Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it
gothamist.com
gothamist.com
How long of a lost phone message can one set, anyways?
The impacted accounts were magically re-enabled 3 days later. No email. No notification. Nothing. It was a clear message: We're watching, all of you.
Absolutely insane that you would even think to do this to a Chinese national. Good job they are in the US. Could have been far worse for their family back in China. Unbelievable.
Anyway, she purchased her iPhone in the US. All her online accounts, except for WeChat, are associated to US-based services. Yeah, I fuucked up; I meant to send the message over iMessage, where we've never had a problem.
what would they do, genuinely, to their family? Googling it only gives results about anything related to Tiananmen Square to be immediately censored, but little on the actual other consequences.
A place I worked would lock your account if (reasons). I remember it happened to me - nonstandard mail client would try to use my old password a bunch of times and my account would lock.
most people would call in and get it unlocked immediately.
I came find out a little-known fact. The account lockout was automated and it would unlock after a certain amount of time. (of course using the wrong password again could lock it again)
Why not? Is the Chinese government going to send some people to Canada to disappear me?
Heck, even get you flagged here, for that matter.
Not sure what you're suggesting.
You're effectively asking me whether I'm a complete idiot, or whether I mean here in HackerNews.
At least in my tests on Wechat you could discuss tiannanmen square or whatever you want with individuals. Some stickers were censored on Wechat and wouldn't show up. I think images as well may be don't get delivered.
Virtually all censorship and cases of people being arrested are when people talk about these things in large group chats (if a group chat has more than X amount of people it needs to be "registered"). My impression was it's a government fear of things going viral and controlling the public sphere and not about creating a panopticon/state-terrorism
Again.. This might be out of date, but this was at least the case for a long long time.
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想
I appreciate the effort that they've put into making my device less valuable to thiefs.
This is a win win for Apple
what would be really great is if we could engineer systems to develop alignments between relationships like that all the time, but hey, we live in an imperfect world
I wouldn’t be surprised if the original impetus for this variety of security was a prompt like “what are some objectives that support us creating vendor lock in” - that’s how organizations end up with multiple interconnected objectives
Being able to see Apple’s warning on the iPhone 11 and up "Unable to verify this iPhone has a genuine Apple display” meant we were able to find a phone which was still stock.
I’m a big proponent of the right to repair but in this case Apple’s repair deterrence feature had a big benefit for us.
Meanwhile there's massive amount of low-quality parts i have to wade through when wanting to order a replacement battery.
That Apple knows where it's at.
Presumably thieves already do these things (and more sophisticated things) to extract value out of stolen iPhones.
Older iPhones are still in the wild. I wouldn't expect every pickpocket to be adept at differentiating them at a glance.
The average thief probably doesn't even distinguish between Apple and Android phones. A literal pickpocket is only going to have as information the outline of a phone-shaped thing in your pocket. If they lift it off of you and can't use it, they've still stolen it.
I can tell at a glance if someone's on an iPhone or not. I can't as similarly which generation they're on.
The FCC, at the very least, seems to find merit in the deterrence value of such measures [1]. (From a purely-retributive standpoint, I find some satisfaction in knowing someone stole a brick that needs to be parted out, versus getting a working device.)
How? Most people have a phone case and then all you can see is the case. Pretty much all modern phones are the same shape.
> The FCC, at the very least, seems to find merit in the deterrence value of such measures
People don't like it when someone steals their phone, so they demand the government Do Something, so the government proposes to Do Something, regardless of whether the something is effective. Classic politician's syllogism.
> From a purely-retributive standpoint, I find some satisfaction in knowing someone stole a brick that needs to be parted out, versus getting a working device.
The modern world isn't any fun. "I willingly compromised my own ability to repair my phone so a hypothetical thief might be put out."
People should be carrying around decoy phones that are full of sticky glitter and skunk scent, boobytrapped with blasting caps. If you're going to take revenge then do it well.
Unless the owner falls for one of these texts, right? Isn't that the entire point of the linked article?
