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Typing these four characters could crash your iPhone | TechCrunch
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Sounds like SQL injection, actually more like a JSON injection... As if it's trying to concatenate the input directly inside the value of a JSON dictionary, without proper escaping and/or encoding (base64 or hex, for example).
Possibly the input is being stored for user history (and, therefore, auto completion) purposes? Be it or not, something JSON-related is taking place here, from a kernel level or sufficiently deep so to cause a kernel crash (and rebooting).
(Sorry for jargons, I'm a developer seeing this issue through a developer lens)
This is not a kernel panic and associated reboot. It simply crashes the SpringBoard, which is kinda like the "desktop environment" of iOS. It's responsible for the homescreen, and calls other processes like the window server. It's a normal userspace process, not related to the kernel at all.
Edit: Sorry I actually meant to link to this wiki page https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki//System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app
Yeah, since the last character can be anything, it certainly seems JSON-related. If it wasn't, SQL could be on the table ("":: is how you convert types).
Good eye. I find it incredibly odd that JSON would be involved in any way here, but that does seem like a logical idea.