6 ms·
Are all these macs stolen? Why aren't resellers requiring users to change/disclose their passwords or wipe the machine themselves before accepting the unit?
by duped 4y ago
Are all these macs stolen? Why aren't resellers requiring users to change/disclose their passwords or wipe the machine themselves before accepting the unit?
- rhtgrg 4y agoYeah, this sounds 100% like "working as intended". Even if they aren't stolen, this prevents people who've gotten their hands on these laptops for free/cheap (recycling) don't also get their hands on an unassuming user's data. I'd rather that my data is protected than someone make a quick buck from my refuse (or worse, by stealing from me). For legitimate transactions or ones where the data liabilities are fully disclosed, you can obviously get around this easily.
- Vogtinator 4y agoProtecting data is perfectly possible without bricking the machine. Just wiping the encryption key as part of a full reset is enough for that.
- msh 4y agoBut as a owner it's also in my interest that a stolen device cannot be used.
- rchaud 4y agoYou can already do that on Find my Mac by locking the phone/laptop remotely. Same way as you would when your credit card is stolen; a couple of clicks and no one else can use it.
- agloe_dreams 4y agoIt's more than data. Apple's disk encryption already does that on iOS. Activation lock isn't just data protection: It is Anti-theft. The concept was that bricking the hardware if it is stolen would reduce the, at the time, massive rise of theft. Activation lock on iOS (and all kinds of keying hardware to that board) basically shut down cell phone theft as they become worthless. They added the same to MacOS.
- jrockway 4y agoYeah, I haven't heard of someone having their iPhone stolen since about 2015. Killing the illegal resale market with "if you don't know the password, the phone is a brick" is probably the biggest reduction in crime that society has ever experienced.
- MagnumOpus 4y ago> Yeah, I haven't heard of someone having their iPhone stolen since about 2015 You haven't been paying attention then. In London, phone snatching (iPhones preferred) has been and remains an epidemic to the tune of tens of thousands a year - in a single city. They might not be resold at full price, but even selling to a fence for parts is profitable if your acquisition cost is zero.
- throwawaysleep 4y agoWell this is the second level of security that is needed. A phone should not function with any parts from a phone that had the lock.
- nordsieck 4y ago> A phone should not function with any parts from a phone that had the lock. That would be extremely expensive to design. Probably impossible. Especially when component level repair ala Louis Rossmann is possible. https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup
- agloe_dreams 4y agoAt component level, yeah no impossible but for general resale it wouldn't be too hard. I'm pretty sure the Face ID and Touch ID modules already do this. You would need to add some general identifiers to parts with a GUID and at production/official repair time, register those parts to an iPhone S/N. If Activation locked, those parts would need to not be able to be registered to another iphone until the original device is unlocked, thus clearing those parts.
- varjag 4y agoWhen my son's school locker room was burglarized, they didn't bother with iPhones and took higher-end Android devices only. It's precisely the second order effect you want as a user.
- wrldos 4y agoIt does work. Someone grabbed my Lumia 830 off me, realised it was a Windows Phone and chucked it in the grass.
- GeekyBear 4y ago> Protecting data is perfectly possible without bricking the machine. If it's your machine, it's not bricked. The owner can turn off Activation Lock though a web browser on any machine.
- Lio 4y agoIf that's the case then I guess it wouldn't be too much work for Apple to provide a way to contact the original owner and ask them if they would mind it being wiped and reactivated for recycling. I'm sure some percentage of owners would allow that if it was just a click of a button and would help cut down on e-waste. As long as the machine isn't stolen and you know you're not going to expose any data then why not? (...and if it is stolen then the owner can expect the recycler to explain where they got it from and return it.)
- whstl 4y ago"I guess it wouldn't be too much work for Apple to provide a way to contact the original owner" I actually prefer if Apple doesn't provide anyone with a way to contact me, ESPECIALLY if they have something potentially stolen from me.
- Lio 4y agoI wondered how to phrase this and I think I’ve done a bad job based on the downvotes. I don’t mean that Apple allow a third party to contact anyone directly, I agree that that would be terrible. Instead I could see Apple themselves contacting the last known owner to ask permission to wipe and open the laptop for reuse. If that’s not what you want then you tell Apple the once and that’s the end of it. Reuse won’t always be what people want but if a laptop can be repaired and securely reused then that’s much, much more energy efficient than recycling it.
- gls2ro 4y agoallowing this would open the possibility of thefts forcing the victims to respond in a specific way thus opening a possibility of violence along with theft. so no to that. the solution to work as deterrent should be final: stolen device = brick device, no other possibility. in the case of solving theft of devices we have to choose the price we want to pay. all solutions are based on various ways to deter the theft. there is no solution to stop the action of theft once started. thus all solutions have a price that could range from false positives (like legit owners being locked out) to waste like theft happens because they dont know that they cannot unlock it without destroying the device.
- uni_rule 4y ago[flagged]
- dev_tty01 4y agoYou just made the argument you are arguing against. A full reset process is provided by the system software that takes care of the issue.
- footlose_3815 4y agoJamf admin here. 100% working-as-intended and the author has his ear to people who obviously buy and sell stolen laptops.
- uni_rule 4y ago[flagged]
- jen20 4y agoIt can be, by the owner. Not by a thief.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- s3p 4y agoAlso they could probably send these devices to Apple, who can unlock & refurbish them.
- myrandomcomment 4y agoNo, Apple cannot unlock the machine and that is the point. No government can compel Apple to decrypt anything. If you trade in an old device with Apple they provide detailed instructions more then once on unlocking and wiping before shipping. If you do not follow them, you do not get your trade in credit.
