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Perfectly good M1 MacBooks are being scrapped because of Activation Lock [video]
- i4i 3y agoReally, this is disgraceful and it's unacceptable that Apple hasn't come up with a work around... Just as millions of iPhones and iPads have been scrapped due to Activation lock, we are now seeing 2018+ MacBooks scrapped at recyclers as well, due to the "feature" being enabled on those devices.
- purplecats 3y agoseems like they'd think its beneficial for them to have people throw away perfectly good laptops
- junofan 3y agoFor what it’s worth, the volume of device fraud Apple already deals with is insane.
- nicolas_17 3y ago- If you can provide proof of legal purchase (the receipt must include the serial number etc), you may be able to get it unlocked at https://al-support.apple.com/ https://al-support.apple.com/ - There were a few cases of the owner dying and their relatives being unable to unlock their devices. Starting in iOS 15.2 and macOS 12.1, the owner can designate a Legacy Contact who can access their iCloud data and unlock their devices if they die: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510 So Apple did make progress in "working around" this problem for legitimate cases. - If you bought it second-hand... then it's good thing there is no workaround, because preventing resale of stolen devices is the whole point. Return it to the seller and demand your money back.
- throwaway2990 3y agoWhile this feature exist apple will continue to get my money. Activation lock is awesome.
- janandonly 3y agoIt's a small price to pay as a planet for not getting your laptop (or phone or tablet) stolen, I guess? Backdoors can (and therefore, will) be abused, so it is better that there is no way around these security measures.
- NoPicklez 3y agoI'm in two minds about this, I am glad that there is no way around activation lock, but of course it produces waste if nobody else can use it. It would be great if they could engineer a solution in that the device is activation locked and be factory reset and reused. There was a discussion around activation lock somewhat preventing thefts due to the risk that the device becomes activation locked. But I don't know how truthful that is. As stolen devices are often sold to unsuspecting users with activation lock enabled.
- itake 3y agoMy iPhone was stolen in Kenya. I watched the thief take my iPhone to multiple used iPhone resellers via Find My iPhone, trying to sell my Activation locked iPhone to whatever shop that would accept it.
- theshrike79 3y agoThere are anecdotal stories of thieves just dropping a snatched phone when they see it's an iPhone. It requires very specific skills to dismantle it to resell-able parts - and even those are hard because the components are linked and can't be sold separately.
- thefz 3y ago> My iPhone was stolen in Kenya. Then as a deterrent, device lock does not work much.
- Nifty3929 3y agoIt will as this becomes known.
- zakki 3y agoFor the impact someone should compare before and after activation lock is launched.
- nicolas_17 3y ago
- hilux 3y agoWhatever the environmental and security arguments pro and con, Apple has a strong financial disincentive to unlock these machines.
- masklinn 3y agoI’d assume legal as well, forcefully unlocking a laptop which turns out stolen sounds like a bad plan.
- rxyz 3y agoI'd love to have a cheap used M1 macbook to play with.. but at the same time those activation locks are useful and gave me better resell value for my apple stuff. Still sucks because there are people who just cant afford a brand new Apple laptop but would make great use of a used Apple Silicon macbook. Instead they are going to get a used thinkpad/inspiron because those are resold for cheap instead of being scrapped. Wasted opportunity for Apple to get people hooked in the ecosystem
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y agoI would be pretty annoyed to discover Apple unlocking my Activation Locked devices without contacting me, positively identifying me and getting my permission to unlock them. The whole point of Activation Lock is to ruin the resale value of stolen Apple products.
- sangnoir 3y ago> The whole point of Activation Lock is to ruin the resale value of stolen Apple products. Software-locked products are just be broken up and/or sold for parts[0] - so thieves will only be slightly less motivated. The downside is donated and estate sale M1 mainboards will be condemned to the trash heap. Less technical people are also more likely to throw the whole computer away. 0. I do this already to feed my repair addiction. I buy from my favorite charity thrift store, so the goods are not likely not stolen. A device with cracked screen can be fixed by parts from an activation-locked device.
- alanfranz 3y agoIs there no serial matching on M1 preventing reuse of mobo and other parts?
- sangnoir 3y agoTo my knowledge - not for laptop parts like display assembly or keyboard. Do you think such system would be a net-positive? I.e. 3rd party recyclers & repair shops having to contact previous owner before they can use parts that have been sitting for months/years on a shelf.
- ransackdev 3y agoI guess one pro to the lack of end user repairability, due everything being soldered to the mainboard, is that the majority of components are permanently affixed to the bricked ssd and security chips. Battery and screen are about all that could be chopped and some imo
- 3y ago
- cosmojg 3y agoInstall Asahi Linux?
