[HN Gopher] We are retroactively dropping the iPhone's repairabi...
___________________________________________________________________
We are retroactively dropping the iPhone's repairability score
Author : fraXis
Score : 410 points
Date : 2023-09-19 17:34 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ifixit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ifixit.com)
| mouzogu wrote:
| > "It's Literally Not Re-Pairable"
|
| making things worse under the guise of listening, that's oh so
| pro.
| [deleted]
| _ph_ wrote:
| One thing I dislike about this decision is, that it conflates the
| limitations for third parties repairing an iPhone with the
| ability to repair a device at all. Yes, in an ideal world it
| would be easy and cheap to repair a device. Good points have been
| raised in the discussion, why this might be limited by necessity.
| Like theft-protection and just technical questions of calibration
| of part.
|
| But from an environmental perspective, it makes a huge difference
| whether something can be quickly repaired or not. Who can do the
| repairs is an important question, but it is secondary to the
| first. I am not happy with iFixit not distinguishing bad
| repairability and having to go to Apple for a repair.
|
| I find it ok to withdraw like one point for the tie-in to the
| manufacturer, but the new score puts it on a level with devices
| which just have to be thrown away.
|
| This is also a disservice to the customer, as while the Apple
| prices might be quite high, they seem to be related closely to
| how difficult a certain repair is to do. Improvements there are a
| benefit to all customers. The new scoring system hides this and
| actually reduces the pressure onto the manufacturer to improve
| repairability.
| paulmd wrote:
| yup, I think the right-to-repair movement has unthinkingly
| adopted a lot of attitudes from a couple key proponents with
| business interests in component-level repair.
|
| board-level repair is fine, and is probably necessary to get
| some of the economies of scale in assembly and distribution.
| but you'd think it doesn't count for some reason.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Damn if you do, retroactively damn if you don't. IFixit is
| existentially tied to their antagonism to any official repair
| policy. I like their work, but this is bonkers. Retroactively
| degrading a rating? How should people even think that their
| ratings actually mean anything then?
| Tade0 wrote:
| I tried to recall how many instances of theft vs damage there
| were in my social circle and the ratio is at least 10:1, with
| damage being the higher number.
|
| I had one case of spontaneous malfunction, one bricking via
| repeated high humidity environment and one bonk against bare
| concrete, which resulted in the screen needing to be replaced so
| I have to ask: how bad is theft in your corner of the world?
| natymad wrote:
| I completely fail to understand the anti-theft argument, help me
| out here.
|
| So the theory is that, once thieves will see you're carrying an
| Iphone, they won't bother taking it. But why? You're already
| being mugged, everything that's even remotely valuable will be
| taken. Why would they let their victims go, just because their
| valuables are more difficult to flip? "Give me all your valuables
| - oh wait, that's an iphone, nvm my bad you're free to go" is
| that the idea here?
|
| And on being less of a target for getting robbed in the first
| place - you're carrying an expensive af iphone, chances are you
| can afford to carry a lot of other expensive valuables too. If
| you're worried about getting robbed, start with not carrying a
| device that's more expensive than a fridge.
|
| My condolences to everyone who actually had to survive through a
| robbery. But I doubt it could've been avoided just because your
| Iphone was currently difficult to sell. People can get robbed
| regardless of their perceived wealth, it's a happen-stance crime.
| tzs wrote:
| It sounds like you are visualizing the typical robbery as a
| thief stops you in some location secluded enough that they have
| time to get you to remove all your valuables and hand them
| over.
|
| It actually is typically a grab and run in a crowd.
|
| We know making smartphones harder to flip deters this because
| in 2015 when it become mandatory for smartphones to require a
| remote kill switch the owner could use to kill a stolen phone
| the theft rate for such phones dropped significantly.
| Casteil wrote:
| > You're already being mugged
|
| A lot of phone thefts are quick pickpocketing/snatch-and-run,
| or snatch-off-a table, not some Hollywood "stick-em-up, give me
| everything you have" type of situation.
|
| People target expensive phones, period.. but having fewer ways
| to turn those stolen phones into enough money to justify the
| risk means people will be less inclined to directly target them
| (especially when other brands' expensive flagship phones may be
| easier).
|
| Similar concept in general physical security/theft deterrent,
| really.. put up a bigger challenge than others in your vicinity
| and you're less likely to be targeted.
| aendruk wrote:
| I was under the impression that a typical theft is more of a
| grab-and-run. At least all the thefts I've witnessed have been
| that way. So picture not a back alley mugging from the movies
| but tourists in a crowded area or commuters on public transit,
| already holding their phones out in front of them.
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| It makes no sense at all and is clearly just an excuse.
|
| Criminals do not want your iPhone. It is an instant tracking
| device that even if they sold it in an hour would still lead
| the cops to where they sold it.
|
| I was robbed at gunpoint in the late 2000s and even then the
| criminals did not want the phone. They did want everything else
| tho.
|
| It's anti consumer bullshit and absolutely nothing else.
| musictubes wrote:
| https://www.imore.com/iphone-theft-drops-40-san-francisco-25...
| reubenmorais wrote:
| > oh wait, that's an iphone, nvm my bad you're free to go" is
| that the idea here?
|
| In Brazil I've heard stories of muggers holding up e.g. a bus
| and not bothering to get iPhones. This was a while ago, before
| the trade routes to get stolen phones across the world for
| disassembly and parts resale were as developed as they are
| today.
| wyldberry wrote:
| There are more robberies than a mugging. Pick pockets are a
| real scourge. If you have a reliable way to turn stolen goods
| into currency, you are incentivized to take that item. Jewelry
| -> pawn shops for example.
|
| The anti-theft measure here makes it not profitable, or much
| harder to profit, from taking a phone because you can't resell
| it or strip the valuable parts. I had a friend get pick
| pocketed in spain, and the next day the phone was several
| countries away.
|
| Just because people can get mugged regardless of perceived
| wealth doesn't mean that we don't try to reduce the risk.
| pzo wrote:
| Do you think pickpocketer take your phone out of your pocket,
| check it then say "oh shit this is iphone 15 with DRM" and
| put it back to your pocket ?
|
| Pickpocketers will fish anything that is in your pocket and
| in crowded public transport immediately pass to other partner
| in crime.
|
| Same with thefts on scooter that rob woman with bags - they
| don't check if it's prada bag or if has any valuables inside.
|
| Same with thefts that can even break your car window to get
| some bag that they see is inside but in the end has only
| groceries.
| wyldberry wrote:
| Moving stolen electronics for phone components has been a
| consistent revenue stream for a long time and there's a lot
| of organization that goes into it. No one is pretending
| this solves the problem, rather that it creates a negative
| incentive for targeting phones specifically.
|
| The world of scamming and petty theft is vast. I've known
| some real slick thieves, and they are of the opinion that
| lifting a phone is just not worth it these days. However,
| this deterrent is obviously going to be effective on a
| spectrum. If someone is trying to sell you stolen goods,
| are you going to buy a new iphone from them on the off
| chance you can get parts out of it?
| austhrow743 wrote:
| Any impact isn't going to happen on the individual
| pickpocket level. It would be by making the industry
| unprofitable.
| winrid wrote:
| No, people just walk by and take it off your table. What are
| you gonna do?
| [deleted]
| mcphage wrote:
| > Forget harvesting parts--which is a huge part of most
| independent repair and recycling businesses.
|
| Isn't that also why most stolen phones end up in SE Asia where
| they're disassembled for parts?
| mortureb wrote:
| The parts talk to each other so not really for the last
| generation or two.
| mcphage wrote:
| Isn't that what this is all about, though? The parts talk to
| each other, so they can't be disassembled and sold off--but
| since they talk to each other, it makes it harder to get them
| working after a repair?
| mortureb wrote:
| Yes but they're useless in a Chinese chop shop. You can't
| Frankenstein the parts together.
| [deleted]
| tqi wrote:
| AIUI, these restrictions are primarily intended to curb the
| market for stolen iphones? I think Apple has taken it too far
| here, but I also think it is disingenuous to have this discourse
| without at least mentioning the other considerations. There is no
| "right" answer, only tradeoffs...
