I Blame Apple in Part for My False Expectations: An Autoethnographic Study of Apple's Lockdown Mode in iOS

TL;DR

This autoethnographic study critically examines Apple's Lockdown Mode in iOS, revealing user experience issues, lack of transparency, and potential risks of a paternalistic security approach that may mislead users about their protection levels.

Contribution

First academic analysis of Lockdown Mode based on autoethnography, highlighting transparency issues and user experience challenges in Apple's security feature.

Findings

Lack of detailed threat information hampers user assessment.

Users experience inconsistent visibility of protection.

Paternalistic security approach may create false security.

Abstract

Lockdown Mode was introduced in 2022 as a hardening setting for Apple's operating systems, designed to strengthen the protection against ``some of the most sophisticated digital threats''. However, Apple never explained these threats further. We present the first academic exploration of Lockdown Mode based on a 3-month autoethnographic study. We obtained a nuanced understanding of user experience and identified issues that can be extrapolated to larger user groups. The lack of information from Apple about the underlying threat model and details on affected features may hinder adequate assessment of Lockdown Mode, making informed decisions on its use challenging. Besides encountering undocumented restrictions, we also experienced both too much and too little visibility of protection during Lockdown Mode use. Finally, we deem the paternalistic security approach by Apple's Lockdown Mode harmful, because without detailed knowledge about technical capabilities and boundaries, at-risk users may be lulled into a false sense of security.