I remember hearing that in certain "protests" (definitely not riots) a couple years ago, where people were looting stores, Apple was able to easily get the serial numbers of all the stolen devices and remotely brick them. The contrast of how valuable Apple products are both new and second hand, compared to how useless they are to steal is pretty wild. I can't think of any other product like that.
Whether you agree with their position or not, it's not really relevant to this discussion to draw attention to the ethics of those protests/riots.
It is not a good look.
It costs nothing to be polite. Even if your political beliefs revere rudeness, leave it at home here.
(Also, this makes it easy to delegitimize any protest: send some looters. As soon as anyone loots simultaneous with and adjacent to the protests, it is now a riot.)
This is true. The problem is, no one is doing this WRT any of the "civil disturbances" that happened over the last few years.
> this makes it easy to delegitimize any protest: send some looters
Or anyone willing to make the protest cross the line from "peaceful" to "violent."
Of course, these caveats can be just as easily applied to events in the midwest as to events in the capitol.
I wonder if they could burn a fuse when the user logs in so that Apple can no longer do that but the owner can.
If you don't trust Apple to not remotely brick your iPhone, don't buy an iPhone.
If you go into the Apple store and request a firmware reset, Apple will ask you for the original receipt before sending it off to the factory to do it, but they can. But given how expensive their laptops are, a rogue employee at a computer recycling center could still slip in a few stolen ones and pocket the gains if Apple worked with recycling centers to unlock their laptops.
Why can't I be the one in control over my own laptop if it is stolen?
Or why can't I assign a different entity to be in control over my laptop?
If your own laptop is stolen, you're no longer in physical possession of it.
So from the perspective of the laptop, some sort of interaction should brick it. What should that interaction be? It needs to happen early, before thieves have a chance to disable it. So it needs to happen before login, say. Really it needs to happen at either bootup or as soon as the laptop establishes a connection to the internet.
At which point it should... reach out to you? How? Must you own a second Apple device for that to work? Okay, let's go with that. You have an iPhone, and you use Find My to brick the laptop. So now someone can steal your phone and use it to brick your laptop? Your laptop needs to talk to your phone every time it boots up or connects to the internet?
I'm not sure you've thought this through.
It seems reasonable to me that the only entity that makes sense here is Apple. Even a savvy thief, who might block packets to anywhere unexpected--and "person's iPhone somewhere" is definitely unexpected--is going to need to let packets go to Apple, making them the only party with the means and opportunity to do this.
Not really. Encrypted data on the drive, password protection to get in should be enough. If the password implementation is top notch it essentially is a brick to anyone not in the know — time will be of no use to them.
It's really not that hard to design a system that will become essentially a brick when the password is lost. E.g. just put some flash memory on the main processor chip that partakes in the encryption of the harddrive.
Just make those bytes point somewhere else (assuming Apple allows you to), and run a server at that location and you're done.
What is the problem?
Also, as I previously mentioned, sophisticated thieves can block traffic anywhere other than Apple by default.
Yes, that is the sales scenario for remote lockout. Its kind of lame, like "if I can't have my thing then nobody else can either and it becomes e-waste," and also depends on a crook being smart enough to realize this valuable looking thing has no resale value.
Now run out the scenario where you are the Canadian truck driver or in some other politically unpopular position and getting progressively locked out of stuff. Maybe the feds start leaning on Apple like they do to debank state-level authorized herbal commerce. Maybe some other entity gets into Apple's system and holds your computer hostage. It seems like the wrong direction for computing devices.
For example I could run my own account/password system, and lock my own phone if it is stolen. Or transfer that right to another organization.
Saying that "vendor can remotely brick the phone" is the only way to have this functionality is not true.
People don't always take the time to go through everything.
Traditional disk encryption serves your protection perfectly well.
As the saying goes, "Those who give up freedom for security..."
Sometimes the data can be valuable as well (perhaps you can be blackmailed, or perhaps they can steal additional things from your bank accounts etc), but that is far from guaranteed. The hardware has a clear value though.
Also industrial espionage is a thing and but I agree with you that's probably a minority of thefts.
Full-disk encryption protects your data. Activation locking dissuades theft.
Personally, I want both.
The only time this is not true is when the previous owner has intentionally marked the device lost or stolen in the find-my App/Site.
I think a lot of this backlash is recyclers getting stolen goods.
(Also, iCloud lock is bypassed if there is an MDM, like in a corporate setting- then the icloud lock can be remotely enabled/disabled by the organisations IT department)
Exactly. I don't need Apple to protect me from thieves, I need the computer that I bought to protect my information.
You will likely get a little bit of Herd Immunity because Apple devices are known to be miserable to steal.
But otherwise it will work as you expect, just add some Filevault for FDE.
If you're advocating to remove these features for the rest of us, then as an Apple user: no thanks.
Not at all. They obviously need to be better documented or changed though since so many legitimate resales are being affected.
This could be true, but as I mentioned in another comment, as soon as it's removed from the original users iCloud account that lock will be removed.
> how can you trust that the "erase everything" works?
You can't remove it, but as long as nobody else can use the device to recover data then it's fine.