I wonder if that includes the screen or not? Is it possible to lock down an iPhone screen these days, or can you use it as a replacement for another iphone whose screen is busted?
Edit: I should clarify that the embedded video clearly showed that a number of the iPhones she had were still able to be used. Perhaps the owner didn't or wasn't able to iCloud lock them, but that's what I originally meant.
but that still leaves the possibility that it isn't locked, and therefore it is worth it for theives to steal it. Even just the chance that it's not locked would make it worth stealing.
It doesn't need to be. If you have a passcode, the phone can't be used unless the correct passcode is entered. If you try to factory reset it, you can't get past the setup wizard if find my iphone was enabled for the phone prior to the wipe. Note this doesn't require that the phone receive notification that the phone has been marked stolen. So the only way you can use the phone is if find my iphone wasn't set up prior to it being lost.
After a hard reset my phone requires that a Samsung or Google account that was previously signed in on the phone be used to gain access.
Kind of annoying cause I used a temp account on a Samsung tablet and now I can't get access to it after a reset unless I take it to Samsung with proof of purchase and id.
There was an interesting approach with VanMoof bikes where the company insured it against theft, and if your £2000 bike disappeared they actually had a team that would go to it's location and ask for it back. The police don't seem that interested in getting stolen stuff though - that was private enterprise.
Still I'd pay for that on a phone if only to get the bastards who snatch the things.
That doesn't mean they're lying any time they mention security. Many of the things they do really are to benefit the customer. One of those is having strong locks on stolen phones.
Which means you need to prove both: you are the owner of the device; and that the parts are not stolen. This means serial number on each part (likely already exists), database of individual parts with "stolen" flag, and a secure way to query this before pairing.
Or don't bother with all that, and just prohibit pairing of parts with unknown origin - which means prohibiting all 3rd party services.
I think it makes sense these days for Apple to make phones without much care for repairability. Labor is too expensive to bother with spending hours on repairing a phone. Cheaper to produce new one.
The problem with that is the environmental impact of disposable electronics, but Apple is leading the way and using recycled materials, avoiding plastic, becoming carbon neutral etc.
I think this is the direction the industry is generally going to move towards. It makes sense and stops being a problem when the entire product is recyclable and/or uses recycled material in the first place. They’ve been touting their advancements pretty loudly, but I don’t think it’s getting picked up by journalists.
lol no.
That location is the Huaqiangbei electronics market - one of the largest electronics markets in the world w/ a thriving 2nd hand parts ecosystem.
The glory days of the e-markets are almost over though, the one in Zhongguancun is much smaller than it used to be, but you still need to know the right building to go into to get your old X-box or Wii unlocked.
How do you maintain this functionality and give the "right to repair"? I would assume that it's possible but would add a fair bit of cost to devices (not that someone like apple cant bear said costs)... But IM just guessing on that front as I have zero experience with hardware locking.
source: i have this problem iphone 8
Unsure whether anyone has found a way past the apple locks...not to my knowledge.
>cost
I don't think cost even factors into any of this at apple margins. What does is that repairability affects things that matter to the consumer: Size, weight, thinness, feel, lack of exposed screws etc. Compromising on repairability makes all those easier
Huaqiangbei is legit (and a wonder!) - the spot that would be a real smoking gun is the Huaken Building (aka the "Dodgy Cellphone Market") which is south of Shennan Middle Rd and between the spot on the map and Huaqiangbei. That place is pretty amazing in its own right, at the east end people sell bits of phones, dead phones, 'recycled' phones - they are torn down into parts which are reassembled onto new PCBs and resold at the west end of the building - it's full of lots of little cubes, people each doing a part of the process and onselling their work product to the next person - if you ever thought your phone can't be worked on by hand, can't be fixed, you are so wrong, these are real professionals - they take junk and make it real again.
If the phones were simply being recycled it would be wonderfully OK, even if Apple hates the idea of this sort of grey market, they'd rather we threw them away so they can sell new ones. As I understand it many of the Apple chips these days are 'paired' at the factory, you can't just replace one (and they have to pass through the above process together as a unit) this may mean (I'm completely guessing here) that they're still screwed if the user wont erase their phone, even if they completely remake it
Remember they are removing chips from old boards, reballing them and soldering them onto new ones - they can pull a chip, fix a short and drop it back down pretty easily
She has tracked the iPhone via find my through a few us cities and finally it’s in China.
