News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones.

Re:Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones by ryandrake on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @03:09PM (#35966251)
At least on the iOS side, where phones are locked to a particular user's AppleID, how useful are one of these phones bought at auction? I'd guess they're only useful for harvesting the previous owner's content and for parts.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones by pjscott on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @04:21PM (#35967225)
The problem is that about 20% of the phones in the study had the passcode disabled, and another 5% had easy-to-guess passcodes.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones by ryandrake on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @04:42PM (#35967475)
Even with the device's passcode though, AFAIK you can't just re-assign the phone to your own AppleID without the previous owner AppleID releasing it.

EDIT: ...only if the previous user opted in to Activation Lock[1]

1: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201365

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones by tedunangst on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @05:39PM (#35968116)
But you can open the photos app and look at all the drivers licenses they've collected.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones by ThePowerOfFuet on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @06:05PM (#35968392)
Activation Lock is enabled when Find My is enabled, and when you sign into iCloud this is enabled by default.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Re-Victimization from Police-Auctioned Cell Phones by CamJN on Tuesday May 16, 2023 @07:59PM (#35969468)
You can change the associated apple id password using only the phone pin, then use that to disable activation lock & find my phone, then the phone is fully yours. Most people use easily guessable pins.
[ Parent | on HN ]