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Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

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Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#251

Post by MaxikCZ »

jimt1234 wrote: post #212
altairprime wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably best not to declare war upon China in writing. Instead, ask how many students died in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. That specific phrase should specifically auto-alert the censors to a known forbidden topic, without resorting to threats against China. How long of a lost phone message can one set, anyways?

This will absolutely work. My friend is from China, but lives here in the US. Most of her friends and family are still back in China. We communicate primarily over iMessage, but also on WeChat. About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake - I meant to send it over iMessage. The next day she called me, really mad; her WeChat account was shut down, without explanation,…

Cant wait till we outlaw encryption in the west, too.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#253

Post by roydivision »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #250
roydivision wrote: post #249

Dumb, pre morning coffee question - How does the thief know your number to text you if they can't unlock the phone?

If you set your phone to lost mode it'll offer to let whoever has the phone contact the owner. This is done without unlocking the phone and AFAIK is done without revealing your contact info. But… it's easy (and reasonable) to think that whoever has your phone also has your contact info which makes these sorts of scams that much scarier.

Great, thanks.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#254

Post by account42 »

sethherr wrote: post #220
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple puts effort into making you go to them for repair parts. Any deterrence against thieves is simply a fringe benefit. Don't credit them for something that isn't actually their goal.

I think it is pretty clearly a goal - when you create marketing campaigns around an aspect of your product (and Apple has around this sort of security), delivering on your promises is clearly a goal. I wouldn’t be surprised if the original impetus for this variety of security was a prompt like “what are some objectives that support us creating vendor lock in” - that’s how organizations end up with multiple interconne…

The purpose of marketing is to bend the truth to something that is going to attract customers. It doesn't have anything to do with the actual goals of the company.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#255

Post by kingkongjaffa »

jimt1234 wrote: post #212
altairprime wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably best not to declare war upon China in writing. Instead, ask how many students died in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. That specific phrase should specifically auto-alert the censors to a known forbidden topic, without resorting to threats against China. How long of a lost phone message can one set, anyways?

This will absolutely work. My friend is from China, but lives here in the US. Most of her friends and family are still back in China. We communicate primarily over iMessage, but also on WeChat. About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake - I meant to send it over iMessage. The next day she called me, really mad; her WeChat account was shut down, without explanation,…

> About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake

Absolutely insane that you would even think to do this to a Chinese national. Good job they are in the US. Could have been far worse for their family back in China. Unbelievable.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#256

Post by beretguy »

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #255
jimt1234 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will absolutely work. My friend is from China, but lives here in the US. Most of her friends and family are still back in China. We communicate primarily over iMessage, but also on WeChat. About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake - I meant to send it over iMessage. The next day she called me, really mad; her WeChat account was shut down, without explanation,…

> About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake Absolutely insane that you would even think to do this to a Chinese national. Good job they are in the US. Could have been far worse for their family back in China. Unbelievable.

Hey, people make mistakes. The correct solution would be to never use wechat in the first place.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#257

Post by operator2140 »

gabolaev wrote: post #41
Hizonner wrote: post #25

What I'm seeing here is that Apple has a really shitty, poorly thought out design. To keep the phone useless to somebody who steals it, you have to keep it exposing your contact information so that people can threaten you.

How exactly can they get the phone number though? The only thing I can think of is if there was an unlocked (no PIN) physical SIM-card, and they could just insert it into another phone. And yes, e-SIM solves this problem.

Organized crime networks have insiders/hacked machines at the phone carriers where they can perform IMEI lookups in the carrier database to get the subscribers phone number.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#258

Post by [deleted] »

MaxikCZ wrote: post #251
jimt1234 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will absolutely work. My friend is from China, but lives here in the US. Most of her friends and family are still back in China. We communicate primarily over iMessage, but also on WeChat. About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake - I meant to send it over iMessage. The next day she called me, really mad; her WeChat account was shut down, without explanation,…

Cant wait till we outlaw encryption in the west, too.

[deleted]

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#259

Post by giomasce »

bnchrch wrote: post #10

Honestly. This is a pretty good advertisement for Apple. I appreciate the effort that they've put into making my device less valuable to thiefs.

Not enough, apparently. She still got robbed of her iPhone and had to buy another one.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#260

Post by yreg »

mlyle wrote: post #223
spookie wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if you don't live in the US. You actually live in a "third world" country? These are the type of things that make it very hard for Apple to penetrate markets outside the US.

What we're discussing: you can put any message you want on the phone for how it can be returned to you. Some people are mentioning that if Apple is given the phone, Apple will also help (and that they'd prefer to not put that message in place as a result). > These are the type of things that make it very hard for Apple to penetrate markets outside the US. Can you explain how this is much worse than, say, Google or Sa…

> Some people are mentioning that if Apple is given the phone, Apple will also help

No, they will not. It is just a wish. And it makes little sense for Apple to be doing that.

If you bring a found iPhone to Apple, Apple will not tell you any information about the associated customer. They don't have any infrastructure to return it. The only thing they can and will do is take the device and recycle it.

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