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> 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 pref

> 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 ago
Well 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 ago
    At 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.
    - nordsieck 4y ago
      Look - I get that it's probably not too hard to do with most of the parts that contain active electronics, but the comment I was replying to said all the parts. How are you going to lock down the phone body? Or the screen (not including the digitizer)? Which, coincidentally, are probably the 2 most damaged parts of a phone. I suppose there's probably some way Apple could lock them down. But that seems like an expense wildly out of proportion to the potential benefit.
- widowlark 4y ago
  this is a terrible idea that will lead to massive waste for hundreds of years
- phil21 4y ago
  And now we're into John Deere levels of "fuck you, pay me" whenever anything breaks. No thanks. The secondary repair market is extremely important to keep on life support. If you cede all repair work to manufacturer blessed shops the amount of waste and expense skyrockets. I want patched together laptops working 12 years from now, just like I have old T-series laptops from back in the day with various replacement parts humming away right now in my homelab. It's silly to just toss everything in the trash the moment is breaks.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    That secondary market is made up almost purely of stolen phones.
agloeregrets 4y ago
> They might not be resold at full price, but even selling to a fence for parts is profitable if your acquisition cost is zero. Apple has started blacklisting parts associated with locked iPhones. At this point the only reusable bit is the case and possibly battery. The display, Face ID, Touch sensor, and such are all bricked. Overall the reduction is massive in any form. There isn't a 100% effective solution but you can easily cut down on 90%.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  How have they been rendering unusable displays from stolen phones?
a4a4a4a4 4y ago
What parts? The screen / front camera assembly also stays locked if the phone it was on was stolen. The FaceID / TouchID data is stored on the camera module.
iso1631 4y ago
Isn't the idea you steal an unlocked phone, then use that for further crimes?

throwawaysleep 4y ago

Well 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 ago
  At 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.
  - nordsieck 4y ago
    Look - I get that it's probably not too hard to do with most of the parts that contain active electronics, but the comment I was replying to said all the parts. How are you going to lock down the phone body? Or the screen (not including the digitizer)? Which, coincidentally, are probably the 2 most damaged parts of a phone. I suppose there's probably some way Apple could lock them down. But that seems like an expense wildly out of proportion to the potential benefit.
widowlark 4y ago
this is a terrible idea that will lead to massive waste for hundreds of years
phil21 4y ago
And now we're into John Deere levels of "fuck you, pay me" whenever anything breaks. No thanks. The secondary repair market is extremely important to keep on life support. If you cede all repair work to manufacturer blessed shops the amount of waste and expense skyrockets. I want patched together laptops working 12 years from now, just like I have old T-series laptops from back in the day with various replacement parts humming away right now in my homelab. It's silly to just toss everything in the trash the moment is breaks.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  That secondary market is made up almost purely of stolen phones.

agloeregrets 4y ago

> They might not be resold at full price, but even selling to a fence for parts is profitable if your acquisition cost is zero. Apple has started blacklisting parts associated with locked iPhones. At this point the only reusable bit is the case and possibly battery. The display, Face ID, Touch sensor, and such are all bricked. Overall the reduction is massive in any form. There isn't a 100% effective solution but you can easily cut down on 90%.

ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
How have they been rendering unusable displays from stolen phones?

a4a4a4a4 4y ago

What parts? The screen / front camera assembly also stays locked if the phone it was on was stolen. The FaceID / TouchID data is stored on the camera module.

iso1631 4y ago

Isn't the idea you steal an unlocked phone, then use that for further crimes?