Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#41

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #13

I am a big fan of iFixit and dig their teardowns just as much as the device releases themselves but their "Companies should prioritize on ease of repair even if it makes the devices less portable and less secure" narrative flips me. I never, ever buy devices for repair purposes or to resell them without bothering to do a factory re-set. The ideal device is one that doesn't need a repair and I do not accept for my dev…

It's not especially shocking that the people doing repairs are the people talking about repairability.

And you're taking it from the perspective of someone buying a new device from Apple who doesn't care about anybody else. Consider the perspective of a low income person who would otherwise buy a refurbished phone which will now be unavailable or more expensive, or the environmental perspective of having to manufacture new phones (future landfill) instead of reusing what already exists. If we care about other people then we should care about the consequences of what Apple is doing here.

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#42

Post by faitswulff » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:07 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #40

faitswulff wrote: post #37

I feel like most posters here aren't reading the full article, specifically this paragraph: > When asked what could be done, Schindler suggests Apple implement a bypass that would allow certified recyclers and refurbishers to unlock donated devices if they’re not reported lost or stolen. And Shindler says 99% of the locked devices his facility receives aren’t lost or stolen. “People don’t steal a phone to then go run…

How hard would it be for a minimum wage employee of a "certified" recycler to steal the key necessary to unlock locked phones? A security feature with a backdoor isn't a security feature anymore.

Users can already unlock devices themselves over iCloud, correct? What if it just pinged the previous owner to ask if it was legitimate?

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#43

Post by supernova87a » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

So first the attorneys general of the various states begged Android/Apple/etc to implement activation locks to help reduce phone theft. And now the recyclers beg for an easier way to deactivate it to increase recyclable parts content.

Is it any wonder that manufacturers sometimes throw their hands up at how many constraints they're asked to design to?

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#44

Post by skywhopper » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #18

lukeschlather wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article pretty well lays out why this doesn't work. We're talking about recyclers here. The people sending in these devices have literally thrown them away into a trash bin. There's no return address. Creating a backdoor might not be the answer, but it sounds like there's no way to send a message to the phone's iCloud account saying "Hey I have your phone, it was recycled. Please remote-wipe and unlock it or give…

> it sounds like there's no way to send a message to the phone's iCloud account saying "Hey I have your phone, it was recycled. Please remote-wipe and unlock it or give me an address to return it." Apple (and Google, with the Android equivalent) could do this easily, couldn't they? Wouldn't this also be useful for the case of devices that are lost and found, so that they can be returned to the owner?

This is already easy to do using Find My Devices in iCloud. You can have the devices put up any message you want.

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#45

Post by wlesieutre » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #20

wlesieutre wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent comment knows it works as designed as an anti-theft feature. They're arguing that it's not designed well because it should accommodate recovering parts from phones that were knowingly disposed of without the owner releasing the activation lock first. As parent comment points out, this could be a simple matter of the refurbisher requesting a release of the lock, sending a request through Apple, and Apple reques…

> They're arguing that it's not designed well because it should accommodate recovering parts from phones that were knowingly disposed of without the owner releasing the activation lock first. > As parent comment points out, this could be a simple matter of the refurbisher requesting a release of the lock, sending a request through Apple, and Apple requesting permission of the phone's owner via their account. If the p…

I think it's possible? The activation lock doesn't happen at the hardware level, it's when you're setting up and activating the phone. It has to ask Apple's servers "can I activate this?" and Apple makes you sign in with the Apple ID that it's locked to before authorizing it. Doesn't seem like there should be any technical reason that a "Request permission from registered owner" option wouldn't work as well.

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#46

Post by filleokus » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #18

lukeschlather wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article pretty well lays out why this doesn't work. We're talking about recyclers here. The people sending in these devices have literally thrown them away into a trash bin. There's no return address. Creating a backdoor might not be the answer, but it sounds like there's no way to send a message to the phone's iCloud account saying "Hey I have your phone, it was recycled. Please remote-wipe and unlock it or give…

> it sounds like there's no way to send a message to the phone's iCloud account saying "Hey I have your phone, it was recycled. Please remote-wipe and unlock it or give me an address to return it." Apple (and Google, with the Android equivalent) could do this easily, couldn't they? Wouldn't this also be useful for the case of devices that are lost and found, so that they can be returned to the owner?

