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Comment by huhtenberg | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like a reasonable thing for any manufacturer to do if your supply pipeline is prone to large-scale theft and your goal is to deter further incidents. The best option obviously is to fix the pipeline, but that takes time and not always doable in practical terms.

Caveat emptor. Buying from a 3rd party and presumably at a deep discount always carries a risk of goods being stolen.

PS. FTDI case is of no relevance here - they were bricking devices of _other_ vendors, not their own.

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My company did something very similar when we had a customer make a large order shipped overseas, which turned out to be with a stolen credit card. They didn't realize that since our hardware requires a service plan to even operate, we could just put a note in our system that these were stolen and inform everyone that tried to use them that they had purchased stolen goods and that they should return it (and report stolen goods on eBay).

Yeah, the burden is on the buyer not to purchase stolen goods. The manufacturer is certainly under no obligation to support them. In many states even unknowing possession of stolen goods is a crime, so many of the "users" here are in fact getting off lightly.

> In many states even unknowing possession of stolen goods is a crime

I've never heard of this. Source?

Possession of stolen goods[1] is a crime USA-wide, and in many other countries. The rationale behind is ability to prosecute fences[2] - people who act as intermediaries and a layer of security between thieves and end-users, providing the thieves with option for easy cash-out.

Edit: As a counter-point, at least in Poland, while obtaining stolen goods is an offense ("paserstwo"[3]), the buyer of any good or service that has a "legal defect" - including having been stolen, IIRC - has a valid legal case to demand recourse from the seller. The goods are nonetheless subject to forfeiture.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_of_stolen_goods

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence_(criminal)

[3] https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paserstwo

From your own link:

"A person can be found guilty of that offense only if all of the following facts are proven: The person received or concealed or stored or disposed of items of stolen property. The items were moving as, or constituted a part of, interstate commerce. The items had a value in excess of $5,000. The person acted knowingly and willfully."

So that doesn't really answer the question asked, because it's only a federal crime if the goods are known to be stolen and a part of "interstate commerce."

Now, at the state level, this may differ. But neither of us has that information.

A subsequent section on Wikipedia (link [1] in GP) tells us the following:

>All US states also have laws regarding receipt of stolen property; however, there usually is no minimum dollar amount in many jurisdictions, and, of course, the requirement in Federal law regarding interstate commerce does not apply.

i.e., USA-wide

>Also, in many states (Ohio, for example), the burden to prove criminal intent is not as stringent or is nonexistent.

i hereby rest my case.

Curiously, the references backing those statements are both dead :)

If you surrender the goods and have a plausible reason for not knowing that they were stolen then you won't be prosecuted. You will be SoL on getting your money back unless you bought from the worlds most scrupulous fence though.

It's a risk when you buy anything from eBay or the like, but the overall risk is small enough that the savings are justified usually.

> Yeah, the burden is on the buyer not to purchase stolen goods.

1 party has 100% of the information, 1 party has 0% of the information, and the burden is on the party with 0% information. That's absurd.

> The manufacturer is certainly under no obligation to support them.

Not support and bricking are two different things.

> In many states even unknowing possession of stolen goods is a crime

Generally the state has to prove the defendant took receipt of the items for an unlawful purpose. Ohio is an exception, but I'm not sure if there is another one.

> so many of the "users" here are in fact getting off lightly.

You use "many" incorrectly here: Very, very few are. Because very, very few jurisdictions make it a crime to unknowingly receive stolen property and even fewer would actually press charges even if allowed.

Your post is nonsense.

His post is mostly nonsense, but not entirely. First while the burden of proof is not necessarily on the purchaser, if you have in fact purchased stolen goods, you must still forfeit them to law enforcement. There are no jurisdictions that let you keep stolen goods. In most jurisdictions you then need to get restitution from whomever sold you the device, and they can obviously face charges.

The manufacturer can definitely brick, or do whatever they want. The devices are still their rightful property, this isn't a gray area, they were stolen, no one has rightful claim to them except the owner, who was the manufacturer.

> 1 party has 100% of the information, 1 party has 0% of the information, and the burden is on the party with 0% information. That's absurd.

As I know the law requires you to return stolen goods even if you didn't know they were stolen. So this sounds fair.

> Not support and bricking are two different things.

I wouldn't expect a stolen car to be maintained for me, and I would expect it to be stopped by the police and taken away - which I would consider to be effectively bricking it. This would still, and sadly does regularly happen, even if I didn't know it was stolen when I bought it. It doesn't need to be stolen too, if the owner is in fact still a finance company (for example) and it was sold to me without their agreement - they would be within their rights to take it away, and as I understand it without any police involvement (if it's publicly accessible and they don't use force)

Im pretty sure Apple does the same for their device — they have to be activated by Apple after they have left the factory so that they can be used.

Can still harvest them for spare parts. A strong market Apple created by making OEM spare parts hard to buy.

At least until Apple totally shuts down DIY repairs by authenticating the LCD, MAC, keyboard etc. upon startup.

If it means someone is deterred from stabbing me in the street just to get my phone then sure, why not?

> and presumably at a deep discount

Not if they’ve been resold since then. Then it’d just look like any other device on the used market.

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