Apple iMessage a great technology feature causing havoc
 

It seems Diane Bentley the wife of Alabama Governor Robert Bentley found iMessages sent by her husband on a Ipad he gave her. He was not aware his Iphone "texts" to his female aide would show up on the Ipad. Just curious if Flyertalker members are aware of any other work or personal issues that came to light by what is a great technology feature that is not understood by many when they switch iMessage on.

I heard about this guy named Tiger who ran into a similar problem.

First of all, one has to ENABLE the secondary devices to send messages to any and all devices that are signed in to the same icloud account. Then, if it were true imessages (and not SMS) they would sync across devices. Again, one must specfically enable this since about 2 years one gets several notifications (on the phone - main device) and via email that say "imessage has been enabled on xyz device) If one is going the further step and getting SMS (green) messages on secondary devices, there are even further steps and authorizations required to enable this. (basically a proxy service from the phone to icloud that allows SMS messages to be synced as well.

Now sure, (not judging based on age or his living in the dome of ignorance here) but he could have had someone ELSE set all this up and configure and not been informed that this was going to be the effect.

As for "other things" once one logs into the same icloud account on alternate devices, unless unchecked pretty much everything syncs across all devices. (calendars, with secret hotel rendezvous on them) emails, with secret love notes, secret notes, reminders, etc.. so if one isn't prepared the possible impact is limitless)

But honestly, if you're going to be having an affair (or other) don't you think a password or such that your SO doesn't know would be prudent..

As my mama always used to say "stupid is as stupid does"

The biggest problem here seems to be sharing Apple IDs. Nothing good ever comes of that.

Could've been Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Emails, etc. too. If you set up a device so that it can receive notifications and messages, then it's your own fault.

BTW: Don't send emails and messages from Apple Store devices to your loved ones. Whenever I have to kill time and there's an Apple Store in sight, I go through a couple devices and send idiotic messages to people that left their personal info there.

Particularly if a) Apple IDs are free and b) can be set up with CC. I had a second Apple ID set up just for my second phone (and getting more back-up space via the second ID) by using <myphonenumber>@icloud.com

well, technically this isn't really the way it should have been setup, and I imagine wasn't or else they would have been getting text messages, and everything else on ALL devices, including the wifes phone.

Each device associated with a phone, needs to have a seperate icloud id, in order for messaging, mail, facetime etc. to be seperate by devices. Of course, someone with a phone, puts the same icloud (apple ID) on the ipad and then all those same things - including calls if enabled - come to all devices. So, I doubt that say the wife had the same apple ID setup as the icloud login.

Now many people share the Itunes/appstore ID (also sometimes referred to as the appleID) and this allows them to share the same access to purchases, downloads, using the same CC for purchased on the appstore and itunes, etc. but this wouldn't enabled access to any and all messages etc, unless the user used the same email (must have been an icloud email) for both the icloud login AND the itunes/appstore credentials, and therefore one having those credentials could login to the account undetected - this is how the whole fapgate issue occurred. People used their personal email for the same login credentials, and someone could use a guessed at email address for icloud (and sadly often the same password) to login directly to icloud, and boom there were the picture backups.

Heck, I've come across some couples near millennial age who share the same e-mail account. It boggles my mind.

Apple could add multiple user and family functionality to iOS and iCloud. Most smart phones these days have work related e-mail, documents, and images which should have restricted access. Such data is usually wide open when parents hand their phones to their kids who may leave it unlocked, playing videos.

I setup users on my android travel phone which I lend to immediate family so I don't get stuck with their browser history or e-mail. Or they can be reminded to clean the device caches and logins before returning. Friends have setup limited users for their kids. Amazon has a family/household concept for Kindle.

I intended to make a similar post about the device sync was enabled.

The governor isn't the first person caught in a lie. Hillary Clinton's too hard to manage multiple device email argument fell apart when one of her responses used the default sent from my ipad in her email reply. Donald Trump's saner campaign twitter posts were made using the iphone app while Trump posts with the android app on his Samsung phone. A man from Indiana is in prison because his photos with an underage girl were synced to his ipad which his secretary also used.

Given that he's a state governor in his 70's, I'd say that it's HIGHLY likely he had an aide of some sort set up his technology. I'm also assuming he was informed of the setup, but either didn't understand it or remember it when he gave the iPad to his wife. If he had used it for government purposes at all, it should have been backed up and then wiped by the appropriate IT resources before giving it away, but he clearly wasn't aware that was necessary, either.