iPad Date & Time being changed and preventing communications to JSS

[Mike-C__]

I have noticed a new "trend" with students over the past few days. Students are going into settings and changing the clock to some random time. Doing this obviously stops communications with about every secure connection. The fix is easy, just set the Date & Time back to Set Automatically, and restart the iPad.

Has anyone had any issue with this? It would be nice to prevent access to the Date & Time on the iPad.

Thanks

[blackholemac]

Yes, I have noticed it and is VERY ANNOYING as it isn't exactly the first thing a field tech notices. I usually ask that question anytime there are browser issues, communication issues or updating issues. The reason this happens is that the JSS (and every second or third web site out there) uses SSL with certs that have only valid after and only valid until dates in them and any date outside of these cause the cert to be useless.

Certs...gotta have em to live in IT, but gotta get bugged by them when stuff like this happens.

Sadly, this would likely be more of a feature request to Apple...sighs. Would love to how @jarednichols will respond....I'm certain if nothing else, he might tell me the right venue at Apple to suggest this feature that is sorely needed.

[cpdecker]

+1 to how much an issue this is. Would like to have a way to manage it, even if its not having Location Services turned on but forcing iPads to update their time via NTP or something.

There was also a bug that would disable location services if you have a certain setting in your configuration profile too, if I'm not mistaken.

Checking the correct date/time is part of nearly every troubleshooting situation we have these days.

[St0rMl0rD]

Or, you know, they change the date back to 1970...Good times.

[mmcallister]

I believe in V9.91 you can remove the Settings app by managing the home screen layout.

[koalatee]

Students just now figuring this out? Or did some games get popular again? :)

We had issues with this a few years ago (Candy Crush in particular, later Popcorn (?) to get around an Apple revoke). It just became something that techs knew to check first, even teachers began to know to ask the students if they had changed it without changing it back. Inevitably many things would break so they would come to us pretty quick. We never implemented anything to remove access to it though. Not sure what your environment is like, but I would start trying to figure out why students are doing it, and then go from there. Is it one app in particular that they're using to do this and you can block/remove that?

[cbrewer]

If you require students to use their own AD creds to authenticate to Wi-Fi they'll be required to have their time/date correct if they want Wi-Fi to work.

[Mike-C__]

Yeah, not sure why this is becoming a thing all of a sudden. I'm sure its a game or they are just poking around on the device. But in reply to removing the settings app, that would not work for our 1 to 1 students who take the device home as they will need to connect to there home WiFi.
Just one more feature request to Apple for support on this.

[Mike-C__]

cbrewer, are you referring to using 802.1x to authenticate to WiFi?

[cbrewer]

[~Mike-C:] 802.1x radius tied to active directory, yes.

[Mike-C__]

cbrewer, not sure actually. I don't really work on that side of the network. Ill chat with the network team to see what they have to say.

[blackholemac]

@cbrewer

If you require students to use their own AD creds to authenticate to Wi-Fi they'll be required to have their time/date correct if they want Wi-Fi to work.

And that right there is why I would LOVE to find some stupid way to block access to the date/time setting. What happens here is that we do in fact do exactly that (use 802.1X authentication with AD creds). Teacher ends up filing a work ticket saying our wireless network is messed up...network guy troubleshoots it for an hour or two, finds no problems...building tech spends way too much time working on it...almost to the point of wiping/resetting up the iPad...only then do I get looped in and I catch it (on a good day), fix it and all is normal. Meanwhile, the teacher is spreading the word about bad Wi-Fi, non functional iPads, or depending on who the teacher is files a union grievance for "bad working conditions", meanwhile administration is asking us to "look into it" and well...that part just stinks...all over a stupid clock getting set back. If I could disable access to that setting (like I do on the Mac), this could be alleviated.<sighs...sorry getting out of pissed off mode now>.

@cbrewer You are right man...in a perfect world, getting denied wifi should tell people something's wrong, instead it sets off crap here for us.