At least on Apple's side (Find my iPhone), the owner can mark the device as lost [0], which will lock it and display a custom message on the lock screen. But a "pull" solution where a finder of the phone can contact the owner would be nice.

[0]: https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare...

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#47

Post by hyperbovine » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

OrangeMango wrote: post #7

kgwxd wrote: post #2

Is there any proof this features reduces theft?

There is a high correlation with activation lock becoming widespread and the decrease in phone theft. That's not proof, but...

Actually it is, if you are willing to assume that the arrival of activation lock was completely exogeneous.

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#48

Post by StillBored » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:16 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #32

Was there no other source for this story besides this piece of hyperbole? Everything is a "nightmare" and "chaos" with "victims" and phones sent to the "shredder". We shouldn't support this garbage writing.

The process for recovering a locked iphone is problematic if the user forgets both the iphone password and the icloud password (because it was only used once a year before).

That happened to a family member recently, I guess they were using face id regularly and changed their pin at one point and by the time they needed it again couldn't remember it.

The part that really pisses me off is the "10 strikes and we wipe your phone bit". That happened to me too on an infrequently used iphone last year. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered the password because it was one a few dozen pins I use, but I didn't get the chance to try all of them because the fscking phone decided to wipe itself first (not attached to icloud).

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#49

Post by StillBored » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #42

jedberg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How hard would it be for a minimum wage employee of a "certified" recycler to steal the key necessary to unlock locked phones? A security feature with a backdoor isn't a security feature anymore.

Users can already unlock devices themselves over iCloud, correct? What if it just pinged the previous owner to ask if it was legitimate?

The problem is that a certain percentage of users set-up the icloud account with a password, then promptly forget it exists until they need it. Which tends to be when they have also forgotten their pin, because the pin is now similar to the icloud password and not required for every unlock.

Re: Apple’s Activation Lock Will Make It Difficult to Refurbish Macs

#50

Post by mrtksn » Wed, Dec 04, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #41

mrtksn wrote: post #13

I am a big fan of iFixit and dig their teardowns just as much as the device releases themselves but their "Companies should prioritize on ease of repair even if it makes the devices less portable and less secure" narrative flips me. I never, ever buy devices for repair purposes or to resell them without bothering to do a factory re-set. The ideal device is one that doesn't need a repair and I do not accept for my dev…

It's not especially shocking that the people doing repairs are the people talking about repairability. And you're taking it from the perspective of someone buying a new device from Apple who doesn't care about anybody else. Consider the perspective of a low income person who would otherwise buy a refurbished phone which will now be unavailable or more expensive, or the environmental perspective of having to manufactu…

My first iPhone was a used one, obtained from a willing seller who unlocked the device upon my purchase.

My purchase was not a freak one, it was not an exception to the rule. The rule is, the willing party unlocks the device when sells or gives it away.

Framing it as if iPhones or Macbooks are tied to the original owner and becomes e-waste after when the original buyer no longer needs it is not honest. Especially with the Apple products, the 2.nd hand market is very healthy and Macbooks and iPhones change hands until they become obsolete.

If we are going to turn into a socialist utopia where we share the resources willingly or not, I don't believe that it's Apple's device lock that's stopping us.

The same goes for the repairs, it is not true that manufacturers make devices unrepairable. In some cases, it might require more skill or equipment than other cases but these devices obey the laws of physics, therefore can be repaired. In some products, the miniaturization is way beyond what manual labour can handle but for those products companies and governments offer proper ways for disposal. IC's took over transistors and made things hard to repair, you throw away billions of perfectly fine transistors just because one transistor in the CPU went bad and this is OK because of the reliability is much better and the miniaturization made the material waste much smaller.