Hacker News Reader

Comment by hbn | Hacker News Reader

As much as we all like to poke fun at Apple for some of their annoying decisions with lack of user choice, their locked-down systems also have pretty impressive results in that they've made it nearly useless to steal any of their devices.

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.

View on HN

I think I also read the the comments last time this was posted someone talking about how their kids locker room had a bunch of phones stolen but the thief's left all of the iPhones because they couldn't be unlocked.

The comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34504990

Not even thieves want them. Like how Jerry tried to get his smelly car stolen.

Don't Android phones have a similar feature with a linked Google Account? I once needed to contact the old Owner of an Samsung phone because of such an account lock.

Sadly, not as effective: https://www.google.com/search?q=FRP+workaround+android

Security good. A vendor being able to remote wipe your device is bad.

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.

I don't see how popping an eFuse would really prevent anything. Even if logging in triggered some sort of key generation for remote bricking that was tied to the phone's password, at the end of the day Apple still controls everything. You'd still have to trust that they wouldn't just silently push out an update that replaces the key, because they'd have to have the ability to replace the key anyway.

If you don't trust Apple to not remotely brick your iPhone, don't buy an iPhone.

Im just spitballing here. I'm sure Apple could securely create a scheme that all sides are happy with but they obviously don't care because it makes them money.

Well spitball a bit harder because it's actually a hard problem to solve - given buying and selling of used items, how do you prove who actually owns a device? The official registered owner is the one who's iCloud locked the device. If you were the legitimate owner, you could just iCloud unlock the device. If you bought it off Craigslist legitimately, the old owner would be able to iCloud unlock the device, if cooperative. If it's a time-based thing, then thieves just have to steal the phone, wait 6-months 3-years whatever, and then they get a free phone/laptop/iMac. If you have to show a receipt to Apple to prove you bought it, a thief could just have a friend make a post on craigslist that they "answer", and there you go.

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.

Hmm, 'vendor can remotely brick my device' could be a selling point or a not buying point depending on view point.

Why does the vendor need to be in control, though?

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?

You are in control. You attaching your account to it is what is bricking it for anyone else. You can always remove your account from it and hand it to another entity. The only thing Apple is doing in these cases is saying no to letting someone else remove your account/mdm association.

No, Apple is clearly in control by being the only possible provider of accounts.

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.

Good thing I didn't say anything about the vendor locking the phone is the only way. Apple designed their system and yes, they do have control. It's also a good thing that Apple has delegated the ability for you to lock/unlock your own phone when you want.

I'm trying to figure out how you want this to work.

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.

Obviously, the laptop contains some bytes somewhere which refer to Apple.

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?

Off the top of my head: if you can change those bytes, sophisticated thieves can change those bytes, and eventually anybody buying a kit on the open market can change those bytes.

Also, as I previously mentioned, sophisticated thieves can block traffic anywhere other than Apple by default.

> So from the perspective of the laptop, some sort of interaction should brick it. It needs to happen early, before thieves have a chance to disable it.

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.

The idea here is to prevent theft for resale - nobody needs your vacation photos. They'll erase it and sell it for $$$$$

And how do you think Apple implements their anti-theft functionality?

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.

Which sounds like the Secure Enclave.

> from the perspective of the laptop, some sort of interaction should brick it

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.

People can still part them out or scam others

Weird side angle to get in your political views known on HN, completely unnecessary.

If you don't use quotes you are legitimising the "protests", which is a political view as well (but I guess you wouldn't care about that one)

The comment didn't need to mention it at all, especially considering that it was preceded by "I remember hearing." It didn't add anything to the point about security and it goes against the spirit of the site.

They should have just called them riots, then. "I remember hearing that in certain protests a couple years ago" or "I remember hearing that in certain riots a couple years ago" would both work. The wording as-is is provocative for no actual benefit to the point.

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.

Using quotes is sarcasm and mockery.

It is not a good look.

It costs nothing to be polite. Even if your political beliefs revere rudeness, leave it at home here.

Believing that mass looting stores isn't a legitimate form of protesting is a controversial political view now?

Here's a thought: if there is both protesting and rioting going on, we don't have to say this is either protesting or rioting. This implies the venn diagram of the protesters and rioters is a circle. It could be, but there also could be no overlap whatsoever. Pretending it is necessarily a circle -- they are one and the same -- is asserting a political point of view.

(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.)

> we don't have to say this is either protesting or rioting

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.

It's not that it's a controversial political view, it's that it's really not relevant to this discussion.

Odd coincidence considering the video that's going to be released in a few hours.

There was really no need to shoehorn a snarky political talking point into this discussion.

Talking is just a cheap talking point.

"Need" is a subjective bar. Was there a need for you to reply? Was there a need for me to reply to you?

OP was ostensibly making a completely unrelated point. The word "need" was referring to the relationship between the original topic of discussion and the snarky aside that OP dropped into it. There was no need for there to be a political component to make that point. It didn't add anything to the discussion. Obviously people are downvoting my comment, so people don't think that I was contributing to the discussion either, but I thought it was worth a shot to try to discourage the kind of comments that I believe degrade online discussions. I think I made my point in a pretty civil fashion, and that's the end of it as far as I'm concerned.

Need is a value judgment. There's no need for this website. If you want to say it's irrelevant, that would make more sense, and then as you say your comment would be relevant to OP's.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com