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A bit of a tangent, but I happened to flip my shit when my folks laptop was stolen, and the thief placed a password protection on it that Apple refused to lift,

A bit of a tangent, but I happened to flip my shit when my folks laptop was stolen, and the thief placed a password protection on it that Apple refused to lift, despite Apple having the technical capability to do so. They had records of my folks purchasing the laptop, but they argued that state ID's and credit cards can be faked and stolen, and were thus inadequate for their internal security purposes.

judge2020 5y ago
Your post is very light on details. Did they just place a new password on the device itself? If so, you can still use the laptop if you reinstall MacOS. It is only is rendered a brick if the attacker signed into their own iCloud account and enabled Find My, OR the attacker enabled Find My & enabled the recovery key feature on the existing Apple ID (meaning Apple can't let you log into the account without the key).
- threatofrain 5y ago
  This was on OS X with one of the older touchbar Macbook Pro models, but there's some kind of password protection which can prompt you for a password before the usual visuals of the OS booting up.
  - threeseed 5y ago
    Pretty sure this is FileVault full disk encryption. And so you can still use the computer just not keep your data.
    - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
      No, it's also possible to set a firmware password, which pops up if you try to boot from any disk other than the startup disk. If you also can't log into any user accounts on the startup disk, there's no way in!
threeseed 5y ago
Apple is right here though. Those cards are easily forged and there is nothing you can realistically do to prove the laptop is yours without also allowing thieves/criminals to prove it's theirs. And so they have to err on the side of caution. The onus lies on you to keep backups.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  You can't backup a laptop, only your data. The laptop costs a lot. What Apple was "protecting" is the hardware value of the laptop, not any data. Also, Apple eventually unlocked the laptop.
  - threeseed 5y ago
    But you can always boot into Recovery mode and wipe the disk. In this case you are wanting to keep the data as well.
    - threatofrain 5y ago
      There was no interest to keep the data, only the hardware, which Apple initially refused to unlock. I wanted my parents to be able to do this via Apple support, and not by themselves.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  My experience has been different - Apple support asked me to email them the invoice copy of purchase to verify ownership of an Apple device.

judge2020 5y ago

Your post is very light on details. Did they just place a new password on the device itself? If so, you can still use the laptop if you reinstall MacOS. It is only is rendered a brick if the attacker signed into their own iCloud account and enabled Find My, OR the attacker enabled Find My & enabled the recovery key feature on the existing Apple ID (meaning Apple can't let you log into the account without the key).

threatofrain 5y ago
This was on OS X with one of the older touchbar Macbook Pro models, but there's some kind of password protection which can prompt you for a password before the usual visuals of the OS booting up.
- threeseed 5y ago
  Pretty sure this is FileVault full disk encryption. And so you can still use the computer just not keep your data.
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    No, it's also possible to set a firmware password, which pops up if you try to boot from any disk other than the startup disk. If you also can't log into any user accounts on the startup disk, there's no way in!

threeseed 5y ago

Apple is right here though. Those cards are easily forged and there is nothing you can realistically do to prove the laptop is yours without also allowing thieves/criminals to prove it's theirs. And so they have to err on the side of caution. The onus lies on you to keep backups.

threatofrain 5y ago
You can't backup a laptop, only your data. The laptop costs a lot. What Apple was "protecting" is the hardware value of the laptop, not any data. Also, Apple eventually unlocked the laptop.
- threeseed 5y ago
  But you can always boot into Recovery mode and wipe the disk. In this case you are wanting to keep the data as well.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    There was no interest to keep the data, only the hardware, which Apple initially refused to unlock. I wanted my parents to be able to do this via Apple support, and not by themselves.
webmobdev 5y ago
My experience has been different - Apple support asked me to email them the invoice copy of purchase to verify ownership of an Apple device.