It took Apple three years to fix bug allowing kids to visit X-rated sites

An Apple software bug, which allowed children to bypass parental controls and view porn, violent images, and illicit drugs, took three years to fix, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. 
Over the course of three years, security researchers multiple times reported a vexing bug to Apple, which allowed users to easily circumvent web restrictions. Only after WSJ tech columnist Joanna Stern contacted Apple about the problem, did the company said it would release a fix for the issue in its next software update. 
Joanna Stern for The Wall Street Journal:
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The bug is a bad one, allowing users to easily circumvent web restrictions, although it doesn’t appear to have been well-known or widely exploited.
Parents who read this aren’t surprised. Apple’s Screen Time has seen more bugs than a soda spill on a summer’s day. Many report that the app time restrictions they set for kids—say, one hour for YouTube—don’t work. Last year Apple told my colleague Julie Jargon that it fixed a bug where kids could use their devices even during preset Downtime hours. When my son requests to download a new app, I often don’t get a notification, and the Screen Time interface doesn’t always accurately show how much my kids or I are using our devices…
I tried a number of Apple devices. With Screen Time enabled on iPads and iPhones running iOS/iPadOS 15, 16 and 17, I was able to visit porn sites, watch graphic, violent news footage on YouTube and Google “how to buy cocaine.”
I was able to do the same in Safari on a MacBook Pro running the latest MacOS, Sonoma. All I had to do was type the character string — which we won’t reproduce here so it isn’t abused—plus any web address…
[A]n Apple spokesman told me that the company values its relationship with these researchers but maintains the flaw was a software issue, not a security vulnerability. Only security holes are eligible for bounties. They typically could let an attacker gain access to a user’s data or take control of a user’s device, the spokesman said.

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MacDailyNews Take: If you want a fix to happen quickly, or maybe at all, submit your Apple bug reports directly to Joanna Stern at The Wall Street Journal.
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