5 ms·

ewaste is problem but bricking them is the only strong security deterent. Many criminals would be happy to steal a brand new iphone and resell it after 3 years.

Eisenstein 3y ago
I don't think you have thought this through. Organized crime gets phones from thieves that go around in (for instance) concerts and pick pocket and then sell the phones which then get sent to a location where they are reset/parted out and resold. Would they be willing to pay money to the thieves just to sit on a hoard of phones for 3 years and then sell them at suitably discounted prices? I'd wager that is doubtful. Non-organized crime is generally opportunistic. Would the opportunistic criminal know of this reset date, and if they did would they be willing to wait 3 years to fence the phone? I'd wager that is doubtful.
- chongli 3y ago
  then sell the phones which then get sent to a location where they are reset/parted out and resold You can’t do that with an activation locked iPhone. The user can remotely brick the device using Find My. The parts can’t be removed and reused either because they all have IDs in them which are locked to the device. A stolen iPhone is nothing more than scrap metal and glass.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    Quick search for recent news popped this up: "The officers advised Chistancho that his bag violated the event rules and proceeded to remove it from his possession. Upon inspecting the bag, officers found a smaller black bag inside, which, when opened, revealed a metallic inner lining consistent with a Faraday bag – a device commonly used to block phone signals. To their surprise, the Faraday bag contained a total of 12 stolen iPhones of various models. One of the victims of the thefts was able to positively identify one of the recovered phones as stolen from him." * https://wsvn.com/news/local/miami-dade/two-phone-thieves-nabbed-red-handed-at-rolling-loud-music-festival-in-miami/ https://wsvn.com/news/local/miami-dade/two-phone-thieves-nab... If they can't use them for anything, what would they want with 12 iPhones? > The user can remotely brick the device using Find My. I guess that's what the faraday bag is for.
    - chongli 3y ago
      The faraday bag will only prevent the device from being bricked while it’s inside. As soon as it goes online, it’ll phone home and brick itself. Thieves may be able to move the phones inside these bags but they’re effectively useless, so their fence value is very low. They basically need to scam people into buying these things, knowing they’ll fail as soon as they’re used. Unless you have a link to show evidence that they know how to modify the devices to prevent them from ever phoning home again? Because even if you somehow manage to reset and wipe the device offline, it’ll still phone home and brick itself as soon as it gets a connection because the ID is in hardware.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        > Unless you have a link to show evidence that they know how to modify the devices to prevent them from ever phoning home again? Because even if you somehow manage to reset and wipe the device offline, it’ll still phone home and brick itself as soon as it gets a connection because the ID is in hardware. Would this happen if the phone were moved to a network in China? I didn't want to go into that aspect of it, but my understanding is that the phones get sent to a location in China and worked on there. I don't have any evidence on hand, but I am sure you can find some. If you want me to dig into it I can, but just not at this moment. EDIT: reddit thread * https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/r9m2bk/stolen_iphone_ending_up_in_huafa_rd_shenzhen/hnfqi98/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/r9m2bk/stolen_iphone...
