Apple rewarded by teenager finds gap in TimeTime

An American teenager who discovered a flaw in the FaceTime video connection on Apple's cell phones received an award from the company.

The company did not reveal the size of the prize, but would have contributed to the costs of the study of the teenager Grant Thompson, 14 years old.

Thompson discovered a vulnerability in TimeTime that allowed him to spy on group calls with the help of this feature.

This comes at a time when an electronics researcher has refused to inform Apple of the security vulnerability of its peripherals because of its refusal to offer him a financial reward.

The gap was discovered last month when Apple users found that after connecting to other users via FaceTime, they could listen to their calls even if they initially refused to receive their calls. In other words, once they tried to contact another person, all their calls could be heard.

Apple received these comments with great caution and banned group calls on TimeTime for some time during the investigation.

The warnings were posted on social networking sites without mentioning the fact that one particular person had discovered them, but Apple later revealed that Grant and his mother had earlier warned of this loophole.

Grant discovered the flaw when he used FaceTime to make group calls with his friends to discuss new methods in the Quinzaine electronic game.

Grant and his mother sent several messages to Apple to warn them of the flaw and the company did not respond, but now, thanks to Grant for finding the hole.

The German researcher Linus Haines preferred not to detect a vulnerability in the driver (Apple Mac OS) to take the password in the user accounts.

Linus refused to disclose details after Apple refused to give him a financial reward for information.