Perfectly good M1 MacBooks are being scrapped because of Activation Lock [video]
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Software-locked products are just be broken up and/or sold for parts[0] - so thieves will only be slightly less motivated. The downside is donated and estate sale M1 mainboards will be condemned to the trash heap. Less technical people are also more likely to throw the whole computer away.
0. I do this already to feed my repair addiction. I buy from my favorite charity thrift store, so the goods are not likely not stolen. A device with cracked screen can be fixed by parts from an activation-locked device.
Battery and screen are about all that could be chopped and some imo
> Battery and screen are about all that could be chopped and some imo
Battery and screen, and case, trackpad, keyboard, speakers, audio daughterboard, ports, touch Id button, hinges.
I only got into it when I had to replace a cracked tablet screen (the Nexus 7 was great!) All you need are basic tools, spare parts, the right YouTube/iFixIt video, patience, and the accepting that you may make a mess of your current project.
If you want to try it out, I'd recommend fixing a broken gadget that would have otherwise been discarded. You'll exercise finding the right repair tools and how to find the spares online
Yeah, but the value is a fraction of a working machine. Base M1 Macbook Airs are selling for 800€, I doubt you'd get half of that for the parts in an activation locked Macbook. And it would take 10 times as long to sell it, because the market for parts is tiny compared to the market for working Macs.
If there was a big market for used parts, then the M1 MacBooks would not be getting scrapped as the video implies.
All true, but the next question is: would a thief not steal a MacBook Air if they are only getting €400[0] rather than €800? IMO, halving the reward won't make a dent on the rate MacBooks are stolen, whole inconveniencing everyone else who cares about aftermarket repairs.
0. Actual thieves are unlikely to sell their wares at anything close to full price, unless it's a an organized ring - so the actual difference might be between getting €200 or getting €100. Either is free money, from thieves perspective
In my experience, if you sell it for a good price (10-20% below average) it's going to be sold within days. So the reward would be 800€ for unlocked Macbook vs maybe 100€ for a locked Macbook if you are lucky selling it for parts to a repair shop that doesn't ask questions.
And that's assuming you have a base model: Models with extra RAM and SSD go for higher prices, but if you sell it for parts those upgrades are worthless.
As someone who frequently browses used electronics - you're way off on the locked Macbook prices - you probably won't even get a locked iPad (latest 3 generations) for €100 - let alone a MacBook.
A locked 2020 M1 MacBook Air is going for $319[1] on eBay. Compared to $600[2] for an unlocked version of the same model on the same site. So my instinct of about half-price for locked device checks out
But maybe I was wrong, and locked Macbooks are just as easy to sell as unlocked Macbooks.
A way to unlock them should be provided. Report the serial to apple, they try to inform the owner by mail and/or push and after a 30 days grace period it should be unlocked. Another benefit of such a system is that it might even help to locate stolen devices.
If anything I want Apple to be even harder on this so that no used component could be put anywhere else and work. Ideally I would be able to remote detonate the battery to deter thieves, but there are sadly legal issues around this.
But if somebody were to steal my laptop I would have to buy a new one, which would cause more waste. The best thing to do therefore is to ensure that nobody steals laptops.
Apple already allows you to register a device as stolen.
on parts that Apple made, and put into devices that failed, and were then pulled for use elsewhere.
Provenance is to prevent forgery, there's no forgery going on here... just Apple trying to eliminate the concept and tradition of property rights for someone who buys something from them, using whatever flimsy excuse they can find.
Relatedly, I really couldn’t disagree more with this being an attack on “property rights” by Apple. If anything, I feel like activation lock has given me a strong new right over my Apple property, a right that most laptop owners do not have.
As for dead people, a death certificate + 40 days (or a longer waiting period) should be sufficient, imo.
They grab all of the other hardware though, the ones with no protections.
Devices will be stolen anyway and scrapped/dropped instead.
PSA: Enable Bitlocker and LUKS on your devices, folks. Your device is 100% going to be targeted now.
The thieves weren't random crackheads breaking in on a whim though, they specifically knew what the expensive stuff looked like (colour calibrated displays, drawing tablets) and left the cheap and impossible to resell stuff alone.
Thanks!
