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Being able to "take ownership of the private keys" will benefit us on HN and not many beyond that. Apple sells Macbooks to anyone who can afford one, and I woul
by judge2020 3y ago
Being able to "take ownership of the private keys" will benefit us on HN and not many beyond that. Apple sells Macbooks to anyone who can afford one, and I would bet money we'd see 100x the number of complaints of inaccessible laptops (via selling them or otherwise) if you needed to store keys from initial setup until the end of its usage or from people forgetting to transfer the keys to the new owner(s) of said laptop.
- ksjskskskkk 3y agosell a better solution and get rich. btw what we have today is the worse of both worlds. apple et al can tie you to a identity which you cannot use to recover your data but they can sell to advertisers or act on police requests from that profile metadata.
- jtriangle 3y agoYou're assuming such a system would be someone emailing you privatekey.txt That is, of course, a system that exists, but, be creative, lots of ways to skin that cat. In apple's case, well, they could certainly sell a device to handle that job, basically a key fob like you probably use in your car (sometimes built into the physical key without your knowledge). You could also use the remarkable amount of compute that most people carry around in their pockets to do this job with no additional device required (use your phone). Not really a hard nut to crack overall.
- ryukoposting 3y agoAren't you describing a use case for a yubikey?
- RulerOf 3y agoI keep thinking that the right solution to this problem is to add an HSM that functions as a bearer title for the device, layered above the existing Apple root of trust, that comes in the box. It could sign an activation lock removal and give it to the device through the usb port. If the HSM is lost or fails, revert to the status quo.
- kristjansson 3y agoThat is a cool idea. The machine comes with a horcrux :)
- RulerOf 3y agoI like the idea of course, but I can see it so easily ending up in some forgotten corner of a stolen laptop bag. The common theme that keeps coming up with activation lock that Apple's customers do not understand this feature until it bites them in the wallet. Any solution would require education that these same people won't get until they're in an irrevocable situation anyway.
- kristjansson 3y agoOr they could sell a service to manage the device keys. The could even bundle it for free. They might even give it a terrible, anti-descriptive name like “find my”
- rbetts 3y agoThank you! This comments section is so weird - most of the comments are the exact opposite of my understanding. Find My Feature from apple.com: > Activation Lock is designed to prevent anyone else from using or selling your device. When you enable Find My on your device, Activation Lock is turned on automatically. > Your Apple ID and password will then be required in order to erase or reactivate it. And if someone is able to erase your device, the Hello screen will show that it’s locked, locatable, and still belongs to you.
- kristjansson 3y agoYeah, the issue is the author didn’t avail himself of Apple’s device key feature, then had his laptop stolen. In the interim, whomever had the machine enabled the device key feature, so the author couldn’t use the machine when it was eventually recovered.
- c0pium 3y agoNormal people are not going to do any of those things. If you force them to, they’ll lose the phone or wipe it or sell it. They will lose the physical key immediately, or break it somehow, or sell it. This is not a technical problem, and you cannot solve it with a technical solution.
- Dylan16807 3y ago> if you needed to store keys Is that a plan anyone is suggesting?