| skeaker wrote:
| This is stated elsewhere in this thread, but if this is the
| case then Apple should allow users to unpair their parts and
| allow them to be reused. Gouging users by forcing them to buy a
| new part that they already have because their current one is
| "unverified" despite working perfectly can only be interpreted
| as greed.
| layer8 wrote:
| The intent of the restrictions does not change the
| repairability, hence as far as the repairability score is
| concerned, that intent should not matter for the resulting
| score.
| specialist wrote:
| These restrictions also reduce pwnage. Zero trust has to be
| end-to-end, software and hardware.
| skeaker wrote:
| If an actor with that sort of capability has physical access
| to your device for long enough to replace a part in it with a
| custom one, you are pwned pretty much no matter what you do
| at that point. They could just as well stick in a keylogger
| for touch inputs and know all your passwords.
| paulmd wrote:
| well, that's why touch id/face id are a secure enclave and
| have largely replaced passwords.
|
| but philosophically there's no reason the digitizer can't
| be a secure enclave too, and sign a message authenticating
| that it's really the digitizer that you think it is. unless
| you can force it to leak the secret or you can break RSA,
| it's as secure as any other cryptosystem.
|
| remote attestation does work and I don't really get why
| people continue to assert that it doesn't. root-of-trust
| and remote attestation are solved problems, and detecting
| component swapouts (and other "hostile component" attacks)
| are one of the _primary_ use-cases for these systems.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Is there a single documented case of someone's phone being
| hacked because of a replaced hardware component like a
| screen? That sounds like fantasy land to me.
|
| Maybe the NSA can do it? But I suspect they could more easily
| hack phones in software.
| realusername wrote:
| I also want a real case of this happening, right now even
| for high profile targets they just use software attacks.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| There is also another issue why Apple is restricting "part
| harvesting": theft. iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered
| the field because the manufacturers were pretty pissed that
| customers using their devices in public became a target for
| "enterprising" robbers who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip
| them to a pawn shop or second-hand store in a matter of half an
| hour. When people are afraid to use your products because it
| paints a phone-sized target on them, they won't buy your product.
|
| That cut down on a lot of the robbery bullshit, but then
| criminals simply found new buyer classes - they'd simply part
| stolen devices out and resell everything but the
| iCloud/Knox/whatever locked mainboard. Displays, cameras,
| speakers, batteries, flex cables, cases, everything.
|
| So now, at least Apple is tagging the most "valuable" parts in
| new phones, simply to make stealing them unattractive for
| thieves, which frankly sucks but is necessary because it's a
| public safety issue.
|
| (If anyone at Apple is reading this: ffs, allow the legitimate
| owner of a device to "unpair" all components in their phone in
| iCloud so that legitimate second-hand shops can strip a broken
| device at least for its parts)
| cameldrv wrote:
| They can already "unpair" the phone by removing it from iCloud,
| as you say. The phone could simply check whether the serial
| number on a part is already associated with an iCloud
| registered device and if not, allow it to pair. Fairly
| obviously, they don't do this because it would reduce the
| demand for their parts, which is a multibillion dollar
| business.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I agree, and I think there's a compromise. Allow the pairing of
| harvested parts, but also allow users to report their unit as
| "stolen" so the parts can't be paired.
|
| However, this is probably fraught with problems that Apple
| doesn't want to deal with. Users will want to know if someone
| tried to pair their parts and they'll be hit with a large
| number of subpoenas daily from people who want to know which
| repair shops had their stolen phones.
| notanormalnerd wrote:
| I don't know why iFixit doesn't even touch on that point.
|
| I live in Barcelona and phones are being pickpocketed every day
| here. Not being able to wipe or unlock or else is a mayor
| deterrent for the pickpockets, because noone will take the
| phone off of them, so it's not worth it. Phones are still being
| stolen but imagine if they could sell to a global market of
| repair shops.
|
| You couldn't go to any tourist location without having your
| phone stolen if it wasn't bolted to your person.
|
| I get the iFixit point as well but if I have a 1500EUR phone, I
| don't want to think about it being stolen, when I am on
| vacation, because someone needs some parts (oh the human
| trafficing/organ harvesting similarity...)
|
| Apple should offer a better repair program and offer the
| ability to "unlock and relock" it in a apple store with proper
| proof of ownership. Or anything else in that direction.
| dTal wrote:
| >I live in Barcelona and phones are being pickpocketed every
| day here. Not being able to wipe or unlock or else is a mayor
| deterrent for the pickpockets
|
| Doesn't sound like it.
| ilyt wrote:
| If they are being stolen it doesn't work.
|
| If the whole part won't be used it will be stripped to
| components and resold to the same repair shops anyway. Yeah
| the profit margins will be smaller per phone but they will
| just steal more.
|
| Apple doesn't want phones fixed because Apple wants to sell
| more phones, plain and simple. There is no other incentive.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > Yeah the profit margins will be smaller per phone but
| they will just steal more.
|
| The risk of getting caught scales with that increased
| volume. The extra friction of parting out a phone for less
| money compared to selling the whole phone beggars belief
| that "stealing more" is the most common response.
|
| "iPhone theft getting less profitable raises the rate of
| theft" just doesn't make sense.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| > I get the iFixit point as well but if I have a 1500EUR
| phone, I don't want to think about it being stolen, when I am
| on vacation, because someone needs some parts (oh the human
| trafficing/organ harvesting similarity...)
|
| Do you think thieves are that descending? I know someone whos
| iPhone 14 was stolen in London. If this helped protect
| against theft, then why did they steal the phone anyway?
| _ph_ wrote:
| Its like poisenous plants. Being poisenous doesn't prevent
| the single plant from getting eaten. But it makes it very
| unlikely, that a lot plants of that species get eaten. So
| while a single iPhone might get stolen, overall there are
| less if many thieves targetting iPhones. They don't bring
| money, but increase the risk of landing in prison.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| > So while a single iPhone might get stolen, overall
| there are less if many thieves targetting iPhones.
|
| Do we have data to show this?
|
| > They don't bring money, but increase the risk of
| landing in prison.
|
| I also don't think the risk of going to prison for theft
| in London is that high. Sure, stealing an iPhone
| increases it, but an increasing an insignificant risk by
| a factor of 10 could still leave it being insignificant.
| musictubes wrote:
| https://www.imore.com/iphone-theft-drops-40-san-
| francisco-25...
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| This article predates the technology being discussed, so
| it can't be data that shows that this technology is
| preventing crime.
| elliottkember wrote:
| There is probably a "trailing indicator" effect at play
| here. I believe people don't sell the phone immediately,
| but try and find a buyer later. It will take a few thefts
| of un-sellable iPhones before the thief realises that the
| risk is not worth the reward. These changes don't trickle
| down immediately.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| > It will take a few thefts of un-sellable iPhones before
| the thief realises that the risk is not worth the reward.
|
| But his only bears out if thieves can easily discern an
| iPhone 14 from other phones, which I'm not sure is that
| easy in the context they operate. And it also requires it
| to be risky to seal in London, and I think if that were
| the case then theft would be less prevalent there. And I
| think if the people in London cared about having their
| iPhones stolen, they would take political action to that
| effect.
|
| But sure, it all sounds very plausible, though I would
| still like to see data to back it up. It may be, but it
| also may not be.
| shortcake27 wrote:
| I'm highly dubious of anyone claiming this reduces crime.
|
| Things being easy to steal and sell aren't the _cause_ of
| crime, they're a symptom. If someone has felt the need to
| resort to a life of crime for whatever reason, how is
| lowering their "salary" (so to speak) going to reduce
| crime? Surely they now need to steal more phones to make up
| the difference? I guess you could argue they might commit a
| different crime instead?
| mcphage wrote:
| > Surely they now need to steal more phones to make up
| the difference?
|
| Not necessarily. If they can't make enough money from
| stealing iPhones, they may quit and go into management.