        chongli 3y ago
        Ahhh okay. So this is an international organized crime ring. That’s always going to be difficult to beat, but Apple is fighting it. The measures they’ve already taken are a pretty good deterrent against casual theft though.
        junofan 3y ago
        The scope is huge. There are basically venture capital funds that invest in these groups now.
  - avidiax 3y ago
    There are hackers that sell a service to unlock locked iPhones/iPads/MacBooks. The typical technique is to phish victims, contact their lost phone contacts, impersonate police. This assumes that the thief didn't simply observe/record the pin code unlock before stealing the phone. https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmygb/checkm8-info-remove-icloud-activation-lock https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmygb/checkm8-info-remove-i... https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/wp4t7t/would_wiping_it_allow_them_to_use_it/ https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/wp4t7t/would_wip... https://www.howtogeek.com/829425/scammers-tricking-people-into-unlocking-their-stolen-iphones/ https://www.howtogeek.com/829425/scammers-tricking-people-in... https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/19/apple-responds-to-iphone-theft-recovery-key-report/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/19/apple-responds-to-iphon...
paganel 3y ago
Had the iPhones still remained somehow reasonably priced then we wouldn't have had the thieves problem, or not as big, that's for sure. But when a new iPhone can already cost you ~1300 euros then things change, iPhone users now have a target on their back.
- gorbypark 3y ago
  Anecdotally, in my area it's been the exact opposite. iPhones (back when they were cheaper!) used to be much less locked down, and thieves would target people specifically to steal their iPhone. Now, as the phones are locked down, and even using them for parts is much harder with the serialization of parts, it seems that the targeted theft of iPhones is much, much lower.
  - paganel 3y ago
    Yeah, that makes sense and it's partly covered by what I was saying, i.e. because the iPhones have become more expensive and hence, by definition, more valuable to both those owning them and to potential thieves, Apple has had to implement these locking policies which have caused the problem the author of the article had. I can understand how come fewer iPhones would get stolen now compared to previous times, but I do think that that the level of "implicit" targeting by thieves has indeed increased which has made Apple also increase the level of locking. In a way this situation is similar to thieves stealing from poor people house's compared to stealing from wealthy people's houses. Meaning that, even going by percentages, I'm sure that poor people's houses are broken in by thieves a lot more compared to wealthy people houses, and that is, mostly, because wealthy people's houses are a lot more better protected (because there's much more valuable stuff to steal from there compared to poor people's houses). But that extra protection comes with its one intrinsic/hidden costs for those enjoying said protection, for example one cannot freely "choose" where to own a wealthy house, you're restricted by the "good" and "safe" areas, in effect limiting your freedom of choice (which is a cost in itself). There's also the "inner" phycological cost of realising that your own protection depends on a system outside of your control, a house's security system in the case I mentioned or a big US corporation in the case of the author here, that's also a hidden cost. And there are many other such costs. All this is part of the many paradoxes related to security and defence, really interesting topic by itself.

