Friday, March 28, 2014

iPad Document security - follow up

Some people from Check Point are still sending me private messages concerning my post about document security iPad app. Some even try to make it personal. Some others are just interested in getting to the bottom of it.

To both groups: I did not make it up, and I have honestly described the issue. Some of you even have the detailed step by step explanation of my experience.

I am sorry if you are upset by that.

I could give a hand to second group to reproduce the issue. I am still not ready to do in on my personal iPad, because I am using it for business purposes, and I have to have it operational. Any other option will be carefully considered.

My door remains open for you.

3 comments:

  1. Following comment is posted in full agreement with Mr Loukine:

    One behalf of the developers of the mentioned iPad application, and, to an extent, on behalf of the iOS developers community, we would like to point out, that, Apple iOS Operating System is designed to prevent applications from causing instability to anything beyond the boundaries of the application itself.
    While the design doesn't prevent the application itself from being unstable (this is, indeed, up to the developer), it prevents applications from draining unnecessary battery power, in many cases the applications even't can run in the background, causing instability to other applications (or the system itself), etc...

    This architecture, as described in the below technical materials, indeed, offers unrivaled level of confidence for its users to try various applications available at the App Store without risk to their working (or personal) environment on the same Apple mobile device.

    Recommended Reading:
    https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/iphone/conceptual/iphoneosprogrammingguide/TheiOSEnvironment/TheiOSEnvironment.html

    http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/mobile_security-mobile_management,2-64-5.html

    We leave it to a reader to decide the probability upon which the phenomenon described in the original post could, indeed, be attributed to installing an innocent application.

    On a side note, Mr Loukine's comment regarding 1.5 developers writing the application is far from reflecting a reality of quantity and quality of engineering teams developing and testing various products, same teams that proudly deliver security products to thousands of satisfied customers worldwide.

    With utmost respect....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Leonid. Or should I call you Mr. Belkind now?

      Anyway.

      Just a couple of questions.

      1. Document security app, does it actually run in the background?
      2. Could you share some figures about number of installations for this app so far?

      Thanks a lot.

      Delete
  2. 1. The application does not run in the background. In fact, depending on the iOS version installed on your iPad, very few applications *could* run in a background mode. Even those that do (typically - GPS applications or Media Players, can't really prevent the user from stopping or uninstalling them).

    2. According to policy, I could not share any numbers regarding the usage of any specific application. I could fully re-iterate the official message you have received from Technical Services, that such a phenomenon as you described was not witnessed in numerous reproduction attempts.

    A good reference explaining multi-tasking in iOS could be found at: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/iphone/conceptual/iphoneosprogrammingguide/ManagingYourApplicationsFlow/ManagingYourApplicationsFlow.html

    Cheers,
    L

    ReplyDelete