Thieves have taken to threatening the people they stole from because they simply aren’t able to bypass the activation lock: https://appleinsider.com/inside/iphone/tips/do-not-remove-ic...
While a device could be scrapped and sold for parts, many components in the iPhone authenticate with each other, which makes it even more challenging to usefully sell the parts. The same authentication has been criticized as obstructing legitimate device repairs, although Apple has been (dragged into) better supporting self-service repairs more recently.
Apple is doing the right thing here.
This might be avoided if our justice system was willing and able to go after these thieves, despite their relatively low-value crimes.
Backdoors can (and therefore, will) be abused, so it is better that there is no way around these security measures.
It would be great if they could engineer a solution in that the device is activation locked and be factory reset and reused.
There was a discussion around activation lock somewhat preventing thefts due to the risk that the device becomes activation locked. But I don't know how truthful that is. As stolen devices are often sold to unsuspecting users with activation lock enabled.
It requires very specific skills to dismantle it to resell-able parts - and even those are hard because the components are linked and can't be sold separately.
Then as a deterrent, device lock does not work much.
The thief may not have known which phone manufacturer I had before they blindly reached into my pocket. If all phone manufactures had device locks, maybe less people would steal phones.
Because now the customer needs to get a new laptop whether the laptop is recovered or not. It also eliminates a secondary market increasing demand.
But I can see thieves making the case that it would be less wasteful to let stolen laptops be more fence-able.
Apples does have owner transfer service that works very well, I've used it for a few sales and now there's also a "Legacy Contacts" feature if someone passed away (added 2022).
Apple already have an owner-transfer service that I've used many times, the problem is how this would work if someone passed away.
It would make sense to disable some features, even if it's still in "stolen" status, so that it's not completely wasted.
Did you configure this too? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212360
Give owners a chance to reclaim it, but allow some degree of use over just bricking it.
Not being able to remove or use the main account and having location history always on would go a long way.
People can be trained not to buy a device where the main account can't be removed or the device can't be factory reset, and having the location unable to be disabled would deter a lot of thieves.
If you want to buy & sell used Macs, you need to check them first to see if they are locked. Just like you'd check if the keys work before buying a used car.
Which is just contributing to the ewaste problem. What I proposed has now downsides unless you want to be petty.
- A stolen device that can be used with some limitations can be sold for a higher price, so there is a much higher incentive to steal it.
Call me petty all you want, but if you steal my Mac I'd much prefer it to end up in a landfill rather than have the thief make money from it. If they can't sell them, they'll stop stealing them at some point.
Clearly false. The parts still have value.
> A stolen device that can be used with some limitations can be sold for a higher price, so there is a much higher incentive to steal it.
A thief has less incentive to use something that is constantly broadcasting its location in a way that can't be disabled.
> I'd much prefer it to end up in a landfill rather than have the thief make money from it.
Environment be damned, right?
>Clearly false. The parts still have value.
Yeah, the current implementation of activation lock does not brick 100% of the laptop.
But nevertheless, since the video is about locked Macs being scrapped, the value of the parts must be pretty low.
> Environment be damned, right?
I assume that the environmental impact of stolen Macs being scrapped is going to get lower and lower as thieves realise locked Macbooks have a low resale value.
Even if it did, the part still have value.
> the value of the parts must be pretty low.
I mean, screens, ram, hard drives etc are worth whatever they are worth.
> I assume that the environmental impact of stolen Macs being scrapped is going to get lower and lower as thieves realise locked Macbooks have a low resale value.
When they steal they don't often know what type of machine they are stealing as they can't see in bags.
The suggestion I made is better for the environment without making things better for thieves.
The only people who have an issue with activation lock are people who want to resell devices from questionable sources.
At least one person claims to have forgotten their Apple ID's password - they don't have any personal Apple products - and the only available alternative is to ship it back to the agency, have them track down the original purchase receipt, and ask Apple nicely to unlock it that way.
So no - those are not the only people who have an issue with activation lock.
... and for what it's worth, I like the way it's currently set up.
I think you can reset your Apple ID password with the device password (unless you already wiped the device).
The MBP was originally enrolled in the contracting agency's MDM system. They discontinued that, removed it, and it was enrolled in my employer's system. A few months after that person left, it was removed from my employer's system.
The MBP wants an MDM key:
Enter your MDM key to activate this device.