FWIW it's actually pretty easy with SATA SSD's to set a device key, which then encrypts everything on the drive at full speed: https://github.com/Drive-Trust-Alliance/sedutil
The drives are actually already doing this, it's just that the key is set to 0's.
I can imagine that, given the drive is accessed via T2, that Apples NANDS are being accessed the same way, in which case scrambling the key is enough to make it unrecoverable permanently.
Over time, people learn this and it becomes routine just like people buying used cars know to check that the seller really owns it and isn’t lying about the collision history.
On one side everyone wants security and privacy. But when they get it they complain when it prevents them reselling devices that are not theirs.
There are plenty things to say about apple, but their devices do serve their lifetimes. I would be much more worried about the litany of low-end laptops and mobile phones that end up in the trash with zero value in a year.
https://twitter.com/rdklinc/status/1617541547469193217
> Wrong -- it means that 1000 of these devices were dumped from an institution to a recycler without even bothering to log out first. And these apathetic institutions don't return calls when asked to unlock because they want the machines destroyed.
On the other hand, if the original owners want the machines actually destroyed and not resold then I don't see the problem here.
I think apple should run a refurb but they wouldn't as that would depress their retail price.
The devices are recycled just for parts. Even the motherboard will have parts removed and reused.
It's a lot more work than flipping the laptop on eBay.
Like the most wrong I've ever been.
Well once I made a marmite pizza, other than that I've never been so wrong in my life
I think people should at least make a good faith effort to look this shit up before gettin' all snarky:
It's not just "unfortunate": our wildly consumptive and wasteful nature is a crime against future generations.
It's not just that our consumption and waste production are at record levels, to the point that we have damaged our climate!, but that they continue to increase at exponential rates.
All of this central control assumes the central control will still be there in the future. Someday, apple will cease to exist, and when it does, there will be millions of unverified bricks that used to be computers.
Recyclers are going to have to have to make it worthwhile to the businesses they source their product from, and be a little bit more upfront about it, if they want to recycle these devices. What they want to do is whine to Apple so they can continue to go behind their customer's backs like they do now with every other device.
So he stole those then? Because he's not the rightful owner right? Even trash belongs to someone.
keeping information private and/or secret and rendering a perfectly usable device a brick are two completely orthogonal things.
My laptop is perfectly secure, without Apple having a say on what I do with it after I bought it. Including reselling it.
p.s. if someone saw my laptop and a mac laptop left alone in the same room, they would try to steal the Mac, making my laptop even safer by virtue of not being from Apple.
A lot of people around are claiming the exact opposite: thieves have learned that stealing Macs is useless, while other laptops have clear re-sale value. The retail price of Macs is irrelevant if there is no way to fence them, and if thieves are aware that there is no way to fence them.
thieves have also learned that the only easily re-sellable laptops are the $200 brandless stuff bought on Aliplay, that are probably not worth it.
every brand laptop today can be registered, has some form of "find my laptop" and supports encrypted filesystems
Macs aren't good only for re-sale, but also for spare parts and/or raw materials.
Nobody would steal a Trabant over a BMW just because the BMW has more sophisticated security.
Thieves are able to learn new tricks too.
Except this entire thing blew up because of recyclers bitching that the laptops were only worth the value of scrap, something like $13.
They are quite more valuable than the bare aluminium case.
In 2016 Apple declared that it had recovered nearly 90 million pounds of materials from Apple devices recycled through its program in 2015. Sixty-one million pounds of those materials are reusable in future products, including 2,204 pounds of gold
From an environmental POV Apple should allow people to use/re-use/resell their devices as long as possible. Of course that would not align with their interest that is selling as many new devices as possible.
OTOH e-waste should not be allowed under any circumstances when the raw materials are scarce and/or retrieving them is damaging to the environment or they are polluting.
Last but not least the device destiny should be under the control of the person in possess of the item, unless the item was stolen.
If someone brings their car to my junkyard to destroy it and I fix it and resell it or dismantle it and sell it as spare parts it's completely under my rights, I don't see why electronic devices should work differently and why the manufacturer should have the keys.
Don't let me start on non-Apple compatible replacements parts that Apple won't let you use, even if the warranty has expired.
Non sequitur.
The device is mine when I buy it, but it is sometimes impossible to unbrick something that Apple bricked.
I would rather let you pay a premium to have the features you so much want, because annoying the majority just because you want something, should cost you more.
Also the will to generate useless e-waste should be punished, we are past the times when people (especially americans) can use the entire planet as their own junkyard.
That might be true now, but it might not be as time goes on and this bricking functionality becomes common knowledge.
Just because there are criminals out there we shouldn't mandate all and every honest parties prove themselves of their innocence proactively....
I am surprised this security vs. freedom things is still something where people argue so overwhelmingly for the security part against themselves despite the many many many bad experiences throughout the history in various levels....
(there are schemes where the ownerships is strictly controlled but by a public body of the society with regulations around it - house, car, etc - but not a private business oriented organization's coined policies and online account implemented by there sole discretion and judgement who is allowed to use what, what constitutes acceptable proof in their view, and who is given access to that authoritive account and who is locked out eventually, potentially for a completely independent reason)
None of this is an issue if its actually real second hand.