• Protect your iPhone from the “January 1, 1970” Bug

    by
    Caiden Spencer
    Published on 2016-02-17 08:24 AM
    13 Comments Comments

    Recently, a bug was discovered which could "brick" your 64 bit iOS device where setting the date back to January 1, 1970 would brick your device. Unfortunately, a restore will not work and other methods have been put to rest also.

    As many people now have the knowledge of the bug, the risk has never been greater than it is right now that someone with malicious intent could grab your iPhone while you’re not looking and set your date back to the dangerous date to brick your device on you.

    Fortunately, a new free tweak called BrickDate is available in Cydia that can protect you from having your date changed to the dangerous date. Although you do have to jailbreak to install this, Apple has acknowledged the bug and will most likely update their firmware in the future to prevent the bug. Apple posted their support documentation to this website.

    What the tweak does is it prevents your date and time from being manually set back to the dangerous date, which is January 1, 1970. The bricking would normally occur when your device is set to this time period, and then you attempt to reboot it, after which it will reportedly not turn back on. Many users have said that even a DFU mode restore will not fix this problem.

    Preventing your device from this bug is effective as you never know who may use your iPhone when laying around and prevents the chance of your device being bricked.

    The tweak will add a preferences pane to the Settings app where you can toggle it on or off, and can kill the Settings app to save your changes.

    BrickDate is a free download from Cydia’s BigBoss repository.

    We have not tested whether or not it will work, as we are not game enough to try bricking our devices.
    This article was originally published in forum thread: [HOW TO] Protect your iPhone from the “January 1, 1970” Bug started by Caiden Spencer View original post
    Comments 13 Comments
    1. RyoSaeba's Avatar
      RyoSaeba - 2016-02-17, 11:30 AM
      Or you can just disable auto time setting and don't let anyone that hates you touch your phone?

      Besides, you can easily disconnect the battery for a few seconds to fix it. Better then installing another battery sucking tweak.
    1. Caiden Spencer's Avatar
      Caiden Spencer - 2016-02-17, 12:47 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by RyoSaeba View Post
      Or you can just disable auto time setting and don't let anyone that hates you touch your phone?

      Besides, you can easily disconnect the battery for a few seconds to fix it. Better then installing another battery sucking tweak.
      And void your warranty?
    1. bmwraw8482's Avatar
      bmwraw8482 - 2016-02-17, 02:22 PM
      Who's gonna be the first to conclusively test this?
    1. yohu123's Avatar
      yohu123 - 2016-02-17, 02:34 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by RyoSaeba View Post
      Or you can just disable auto time setting and don't let anyone that hates you touch your phone?

      Besides, you can easily disconnect the battery for a few seconds to fix it. Better then installing another battery sucking tweak.
      What do you mean by 'disconnect the battery'? Do you mean to drain the battery to 0%, let it stay that way for a few seconds and then start charging the phone?
    1. bmwraw8482's Avatar
      bmwraw8482 - 2016-02-17, 05:52 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by yohu123 View Post
      What do you mean by 'disconnect the battery'? Do you mean to drain the battery to 0%, let it stay that way for a few seconds and then start charging the phone?
      Im pretty sure it means to open up your phone and physically remove the connection to the battery... Just an average everyday end-user operation
    1. miketurbo123's Avatar
      miketurbo123 - 2016-02-17, 06:08 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by Caiden Spencer View Post
      And void your warranty?
      I doubt apple will find out unless you make obvious signs of prying marks on your iPhone
    1. RyoSaeba's Avatar
      RyoSaeba - 2016-02-18, 08:04 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by Caiden Spencer View Post
      And void your warranty?
      Good thing with iPhones is that they aren't sealed with glue. If you have the right tools (kits are available for like a few bucks on eBay), then you can open the phone without any sign that you've ever did it.

      Quote Originally Posted by bmwraw8482 View Post
      Who's gonna be the first to conclusively test this?
      It's already been tested. Many forums stated that this works including Reddit.

      Quote Originally Posted by yohu123 View Post
      What do you mean by 'disconnect the battery'? Do you mean to drain the battery to 0%, let it stay that way for a few seconds and then start charging the phone?
      Physically open and disconnect the battery. I've heard that draining works but you'll have to wait like 1-2 days because you can't let a lithium battery complete die so the phone will shut off at like 2-3% remaining. If you don't want to open the phone, I guess you can keep trying to turn the phone on to drain the battery faster.
    1. Caiden Spencer's Avatar
      Caiden Spencer - 2016-02-18, 08:06 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by RyoSaeba View Post
      Good thing with iPhones is that they aren't sealed with glue. If you have the right tools (kits are available for like a few bucks on eBay), then you can open the phone without any sign that you've ever did it.



