it is hard to feel much sympathy. But the police were public officials bound to comply with the law. We should uphold the appellant's rights because doing so is an obligation that is precious for everyone. It is cases like this that test this Court. It is no real test to afford the protection of the law to the clearly innocent, the powerful and the acclaimed."
  ^1 232 CLR 138, 188 [170].
I knew a guy when I served in the US military who got caught cheating in a semi-related way. He got assigned to a base in a new state and his wife refused to relocate their whole family for the few years he'd be assigned there, so he went by himself, leaving his wife and kids in his home state.
Turns out, he was sexting one of his younger subordinates at work. One of his daughters found out when she tried to use an old tablet and found out his account was still synced to it. She saw all his texts updating in real time.
He was ultra-conservative and didn't believe in divorce, so he was doing everything he could to save his marriage. His wife forced him to install security cameras in every room of his apartment and banned him from going anywhere after work. She knew his schedule and expected him home immediately after work ended. He was basically on house arrest until his job was done and he could move home.
The last I heard, he told his wife the landlord needed to paint the walls, so he removed all the cameras, dunked them in the bathtub, then played dumb when none of them would work when he set them back up again. He was seen inviting young women over to his apartment after that. So, you know... he didn't learn his lesson.
- His wife forced him to install security cameras in every room of his apartment and banned him from going anywhere after work. She knew his schedule and expected him home immediately after work ended.
  This is so toxic. Not saying cheaters get what they deserve but if you can't trust your husband, I think you have bigger problems than infidelity.
  
  That's conservatism for ya, can't divorce and just be happier people for it because sky daddy might be mad
- Divorce is sin, side chicks are fine. Got it.
  
  You wouldn't believe how many people think like that, unless it's the woman caught out.
- I found out my ex of 12 years was cheating in a similar matter. For some reason she liked taking screenshot of conversations, I had set up Amazon pictures auto backup on her phone at her request cause she was afraid of losing 16 years of pictures. One day I was looking through the backups cause my phone was also set up and I was looking for an old picture I no longer had on my phone. I ended up finding plenty of screenshot of her texts with an old school boyfriend she had been cheating on me with for almost 2 years. Nothing physical as far as I could tell but I can't say for certain it didn't happen, emotional cheating is just as bad for me anyways.
  I also saw that some screenshot were from Instagram and I knew her tablet was logged in so I checked and it was all there. Worst part was, that she would often be texting him when we were together doing things and basically telling him she wish she was there. Worst 3 months of my life while I got my ducks in a row so I could leave without issue.
  I found out she met him at least twice on her yearly trips back to her home country.
  
  I'm so sorry. I've been in a similar situation and I know how it just makes you feel gutted. I'm glad you're free of someone like that, though.
- I just can't understand why it's up to the husband to say no divorce while he cheats? Like what position of power does he have?
  
  Lots of places do not allow no-fault divorce and the Republicans are planning to make it universal if they win the elections.
- This will be buried but it’s my take on it and whatever…
  So I was Army for a while - away from the wife and kid (at the time only one now I’m up to 2 I’m winning life) and it boils down to two separate issues: can the husband deal or the wife.
  Men take a ton of shit going through military service so having solid ground back home is like winning the lottery. You never think it’s going to happen, you get excited it might, but it never does. I’m not dogging women in this at all but we are all just humans who want comfort in some way.
  So I approach this from the woman’s side. She wants to know that’s her man. Only hers no one else’s. That’s the hero she married and cameras ain’t gonna make a shit stain difference in it. But she’s still scared so she asks for it.
  Young men don’t have brains lol. We don’t think we just do. And I approach this with several years of learning from my mistakes. Which this man didn’t have. Yet. Hopefully now he does.
  It’s easier to paint the woman the villain for not “supporting the ‘hero’” (yes that’s double quotes cause signing a paper is easy as hell) but to marry someone and just decided to leave… that’s not how the army works or any military branch for that matter.
  Sounds to me like the man had a kid, decided that’s not the life he wanted, fucked that life up and here we are. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong but… here we are.
- Sounds like some cartoon plot. My New Wife: Divorce is Magic.
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.
- 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.
  
  Here's how it's advertised:
  If someone sends a message to your email address or phone number using iMessage, you receive the message on all your Apple devices that are set up to receive messages sent to that email address or phone number. When you view an iMessage conversation, you see all messages sent from any device, so you can keep in touch with others wherever you are.
  The article says nothing about deleted messages, but it does imply that what you see on one device is expected to match what you see on another. So it's reasonable to think that deleting on one device will delete on another.
Should have used Signal.
- Signal also has a similar problem. If you choose the "delete for me" option, it only deletes it on one device and leaves it on the others, last time I checked.
  He would have to set up disappearing messages aswell.
  
  I think there is a three hour window where you can delete for all.
  
