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Comment by b3lvedere | Hacker News Reader

"This is a good thing. Combined with remote lock, it renders stolen devices useless."

My personal opinions on this:

Factory reset should mean 'just like when it came out of the factory brand new'. So no hidden keys, certificates, connections, locks or other dependencies. Either change the definition or do not call it factory reset. If people will not be able to factory reset a device, please explicitly state so in the TOS.

Rendering stolen devices useless may be a good thing security wise, but it is horrible for things like the ability to recycle and reuse. There are tons of procedures to make pretty sure devices are wiped completely from any sort of data. Why is this not enough?

I have had to destroy thousands of devices that could have a happy second (completely unsupported and no warranty whatosever) life at various projects. I'm not proud of it.

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> There are tons of procedures to make pretty sure devices are wiped completely from any sort of data. Why is this not enough?

It sucks, but it's not enough because it doesn't remove the incentive to steal the device in the first place. If you want someone to plonk down $2k for a fancy phone, you'd better be able to (a) convince them that they'll be able to re-sell it for a good chunk of that amount, and (b) at the same time reassure them that there's no point anyone stealing their expensive new toy, which means they aren't just painting a giant target on their head.

If the thousands of devices you mention were legitimately obtained, why were they locked with account credentials that you didn't have? Or were they recovered from dumped recycling or something?

"If the thousands of devices you mention were legitimately obtained, why were they locked with account credentials that you didn't have? Or were they recovered from dumped recycling or something?" Oh that was not only smartphones, but also data carriers like harddisks and usb sticks. Apologies for not clarifying.

Nevertheless valid points indeed. Regarding smartphones people just forgot or died. Most of them 'assumed IT would have some way of recovering them so they did not bother'.

Oh, right yeah that makes sense. And a moment after I posted I remembered the "donate your old phone" bins that many mobile phone shops had last time I was phone shopping. I'd imagine most people dropping their 3-year-old iPhone into one of those wouldn't bother to disassociate their account with it before they hit reset and chucked it in.

>If you want someone to plonk down $2k for a fancy phone

Which phone is this?

While I suspect this is a slight exaggeration, a 1 TB iPhone 13 Pro Max w/ 2 years of AppleCare+ (with Theft and Loss), as well as tax (for me in the US, at least) runs $1,980.08. It's $1,599 without the add-ons.

Now convert that to Australian dollars and you've got a phone that costs more than some gaming laptops.

Theft should be prevented socially, not technologically IMO.

Seems unlikely that you could prevent all thefts through social methods so technological methods should still be used.

Factory reset through the Android UI removes the locks and is just like from factory. Factory reset by booting the device to recovery mode does not. That's what FRP is all about.

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