      It's already been tested. Many forums stated that this works including Reddit.



      Physically open and disconnect the battery. I've heard that draining works but you'll have to wait like 1-2 days because you can't let a lithium battery complete die so the phone will shut off at like 2-3% remaining. If you don't want to open the phone, I guess you can keep trying to turn the phone on to drain the battery faster.
      I strongly suggest that you do NOT open the and disconnect the battery, it will void the warranty. Take the device back to Apple if everything fails. If Apple do not want to know anything about your device then I suggest resorting to this option.
    1. RyoSaeba's Avatar
      RyoSaeba - 2016-02-18, 09:15 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by Caiden Spencer View Post
      I strongly suggest that you do NOT open the and disconnect the battery, it will void the warranty. Take the device back to Apple if everything fails. If Apple do not want to know anything about your device then I suggest resorting to this option.
      If you do it right, it does NOT void your warranty. They have no way to prove that you've ever opened the device. Even if you weren't careful and scratched the screws, you can simply claimed that you had something else in your pocket with the phone and that made the scratch. Unless you physically damaged something inside the phone, there is no way they can claim you've ever opened it.

      Jailbreaking also voids your warranty as well but that doesn't seem to stop people from doing it. Of course, it goes without saying that if you don't even know what a pentalobe screwdriver is, you shouldn't attempt this. I've read that Apple charges ~$90 to fix this so it can save someone with skills some cash.
    1. Caiden Spencer's Avatar
      Caiden Spencer - 2016-02-18, 11:11 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by RyoSaeba View Post
      If you do it right, it does NOT void your warranty. They have no way to prove that you've ever opened the device. Even if you weren't careful and scratched the screws, you can simply claimed that you had something else in your pocket with the phone and that made the scratch. Unless you physically damaged something inside the phone, there is no way they can claim you've ever opened it.

      Jailbreaking also voids your warranty as well but that doesn't seem to stop people from doing it. Of course, it goes without saying that if you don't even know what a pentalobe screwdriver is, you shouldn't attempt this. I've read that Apple charges ~$90 to fix this so it can save someone with skills some cash.
      Jailbreaking only voids warranty when it is handed in to the Apple Store as a Jailbroken unit, and is proven by many users that a restore can be done before handing in. Opening an iPhone and tampering with hardware is not warranted and we do not wish for anyone to do so if they are within the period of 12 months of their iPhone being bought, it's not worth opening in case something does go wrong. A $90 fix is better than warranty voided and problems.
    1. vinaygoel2000's Avatar
      vinaygoel2000 - 2016-02-19, 02:47 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by Caiden Spencer View Post
      Jailbreaking only voids warranty when it is handed in to the Apple Store as a Jailbroken unit, and is proven by many users that a restore can be done before handing in. Opening an iPhone and tampering with hardware is not warranted and we do not wish for anyone to do so if they are within the period of 12 months of their iPhone being bought, it's not worth opening in case something does go wrong. A $90 fix is better than warranty voided and problems.
      Not 100% true. Depends on the apple employee you get. I took my iPhone 6 Plus in for the camera recall and my phone was jailbroken. I specifically told him not to restore my phone because it's not backed up. While doing the diagnostics, he even saw the number key row on my keyboard since I have exKey installed. He even said oh that's cool. Got the camera replaced without any hassle.
    1. Neojok's Avatar
      Neojok - 2016-02-19, 06:09 AM
      Quote Originally Posted by vinaygoel2000 View Post
      Not 100% true. Depends on the apple employee you get. I took my iPhone 6 Plus in for the camera recall and my phone was jailbroken. I specifically told him not to restore my phone because it's not backed up. While doing the diagnostics, he even saw the number key row on my keyboard since I have exKey installed. He even said oh that's cool. Got the camera replaced without any hassle.
      Just the camera replaced? Not iPhone replaced?
    1. vinaygoel2000's Avatar
      vinaygoel2000 - 2016-02-19, 08:48 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by Neojok View Post
      Just the camera replaced? Not iPhone replaced?
      Correct.

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