| riversflow wrote:
| It's not that it reduces crime overall, it's that it
| reduces a specific, very inconvenient crime to be the
| victim of. Having your phone stolen, especially on
| vacation, is significantly worse than many other sorts of
| theft.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| And yet people still have their iPhone 14s stolen while
| on holiday.
| musictubes wrote:
| https://www.imore.com/iphone-theft-drops-40-san-
| francisco-25...
|
| Activation lock made a huge difference. The next step to
| talking profits out of stolen iPhones is to make
| harvesting parts difficult.
|
| I absolutely give Apple the benefit of the doubt when it
| comes to I this. Back in the bad old days iPhone theft
| was incredibly common and that has come down a lot over
| the years.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| > The next step to talking profits out of stolen iPhones
| is to make harvesting parts difficult.
|
| I would 100% buy this if you showed me data that
| indicates that part harvesting is behind most of the
| remaining theft of iPhones, which it very well may be,
| but if we have the data we would not have to guess.
| baq wrote:
| I'm buying this right now, this is how a lot of car theft
| works also - parts are a good source of cash.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Especially catalytic converters. Can be stolen from an
| unprotected (i.e. no massive baseplate) car in below 30
| seconds, and nets you about 1000$ a piece from junkyards
| willing to ignore the sawzall marks.
|
| [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/watch-catalytic-
| converte...
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| Maybe people resort to a life of crime because it makes
| them money and they like money, not because they have no
| other option. People readily accept that rich people do
| morally wrong things (like exploit their employees etc)
| for more money. So why assume that the only reason people
| in general would do morally wrong things is because they
| need to to feed their family?
| autoexec wrote:
| > So why assume that the only reason people in general
| would do morally wrong things is because they need to to
| feed their family?
|
| I don't think anyone has ever made that claim, but people
| do tend to do what's easy/convenient and it's a lot
| easier and more convenient to put in 8 hours in a safe
| climate-controlled office where you get medical benefits
| and a salary you can depend on than it is to go out every
| night mugging people or trying to pick pockets, then
| trying to figure out how to sell your stolen goods, all
| without getting killed, robbed yourself, or caught by
| police.
|
| Most people need to make money somehow and nobody is
| picking the most dangerous, risky, effort intensive means
| to make that money when they have other options readily
| available.
|
| The harder it is for someone to make money doing anything
| other than commit crimes the more likely they will be to
| commit crime and for some people (those with few
| resources, and addictions and/or past criminal records
| for example) it can be very very hard to get and maintain
| legitimate employment.
| phi0 wrote:
| Few people would choose a life of crime as a hobby, or if
| it wasn't paying much better than an average entry-level
| office job, so it's not like someone decides to resort to
| crime and then later considers the financial aspects.
| Most get into it because of the quick money.
|
| To use a hyperbolic example, if the median profit for
| stealing a phone would suddenly drop to $10, where their
| only value are the easily extractable raw materials, a
| 20-fold increase in theft would be less likely then a
| rapid drop in theft.
|
| Currently there are avenues to remove iCloud lock, where
| licensed repair shops or Apple employees remove them for
| some extra cash [1], so the value of stolen iPhones is
| greater than the raw materials, making it attractive. But
| with higher regulation, that could change.
|
| [1]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmygb/checkm8-info-
| remove-i...
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _If this helped protect against theft, then why did they
| steal the phone anyway?_
|
| They are plenty of stories on Reddit and TikTok where the
| stolen phone ends up in China, and then the owner is
| phished into disabling iCloud so that the phone could be
| wiped. If not the sold is phone for parts. To me the very
| fact that you need an entire phishing ring to make stealing
| iPhones profitable means that there is _some_ cost that
| deters thieves from targeting iPhones.
|
| Barring phishing, the next best thing is to scrap it for
| parts. I can see Apple's reasoning here - if most of your
| growth is going to come from poorer nations it makes sense
| you don't your customer base worry about carrying a year's
| salary in their pocket.
|
| I'm also unconvinced it's a "money grab" on Apple's part.
| Locking down repairs will not come anywhere close to
| replacing the lost revenue from the consumer's slowing
| upgrade cycle.
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/10zg2o7/how_a_t
| ypica...
|
| [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/yoataa/ever_si
| nce_m...
|
| [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/rwlznf/warning
| _stol...
|
| [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/rwlznf/warning
| _stol...
| circuit10 wrote:
| You can tell the theft thing is an excuse from Apple
| because they don't do things like allowing you to unlock
| parts you own, or even buy genuine new parts that
| definitely stolen without silly restrictions like needing
| to put in a serial number first and then contact Apple to
| pair it (this is probably done to make it almost useless
| for repair shops because they want to push their even
| more restrictive "independent" repair program)
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _tell the theft thing is an excuse from Apple because
| they don 't do things like allowing you to unlock parts
| you own_
|
| This would only make sense if Apple had an _existing
| system_ for customers to unlock their own parts and then
| disabled it. The system you are talking about doesn 't
| exist, and the idea that they built X but didn't include
| X+1 because of "greed reasons" isn't entirely credibly.
|
| While you could argue that _maybe_ someone brought the
| idea up and it was shot down by some devilish exec, it 's
| equally likely to me that
|
| (1) no one at apple thought of the idea
|
| (2) since the product would be customer facing it is some
| apple design hell along with the iPad calculator
|
| (3) no one cared enough to spend the political points to
| push for the product
|
| (4) the problem just isn't prevalent enough to justify
| the cost.
|
| There are plenty of reasons why Apple could be building
| this to reduce theft while also not building some other
| auxiliary system.
| circuit10 wrote:
| Something Louis Rossmann who advocates for right to
| repair, says (I'm paraphrasing of course) is that it's
| not necessarily that they explicitly go out of their way
| to say "let's make repair harder", but when there are no
| incentives to improve the situation it won't be worked on
| at all and that has the same effect, so it's still
| important to push them to do it
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| How do the thieves get the contact details of the person
| whose phone they stole to fish them? And why did they
| steal the iPhone I mentioned without having the contact
| details of the person?
| codetrotter wrote:
| > How do the thieves get the contact details of the
| person whose phone they stole to fish them?
|
| If the phone is set to display notifications when locked,
| you can see the usernames of friends of theirs in
| notifications on the screen.
|
| I found a locked iPhone on the ferry one time and saw
| Snapchat notifications from their friends on the
| lockscreen. I sent a message request to one of the users
| on the notifications, and told them that I found the
| phone on the boat and that the owner of the phone should
| contact the ferry company to retrieve the phone as I
| would hand it over to the crew of the ferry.
|
| Similarly, if your goal was to be a thief instead of
| being helpful you might keep an eye on the Instagram
| notifications of the phone, and then cross-reference
| friends of those people to figure out who owns the phone.
| nemothekid wrote:
| 1. The Emergency card (the first user was contacted when
| the user's father's iphone was stolen).
|
| 2. You can read the phone number off the sim card
|
| 3. Many people upon losing their phone will set their
| phone to lost mode and include a number.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| > 1. The Emergency card (the first user was contacted
| when the user's father's iphone was stolen).
|
| Yet the father was the one being fished.
|
| > 2. You can read the phone number off the sim card
|
| How?
|
| > 3. Many people upon losing their phone will set their
| phone to lost mode and include a number.
|
| Losing it is not the same as having it stolen, though.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > Losing it is not the same as having it stolen, though.
|
| Your phone could disappear and you would assume it fell
| out of your pocket or that you left it somewhere, when in
| fact someone could have stolen it from you while you were
| not paying attention.
|
| And besides, most people probably don't expect that a
| thief would respond and trick them into unlocking the
| phone for them. Instead the expectation might be that a
| thief would not respond, and that if someone responded
| they are a good samaritan trying to help you.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _Yet the father was the one being fished._
|
| Not sure I understand. The father's phone was stolen, and
| the _son_ was contacted, and the _son_ logged into the
| account.
|
| > _How?_
|
| Anyone can pop out the sim card and plug it into any
| dumbphone, navigate to settings and read the phone
| number. I assume there's probably a USB device to dump
| data on a sim card.