- mk_stjames 3y agoThat would not work; the lock is implemented by the SOC at a level higher than macOS- it is done by what is now the integrated features of the T2 SOC, which has its own little RAM and does it's own disk access and encryption and controls the boot-ability of anything off the SSD. The operating system is not what is implementing the lock.
- nicolas_17 3y agoThe system was specifically designed to prevent that too. To install Asahi Linux, you need the macOS user password. You probably don't have it. No worries, just factory-reset it. Now you have to get through activation before you can set a user password. There's some pre-activation done out of the factory so that the Mac doesn't need to call home and check for lock on first boot out of the box, but if you wipe it, that's gone, and it does need to call home.
- nicolas_17 3y agoMore info by one of the engineers who designed the Apple Silicon boot system: https://twitter.com/XenoKovah/status/1504797988358602764 https://twitter.com/XenoKovah/status/1504797988358602764
- theshrike79 3y agoThe device is locked on a hardware level, just "installing linux" won't bypass that.
- bryan_w 3y agoI think we should tackle this problem by collectively teaching people not to steal. Legit resale people can be contacted. People who were tasked with destroying equipment, but trying to resale should be upfront about their operations and get unlocks before accepting delivery.
- thefz 3y ago> I think we should tackle this problem by collectively teaching people not to steal. Yet again the blame is shifted from the ultra rich corp. to the poor?
- Arn_Thor 3y agoFolks, don’t steal! (I’m doing my part)
- Broken_Hippo 3y agoI think we should tackle this problem by collectively teaching people not to steal. I'm sorry, but do you actually think that people steal because they weren't taught otherwise? I mean, perhaps this works with, say, wage theft but it just doesn't pan out to theft of laptops. Everyone knows this is frowned upon. You can lessen such theft by making sure folks don't feel compelled to steal by making sure you have a robust safety net that allows for pocket money and buying computers and things - but you simply won't get rid of it completely. In any case, laptop theft isn't a question of "teaching people not to steal". Theft happens worldwide.
- nicolas_17 3y agoTeach people not to buy activation-locked laptops, and thieves won't have anyone to sell them to.
- selcuka 3y agoNo, we should tackle this problem by improving the mean quality of life of all humans. People steal because they are poor, unless they have a mental disorder.
- fwlr 3y agoActually, they are not “perfectly good”, because they lack provenance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provenance
- mikewarot 3y agoSuggesting that someone manufactured a dead MacBook from scratch, just so they could then turn around and strip parts out of it pushes the limits of credulity.
- fwlr 3y agoHuh? I don’t follow. Provenance here is being used in the sense of “documented ownership”. If you like you can use “chain of custody” instead.
- mikewarot 3y agoApple has been trying to crush repair supply chains for years claiming that any parts entering the country that could be used to repair them aren't legitimate parts, because of infringement of patents, etc... on parts that Apple made, and put into devices that failed, and were then pulled for use elsewhere. Provenance is to prevent forgery, there's no forgery going on here... just Apple trying to eliminate the concept and tradition of property rights for someone who buys something from them, using whatever flimsy excuse they can find.
- fwlr 3y agoPerhaps the term provenance was misleading. I simply mean that those MacBooks are not perfectly good, because it’s not clear that they were legitimately and willingly sold. The activation lock release procedure is simple to follow during a legitimate exchange, and quite amenable to a follow-up if the sale was legitimate - therefore a MacBook with activation lock is less likely to have changed hands legitimately. Relatedly, I really couldn’t disagree more with this being an attack on “property rights” by Apple. If anything, I feel like activation lock has given me a strong new right over my Apple property, a right that most laptop owners do not have.
- chaostheory 3y agoOne reason people buy Apple products is because of security. Undermining activation lock would destroy that. Are these MacBooks stolen?
- mrweasel 3y agoThey aren't stolen, but it's also not fair to blame Apple for bricking them. These are most likely sold by schools and companies in bulk as they replace them for newer models. The sad truth is that "No, these aren't bricked, the seller just couldn't be bothered resetting them". Don't blame Apple for the MacBooks being scrapped, blame the organisations that resell them without resetting them because they really don't care if they are refurbish or just dumped in the landfill. Apple made a perfectly good anti-theft solution and now people are upset that they forgot to ask for these devices to be unlocked before buying them. If these buyers are truly that upset about the environmental impact, send them to Apple and let Apple recycle them... But we all know that they won't be doing that, because what they are upset about is losing money.
- tmikaeld 3y agoI'm torn on this whole M1 MacBook scrap situation due to Activation Lock. On one hand, I get the need for security. Activation Lock makes Apple devices less appealing to thieves, which is a win for owners. I've seen cases where stolen iPhones are practically useless thanks to this feature. But on the other side, it's frustrating to see perfectly usable tech turned into waste. Apples does have owner transfer service that works very well, I've used it for a few sales and now there's also a "Legacy Contacts" feature if someone passed away (added 2022).