  I meant because it does not sync between different devices.
- Yup, something that's not synced to family computers. That's basically the first rule of opsec.
  Apple could still be at fault here, but you never trust a single service to maintain your privacy, you have multiple layers protecting you.
a man referred to as "Richard"
Heh.
- Such a Richard move
  
  Classic Richard
  
  Small Richard energy
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
- I dont know, the issue reminds me of tech support calls id get back in the day for people who got angry at their ISP when they mixed up IMAP and POP3. Maybe step through exactly how this message service handles copying and deleting before using it to hire prostitutes for years.
- 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.
  
  That depends on how well Apple explained the features and behavior, IMHO. A lot of liability issues comes down to what expectations the seller has set for the buyer
  
  Does Apple have actual instructions and documentation that explains this? I honestly didn't know, as I've never used iMessage.
- No, the issue is that he didn't understand how the technology he was using worked. I mean, one of Apple's most prevalently advertised features is their product integration, it's like, their whole deal.
Geez, has this dude never watched a crime drama before? If you’re gonna be doing bad shit at LEAST get a burner phone. 🙄🙄🙄
As many have recently discovered, if infidelity occurs, it's the phone makers fault.
https://lemdro.id/post/9738136
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/new-apple-ios18-feature-meant-banking-privacy-makes-it-easier-cheaters-hide-dating-apps-1724954
Unveiled at the recent WWDC, iOS 18 includes a much-discussed "hide and lock apps" feature that some worry could be misused for privacy concerns related to infidelity.
Critics have dubbed the new feature "a cheater's paradise" due to its ability to hide or lock apps on the iPhone home screen, potentially concealing private hobbies and information.
While Apple's promotion highlights the feature's ability to safeguard banking apps and prevent unauthorized purchases on Amazon, many users perceive it as facilitating infidelity. The new feature ignited a firestorm on social media, with divided opinions.
"Thanks Apple. I will be trying to hide online dating app from my wife," one X user shared. "With lock app and hide app, I can finally do it." Other users joked that the feature "is going to break up relationships."
/s
- Anyone who is worried about this feature is in a toxic relationship. And that's not the phone's fault.
  
  I was being sarcastic. I guess I was wrong about how obvious it was.
Not OK with his behaviour, definitely OK with Apple coughing up 100 million quid for the bloke and his wife
- For this man’s own stupidity? Nah.
  
  I'm OK with any excuse for Apple to lose money. Do not condone his behavior personally
On the one hand, I don't know that it's fair to sue a company over your poor understanding of technology, or user error. On the other hand, if he worked for DARPA and was using imessage to talk to his boss or his team about a project that was then leaked or sold by someone living in his home who had access to his home laptop because he didn't know that the messages he deleted weren't deleted in real time, and he was fired from his job, that seems like something the company should make very clear when deleting the messages in the first place. A simple warning "Delete this message? Please be aware that deletion is not instantaneously across devices." Would do.
Incognito mode actually has to tell users that it doesn't prevent your ISP from seeing what you Google or what websites you visit while using it. They literally had to add a notification so people would know because people didn't know.
- The way iMessage works is really broken. It's like back in the old days when email was done by POP, so you would have to delete the email separately on both your laptop and your desktop otherwise you'd have inconsistencies.
  Apple has never put any effort into it. Virtually every other messaging system is superior. People only used it because SMS was so limited back in the day but now there's no reason for it to exist.
  
  You can sync your messages by enabling iMessage in iCloud. Or you can just not sign into iMessage on devices that are shared with other people.
  It’s not broken, it works this way by design. If you don’t want your messages stored in the cloud, then they aren’t synced. This is a choice that many messaging apps don’t give you.
- If you work for DARPA and send anything near sensitive materials over iMessage, and something happens over it, that's on you for being dumb.
  People who work with sensitive information should know better than to use personal communication methods. If they don't that's their fault.
  Any workplace where this is a worry, this should and probably will be drilled into your head from day one.
  
  The point is to divorce the situation from the cheating aspect, so that people can be less emotionally invested in the outcome. Plenty of jobs that handle industry sensitive information do so over normal communication lines. DARPA was possibly a poor example because the assumption from you is that anything handled by them requires a clearance (which I wouldn't consider to be true). Something as simple as tracking the whereabouts of a naval ship can and has been done via Facebook posts from people onboard or their families.
  The point is that it wasn't clear to the user that their information wasn't being deleted in real time and that's poor transparency on the part of the company because a lot of users probably assume the same just based on the comments I see here.
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
- You're forgetting that they're british
Dunno how it is Apples fault that he didn't take the time to understand how the tools that he uses work.
If I plow my car into a crowd of people because I mistake the gas for the brake that is not GM's fault.
- And If they label the pedal "stop" and it doesn't actually stop the car?
  
  I’m not aware of the delete label in iMessage being labeled “delete from every device that you own and have signed into iMessage”.
  There are numerous documented ways to avoid the situation he put himself in, he didn’t bother to find one and is now trying to blame others for his stupidity.
Just get one of the free texting apps or get a burner. Dumb people.
- Or don’t cheat on your partner in the first place.
  
  I mean people doing things they shouldn’t using their own phone. Like, serious trouble is a thumbprint or a passcode away.
The best part is that even if Apple is found liable, the asshole only gets some money. From here on out he will be known as the asshole that he is!
Guy shoulda used Signal

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