Aggregator spam: article should link here instead:

https://9to5mac.com/2021/09/26/face-id-stops-working-if-you-...

Is that's why it got flagged? Why not just replace the URL? I don't think flagging is reasonable if this is true.

The OP isn't replacing it. If a moderator (@dang) sees it they might unflag and re-up it after they replace the URL with the correct one themselves.

I missed the deadline and didn’t know this site was an aggregator. If a moderator reopens to updates, I can do it.

Looking at the 9to5mac comments... Yikes. People seem to really misunderstand the difference between something that actually has to be repaired/replaced by a manufacturer (pretty much nothing) and deliberate vendor lock in.

Even when it comes to vehicle repairs/replacement of things like transponder keys which are tied to a specific vehicle, it would be just as secure and simple to have a method for the end user or 3rd party repair shop to program the transponder. The fact the tools are only available from the OEM dealer and certain repair shops is just obfuscation not security. Pretty much every transponder implementation gets reverse engineered which is sold to companies that make things like remote start modules, etc.

There is absolutely no legitimate reason to not let user's manually authorize a new screen or other components.

Can the screen hardware be tampered to give unauthorized people access to your phone?

Genuinely curious about the threat model here.

EDIT:

> Phone Repair Guru explains that there are some workarounds like transferring some chips to the new screen but most repair shops won’t do that because it’s “too sophisticated.”

The screen is a separate ribbon cable from the lidar camera, this is just plain anti-right to repair.

Now it seems like apple is checksuming all hardware against the original device.

This is bad for people.

Remember back when there were those posts about camera swap breaking face id all the apologists came out defending it, saying all the repair concerns about batteries/screens/... were slippery slope fear mongering?

Yeah... It is not slippery slope, it is slowly boiling the frog.

This frog was in the pot on day one, I've been at this since it was just an aluminum and plastic iPhone.

Apple's engineering culture in non inclusive of those not working at Apple. Period.

They did the world a solid with LLVM, not argument there, but their stance changes with time and soon enough that may not be true for their other software teams, ala Swift on other platforms, but rest assured... once there is a market they capture it. By theft of implementation, or future breaking changes to the api, or changing the hardware to make it non-replaceable.

Your newest Macbook is a fancy iPad with a keyboard and the ability to sideload software.

Apple allways takes their ball home.

From the article we know they are not checksumming all hardware agains the original device as they were able to change some assemblies. Really what this means is the sensor assembly moved into the screen assembly [1] and the youtuber didn't investigate further.

If the sensor changes this breaks the chain of trust for FaceID [2] and you want the system to stop working because someone, for good or bad, is tampering with it.

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+13+Pro+Teardown/14492... See step 3. Note, the screen and sensor assembly might not necessarily be bound together.

[2] https://manuals.info.apple.com/MANUALS/1000/MA1902/en_US/app...

From step 4's second image[0], three of the components (maybe dot projector, IR, and Camera) are in the main housing. The YouTuber shows that Face ID works even if the 'sensor assembly' is unplugged[1].

0: https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/igi/QtDRKJPM5CKm31ki.hug...

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28663852

Apple probably did not design it this way to make repairs difficult, but rather because it simply worked for them.

Why should they need to consider independent repair shops? I agree that it's not acceptable for Apple to deliberately sabotage such repairs, but I wouldn't assume that this is deliberate without evidence.

I think it's perfectly okay for Apple to make products which are too complicated for most independent repair shops to fix, just like I think it's okay for Ferrari and Lamborghini to do the same. Mandating otherwise would be anti-consumer.

That's not what's at problem here. It's like how you can't swap parts of the logic board in case they fail (even if they rarely do) because of the design - I don't think many people will be mad at Apple for that. This is where two screens from brand new iPhone 13's can't be swapped without Face ID (which is no longer even attached to the screen) no longer working. Now, this might not be deliberate, especially given the setting app's screen warning doesn't say anything about Face ID being disabled, but it's not a good sign.

> which is no longer even attached to the screen

It actually is. As was better explained by another HN user https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28663927

I have a really hard time seeing this as any different than the example you gave regarding logic boards.

>I think it's perfectly okay for Apple to make products which are too complicated for most independent repair shops to fix

Should not be impossible for a third party to replace a component, if this would be legal for cars we would have been screwed even hard with replacement parts and fixes costs.

Imagine the world where you could only replace a Ford windshield or mirror only with a new original Ford(not even recycled one) and you have to have the fix done only in the big city at the Ford official repair shop. Though this days a there is a car company around that wants to be the Apple of cars, hopefully the laws will not get weeker but stronger.

>Should not be impossible for a third party to replace a component

Well, it's not. It's just hard.

>if this would be legal for cars we would have been screwed even hard with replacement parts and fixes costs.

