5 ms·

Forgot this was Hacker News for a second. Hardwares doing its job; locking unauthenticated users out of it. Unfortunately, this is a consequence of not underst

• mrzool 3y ago
  It’s not a good thing to lock out users who are clearly and demonstrably the owners of a device. Automated protections are good, but there should be procedures in place to handle cases like these.
  • AgentK20 3y ago
    That's great in a world where people are unable to resell devices, but the concept of "ownership" is fluid in a world where users can sell their devices. I can think of many scams that could abuse a system where anyone who presents an ID associated with a receipt can claim "ownership" of a device and bypass various security measures. Keep in mind, Apple's threat vectors range from "random phone thief" to "state level actors", with equally as varied clientele.
    • pjerem 3y ago
      Still, Apple chose to keep the keys of Activation Lock although they could have made an autonomous system that they could not disable themselves. By keeping a copy of the keys, they are also getting the responsibility to use them when the owner needs them because if they don’t, it raises serious concerns as to why they keep the keys in first place.
    • kelnos 3y ago
      The problem is that you can't permanently disable it. To me, the risk of something like what happened to OP is more concerning than being able to lock a thief out of using/reselling my laptop. So I'd prefer to just disable Activation Lock entirely, and prevent it from ever being enabled. Of course, the ability to do that essentially reduces the theft deterrent somewhat, so Apple wouldn't want to implement this ability.
    • faeriechangling 3y ago
      It’s not that hard. If somebody has POSSESSION of the Mac, and either: 1. An Apple ID registered with the Mac 2. A proof of purchase 3. A court ruling establishing them as the owner. Presume they are the owner. Regarding state level actors, they are not interested in stealing people’s MacBooks, they are interested in stealing peoples Data. Removing the activation lock from a Mac != exposing the data on it. Regarding common thieves, see above. If Apple isn’t confident that they can authenticate ownership, they have no business locking out Macs. It is really not as hard to authenticate ownership as you think though in cases where the person claiming ownership has possession of the Mac.
• croes 3y ago
  You forgot the part where Apple could unbrick it for the legitimate owner. The software does its job, Apple does not.
  • threeseed 3y ago
    Apple is doing its job. There is no way for it to accurately determine the legitimate owner. So better to err on the side of caution and assume that if you're coming to Apple with an unlock request that it's not legitimate.
    • benjaminwootton 3y ago
      They can tie your purchase to a serial number. It’s listed on the invoice. That should constitute proof in my opinion.
      • ZekeSulastin 3y ago
        Apple hasn’t yet figured out how to stop people from selling their used equipment.
        • oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
          Well, they have Touch ID on Macbooks now and Face ID is coming soon. Feels like we're not that far off.
      • threeseed 3y ago
        Many Apple products are bought from third party resellers who don't capture this information.
        • kelnos 3y ago
          That's not relevant to the case at hand, where OP was actually able to prove that he'd originally bought the device.
      • 3y ago
• pjerem 3y ago
  Activation Lock is in fact not a good software because Apple have the keys. If they refuse to accept the responsibility that comes with owning the keys, which, basically comes down to helping the customer when they can authenticate him, they should not own the key at all. At least they could be honest when they say they can’t do anything. Because, reading this post, my question is not "why Apple don’t help?" but rather "why did we give them our keys if they are not willing to use them to help us ?" What is a more legitimate use case than OP simple case that justify Apple’s decision power over Activation Lock.
  • ValentineC 3y ago
    > If they refuse to accept the responsibility that comes with owning the keys, which, basically comes down to helping the customer when they can authenticate him, they should not own the key at all. Apple has a process to remove Activation Lock with proof of purchase documentation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201441 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201441 I don't know why the process failed for the OP.
    • kelnos 3y ago
      It doesn't matter why it failed. Apple decided not to fulfill their responsibility in this case, for whatever reason, so I agree with the GP that Apple should not be trusted with the key.
      • KennyBlanken 3y ago
        Yes, because clearly whatever someone said in an HN comment is the full story and nobody would ever lie or distort to reap karma among a community of knee-jerk Apple-haters.
        • tumult 3y ago
          The guy bought another Apple laptop, so I don’t know why you think he’s a hater. Apple is well known for screwing individuals over when applying vague policies, then fixing the situation after the person runs to the press.
• quitit 3y ago
  This sounds terrible, but there are some lingering issues which don't sit right: If this person has their original invoice/receipt. Then it's trivial to show that this is not an item which requires that duties be paid. He's clearly not buying it twice. Agreeing to pay duties for something that was bought inside of the country, or already delivered to the country at the time of sale raises a red flag on this story. (Like why aren't they claiming the duties back now?) The second issue is that Apple are pretty good about unlocking devices when the owner has their purchase paperwork (invoice/receipt) because this contains the serial number and the owners name. If that doesn't work for some reason (e.g. Apple have information that the device was sold or legitimately owned by someone else), then the owner can turn to further resources to prove ownership, including the documentation that shows that it was a missing item, a police report, an insurance claim, a notarised witness statement and so on. It's not as simple as "computer says no". Altogether there seems to be more to this story. Has the other person meddled with the laptop? The author seems to have some suspicions that the other user attempted to make good with it - that seems like the source of his woes.
  • Aeolun 3y ago
    > The author seems to have some suspicions that the other user attempted to make good with it This seems like something that should be extremely easy for Apple to see. If the data aligns completely with thr story OP tells, why won’t they help him?
• faeriechangling 3y ago
  Nobody is saying it’s bad for Apple to lock unauthenticated users out of a device. The problem is Apple equating the completion of not just an on-boarding process, but an optional on-boarding process, with ownership. It’s that they have a feature to lock users out of their Mac but no procedure to actually bypass this lock for the legitimate owner of the device. Without such procedures, they should not have implemented such a lock. I’m not even against Apple applying locks that they cannot break, such as with their enhanced security for iCloud, but the difference there is that Apple legitimately doesn’t control the keys, and that can only result in mere data loss rather than resulting in devices being totally bricked.