I wonder… if people whose phones get stolen start tracking the locations they see it travel to using Find My, and a site were available to report these to, could enough evidence be collected to motivate a police/FBI visit to the location of fences in the US who are shipping these to China?
(Could one prevent such a tool from being used maliciously to swat someone?—I suppose in the end a specific victim would have to go to the police in person, limiting that risk? I’m imagining the address-collecting site might respond “yes I’ve seen more than (say) 20 phones reported at that location, you may want to work with local police if you can”.)
Probably not. Below their pay grade to stop petty crime. There's also the chain of custody on evidence that becomes questionable for the prosecution. They need to collect it using their own methods and reality is they have easier or larger crime to go after.
My observation on this is that it needs to be more of an 'institutional' level of crime to get them motivated if it doesn't happen in their own investigation. Ultimately this is 'helpful' crime for Apple's bottom line, unlike parts smuggled in to legitimately repair devices.
Other example of what I mean: I've witnessed a craigslist deal go south on a purchased motorcycle when the seller never titled it from previous owner. Cops were called, and told the two parties to stop arguing and file a claim in court else disorderly persons charges would be brought. (thankfully the seller was able to contact the former owner, and drive with the purchaser to have the title transferred properly) If however this was a situation like a bank calling about forged checks, the police would move to arrest and prosecute the forger immediately. There wouldn't be this onus on the bank's part to file a civil claim.
Yes it might not be trivial to prosecute, but we're not actually talking about petty theft done by random individuals where the effort isn't worth it. We're talking about major rings of thieves stealing millions of dollars worth of devices per year.
The paperwork mixup described in this comment doesn't sound like an attempt at fraud or theft because no evidence of intent to deceive someone or take property from its rightful owner is described. Indeed, when the previous owner of the motorcycle was contacted, they corrected the paperwork.
动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想
I know my personality would make it very tempting to reply to a message coming from the person who stole my phone, maybe taunt them a bit, but you're kind of giving into their game when you do. I mean, best you can do is burn a little of their time, which is probably much less valuable to them than yours is to you and put up with increasingly hostile threats[0]. Contrasted with completely ignoring any text that arrives regarding the phone (immediately blocking any arriving from accounts from social media) they're left assuming -- for whatever reason -- you're not even getting the threatening texts.
And, of course, if the scammer were planning on following through with the threats it'd be a very labor intensive, high-risk, low-reward operation -- not the "make a quick buck" that stealing and reselling a high value piece of electronics is supposed to be. There are too many legitimate ways to make more money that involve less work and less risk to pick "crime" as the choice. And while that means it's unlikely the scammer will follow through with the threat, that assumes the scammer is intelligent enough to understand how stupid it would be to expose himself to make a few hundred dollars and tends to vary depending on the amount of illicit substances the scammer is trying to manage the withdrawal symptoms of at that moment. It also assumes that the scammer isn't the actual thief, and the thief isn't some gang thug who'd be more than happy to follow through with the threat simply because "your mean words hurt their feelings"[1].
I figure, ignoring them is the quickest/easiest path to applying at least a tiny bit of pain.
They're gambling; you and every other one of their victims is "the iPhone game". It starts with a box of bricked iPhones. Find the owner, send them a combination of words gleaned from a forum that other scammers have had success with and text your target. You win when you crack the right combination of words that causes a bricked iPhone to become almost instantly convertible into anywhere from a few to several hundred dollars. I'd imagine most slot machines would hit less frequently and pay out less when they do. Enough bricked phones have to become "a few hundred dollars" to feed the player's gambling addiction[2] so you're providing the lever "pull" of the slot machine -- free entertainment for them. By ignoring them, you're taking away that tiny high that comes when they experience "Hope" -- the "hope" that your "pull" will pay out.