This Mac is linked to an Apple ID. Enter the Apple ID and password that was previously used with this Mac. j•••••@icloud.com
At this point, the only available option is the recovery process through Apple, which requires the original purchase receipt (including serial number!). I'm not sure if it's because of the agency's policy or Apple's, but the agency said they can only do that if they have it physically in their hands at the time.
So, in short, that particular MBP is a brick unless and until it's shipped from my colleague's desk in Argentina to the agency's headquarters - then they should be able to unlock it.
Finally, consider the value of the time involved here. My colleague estimates he's spent eight hours trying to get it unlocked. That was in coordination with the IT folks at both my employer and the contracting agency - so figure a total of ~30 hours burned so far.
Based on the average salary of a "software engineer"[0], 40 hours per week and 50 weeks per year, we've spent $1,728.84 already on a dead laptop[1] and haven't been able to get it working. That's already enough to buy a new machine with the same specs as this one. It quickly gets to the point where a smart company will just "throw it away" and buy a new one... because it's cheaper.
0: https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries
1:
$115,256 per year / 40 hours per week / 50 weeks per year = $57.628 / hour
$57.628 / hour * 30 hours = $1,728.84
Bad carmakers! Could you just allow us to use your cars without keys??!”
Seriously. Blame on the institutions that don’t unlock the devices, maybe they just have no idea. Blaming activation lock is totally silly.
Maybe a way to “ping” an activation lock “owner” for “lock deactivation” and allow deactivation if no answer in, say, 90 days, could be a useful improvement; but the fault of this is not Apple’s.
Still sucks because there are people who just cant afford a brand new Apple laptop but would make great use of a used Apple Silicon macbook. Instead they are going to get a used thinkpad/inspiron because those are resold for cheap instead of being scrapped. Wasted opportunity for Apple to get people hooked in the ecosystem
Are these MacBooks stolen?
Don't blame Apple for the MacBooks being scrapped, blame the organisations that resell them without resetting them because they really don't care if they are refurbish or just dumped in the landfill. Apple made a perfectly good anti-theft solution and now people are upset that they forgot to ask for these devices to be unlocked before buying them.
If these buyers are truly that upset about the environmental impact, send them to Apple and let Apple recycle them... But we all know that they won't be doing that, because what they are upset about is losing money.
Having apple unilaterally unlock the device is not the only solution, just the recycler’s preferred one.
This would also protected unlocked macs from being stolen en route, like in the post.
If yes, that would be more than enough at this point.
All that said, his proposed solution sounds reasonable.
Given Apple's limited responsiveness to customer pressure, the best approach may be to involve the original owners in finding a solution. This may involve ensuring that all owners are aware of the problem and providing a simple way to erase the hard drive and set up a generic account and password. Simplicity is key. Additionally, offering a small token of appreciation, such as a Starbucks gift card, could be a nice gesture to those who participate.
There's some pre-activation done out of the factory so that the Mac doesn't need to call home and check for lock on first boot out of the box, but if you wipe it, that's gone, and it does need to call home.
The operating system is not what is implementing the lock.
Legit resale people can be contacted. People who were tasked with destroying equipment, but trying to resale should be upfront about their operations and get unlocks before accepting delivery.
(I’m doing my part)
I'm sorry, but do you actually think that people steal because they weren't taught otherwise? I mean, perhaps this works with, say, wage theft but it just doesn't pan out to theft of laptops. Everyone knows this is frowned upon. You can lessen such theft by making sure folks don't feel compelled to steal by making sure you have a robust safety net that allows for pocket money and buying computers and things - but you simply won't get rid of it completely.
In any case, laptop theft isn't a question of "teaching people not to steal". Theft happens worldwide.
Yet again the blame is shifted from the ultra rich corp. to the poor?
Oh. I see your point.
- There were a few cases of the owner dying and their relatives being unable to unlock their devices. Starting in iOS 15.2 and macOS 12.1, the owner can designate a Legacy Contact who can access their iCloud data and unlock their devices if they die: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208510 So Apple did make progress in "working around" this problem for legitimate cases.
- If you bought it second-hand... then it's good thing there is no workaround, because preventing resale of stolen devices is the whole point. Return it to the seller and demand your money back.