|
| > _Losing it is not the same as having it stolen,
| though._
|
| Your phone is lost until you attain the information that
| it was stolen. I fail to find it now, but there was a
| tiktok of a woman who lost their iphone at festival and
| it turned up in china where she also was unsuccessfully
| phished.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| In the last link, the user explains in the comments that
| when they marked the device as stolen, they could choose
| some text to display on the screen and they chose to
| include a phone number that they had access to.
|
| Plenty of people hope for a good samaritan interaction
| and will do something like that.
|
| also idk if they ever changed it, but a long time ago I
| found a phone that was locked and no identifying
| information shown. I asked siri to call 'my' mother and
| she arranged a pickup.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| If thieves have to rely on people seeing thieves as good
| Samaritans and trusting thieves with their contact
| details after they were robbed by them, we definitely
| have entered a realm of absurdity. But while this
| hypothetical realm is devoid of all reason and logic,
| theft still remains.
| shagie wrote:
| https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/05/re-victimization-
| from-po...
|
| Granted, that's dealing with stolen iPhones getting sold
| and an entirely set of other problems. You'll note that
| 26.8% of them were either unlocked, easily guessable, or
| in one instance had the credentials there (compare
| shoulder surfing before stealing the phone).
|
| > Of phones they won at auction (at an average of $18 per
| phone), the researchers found 49 had no PIN or passcode;
| they were able to guess an additional 11 of the PINs by
| using the top-40 most popular PIN or swipe patterns.
| zaroth wrote:
| Of course thieves are discerning. They are running a
| profitable criminal enterprise. They are in it for big
| money and are extremely sophisticated and not going to risk
| stealing worthless junk.
|
| An example of one theft is not evidence that the policy
| doesn't reduce theft, or that the purpose of the policy
| isn't to reduce theft.
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| > Of course thieves are discerning. They are running a
| profitable criminal enterprise.
|
| I can promise you the person who stole this iPhone
| doesn't run a profitable criminal enterprise. But I am
| also not disputing that someone along the theft value
| chain, someone will likely be discerning. However, your
| claim seems to conflate a criminal enterprise and the
| theft value chain with an individual thief.
|
| Also, I find the notion that it is very risky to steal
| something in London hard to believe, but if you have some
| data to back that up I would be happy to change my mind.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _(If anyone at Apple is reading this: ffs, allow the
| legitimate owner of a device to "unpair" all components in
| their phone in iCloud so that legitimate second-hand shops can
| strip a broken device at least for its parts)_
|
| If you've lived in certain places, you'd know this isn't a
| solution at all.
|
| Thieves will start holding people at gunpoint forcing you to
| unpair it all while they wait.
| mmastrac wrote:
| Are thieves currently forcing people at gunpoint to iCloud-
| unpair/unlock their devices right now?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Oh absolutely. Happened to a friend of mine, and there's
| another commenter here who had it happen to them.
|
| Crime is real. Obviously its frequency is going to depend
| on where you live/travel.
| circuit10 wrote:
| So if they can already do that, they'll just sell the
| whole unlocked phone and not worry about parts? Unless
| it's broken to the point of being unsellable, I guess
| crazygringo wrote:
| That's a good point. You're right -- since you can
| already force someone to unpair, being able to unlock the
| individual parts isn't going to make a difference.
| Thanks.
| r0m4n0 wrote:
| Well I think you hit the nail on the head. They aren't working
| on the most important aspect of the puzzle (your last point),
| not because they aren't reading HN comments, but because that
| would have a very negative effect on their bottom line.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| What is the relative rates of occurrence of phone theft vs.
| phones breaking in a way that requires repair? I'm going to go
| out on a limb and say that far far far more people have a phone
| that needs to be repaired than have a phone that gets stolen.
|
| So making repair worse to make theft "better" seems like a bad
| tradeoff to me. And that's even presuming that this stated goal
| actually works. I would expect that a very non-trivial amount
| of phone theft happens without knowing the model. Assuming
| that's the case, having 1 manufacturer make selling parts non-
| viable doesn't really help that much.
|
| So A) even if it was 100% effective that seems like a bad
| tradeoff to me and B) I'm skeptical of how much difference this
| actually makes in theft rates.
|
| I know that I personally, if choosing between a phone that I
| knew for a fact would 100% never be stolen, but also couldn't
| be repaired, vs. a phone that could easily be repaired but was
| subject to theft, I would choose the repairable phone every
| time. It's an anecdote, but I've never had a phone stolen and
| literally every single phone I've ever had has needed repair at
| one point or another.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _I 'm going to go out on a limb and say that far far far
| more people have a phone that needs to be repaired than have
| a phone that gets stolen._
|
| I'd say the polar opposite, as long as you're excluding
| screen and battery replacement which aren't what's being
| talked about here.
|
| I don't know anybody who's ever had a non-screen/battery
| component replaced. On the other hand, I know _tons_ of times
| someone 's phone has been stolen.
| flaburgan wrote:
| >as long as you're excluding screen and battery replacement
| which aren't what's being talked about here.
|
| You did not read the iFixit post then, it _is_ what is
| being talked about here. The post has nice screenshots of
| the phone complaining that the battery is not "a genuine
| Apple battery".
| weaksauce wrote:
| > What is the relative rates of occurrence of phone theft vs.
| phones breaking in a way that requires repair?
|
| i would think having a permanently useless phone would stop
| the first rate from ever increasing much. you are walking
| around with a grand in your pocket everywhere you go so to
| lower the risk of violent robbery is good.
| hbn wrote:
| > I'm going to go out on a limb and say that far far far more
| people have a phone that needs to be repaired than have a
| phone that gets stolen.
|
| Perhaps because it's known to many thieves that iPhones are a
| useless thing to steal due to Apple's tight account-tied
| software locks?
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Go back five years and I'd guess this is still true. I do
| not think Apple's policy has changed this.
| hbn wrote:
| I'd bet it's even more true now.
| TylerE wrote:
| Personal anecdote: times I've had a phone need a repair
| besides a screen: zero
|
| Times I've been mugged and had my phone taken: one
| circuit10 wrote:
| Why do screens not count?
| acover wrote:
| Being robbed at gunpoint is much worse than having to buy a
| new phone.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| People were robbed at gunpoint before cell phones and will
| continue to be robbed at gunpoint even if every single
| manufacturer adopts this policy. This is not some magic
| bullet that stops crime. There is another commenter in this
| very thread describing being mugged at gunpoint and his
| mugger forcing him to go through the Apple unpairing
| process in order to make the phone completely flippable as
| a whole device.
|
| Not to mention that it is not infinitely worse. There is
| some relative amount of needing repair to being robbed at
| which it becomes a bad tradeoff. Where that point is is
| probably different for different people. But that line
| exists somewhere for everyone.
| brundolf wrote:
| What if they locked the parts individually, but not until an
| iCloud lock happened?
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Doesn't this "logic" apply to literally every product ever?
| That's not a world I want to live in.
| [deleted]
| Macha wrote:
| I have to think that if replacement parts were more widely
| available, it would reduce the market for parted out stolen
| phones.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Car parts are available. Cars still get jacked and chopped
| up.
| exabrial wrote:
| I'm sorry, but I think this is Bullshit. Litreally _exactly_
| how many people were robbed and please point us to a source?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| In 2022, there was a phone theft every six minutes in London
| [1], for example.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-65105199
| tantalor wrote:
| Speculation.
|
| If that were true, Apple would only require the replacement
| part to be verified, but they also require the device receiving
| the part to be verified. That's the "pair" in "pairing".