Take that away ... block 'em ... but maybe peek into "Spam" every once in a while if you want a little ego satisfaction.
Maybe they sent you a few hundred messages of the "Apple Pay" variety. Now close your eyes and imagine your lone scammer with a box of locked iPhones (it's your fantasy, make him a lonely middle-aged white guy living in Mom's basement who hasn't showered in 2024), checking each bricked phone "to see if you've won", then the messaging app to see if anyone is going to give you a chance to play further ... only to find your fourteenth "Apple Pay" message disappear into the dead Ether ("And they sent the last one from RUSSIA, how could they ignore RUSSIA!?"). If they are the kind with a glass ego, nothing will make you feel less adequate than copying/pasting fourteen unanswered messages as imagine the answer you're not going to get to number fifteen.
Short of maybe social engineering them to click a link to malware[3] and maybe turning the tables a little, I can't think of anything more effective.
[0] And the stones on the thief -- or did your sister leave it unattended? I have spent no time in Austin, specifically, but a lot of time in Texas. Some places it seems everyone is carrying, right out in the open, carefully concealed (if you know where to look) ... whatever. At least a few of my buddies carry hoping for a reason to use it. I suspect in the parts of Texas I'm familiar with, if this happens at all, Find My yields it quickly recovered without police involvement, and maybe the thief's trailer/truck got a little fscked up during "pick-up".
[1] They'll talk about being disrespected but at the end of the day, the problem comes down to an adult who would still fail the most basic parts of Kindergarten (don't misread that statement as implying anything about my feelings regarding the cause/reason/fault of such things; let's just walk away from that one for this footnote).
[2] I couldn't find the study but over a decade ago I recall reading a that people with "clinically diagnosed kleptomania" (naively: "stealing for fun, regardless of need") had extremely strong tendencies to be gambling addicts, but that gambling addiction couldn't be correlated with a higher frequency of kleptomania (gambling addicts do skew higher for theft, but are often thieves out of perceived necessity, limiting to kleptomaniacs was intended to identify the similarities between the underlying psychological disorders).
[3] This is a little tricky and comes with the "you're probably breaking the law, now, too" problem ... tricky because the scammer is probably using a texting app/web service. As a result, there's a larger number of OSes involved -- it would be less unusual for your sender to be texting you via a browser in Windows than you'd probably experience, otherwise, so if you, say, somehow convince them they need to "click that link" in order for your phone to complete unlocking, you're going to also have to work out a way to get them to reveal what OS they're sending from.
Or add a big warning when trying to remove a device previously put in lost mode.
- hide the Lost device from the map after a month without unlocking it for them to sell.
- gather more information: is it lost? Stolen? What to do next.
- the device should be locked and blacklisted until you mark it as actually found.
This seems problematic? In article screenshot shows that it pulled in a misleading contact photo as well. I know they also have a separate UI color scheme for business messaging that is meant to address phishing and trust but perhaps they should not auto suggest contacts containing the word Apple.
> My phone was stolen while I was going through TSA security at JFK and the TSA guy must have been in on it because he wouldn't let me get it even though we were able to locate it using my husbands phone. When we used the find me app later we saw it was somewhere in Queens so definitely wasn't stolen by someone else flying that day.
I had never heard of that happening before. Great, another thing to be anxious about at the airport. TSA does not pay very well, so I can understand the impulse.
Edit: Would you still find this behavior understandable if the TSA agent directly stole from passengers as their bags were scanned? What if the passenger in question ignored the collaborating-TSA-agent and moved to confront the thief; would you understand their behavior if they arrested the iPhone owner, you know, since they're underpaid. Would you accept the same behavior from a local NYPD beat cop? They aren't paid well when they first join the force, can they steal from random people too?
Yes a literal interpretation of the parent comment does not point to "excusing the behavior", but I believe a more realistic interpretation was warranted here.
I'm glad you don't condone theft, and even that you seek to understand the world, but I don't think that you've increased your understanding of the world in this case.
