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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

#311

Post by m463 »

chemmail wrote: post #121
zer00eyz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as I understand it, all of the "parts" are mostly worthless because they wont just work in another iPhone. How do you maintain this functionality and give the "right to repair"? I would assume that it's possible but would add a fair bit of cost to devices (not that someone like apple cant bear said costs)... But IM just guessing on that front as I have zero experience with hardware locking.

Most parts will indeed work. It will just show "unkown part" in the settings. The main thing that is really paired is the front camera for faceID. Also changing the screen without the original paired chip makes you lose autobrightness and truetone which is need to get to MAX brightness on 14 and up.

auto brightness also broken on earlier phones + 3rd party screen

source: i have this problem iphone 8

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

#312

Post by m463 »

AndroTux wrote: post #46
writeslowly wrote: post #29

This seems like a lot of work for one (or two, once it got to China) people repeatedly trying to get into the phone. I wonder if this is like debt collection agencies where the stolen phones get repeatedly fenced at a steadily decreasing value, and each new owner has a go at sending out these unlock copypastes until it's clear that it's only value is in being scrapped.

Doesn't seem like a lot of work to me. Sending out that message takes a few minutes, and I would assume that most people would simply cave in and delete it. It's gone anyways, so they don't really lose much, and being threatened does things to people.

take a picture of the message, OCR it, and it can be automated. threats as a service, in language of choice.

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

#313

Post by m463 »

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,…

> The impacted accounts were magically re-enabled 3 days later.

A place I worked would lock your account if (reasons). I remember it happened to me - nonstandard mail client would try to use my old password a bunch of times and my account would lock.

most people would call in and get it unlocked immediately.

I came find out a little-known fact. The account lockout was automated and it would unlock after a certain amount of time. (of course using the wrong password again could lock it again)

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

#314

Post by spopejoy »

valleyjo wrote: post #27

This happened to my sister. She got her phone stolen at a bar in Austin. They’ve tried to phish her multiple times and now it’s gotten to intimidation texts where they are threatening physical and sexual violence to her unless she unlocks the phone. She put it in lost mode right away and due to my assurance she knows she is safe but honestly it does make you kind of just want to unlock and get the nightmare over with…

The technique in the article of googling the exact threat text is really powerful for restoring a sense of safety. Threats become pretty pathetic when you find they're entirely copypasta.

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

#315

Post by hipparchus »

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.

> Could have been far worse for their family back in China

what would they do, genuinely, to their family? Googling it only gives results about anything related to Tiananmen Square to be immediately censored, but little on the actual other consequences.

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

#317

Post by nielsbot »

guffins wrote: post #302
nielsbot wrote: post #168

The Gothamist page is returning a 500 error now. There's a version on archive.org tho https://web.archive.org/web/20240604225617/https://gothamist...

Gothamist (New York Public Radio) engineer here. Sorry about that! Are you still receiving a 500 error?

Works for me now
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