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Not speculation at all. I can tell you for certain this is
| what they're trying to combat.
|
| The "require the device receiving the part to be verified" is
| just a consequence of how it's currently implemented. There
| are ways to implement this without the need to do per-device
| pairing, but doing so in a secure way is quite difficult. I
| suspect they'll eventually remove the requirement to pair
| devices using system configurator, if only because this
| removes the need to have chat assistance with pairing. That's
| costing them money to have a call center, and they want to
| avoid it I suspect.
| drtz wrote:
| > I can tell you for certain this is what they're trying to
| combat.
|
| > There are ways to implement this without the need to do
| per-device pairing, but doing so in a secure way is quite
| difficult.
|
| Is this based on first-hand knowledge? I'm skeptical on
| both fronts because I neither see any evidence this is
| what's being combatted, nor do I see the technical
| difficulty of being able to self-authorize your phone's
| parts to be used in repairs.
|
| Sure it takes some engineering effort to get there, but I
| wouldn't expect it to be particularly challenging from a
| technical point of view. The phone is already linked to a
| user account, and the phone's parts are apparently already
| linked to the phone that's currently using them.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| So, the technical challenge is related to managing the
| following things (all simultaneously):
|
| * Apple wants to make sure components in an authentic
| phone are not capable of being stolen and resold (this is
| a problem today, even with the pairing, although it is
| less valuable due to pairing)
|
| * Apple wants to make sure that if you change components,
| that the replacement component is authentic
|
| * Apple wants to make sure that if you change components,
| that the replacement component is not stolen
|
| I can't comment on specific implementations, but allowing
| users to just re-pair devices in the current state would
| not allow the above 3 goals to be met. By restricting who
| has access to the pairing tools, they can achieve those 3
| with the downside being obviously it leads to a crappy
| user experience for repair.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If you send a permanent unlock code for parts being re-
| used in a repair, then that fully accomplishes 2 and 3
| and almost entirely accomplishes 1. With no need to know
| anything about the host device.
|
| And brand new parts could lock themselves to the first
| device they're put into.
|
| It wouldn't be ideal for repair but it would be much
| better.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| My point is that Apple currently does not appear to have
| tight control over the serial numbering or whatever on
| the external components (display, etc) in a truly secure
| way. If you let anyone re-pair devices, then that opens
| the floodgates to 3rd party vendors being able to make
| devices that appear as 'authentic' components, which does
| not accomplish #2.
|
| As it stands today, you can already use any random
| components, you'll just get a pop-up telling you it can't
| be authenticated.
| hedora wrote:
| It seems pretty easy to implement the "unpair" functionality
| you ask for.
|
| If "Find My iPhone" (the anti-theft subsystem) is disabled,
| then the serial numbers for all the parts could be sent to an
| Apple database, and/or the components could have a "ready to be
| re-used" bit set that caused them to factory reset themselves
| if the phone they're plugged into changes (so any state on the
| re-used thing wouldn't somehow leak into the other phone).
|
| I'm not sure how to define "phone they're plugged into" though.
| Whatever board has the NAND + security coprocessor on it,
| maybe?
| pulisse wrote:
| > It seems pretty easy to implement the "unpair"
| functionality you ask for.
|
| Implementing any functionality over two billion devices is
| non-trivial, especially when it requires aspects of
| transactional behavior (as this would).
| mrweasel wrote:
| That does sound like a pretty good solution, if it can be
| done for a broken phone. The major issue I see is that
| refurbish companies are already complaining about "bricked"
| MacBooks, because nobody actually cared enough to ensure that
| those laptops where reset before being sold. I don't see the
| same industry being capable of guiding users through
| resetting permissions for spare parts.
|
| A better solutions is to take the direction FairPhone has
| chosen and make the things that break user-serviceable and
| offer the parts for sale on Apples own website. If the issue
| is that phones are being stolen and sold for parts, just
| flood the market with cheap parts. The new iPhones are
| absolutely massive, so I'm not buying that you can't make
| them a bit thicker and allow a user to take them apart. How
| many people use their phone without a cover anyway?
|
| If Apple is serious about being more environmentally
| friendly, then make a user serviceable phone. Not replacing
| your phone because fixing it is either impossible or
| impossibly expensive is going to have a much bigger impact
| than buying carbon credits for people who charge their watch.
| My best guess is that Apple is so obsessed with just-in-time
| production and so hostile to the idea of stocking parts, that
| they can even see the potential benefits.
| hedora wrote:
| According to iFixit, they've solved the "this is physically
| hard to repair" problem. Also, Apple aggressively recycles
| components, and is making bold claims about carbon
| neutrality of manufacturing this release cycle. On top of
| that, the cost of repairs is dramatically lower for the new
| models (again, according to the iFixit article).
|
| So, I think those issues are mostly fixed, or at least
| best-in-class.
|
| The problem of "I bought your laptop, but you didn't
| disable anti-theft" is questionable. Here's how to sell a
| macbook so that it can be used by the purchaser and so that
| your data is wiped:
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212749
|
| It takes 4 clicks (and probably a password entry), and it's
| easy for the purchaser to confirm it was done before
| forking over cash (assuming they turn on the machine to
| confirm it can POST). If the seller forgets to do this,
| they can initiate the wipe + unlock remotely via iCloud.
|
| Apple parts are pretty cheap already, so that's not the
| issue either.
|
| As far as I can tell, all the complaints boil down to
| people wanting to fix phones without Apple's authorization.
| Its a valid complaint, but it only really impacts
| independent repair shops at this point.
|
| I'd also like to see better support for third-party
| replacement parts (like with PC's), but I don't think there
| is any realistic market demand for that, and it is not what
| people are asking for.
| eddythompson80 wrote:
| This was an interesting listen on the iPhone theft industry
| https://youtu.be/3Ws3YptLmLQ?si=KuVt1DBvxiBXa3Vl
| toxik wrote:
| While anti-consumerist practices such as this authentication
| mechanism sometimes accidentally protect the consumer, it is
| not the reason why companies do it. If it were, they would also
| allow you to say "yes this replacement is desired." Similarly,
| if it was about security and preventing backdoored parts, they
| could allow you to authorize the replacement.
|
| But no, it is of course about money grabbing, and then the
| consumer is the opponent.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| [flagged]
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| The solution for a phone is put a vin on the display and
| other valuable parts and upload those to the
| carrier/manufacturer.
|
| Imagine how happy someone would be if they had their display
| replaced with a stolen one and next thing they know their
| phone is both bricked and of no value even for parts.
| peyton wrote:
| Can't Apple grab money by raising prices? Why do they need to
| do this?
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Yes. I could see a better system being made. Perhaps alerting
| you that the screen was marked as stolen and refusing to have
| it operate. Hell, for screens in particular you could display
| a "please return to <original owner>" message and nothing
| else.
| circuit10 wrote:
| I think this is being downvoted as it initially reads as a
| snarky way to say "the way it works now is fine", but
| reading closer I think they are saying it should only
| happen when the screen is marked as stolen which seems
| reasonable
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| This. The proof is in the actions.
|
| No need to try to defend them based on unsupportable benefit
| of the doubt possibilities. If their motivations were
| actually for the users benefit, then the user would have
| these options and be benefitting.
| misnome wrote:
| > If it were, they would also allow you to say "yes this
| replacement is desired."
|
| How does that not completely bypass any of the reasons for
| wanting to do this?
|
| And it is "anti-consumerist" to make my property a less
| desirable target for theft?
| picture wrote:
| > How does that not completely bypass any of the reasons
| for wanting to do this?
|
| Do it from your iCloud account. Presumably thieves will not
| hold you at gun point to log in to iCloud and allow pairing
| of your phone's components to a ready recipient iPhone
| w0m wrote:
| This. If Apple was honest, they'd have an 'unlock from
| account' security, not an 'accept new to account'
| pairing.
| dylan604 wrote:
| but you'd have to make it to not be something to be done
| from an iDevice. it would have to be through the website.
| otherwise, how do you know it's not a still a malicious
| approval?
| Clamchop wrote:
| Truly, they could put up any roadblock---a time delay,
| requiring a phone call, MFA up one side and down the
| other---and it would be a much better look for them.
|
| I don't buy the anti-theft angle that can only be solved
| by buying a brand-new genuine part direct from Apple.
| circuit10 wrote:
| > And it is "anti-consumerist" to make my property a less
| desirable target for theft?