I don't think you have worked with modern cars, situations like the Face ID issue here are perfectly normal. Try to do an engine swap in a new car, properly installing the engine does not get you a working car.

>Well, it's not. It's just hard.

It seems to me that is is impossible, unless you argue that if I repair my device and Apple disables some features with DRM is just "hard" and is my fault I can't make the impossible and bypass the DRM.

>Try to do an engine swap in a new car, properly installing the engine does not get you a working car.

I am sure I don't need to send my Ford car to a Ford shop, third party services have the software needed to handle issues with CPU, maybe Tesla has some DRM and you need to go to an approved person.

Yeah, often stolen dealership software isn't going to be enough for this stuff. Be prepared to spend your time dumping flash chips, reverse engineering and patching firmware.

Really? what cars are already doing this?

I don't drive a car but people in my family do(second hand Fords so no fancy expensive sport cars), and when they had issues(including replacing core engine stuff or electric stuff) the either bought some after market compatible part or went to the place where they scrap crashed cars and buy original parts from a destroyed car. It would suck if this cars for normal people will get DRMed to hell.

I think every single new car from the past decade requires proprietary software to reset all the anti-theft features which would block you from changing the engine or ECU.

Some manufacturers are more willing to share this software than others. I don't really know when exactly we're crossing the line where it becomes deliberate DRM instead of just poorly available proprietary software. The end result is the same.

Another interesting situation is when you lose all of your car keys. Usually it's easy for your authorized repair shop to fix this, although they might need to have the manufacturer do it remotely(!). For independent shops it's not necessarily as easy as just plugging in a laptop, often they'll have to actually physically replace parts of the car in order to pair their new keys.

Of course, there's a huge market for reverse engineering all this stuff so the indie shops continue to thrive despite many repairs now requiring extensive software reverse engineering.

Even the article makes it clear that this repair is perfectly possible, just more difficult as you have to transplant a chip from one screen to another.

Yeah, I agree.

Wouldn't all tampering with FaceID involve shutting the phone off to disconnect and re-connect cables anyway, thus disabling FaceID until the correct passcode is entered?

This seems to be a different error message, where faceid can't be enabled in the settings at all.

You can totally disconnect and re-connect cables while the phone is on, although I have no idea what will happen if you do this with a new iphone.

The threat model is to Apple profit margin in being able to sell people that drop there phone a new one or selling Apple Care plans instead of independent repair

There is no legitimate security issue, it all about control over the supply chain, and sales.

I am generally anti-government, but I do think we need a Right to Repair laws to restore our property rights over the things we buy, companies should not be allowed to use software to lock us out of hardware we own. That is a violation of our natural rights IMO

Yes we need Rights to Repair and also heavy penalties for planned obsolesce.

I had 2 CyberPower UPS purchased around same time. And both started malfunctioning within the same year, turning off and on by itself and having a long beep sound, despite battery being fine.

We are concerned about environment, and global warming, yet they are forcing everyone to toss the device into a trash and get a new one.

There is actually another video from this YouTuber (not linked in the 9to5mac article) that shows it is just the screen, even without the ribbon for the proximity sensor/ambient light sensor plugged in: https://youtu.be/-elQNEvlqrk

I'd only be OK with third party screens being OK after being prompted and allowed explicitly by the AppleID user. I don't know what attack vectors this introduces, but my phone is one of the most used daily devices, that carries a hell lot of private information. It should not be allowed to be tampered with.

I wish https://frame.work/ made a phone. I (and the world) need serviceable phones. I've replaced screens and batteries on phones so much more often than on laptops over the last decade. Sadly that's been coming to an end with how glued together everything is now.

A phone with a module slot to add a mini-jack, sd card, or hdmi out would be awesome.

Check out Fairphone; they do a similar thing but for phones. https://www.fairphone.com

You mean like Project Ara? If google couldn't make it profitable idk how anyone smaller could.

The extra cost and larger size of a Ara type phone may just make the product too niche for a company the size of Google to bother. Companies like frame.work, System 76, etc. show that smaller companies can successfully market more niche products.

There are lots of reasons smaller companies can follow up a behemoth and beat them, such as better timing / market conditions, less dysfunctional organizations, etc.

I fail to see how Google is dysfunctional, other than their culture of leaking stuff months in advanced.

Every organization is dysfunctional to some degree, a smaller company that is less dysfunctional in the right way can easily beat behemoths. I'm not making any sort of claim about Google's degree of dysfunction.

Hang on, on the iPhone X at least you had to peel the stuff glued onto the notch with a heat gun to replace the screen. Has this changed?

I think you can still uses the fingerprinter thing to login though.

Faceid deserves an IgNobel prize anyway