- nicolas_17 3y agoWhat would it even mean to "retain the stolen status" if you can reuse it normally?
- tmikaeld 3y agoI mean that when you use the mac with the stolen disk, the status would still be "stolen". Apple already have an owner-transfer service that I've used many times, the problem is how this would work if someone passed away. It would make sense to disable some features, even if it's still in "stolen" status, so that it's not completely wasted.
- nicolas_17 3y ago> Apple already have an owner-transfer service that I've used many times, the problem is how this would work if someone passed away. Did you configure this too? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212360 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212360
- tmikaeld 3y agoThat one didn't exist when I last used the transfer (Looks like it was added 2022) - Nice one! Thanks.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoMake it so the main account it belongs to can't be removed/disabled, but can't be used to install new software, and location history can't be disabled. Give owners a chance to reclaim it, but allow some degree of use over just bricking it.
- Neil44 3y agoHow about the facility to connect to WiFi from that screen and trigger an email to the previous owner, ok to unlock this device or is it stolen?
- thefz 3y agoApple boasts great device security, I refuse to believe that in 2023 it isn't enough to just wipe the storage encryption key. Device will still be usable and customer data protected. Oh well, the problem would be even less severe if these devices had removable storage. This is yet another anti consumer and anti environment greedy move from a company that markets lock-in practices as features.
- nicolas_17 3y agoIf you're okay with your stolen device being reused as long as they can't access your data, you can do that, click the "Erase" button on the Find My app.
- thefz 3y agoAnd for the cases treated in the article, where there's no person to erase such data in the first place? Rare earth paperweights?
- t-writescode 3y agoProcess should be improved at those companies and/or the recycling firms should refuse Apple products that are still activation locked. It will slow down process; but, it is an appropriate route. As for dead people, a death certificate + 40 days (or a longer waiting period) should be sufficient, imo.
- nicolas_17 3y agoFor dead people there's this whole system: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212360 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212360 + https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510
- yreg 3y agoThe security is also in the fact that the stolen devices are almost worthless becoming well known.
- didntknowya 3y agoit's doing exactly what it was designed for. you can easily contact the previous owner to unlock them... though it's obviously not feasible if it's stolen.
- ipv6ipv4 3y agoThis is the video I would post if I were a fence.
- WheelsAtLarge 3y agoApple has no incentive to address the issue, as it would upset the original owners. Also, an unlocked device may be resold, resulting in a lost future sale. Given Apple's limited responsiveness to customer pressure, the best approach may be to involve the original owners in finding a solution. This may involve ensuring that all owners are aware of the problem and providing a simple way to erase the hard drive and set up a generic account and password. Simplicity is key. Additionally, offering a small token of appreciation, such as a Starbucks gift card, could be a nice gesture to those who participate.
- xiphias2 3y agoThis is amazing, as an M1 MacBook owner I see it as a great advertisement to buy Apple products.
- alanfranz 3y ago“Those companies are selling their perfectly good used cars without giving new owners their keys, and since the security system in those cars is really good and can’t be overridden, they’re trash. Bad carmakers! Could you just allow us to use your cars without keys??!” Seriously. Blame on the institutions that don’t unlock the devices, maybe they just have no idea. Blaming activation lock is totally silly. Maybe a way to “ping” an activation lock “owner” for “lock deactivation” and allow deactivation if no answer in, say, 90 days, could be a useful improvement; but the fault of this is not Apple’s.
- Shawnj2 3y agoSome sort of way to contact people who own activation locked devices that have been stolen would be nice, I once got an activation locked Apple Watch in the mail (long story) and tried to return it to the owner and was pretty much told “no you can’t really do that” by Apple, and there’s no way to unlock it back to being a functional watch either which is my second preference if it’s completely impossible to contact the owner. The only thing I could do was sell it on eBay as an activation locked device to someone who will presumably part out the device and toss the main board since otherwise it’s just e waste for my junk drawer.
- asimpletune 3y agoJust make there be a transfer ownership key, that the user must request, and the recycler won’t accept without. Having apple unilaterally unlock the device is not the only solution, just the recycler’s preferred one. This would also protected unlocked macs from being stolen en route, like in the post.
- sudhirj 3y agoIf I go into my iCloud account and remove the device off my list, does activation go away even if I didn’t explicitly remove it before I get rid of it? If yes, that would be more than enough at this point.
- nicolas_17 3y agoYes. It's possible that the device still "thinks" it's locked, but then the person who has it can factory-erase it, and when it contacts the server it will not show up as locked because you removed it from your account.
- dzhiurgis 3y agoA bit disingenuous to post these particular macs as a problem when you have mountains of decade old macbooks in background. All that said, his proposed solution sounds reasonable.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]