|
| That's not the main purpose, it's an excuse. You can tell
| because they don't take relatively simple steps to make
| things easier for non-stolen parts replacement like the one
| being suggested
| falsenapkin wrote:
| Such an ignore button would allow theft to continue and would
| allow users to make poor security decisions. I agree that
| something needs to happen to enable easier or maybe more
| privacy focused 3rd party repairs but I also appreciate my
| device being less of a target.
| tumult wrote:
| What? How is someone who snatched your phone out of your
| hand and ran away going to know your password and
| authentication information needed to authorize a parts
| replacement?
| BoorishBears wrote:
| You should search what happens when these phones are
| stolen with Apple's lock on them.
|
| It's almost always the same play book:
|
| - moves to some US address nearby
|
| - turns off for days
|
| - shows up in Shenzhen or Guangzhou
|
| Usually from there are a few attempts to phish the owner
| with fake iCloud alerts (and sometimes outright threats)
| before they strip it for parts.
|
| To be clear it's not like the phone theft _itself_ is
| part of some concerted effort by Chinese actors: there
| are only so many places where the tools and skills to
| strip down, repackage, and resell something as specific
| as an iPhone speaker unit are so common
| thinkling wrote:
| They're going to snatch your phone, break it up into
| parts, and install those into _other_ people 's phones,
| and those people will happily approve the new part.
| jiminymcmoogley wrote:
| approve them on your behalf? theyd still be paired to
| your device
| falsenapkin wrote:
| My comment is in response to your "yes this replacement
| is desired." button in a world where parts can be
| harvested from a phone and used in a different one. My
| understanding of what you mean is if phone A were stolen
| and parts removed from it and installed in phone B then
| phone B would get the "yes this replacement is desired."
| button instead of whatever is in place now. My feeling is
| this button would be no different from just not having a
| button at all. The user of phone B will almost never care
| what that prompt says and will just click through,
| they're certainly not going to consider the parts were
| stolen from phone A.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Change "replacement" to "removal" and it should work as
| intended. I haven't authorized my stolen phone's parts to
| be removed so they can't be installed in any other phone.
| bonzini wrote:
| But if the phone doesn't turn on you can't authorize the
| removal. And if it turns on but a factory reset is enough
| to let you authorize the removal, you're back to square
| 1. Either way it's not feasible.
| circuit10 wrote:
| It's a better solution than always rejecting it, at least
| sciolistse wrote:
| the phone is likely linked to an apple account. seems
| reasonable that if the components are approved for a
| specific phone and that phone is linked to an icloud
| account, that account could permit a swap?
| sbuk wrote:
| What is your stance on government backdoors in
| encryption?
| sneeze-slayer wrote:
| I think the point is that an unsuspecting buyer of, e.g.
| a screen replacement, could end up going to a shady
| repair shop that uses stolen parts, sees the message
| once, clicks "OK", and moves on. The reasoning being that
| this scenario would cause some demand for black market
| parts.
|
| The suggestion from OP whereby the seller of a used phone
| logs in and "unpairs" the parts could avoid this, unless
| a robber forces you to do it under duress.
| amluto wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding. The user who previously
| owned the part would need to unpair it.
| red_trumpet wrote:
| > unless a robber forces you to do it under duress.
|
| Isn't that possible with the full iPhone atm?
| i_love_cookies wrote:
| Yes, it's actually made phone theft even worse as a
| victim. instead of running with the device muggers are
| demanding pin's and passcodes at gun/knife point
|
| it's resulted in a few deaths in chicago at least
| fortran77 wrote:
| See this story: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-
| news/patrons-nyc-gay-bar...
| jrockway wrote:
| This thread transformed from "multiple dead people in
| Chicago" to "5 people in NYC's banks are out $5000".
|
| Overall I think it's pretty safe to pull out your
| smartphone in public these days, which was not the case
| years ago.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Hence why you should not use bank/brokerage websites or
| apps on phone other than maybe a checking account with a
| small amount of money in it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| for paypal, i only ever use a login through the website
| on the rare occasions i have to use it. for other apps
| like cashapp/venmo, do they even have a non-app method of
| using them?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| For those, I would only connect them to a bank account
| with a relatively small amount of money in it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| you just described every single account i have =(
| fortran77 wrote:
| Yes! On my travel checklist I have "REMOVE BROKERAGE APPS
| FROM PHONE"
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Unless you are a day trader, I do not see a reason to
| ever have them on your phone.
| fortran77 wrote:
| You're probably right. I rebalance my account 4
| times/year. I'm thinking it may be best to have one
| "secure PC" that I do my balancing on, and even remove
| the passwords from my password manager.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Got a source on this? Quick google search for "Chicago
| death iPhone mugging" did not turn up anything about
| robbers specifically asking for PIN codes, or killing
| someone for not providing it.
| UseStrict wrote:
| Apple could just unpair parts when the phone itself is
| reset/deactivated. And new genuine Apple parts could at
| least have a one-time automatic pairing when signing in
| with your Apple ID.
|
| Stolen phone? The phone is still activated, part can't
| pair with new phone. Not perfect, but at least somewhat
| less anti-consumer.
| londons_explore wrote:
| But if that were the case, there would be plenty of
| people willing to sell you a refurbished screen for your
| 2 year old iphone for $100.
|
| By restricting the reuse of parts, when you crack the
| screen of your old phone, you are faced with a $500
| repair bill, and decide to just pay your phone company
| $50/month for a new contract that comes with a new phone.
| [deleted]
| amartya916 wrote:
| I would be surprised if Apple does what you suggested, but I do
| think it's an excellent suggestion, thank you. It just won't be
| a priority unless some sort of legislation forces their hand.
| gandalfian wrote:
| Or they could just sell official replacement screens for $50.
| The price of an entire budget smartphone. Thefts of iPhones
| would plummet. The phones would be worth more to consumers. A
| small drop in sales perhaps due to more repairs.
| apexalpha wrote:
| >That cut down on a lot of the robbery bullshit, but then
| criminals simply found new buyer classes - they'd simply part
| stolen devices out and resell everything but the
| iCloud/Knox/whatever locked mainboard. Displays, cameras,
| speakers, batteries, flex cables, cases, everything.
|
| This would be way less valueble to do if the companies just
| sold the parts are reasonable prices.
|
| The extreme ways fixers have to go to to source parts for
| legitimate repairs concerns is insane.
|
| The entire reason there even is a whole ecosystem of people
| picking apart phones in Shenzen is because it's so darn
| difficult to source it any other way!
| Eduard wrote:
| > When people are afraid to use your products because it paints
| a phone-sized target on them, they won't buy your product.
|
| "iPhone's have become too mainstream to steal, I rather get a
| crappy phone nobody wants" - nobody said.
| jchw wrote:
| I do not accept this as a reasonable answer. I've lived in not
| even very good areas, with very lax physical security (often
| not locking my car) and have _never_ had this issue, ever.
| Nobody has _ever_ stolen my phone. Not in downtown Detroit, not
| in not-downtown-Detroit, not in SF, not in Chicago. If crime
| really is this bad, it 's not an Apple or Samsung problem. It's
| a societal problem that extremely badly needs to be addressed
| seriously and not just worked around with convenient anti-
| consumer garbage.
|
| Sell me the phone that can be stolen please.
| cstejerean wrote:
| In other parts of the world where the cost of a new iPhone is
| much more expensive relative to local earning power it does
| happen. I've had coworkers who had their phones stolen in
| Spain and Brazil for example.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Pickpocketing in the Us is highly uncommon compared to say,
| Paris.
| nanidin wrote:
| I had my phone grabbed out of my hand at a concert in the
| US. But yeah pick pocketing is much more common in Europe,
| had people try it twice there. Once in Milan and once in
| Barcelona.
|
| The big target here now is music festivals where teams will
| rove looking for vulnerable/inattentive people and get into
| their pockets or bags and bolt.
| shagie wrote:
| Thursday, August 17, 2023 - Undercover officers arrest
| group accused of stealing cellphones at Lollapalooza,
| Chicago police say https://abc7chicago.com/lollapalooza-
| stolen-cell-phones-2023...