Eisenstein 3y ago

I don't think you have thought this through. Organized crime gets phones from thieves that go around in (for instance) concerts and pick pocket and then sell the phones which then get sent to a location where they are reset/parted out and resold. Would they be willing to pay money to the thieves just to sit on a hoard of phones for 3 years and then sell them at suitably discounted prices? I'd wager that is doubtful. Non-organized crime is generally opportunistic. Would the opportunistic criminal know of this reset date, and if they did would they be willing to wait 3 years to fence the phone? I'd wager that is doubtful.

chongli 3y ago
then sell the phones which then get sent to a location where they are reset/parted out and resold You can’t do that with an activation locked iPhone. The user can remotely brick the device using Find My. The parts can’t be removed and reused either because they all have IDs in them which are locked to the device. A stolen iPhone is nothing more than scrap metal and glass.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Quick search for recent news popped this up: "The officers advised Chistancho that his bag violated the event rules and proceeded to remove it from his possession. Upon inspecting the bag, officers found a smaller black bag inside, which, when opened, revealed a metallic inner lining consistent with a Faraday bag – a device commonly used to block phone signals. To their surprise, the Faraday bag contained a total of 12 stolen iPhones of various models. One of the victims of the thefts was able to positively identify one of the recovered phones as stolen from him." * https://wsvn.com/news/local/miami-dade/two-phone-thieves-nabbed-red-handed-at-rolling-loud-music-festival-in-miami/ https://wsvn.com/news/local/miami-dade/two-phone-thieves-nab... If they can't use them for anything, what would they want with 12 iPhones? > The user can remotely brick the device using Find My. I guess that's what the faraday bag is for.
  - chongli 3y ago
    The faraday bag will only prevent the device from being bricked while it’s inside. As soon as it goes online, it’ll phone home and brick itself. Thieves may be able to move the phones inside these bags but they’re effectively useless, so their fence value is very low. They basically need to scam people into buying these things, knowing they’ll fail as soon as they’re used. Unless you have a link to show evidence that they know how to modify the devices to prevent them from ever phoning home again? Because even if you somehow manage to reset and wipe the device offline, it’ll still phone home and brick itself as soon as it gets a connection because the ID is in hardware.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      > Unless you have a link to show evidence that they know how to modify the devices to prevent them from ever phoning home again? Because even if you somehow manage to reset and wipe the device offline, it’ll still phone home and brick itself as soon as it gets a connection because the ID is in hardware. Would this happen if the phone were moved to a network in China? I didn't want to go into that aspect of it, but my understanding is that the phones get sent to a location in China and worked on there. I don't have any evidence on hand, but I am sure you can find some. If you want me to dig into it I can, but just not at this moment. EDIT: reddit thread * https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/r9m2bk/stolen_iphone_ending_up_in_huafa_rd_shenzhen/hnfqi98/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/r9m2bk/stolen_iphone...
      - chongli 3y ago
        Ahhh okay. So this is an international organized crime ring. That’s always going to be difficult to beat, but Apple is fighting it. The measures they’ve already taken are a pretty good deterrent against casual theft though.
        junofan 3y ago
        The scope is huge. There are basically venture capital funds that invest in these groups now.
- avidiax 3y ago
  There are hackers that sell a service to unlock locked iPhones/iPads/MacBooks. The typical technique is to phish victims, contact their lost phone contacts, impersonate police. This assumes that the thief didn't simply observe/record the pin code unlock before stealing the phone. https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmygb/checkm8-info-remove-icloud-activation-lock https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmygb/checkm8-info-remove-i... https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/wp4t7t/would_wiping_it_allow_them_to_use_it/ https://www.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/wp4t7t/would_wip... https://www.howtogeek.com/829425/scammers-tricking-people-into-unlocking-their-stolen-iphones/ https://www.howtogeek.com/829425/scammers-tricking-people-in... https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/19/apple-responds-to-iphone-theft-recovery-key-report/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/19/apple-responds-to-iphon...

paganel 3y ago

Had the iPhones still remained somehow reasonably priced then we wouldn't have had the thieves problem, or not as big, that's for sure. But when a new iPhone can already cost you ~1300 euros then things change, iPhone users now have a target on their back.

gorbypark 3y ago
Anecdotally, in my area it's been the exact opposite. iPhones (back when they were cheaper!) used to be much less locked down, and thieves would target people specifically to steal their iPhone. Now, as the phones are locked down, and even using them for parts is much harder with the serialization of parts, it seems that the targeted theft of iPhones is much, much lower.
- paganel 3y ago
  Yeah, that makes sense and it's partly covered by what I was saying, i.e. because the iPhones have become more expensive and hence, by definition, more valuable to both those owning them and to potential thieves, Apple has had to implement these locking policies which have caused the problem the author of the article had. I can understand how come fewer iPhones would get stolen now compared to previous times, but I do think that that the level of "implicit" targeting by thieves has indeed increased which has made Apple also increase the level of locking. In a way this situation is similar to thieves stealing from poor people house's compared to stealing from wealthy people's houses. Meaning that, even going by percentages, I'm sure that poor people's houses are broken in by thieves a lot more compared to wealthy people houses, and that is, mostly, because wealthy people's houses are a lot more better protected (because there's much more valuable stuff to steal from there compared to poor people's houses). But that extra protection comes with its one intrinsic/hidden costs for those enjoying said protection, for example one cannot freely "choose" where to own a wealthy house, you're restricted by the "good" and "safe" areas, in effect limiting your freedom of choice (which is a cost in itself). There's also the "inner" phycological cost of realising that your own protection depends on a system outside of your control, a house's security system in the case I mentioned or a big US corporation in the case of the author here, that's also a hidden cost. And there are many other such costs. All this is part of the many paradoxes related to security and defence, really interesting topic by itself.