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Comment by runjake | Hacker News Reader

We have some poor soul in Puerto Rico who has a MacBook Pro that is tied to our MDM system and, for whatever reason, it cannot be removed.

The closest we can tell is that he sent his MBP off to Apple for repair and they swapped the logic board with a refurb unit that was swapped from one of our machines. There is some internal tool that rewrites the serial number and apparently nobody ever overwrote the serial number on the removed unit.

So anyway, there's two legitimate MBPs out there with the same serial number, although ours is probably decommissioned by now (I believe it was a 2015).

Was a funny journey figuring out what the hell was going on, though.

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> There is some internal tool that rewrites the serial number and apparently nobody ever overwrote the serial number on the removed unit.

How could that be possible?

Apple's internal systems won't allow a second motherboard/computer with the same serial to even pass the post-repair diagnosis.

Maybe the second computer hasn't been manufactured yet

Why would the factory assign, to a second computer, a number that's already been assigned to a computer which has been manufactured some time ago?

It wasn't assigned to a computer manufactured some time ago, it was assigned by a tech in some repair depot, and for all we know it happened a moment before.

The factory's serial assignment systems are connected to Apple's internal systems that would also have recorded the 'tech in some repair depot' assigning that number?

It doesn't literally have to be from the same factory, as it could be any one of the dozens of factories or hundreds of repair depots.

And tech used the part during a repair, did system configuration with the board, realized that wasn't the issue, and then removed it and sent it to back to apple. I've had a tech do it once.

I'm not sure how the "Diag" board would have ended up in the hands of a customer. We note that the part was opened and used.

Yeah I disagree with that as well. Here is a much simpler story:

When you install a blank motherboard, you need to key in the desired serial number. If you make a mistake, you are supposed to ask apple to re-ship a blank and you take an oopsie on your record.

Someone did the oopsie, but it validated so they either never noticed or didn't feel the need to call it in.

> When you install a blank motherboard, you need to key in the desired serial number. If you make a mistake, you are supposed to ask apple to re-ship a blank

Why is "you made a typo entering a serial number, so we're going to hard brick an expensive component" legal, especially in an age where politicians say they care about the environment?

Probably because it's write once memory? (and tied into Apple validating the serial on activation for theft prevention).

It's a repair process presumably done by a certified professional who should know there is no margin for error. I really can't imagine this kind of error causing more damage than, for example, users throwing full cups of coffee over their expensive laptops. Should we ban drinking coffee close to expensive laptops too then?

My complaint is that Apple went out of their way to make the process have no margin of error. Making it rewritable would have been less effort and less costly.

Can’t you remotely deprovision the machine?

Can't see how that would go well if two devices have the same serial number.

That sounds like something that might also wipe the laptop...and all of the new owner's data with it.

That's Apple's problem. For all this company knows, someone is using a laptop with their data on it.

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