The author didn't explain "how the scammer was texting her". I don't own an iPhone. On my Android device, they'd have to have my phone number which I don't know how they'd get from the locked phone. Of course, I -- like many -- provide an alternate number on the screen for "helpful people who might want to return, rather than re-sell, my crappy old Samsung phone." And I'd imagine that would be the way to get "the first reply".
But if you could avoid that[0], it keeps you from feeding a likely gambling addiction, or at least makes the game a little less satisfying. Consider that they've got a box of bricked phones. Every text is a chance to turn one of those into a few hundred dollars. Every reply is a small "high" that they're still in the game. Every message that goes off into the Ether, ignored, is "additional confirmation that this phone is a permanent brick" and you don't even get the satisfaction of feeling like maybe you intimidated someone a little.
[0] And to a lesser extent, even if you can't. I've blocked scammmers and seen the progression of repeated "Hello?"s ... somewhere in there it's connected that whatever they're trying to send me is not meeting my eyeballs. Had a funny one that was like 30 messages in a row, followed by "whatever" and "ass hole" ... I remember thinking it was odd that it was always lower case and that they put a space between ass and hole. Not necessarily like a person with a lack of English language skills, but like a tween just learning how to wield profanity.
In a comment on the article replying to someone pointing this out the author explained that she was receiving iMessages and not simple texts. The scammers identified an email address linked to her icloud account when trying to reset the phone and set her iMessages to that email address.
You’d think for a police state, China would be just little bit better at cracking down on obvious crime that happens within their borders. But I guess not.
That's why cartels appear out of control in Mexico, but when USA wants an offer, Mexico will promptly deport a high-level criminal. It's a show of strength, that the state is still in control of the cartels, but won't extinguish them because they generate lots of money for their respective political coalitions.
Happens everywhere, the biggest bank accounts of organized crime could be seized internationally if there was a will, but that would hurt politics too... unless they're Russians, there were token seizures of money and yachts last year, but it stopped quickly.
That makes me think of some US-libertarian-adjacent thought, which goes something like "the government are just a big-enough gang", or conversely "organized-crime rings are just smaller competing governments."
While I admit there is some pattern-making appeal to that idea, I don't think it quite matches what we see in practice, where gangs often seem quite happy to abandon unprofitable responsibilities and choose profit over political independence.
If nothing else, it quietly conflates entirely different kinds of governments together: A small dictatorship is not just a shrunken version of large democracy.
They often come to exist due to niches government can’t (officially) operate in, but when they grow enough, they’re susceptible to capture the same as any other entity.
Or in Egypt, you have to bribe to get a job as a police officer, your superior expects a tribute each month because his superiors expect one, all the way to the top, so you bully the public for bribes/protection money, that's why the police were so passionate about suppressing anti-government protests during the Arab Spring, their livelihood depended on it. Meanwhile the Egyptian military had its own economy to supply themselves (eg a factory making soap, or bread) and were viewed by the public as trustworthy.
All in a fascinating book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25622863-thieves-of-stat...
Black hats (criminals), Government, and commercial devs are pretty distinct, and dont often over lap on a day to day basis. That having been said the government jobs are available to either group (sometimes not by "choice") and there is a revolving door there.
It's not so far removed from the university, drug company/reseearch, FDA revolving doors that we have for Drug development in the US.
2. They do not care about foreigners or crimes unless they involve Chinese citizens.
Don't know if they really care that much about Chinese citizens. Probably just the ones in the politburo.
According to a commenter on HN from a few months ago [1], the reason is a political division - the scam callcenters are in West Bengal, where the ruling political party turns a blind eye due to corruption and to provide annoyance towards the federal government ruled by the BJP.
[1] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/fake-call...
[2] https://www.thestatesman.com/cities/delhi/two-illegal-bpos-b...
[3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/call-cent...
Whatever country allows it should lose legitimate commerce as a consequence. My own included, if we are found to be guilty.
Truth: police protect their employers.
Reality: Police absolutely hate doing the "boring" parts of their jobs. Property crime clearance rate is an abysmal ~10% and everyone knows a handful of people who reported a theft, large or otherwise, and got nothing but a police report.