|
| There are phone theft groups at every festival of
| sufficient size.
|
| A year prior https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/4-charged-
| with-stealing-ph...
|
| > Four people from out of state face charges for allegedly
| stealing phones during Lollapalooza in Chicago over the
| weekend.
|
| > ...
|
| > When police asked Bardales about the phones, he allegedly
| told them he bought them at the music festival for $50 each
| and planned to sell them for parts, CWB Chicago reports,
| citing prosecutors.
|
| https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/stolen-cell-phones-from-
| acl...
|
| > AUSTIN, Texas -- Austin Police are investigating an
| international crime ring that targeted Austin City Limits
| Music Festival. Authorities believe a half-dozen people
| worked together to steal approximately 1,000 cell phones
| from festival attendees. Police say five people have been
| arrested but more suspects are involved.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > It's a societal problem that extremely badly needs to be
| addressed seriously and not just worked around with
| convenient anti-consumer garbage.
|
| The societal problem is that people got used to paying over a
| grand for a thing that fits in their pocket.
|
| > Nobody has ever stolen my phone.
|
| Put yourself in the position of the thieves. You would want
| an easy target; one that if push came to shove that they
| wouldn't be able to injure or detain you. How big are you,
| physically?
|
| My wife had her iPhone stolen in the north side of Chicago
| maybe 15 years ago - in a good area no less. Some big guy
| followed her to her apartment asking to make a phonecall for
| some made up emergency. She's 5'2" and was like 90 pounds at
| the time. She did the math on how it was likely to go and
| just handed it over, as it was late at night and she was
| alone. Predictably, he ran off. (As an aside, I think it's
| hard for men to understand exactly how vulnerable women feel
| in general - as ne'erdowells see them as easy targets
| compared to even men of similar size)
|
| The same thief may have thought twice if it was me - because
| I'm a man rather closer to 6' and 200lbs. He may win that
| fight and get the phone, but not without me getting some
| licks in - an unattractive proposition, since a broken
| orbital or finger cuts into those profits.
| m463 wrote:
| Your sample size is pretty small. That said, the self-
| selecting population of people whose phones were parted out
| in the bug report have the exact opposite experience.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Counter anecdote: My coworker in SF had his phone stolen by
| someone who grabbed it from his hand and leapt through a
| closing BART door, so that my friend had to watch the thief
| walk off as the train pulled away from the platform.
|
| Most people haven't had their phone stolen. That doesn't mean
| phones aren't stolen.
| circuit10 wrote:
| I'd guess that most people have broken their phone though
| TylerE wrote:
| Replace SF with DC and that's what happened to me circa
| 2013 or so.
| kemayo wrote:
| I had someone grab mine from my hand in a coffee shop and
| sprint out the door last year.
|
| (I got it back via chasing after them and a minor
| physical altercation. This was _definitely_ an unwise
| choice on my part, because the thief was then in the news
| a few days later for murder.)
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| > not in SF
|
| Someone tip toed carefully into my house while I was sleeping
| in it, in the Mission near Valencia St., and cat-burgled* my
| wife's phone off her nightstand, at around 3am. We have some
| pictures of his legs (?) that he took in some bathroom later
| that evening. Finally it winds up pinging its location at a
| Mission phone repair shop, which of course the guy there is
| saying he has no idea what we're talking about and maybe the
| phone is "upstairs."
|
| We didn't report, because last time I reported someone
| breaking into my garage, the two SFPD officers were talking
| about people interested in my "printer." Nothing was stolen,
| because it woke me up and I yelled at them from above.
|
| I don't really know what the economy is around stolen phones.
| It surely exists. I don't know why you would want to die on
| this hill of ignorance. It's a quintessentially social media
| thing to do! You have no dog in this race.
|
| *Our cat helpfully ran out the door for fun.
| hedora wrote:
| Phone theft was pretty common in the US 10 years ago. This
| article (based on a population of 20 million people) says
| about 1 million phones were stolen in 2013:
|
| https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/fcc-smartphone-theft-
| re...
|
| It's much less common now, since all the major brands brick
| themselves when stolen (though it's starting to be common to
| either shoulder surf the pin, or to grab an unlocked phone
| out of people's hands, then rapidly reset 2FA and email
| passwords).
|
| I agree with the GP comment that it should be possible to
| make phones theft-proof and also repairable though.
| webworker wrote:
| There have been recent stories about how thieves were looking
| at people entering their passcodes into their phones,
| snatching the phone when it was unlocked and using the pin to
| disable iCloud/Find My.
| danaris wrote:
| ...You can't use the device PIN to disable iCloud. You have
| to put in the iCloud password. And you really do have to
| put it in; even if the iPhone is unlocked, security
| features like that _always_ require the password.
| MilaM wrote:
| This is exactly how it works. If a thief knows the
| passcode (be it numerical or more complex), he can change
| your iCloud Account password without knowing the current
| password and disable Find My without.
|
| Apple acknowledges this and seem to be ok with it [1].
|
| [https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/19/apple-responds-to-
| iphon...]
| kccqzy wrote:
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-iphone-security-theft-
| pas...
| jbombadil wrote:
| I think they were doing something like going to settings
| -> Apple ID try to change the password incorrectly many
| times (or something like that). That would basically lock
| you out of your own iCloud account (at least for a while)
| so you couldn't lock or track it via find my.
|
| I recommend using the "Screen Time" feature on iPhones to
| protect against this. You can basically set a _different_
| 4 digit pin to access some of the settings of the iPhone,
| including the Apple ID one. (The setting becomes grayed
| out and inaccessible until you disable screen time).
| sneeze-slayer wrote:
| It's a big world. Haven't you seen videos of phones getting
| stolen out of peoples hands from thieves on scooters in
| places like Brazil? Or the millions of tourists in Spain and
| Italy whose cell phones would become major targets.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| "No one has stolen my phone so I don't believe that actions
| to stop phone theft is necessary"
|
| I've heard plenty of stories of people getting their phones
| stolen in public. Especially when I was in school, we'd hear
| of plots like kids coming up to students and asking to call
| their parents because they're scared and alone only to run
| over to a car waiting around the corner and drive away.
|
| You can argue it's unnecessary, but it certainly chilled the
| market for stolen phones. They're pretty obvious targets and
| they're very personal. Not worrying about it as much is a big
| win, but some people have other priorities and that's ok too.
| jchw wrote:
| I didn't make that argument at all, so it's pretty annoying
| that you've cornered me into arguing it. I really don't
| respect when people do this.
|
| I never, ever argued against "actions to stop it". I argued
| against _this_ action. I never argued that my anecdata that
| my phone has never been stolen means that all action
| against theft are unnecessary, but I believe it is good
| cause for _me_ to want a phone that doesn 't have excuse-
| driven anti-consumer anti-repair garbage built into it to
| "prevent theft" that has never been my problem.
|
| I am, however, arguing that this is not how we should be
| dealing with problems like this. It, in fact, should be
| illegal.
| MenhirMike wrote:
| I have never been murdered, and none of my friends have
| been either, so I don't believe that actions to stop murder
| are necessary.
|
| (We _do_ need laws to allow customers that can prove their
| purchase to unlock their parts though.)
| ArtemZ wrote:
| Let's lock you up in your house, it will ensure that you
| are safe
| Spivak wrote:
| That's not what this is and you know it. The equivalent
| would imagining a fictional world where we could say just
| raise the dead or Borderland's style instantly print you
| a new body at the phone-booth down the street. In that
| world there's no point to murdering you, they get no
| benefit it's only an inconvenience to the person being
| murdered.
|
| In that world you need very little actual protection
| against murder because there's no incentive to do it.
| That's the current state of iPhones, you don't need to
| lock them up, use those chest pickpocket proof bags, or
| strap them to your wrist because no one wants to steal
| them.
| jimkoen wrote:
| The rationale of putting engineering time into developing
| sophisticated anti-repair schemes instead of selling spare
| parts directly under some threat of a part black market is
| completely bonkers to me.
|
| Sorry, I'm not buying it, this is Apple protecting their
| exclusive repair turf and nothing else.
| peyton wrote:
| The execs are actually focused on a giant, sophisticated
| fraud ring in China doing several bn $. The repairs lose
| money.
| pierat wrote:
| How much were you paid to shill Apple for this top post?
|
| If this were a real issue, then I as the device owner should be
| able to toggle this on and off as needed. But that hits deeper,
| since this is a device that's being sold as "purchase" when I
| don't have real control - Apple does.
|
| At best, this is a rental being mis-advertised as a purchase.
| jameshart wrote:
| Just put a big sticker on the back of your phone case that
| says 'no parts left in phone overnight'
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > How much were you paid to shill Apple for this top post?
|
| Unfortunately, I don't get paid by anyone except my employer
| lol. 16k HN and 160k Reddit karma points in about a decade
| isn't exactly influencer-worthy.
|
| > If this were a real issue, then I as the device owner
| should be able to toggle this on and off as needed.
|
| Phone theft _is_ a real issue, even in places not suffering
| from open street markets with people fencing stolen shit,
| like London [1].