- coder543 4y agoApple can remove activation lock, which is the context of "unlock" here. The person you replied to is not talking about decrypting the contents of the laptop. However, Apple chooses not to do this unless they can establish that it is actually your device. Giving trade-in credit for activation locked devices would effectively be giving thieves an easy way to make money off of these otherwise useless devices, so they don't do that to avoid incentivizing theft. It would be cool if Apple offered a program where these activation locked devices could be returned to Apple for free. Apple could contact the last known owner and let them know their device has been recovered. If Apple doesn't hear back from them, then they could wipe the device and sell it as refurbished, or recycle it (depending on how damaged it is). This avoids creating an incentive for thieves to steal, but also overcomes the e-waste argument.
- myrandomcomment 4y agoThanks for the clarification.
- mwcremer 4y ago>”Often the previous owners are corporations or schools who buy and sell the machines in bulk and aren't interested in helping recyclers or refurbishers unlock them.”
- Operyl 4y agoThat’s exactly the point. If you properly wipe it, it’ll get the activation lock removed. Either resellers are doing things wrong, or these devices are being stolen and offloaded cheap. This isn’t exactly a new problem either, it was a problem with enterprise windows devices and locked bootloaders too, this is just harder/“impossible” to bypass.
- courgette 4y agoI "own" one of those. My previous employers went under. I asked them several times for a fedex label so I could return their stuff. They never did.
- yardie 4y agoI bought one of those locked by Company X laptops. It went out of business and I needed a new display, cheap. And some former employee now has $100.
- courgette 4y agoIt's a bummer, I could have keep using it as a media platform or a plain functional laptop without root if I had knew that before hand. I had my account on this. I formatted and that when I saw that I will not be able to re-install anything that I realized I bricked a perfectly fine machine. Oh well.
- medler 4y agoThe article claims that the issue is schools and businesses jettisoning these devices in bulk and not wanting to go to the effort of resetting them properly. It seems dubious to me. Shouldn’t the reseller withhold payment until the device is verified to be usable? And shouldn’t schools and businesses be incentivized to reset the devices since they want the full resale value?
- misnome 4y agoI mean the article says that they "assume they have been destroyed" so maybe it's businesses paying for hardware to be destroyed and now it's not possible to resell instead.
- wrldos 4y agoThat's likely and it's nothing compared to what I've seen. I've seen businesses shred crates of completely unused and unprovisioned top of the line 16" macbook pros.
- the_mitsuhiko 4y agoI might be wrong but I believe Apple can unlock these machines with proof of purchase. At least I remember carrying a non MDM enrolled device from a departed employee to Apple in the past to have the activation lock removed and all I needed was a receipt and patience.
- lispm 4y agoyes, that's right. It's additional work. The company I work for has to do it from time to time with Apple's help. We have Mac users who, for example, return locked Macs when leaving the company... we unlock them then with Apple's help.
- gjsman-1000 4y agoThere are actually a few ways around iCloud lock, they all aren't great for thieves: 1. An insider (hard to get) 2. Phishing the owner (your device has been found, just sign into your Apple ID on this specific login form...) 3. Physically going to an Apple Store, with faked proof of purchase, and ideally a convincing disguise 4. Resell to some Chinese reseller (particularly because China doesn't use the same IMEI blocklist as the rest of the world), and take whatever they give you, and then it's not your problem anymore Option #3 is surprisingly popular for petty criminals.
- sdflhasjd 4y agoUsers, particularly those not absorbed into the Apple ecosystem, don't keep their iCloud account in high regard and by the time they're getting rid of their computer, have long ago forgotten the password. Additionally, they don't realise there are special steps required before handing off these computers.
- kerng 4y agoNot necessarily stolen, people just don't know better. The article explains that companies/schools operate in bulk, meaning they just drop thousands of in bulk - so they dont care if the are locked or not.
- agloeregrets 4y agoThis. Activation Lock is an Anti-Theft, not a privacy mesure. By making stolen hardware a brick, it reduces the upside to a thief to pennies on the dollar. This makes the legal risk not worth it. Thus: massive drops in theft. https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/apples-activation-lock-leads-to-big-drops-in-smartphone-theft-worldwide/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/11/apples-activation-lock-lea...
- natch 4y agoThis is a good thing.
- wrldos 4y agoThey tend to call themselves recyclers in the trade not resellers. They buy crates of these and play the probability game. They make more money on making frankenlaptops than actually stripping and recycling them. In fact most of them don't even recycle stuff themselves and subcontract that out periodically to other companies that actually do it. They are getting pissy because Apple trashed their probability game.
- efficax 4y agoI left my job at a publicly traded company you've heard of in the summer, seeing layoffs on the horizon (i was right!). The company has never responded to my request for a shipping label to return the macbook they bought for me. But it was remotely disabled, and now is impossible to get into. I'd happily factory reset it and give it to my nephew or something but I can't get it. So, I've asked a few times, emailing the IT contacts I have there, because I want to get rid of the damn thing. No response. But I can't legally sell it since it's not mine, and Apple will likely not bypass the firmware password for me. What am I supposed to do with this thing (besides pay my own freight to ship it back to the company I guess, something I refuse to do out of spite). Anyway, I can see how a lot of laptops might end up in the dust bin because of things like this.
- widowlark 4y agoNo, companies and businesses go bankrupt, and often dump items at the last minute to recoup losses. Other times, IT departments are given bad info and devices are not owned by the user they were told, and other times the owner is simply too dumb or lazy to unlock themselves. hardly justifies turning working technology into a brick
- pcdoodle 4y agoA lot of these units have small issues that would prevent unlocking. Like a keyboard issue or an LCD issue. Guaranteed to end up in the trash under this setup.