Meanwhile they had plenty of time to come to our local supermarket and harass a 6 year old that tried to pocket a candybar. They took him into the security camera room and hassled this kid for several hours, zero parents involved.
The American police do not feel required to do their damn jobs, unless it involves physical activity or a gun. The boring stuff, like submitting hundreds of stored rape kits to labs to literally catch rapists, doesn't get done, ever.
~ I'm a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing, http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer
This is why I find it bizarre that the behavior of bad cops is minimized by calling them "a few bad apples", when the entire aphorism is "one bad apple spoils the bunch".
More to the point, it is authoritarian, but you also have things like prostitution going on in broad day light. The central and local governments have a very focused attention span, and if what bad thing you are doing is outside of that, they probably won't notice.
Just don't sell/buy drugs, or get into fights when drunk.
The US hosts many Chinese criminal financiers and embezzlers that we have no intention of extraditing to China.
As inconvenient as it is for the author and those in their similar situation this sort of petty crime is about on the same level as bustinng a massage parlor.
And honestly it woul hold the same low priority everywhere not just in China
China is top-down, except when it isn't, then its very bottom up. Is is sort of dichotomy of a central government with absolute authority but a limited attention span.
When it notices you, you’re in deep shit. But for the most part, it doesn’t notice 95% of what is actually happening.
Does it say something like "locked and linked to sarah96@icloud.com" or can it display custom messages like "owned by sarah xyz, please call +43..."?
Could it possibly get you into situations where people can successfully threaten to physically harm you because your contact information doxxed you?
She most likely had a 'lost mode' message set for the device.
I'm confused. The attacker doesn't have access to the author's photos or family contacts, right?
When you boot the “Lost” phone, it asks for the password of the owner’s iCloud account. There is probably an information leak where the original email or phone is presented and the thief can track the original owner through that.
For this, they’re most likely reading the phone number from the physical SIM card left in the device.
> watching my phone move around Manhattan before it finally stopped at Rockefeller Center. I didn’t bother confronting the thief.
Sure, this person didn't confront them, and most probably wouldn't. The one out of a thousand that does might not be messing around.
I did not know this, and I wish it were better publicized.
Do these outlets not have editors? I'm surprised anyone would publish this.
I didn’t see any warnings of this when I erased my phone after I recently lost it (and someone found it but decided to keep it)
Only Remove Device specifically deactivates Activation Lock.
Yes, as long as it is in your account, nobody can activate it. When you remove it, it can be activated by someone.
But a more common scenario is the phone gets used for parts. As for the icloud account. AFAIK you used to be able to get the full account email with GSX. Not sure about now.
Out of about 20+ phones the only one I could get working was an iPhone 7.
edit: we have the answer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40579230
I guess she didn't have passcode on.
There's a version on archive.org tho
https://web.archive.org/web/20240604225617/https://gothamist...
But… it's easy (and reasonable) to think that whoever has your phone also has your contact info which makes these sorts of scams that much scarier.
At least my phone (android) shows no contact info when locked as far as I can tell, and an eSIM would prevent knowing the phone number right?
Not /s: Imagine the logistics and the cost of opportunity
> Veronica leads the digital news and audience team at WNYC and Gothamist, which includes breaking news, newsletters, and social, among other things.
I expect such fake stories on the front page of reddit, not HN.
Have an updoot my good sir
Nice try, FBI.
Bold of you to assume I have friends.
¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯
EDIT: Thanks for the award, kind stranger!
I won't commit crimes, and if I do I will pay the price, but I don't want a nanny to prevent me from doing precrimes that I would not have done in the first place.
I am not a mindless sheep, I require no societal shepherd.
All of that was said to say, I want the devices I purchase to be repairable by anyone that I deem worthy of repairing it, including myself.
Pairing is just anti-repair atm.
if you want to know how: put the part ids (which are used for pairing) into the apple id account and verify them when switching on the phone.
Had never come across this term before. Huh.
a) remove from account and help the recycle crooks, or
b) risk them crack it having your data
https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-sec...
