Requires updating to iOS 17.3. (Released today, I believe.)
The update is showing available and downloading onto my devices right now.
About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
21–30 of 85 posts
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#22This took quite a while to get ready but I do believe it prevents 99.9% of the theft cases mentioned. I am downloading it right now.
Even if it prevents reselling the phone, it doesn't prevent the phone from being stolen. It would be a dumb criminal to leave you your phone to allow you to immediately call the police if you've been mugged. Just take the phone, trash it literally placing it in a bin or destroying it or both. At the end of the day, you still don't have the phone whether the thief profits from it or not. All this will do is prevent cr…
> At the end of the day, you still don't have the phone whether the thief profits from it or not.
I care a lot about some low life scumbag not profiting from it. Anything that discourages theft is great.
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#23I’ll be using this but what a stupid exception imo. I work in a big building where anyone could walk in without id and simply defeat the protection. Hell, a disgruntled coworker contractor or customer could be in on it.
> When your iPhone is in a familiar location, these additional steps are not required, and you can use your device passcode like usual. Familiar locations typically include your home, work, and certain other locations where you regularly use your iPhone.
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#24So the next step for the criminals (the ones who steal both the passcode and phone) is to find your address (often stored in Contacts, or available in your Amazon account) then physically
go there and lurk nearby while finishing their pwning steps.
I may be missing something. But if not it seems like Apple is now incentivizing a scenario where thieves will physically go to the location of their victims homes in order to circumvent some of these measures.
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#25This took quite a while to get ready but I do believe it prevents 99.9% of the theft cases mentioned. I am downloading it right now.
Even if it prevents reselling the phone, it doesn't prevent the phone from being stolen. It would be a dumb criminal to leave you your phone to allow you to immediately call the police if you've been mugged. Just take the phone, trash it literally placing it in a bin or destroying it or both. At the end of the day, you still don't have the phone whether the thief profits from it or not. All this will do is prevent cr…
Thieves have been known to steal iPhones not just for the value of the parts but to compromise your entire digital existence. Most online banking transfers only require a 2nd factor from your phone (your saved passwords are already on there).
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
This Apple support page has a section on " If your iPhone or iPad is lost permanently or was stolen " : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201472
Very cool, thanks. I notice it doesn’t mention anything about changing bank passwords or the like. Might that be necessary, depending on how long it’s been out of your control? That is, if someone swipes your phone and was able to peak at your password (as a recent WSJ series focused on), you would probably need to take more dramatic steps if you didn’t realize it was gone immediately. Should I be making a list of th…
The Apple article does tacitly mention:
> You might want to change your password for other accounts, too.
Personally I would trust iOS security enough to not be too worried. Especially if I can issue a remote wipe in a timely manner. As long as the phone isn't swiped out of my hand while unlocked, I'm doubtful the average thief will be able to get past the lock screen. (Though I'm also assuming the thief doesn't have my passcode)
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have an Android phone, and a few months ago I left it behind in a Waymo autonomous vehicle. Awhile ago, I added the "Find My Device" site to my bookmarks and I'd tested it out a few times. So I started there. And I also used Google Voice to place a voice call, so when it didn't ring in my home, I knew it wasn't here. The Waymo passenger answered and there was much giggling. She kept saying she didn't know what to d…
> She offered to leave the phone in a pharmacy across town! I don't know how that would've helped. Well for one, the pharmacy isn't moving.
I would say that moving the phone from the place I left it would promote it from "lost" to "stolen".
Can you now envision a conversation between this passenger and the pharmacy clerk:
"I found this phone in some car"
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"Hold on to it until some guy I don't know comes to claim it?"
"We don't want this personal property! Go away!"
[Waymo car is gone now]
[Passenger absconds with phone or throws it away]
[Owner is no longer able to track or retrieve phone]
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#28I’ll be using this but what a stupid exception imo. I work in a big building where anyone could walk in without id and simply defeat the protection. Hell, a disgruntled coworker contractor or customer could be in on it. > When your iPhone is in a familiar location, these additional steps are not required, and you can use your device passcode like usual. Familiar locations typically include your home, work, and certai…
I don’t think iPhone thieves are smart enough to connect a snatched phone’s owner’s identity to a location nor are they stupid enough to regularly go to a frequent location to unlock a stolen device. In practice, a change like this will help a lot. Most stolen phones get put into the Shenzhen parts supply chain, and it’s probably not economical for the middlemen to do bespoke work to unlock the device.
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This feature is not really about protecting your device from being stolen. Once a thief has stolen his 10th iPhone that he can't do anything with, he'll probably be less likely to bother stealing iPhones. If anything it's a liability since it can be tracked as long as it still has some battery.
> Once a thief has stolen his 10th iPhone that he can't do anything with, he'll probably be less likely to bother stealing iPhones. If anything it's a liability since it can be tracked as long as it still has some battery. Theft isn't just for the whole device, it's also for parts. By making the part market so difficult they essentially create a black market for it in third world countries where just the phone's batt…
That’s why they require that you activate parts as well. Motherboard, screen and face id sensors are useless. The battery isn’t worth much, compared to newer Chinese knockoffs
Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone
#30This also solves a somewhat unique problem I experienced recently with iCloud keychain where all your passwords are only as secure as your passcode (and anyone that knows it).
I had to hand my phone over to a third party repairer. This would mean they needed to know my passcode so I wanted to lock down the phone to allow them to perform whatever diagnostic steps they might need but to restrict access to the wallet and iCloud keychain.
The first part was actually quite simple using a separate screen time passcode to restrict all apps bar the camera and any that they needed. The frustrating part was that the settings app itself cannot be blocked by screentime (I guess as thats where you configure the restrictions) and as iCloud keychain passwords are accessed from settings there was no way to block access to them.
With this update I could (somewhat) safely supply my passcode while being relatively confident that my keychain passwords were not viewed.