Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

support.apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 85 posts

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#71

Post by madeofpalk »

baicunko wrote: post #2

This 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.

> I do believe it prevents 99.9% of the theft cases mentioned

I don't believe so, or at least where I am from. This 'only' provides additional protection against cases where thieves know your device passcode. I've had my phone stolen from me twice where they couldn't have known my passcode and couldn't remove it from Find My, and it was never seen again.

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#72

Post by tzs »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #10
gnicholas wrote: post #4

Is there a website that has a list of the steps you should take if your phone is stolen? My first instinct would be to use someone else's phone to google "what to do if your iPhone is stolen". But I wouldn't know how to determine if the instructions I was seeing were incomplete, or outdated. Is there a trusted, frequently-updated site that we can easily remember and plug into our friends' phone if and when this terri…

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.

If I had been the one to find your phone, I probably would have told you to suggest some other drop off place I can take it to that isn't too far out of my way, and if you could not or would not I would have probably taken it to a police station.

I would not leave it in the Waymo, even if that is what you wanted, because I have no guarantee that some other Waymo passenger after me will find it and steal it before you can get it back from Waymo. That could leave me as the last person known to have been in possession of the phone. I have no interest in becoming a suspect in the theft of your phone.

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#73

Post by dylan604 »

hbn wrote: post #13
bgentry wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feature is not really about protecting your device from being stolen. It's about protecting your iCloud account and everything on your device from being compromised when somebody has stolen your device and also has your phone's passcode. It's an attempt to resolve the fairly widespread iPhone / iCloud social engineering takeover attacks that were documented in great detail by Joanna Stern last year: https://www.…

> 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.

You have a lot of faith in the learning curve of a thief. In my area, the ATT fiber lines have been cut multiple times in the same area multiple times directly impacting my my friend's service. These have been due to the lines getting cut searching for copper. They still haven't learned and it keeps happening.

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#74

Post by gnicholas »

dakial1 wrote: post #59
natch wrote: post #24

So 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…

This is time sensitive. The criminals would lose too much time doing that. At least for the “criminal use case “ in Brazil, where they want to quickly access your bank app, this wouldn’t work.

Yes, as long as you know your phone was taken, and you immediately use someone else's phone to mark your as lost (or wipe it), you can probably beat them to it. But if your phone was stolen while you were at a movie theater, for example, you might not notice until it was too late. At least there's a 1 hour delay + biometric requirement for certain changes.

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#75

Post by PlunderBunny »

Regarding the actions that required FaceID/TouchID once the protections are enabled, what happens if the biometric authentication fails? Sometimes I can't unlock my phone with FaceID, and I have to resort to using my passcode after three attempts. Will it now allow unlimited attempts in the specific scenario covered by the new feature?

(I realise this means I can still get into my phone, just that I might not be able to access certain features - e.g. change passwords - if I'm not at one of my usual locations).

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#76

Post by PlunderBunny »

stirlo wrote: post #30

This 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 an…

I think some (all?) Android phones allow you to put the phone into 'repair mode', which allows the repairer to access critical features without unlocking the entire phone. I'd like to see a feature like that for iPhones too.

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#77

Post by gnicholas »

PlunderBunny wrote: post #75

Regarding the actions that required FaceID/TouchID once the protections are enabled, what happens if the biometric authentication fails? Sometimes I can't unlock my phone with FaceID, and I have to resort to using my passcode after three attempts. Will it now allow unlimited attempts in the specific scenario covered by the new feature? (I realise this means I can still get into my phone, just that I might not be able…

My experience with biometrics in general is that it gives you X tries, and then asks for a password. But IIRC if you close the app, and then re-open it, it will give you another X tries with biometric. It isn't like failed password attempts, where it will rate-limit you after a few misses.

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#78

Post by PakG1 »

stirlo wrote: post #57
PakG1 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What hardware repair would require handing over your passcode? If it's to test that the phone is working fine after the repair, can't you test it yourself in front of them before you pay? If they were doing software repairs, what would be the nature of the repair? Hard for me to imagine anything to repair software-wise, given how iOS is.

Anything that requires turning off the phone will need a passcode once it powers on. This includes battery replacement, screen, microphone, camera, etc. Only for camera repairs is it feasible to test fully without entering a passcode. Of course you could leave the testing until you pick it up and pay but then if something is faulty you’ll have to come back later and wait longer when they might have been able to repai…

Having watched full screen replacements, button replacements, and battery replacements on my iPhone, I suppose I don't understand why one wouldn't just wait the extra 5 minutes to get the issue resolved. Repairs can get done really fast in my experience.

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#79

Post by shuckles »

dhdhdudhsg wrote: post #36
shuckles wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh how very wrong you are. This feature came in response to WSJ reporting about iPhone thieves, targeting affluent iPhone users so they could steal their iPhones and rapidly lock the owner out. All while accessing their bank accounts, credit cards etc.

What does that have to do with my comment which was about whether those thieves are willing to locate the owner’s frequently visited addresses, visit them, and then repeat this process at scale.

Re: About Stolen Device Protection for iPhone

#80

Post by Gigachad »

madeofpalk wrote: post #71
baicunko wrote: post #2

This 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.

> I do believe it prevents 99.9% of the theft cases mentioned I don't believe so, or at least where I am from. This 'only' provides additional protection against cases where thieves know your device passcode. I've had my phone stolen from me twice where they couldn't have known my passcode and couldn't remove it from Find My, and it was never seen again.

They probably stripped the phone down for parts. But there is another theft case where they hold a knife/gun to you and tell you to hand over the password/wipe the phone. Which this update solves.

The other issue could probably be resolved with more aggressive part ID checking. iPhones should just refuse to function if they have a part from a stolen phone.

Post reply on HN