Yes - you can set a message when you put a device in 'lost mode' in order to facilitate it's return if it's truly lost and found by a decent human being.
Smart phones generally let you add an Emergency Contact number that anyone can use the phone to call/text without entering a password, in order to facilitate an honest person returning the phone or someone contacting your family if you are found incapacitated.
Apple's abuse of our laws is what's making iphone thefts still profitable. Ironic.
ive not reported as stolen because my carrier said i needed proof of the receipt (which i lost years ago)
its such a crappy experience i dont wish it on anyone. Samsung has been next to useless in finding it.
having said that this article makes me glad I bought an Apple
just wish they'd kept the hardware touch button on the non-SE phones and back button.
this is the first iPhone for me but i keep searching for the "alt+tab" and back button. it was ridiculously hard to switch between apps (have to physically press the touch button twice which makes me lose grip on teh phone).
honestly its so close to being perfect but the iPhone has some obvious interface flaws coming from Android
I believe the FaceID models solve this by having you slide the app up slightly to then select between it and any other open apps or go back to the home screen. Maybe that would work better for you?
Also, this is just my opinion but like I mentioned, the iPhone SE Gen 2+ uses the last gen design language which started back in 2014(iphone 6) and has been gone from the main line for years now. It always felt super slippery and prone to dropping(too thin and those rounded edges are difficult to grip) which is why I held onto my iPhone SE Gen 1 until the new iPhone 12 came out.
This is just my opinion but maybe you should go to a store and check out their other models.
I don't see why they couldn't have added a back button its so ridiculous that I have to tap twice in the back and three times to activate "alt+tab"
it doesn't even work consistently when you have a case. I know this is based off the old phone but geez I had no idea it was this bad.
on the bright side im very pleased with the software experience. just ties everything nicely together right out of the gate. Apple is definitely for a different crowd.
I'm not sure if I will buy another iPhone after this I just realized as a long time Android user, I didn't miss much, in fact I would've given it up long time ago.
The journalist:
- Marked the phone as lost;
- Wiped all data;
FTA: As quickly as possible, I did all the things you’re supposed to do when your phone is lost or stolen —- mark it as lost, cut off service, and remotely erase it
She did not, however, remove (delete) that iPhone from her iCloud account, which means that the iPhone can't be factory reset by the thieves because "FindMy" is still activated.
FTA: As long as I didn’t remove the phone from my Apple account or the Find My app, the phone was essentially bricked to anyone without the passcode and my iCloud password
The iPhone did not, at any time, leak any personal information. What probably happened is that she had a SIM card on it, and from ejecting the tray and putting the SIM into another phone they managed to get her phone number, from which they started contacting her with the threats/scams.
I think this wouldn't even be possible with a e-SIM in the newer iPhone models.
Right, now we have e-SIMs. So what was the reason for physical SIMs in the first place?
Yes, I know, in many anti-social places in the world (like most US cities), it's much more likely that the phone was stolen, or that even in the lost-phone case, the person who finds it will be shitty and not try to return it. But in many (most?) other places people are generally honest and will try to return something that's lost.
Then again, if you know that it was stolen, you should be able to keep the thief from getting your contact info.
“when trying to reset my phone they are prompted to enter my iCloud password. My iCloud email is also one of the ways to reach me via iMessage. So they used that to contact me”
And yes, e-SIM solves this problem.
Edit: she replied to a comment on the article: "when trying to reset my phone they are prompted to enter my iCloud password. My iCloud email is also one of the ways to reach me via iMessage. So they used that to contact me"
Humane is top priority. Punishments should be commensurate to the crime committed - with under-punishment always preferable to over-punishment.
But even in regular case, why should we be humane to someone who refuses to be humane to others? I don't get this logic at all.
Unreserved compassion is by far the most harmful atavisms of human evolution. More evil, even, than tribalism and tall-poppy syndrome. The combination with the latter, in a sense of being reluctant to punch down, produces the likes of you - active fellow-travelers to psychopaths. The logical result is either societal collapse or someone like Duterte or Bukele restoring order. I think it's much better to have the right amount of retributive justice to being with.