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-65105199
| tzs wrote:
| > iCloud locks or Samsung's KNOX lock entered the field because
| the manufacturers were pretty pissed that customers using their
| devices in public became a target for "enterprising" robbers
| who'd factory-wipe the devices and flip them to a pawn shop or
| second-hand store in a matter of half an hour.
|
| It wasn't just the manufacturers who were pretty pissed at
| that. Minnesota passed a law requiring smartphones to have a
| kill switch that would allow the owner to remotely render the
| phone inoperable [1]. Then California did, with the California
| law also making kill switch support be turned on by default.
| Those laws have been in effect since mid 2015 and were quickly
| followed by a huge drop in smartphone thefts.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone_kill_switch
| ejstronge wrote:
| > (If anyone at Apple is reading this: ffs, allow the
| legitimate owner of a device to "unpair" all components in
| their phone in iCloud so that legitimate second-hand shops can
| strip a broken device at least for its parts)
|
| I was robbed at gunpoint (but not in a 'problematic' part of
| town) and the thief outlined all the steps he needed me to take
| to remove my phone from Find My and from iCloud. I think a lot
| of these mitigation measures could make sense but there's no
| perfect solution.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Apple should have a duress system. You have say 48 hours to
| contact Apple and tell them the change was made under duress
| --and you do so with the *old* credentials, not the new ones.
| All changes to your account revert and the phone locks itself
| to your account once it sees the network.
| withinboredom wrote:
| People would instantly use this for insurance fraud.
| danaris wrote:
| There's a significant difference in risk in robbing someone
| at gunpoint vs just slipping their phone out of their pocket.
| It's awful that that happened to you, but it's important to
| realize that just because a specific security measure could
| not prevent what happened to you, that doesn't mean it's
| wholly ineffectual or not worth having.
| shortcake27 wrote:
| I'm sorry that happened to you.
|
| IMHO this is a huge problem. A thief just wants to steal your
| phone. To ensure the value of the device, it's now common to
| force you to provide your passcode. This gives access to all
| your data, can be used to reset your Apple ID password, lock
| you out of your account, and erase and lock all your other
| devices. This problem never existed before, and it's
| significantly worse! Like, way way way worse. It's so bad I
| wonder if I should really be signed into my Apple ID on my
| phone at all. Because I don't give the slightest care of
| someone stealing my phone. But I do care if they have access
| to all my data, erase and lock me out of all my other
| devices. I really care about that. And this problem only
| exists because Apple locks down the device and all parts.
| lazycouchpotato wrote:
| They don't need to force anyone to do anything. They can
| just shoulder surf you entering your PIN.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYODQB_2wQ
| Bud wrote:
| [dead]
| jwells89 wrote:
| > And this problem only exists because Apple locks down the
| device and all parts.
|
| It would likely be a problem even without the lockdowns and
| official parts flowing freely, because even if Apple is
| selling the parts with zero margin, black market and gray
| market parts supplied from stolen devices are still going
| to be cheaper, which means there will still be a demand for
| them from unscrupulous repair shops that use cheap parts of
| questionable origin to gain an upper leg on shops playing
| by the rules. There will also always be individuals doing
| DIY repairs who won't care where parts come from so long as
| they're cheap.
| PrimeMcFly wrote:
| It sounds like the solution for your problem is not to use
| an Apple phone. Use an Android rom that gives you
| significantly more power and granularity.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean the perfect solution (from a theft perspective) would
| just be only allowing Apple to remove the phone from your
| iCloud account at a physical location when presented with ID.
| Annoying for people selling their phone, sure. But that plus
| the hardware paring would make it functionally worthless to
| anyone but you.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| You can add a delay.
| Joeri wrote:
| Unpairing a device from icloud should probably require a
| second factor or a mandatory safety wait period. Same for
| every potentially really harmful action.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| The problem, as I see it, with having a method to 'pair' and
| 'unpair' components right now... is that I don't think Apple is
| really doing anything too special to 'pair' devices. My guess
| is they're just using a serial number of the device (display,
| camera, whatever) and making sure that serial matches the what
| is programmed into the mainboard. If you allow any random
| person to change the paired serial number for say, the display,
| then you no longer have any guarantee that the new display is
| actually an authentic device. Maybe someone aftermarket makes a
| bunch of devices with 0xDEADBEEF as the serial number so you
| just always pair that.
|
| If Apple knows that serial number 0x12345678 was sold to you,
| and that it is the component you want to install, then they
| have a guarantee that this part is authentic and should work
| properly.
|
| So, Apple needs a way for you to pair a serial number, but also
| that the serial number you're pairing is authentic. I'm not
| sure they have the second piece today.
| accrual wrote:
| Phone theft is also a big deal at music festivals. Last year an
| entire backpack full of phones was recovered. People who lose
| them either never hear from them again, or see them in Find My
| as a brief blip somewhere hundreds or thousands of miles away.
| Sometimes they're shucked on site and all you find is your
| empty phone case on the ground.
|
| It's already awful to lose your phone, but even more so when
| you're at a multi-day event you paid hundreds to attend.
|
| https://www.wftv.com/news/local/lost-your-cell-edc-backpack-...
| gchamonlive wrote:
| You can try to push that as a marketing strategy, but I would
| say the share of the market that looks for smartphones
| specifically because they are less of a target for theft is
| minuscule, the reason being because nobody shop for phones
| thinking about getting robbed. They shop mainly guided by
| ecosystem (android Vs ios) brand perception (how good their
| aftersales support is), budget and cost-effectiveness. In this
| sense, device lockdown is clearly a anti-consumer practice, not
| pro-consumer.
| spinningarrow wrote:
| > nobody shop for phones thinking about getting robbed
|
| I don't know the safety situation of where you live but I
| literally had this conversation with friends two weeks ago
| where we loved the idea that the iPhone is a better purchase
| because it's less prone to theft (because of the reasons GP
| mentioned).
| gchamonlive wrote:
| Enough for non-anecdotal people to shift their entire
| ecosystem to a diffent brand? People in general won't just
| switch from Android to iPhone because "filthy criminals are
| after my brand new phone for parts". If apple wasn't going
| to lock their parts and Samsung would, people would still
| keep buying iPhones.
| layer8 wrote:
| If iPhones didn't have that protection, but Android phones
| did, would you and your friends switch to Android and love
| the idea that Android phones are the better purchase?
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| You can do a search and you'll find many articles and
| comments about how back in the day people were warned not to
| wear the white iPod ear buds as not to be a target for
| thefts.
|
| > West Midlands police have issued a stark warning to iPod
| users: ditch the white headphones or pay the price.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2004/03/30/ipod_this_seasons_mus.
| ..
|
| Apple could be very well front-running this and trying to
| prevent it before it becomes a problem. This is clearly a
| possibility.
| Kretinsky wrote:
| What is the resell value of the parts for a whole phone? It
| can't be more than 1/10th, even less when factoring the time
| spent dismounting the phone.
|
| Another solution would be to have a database of parts, and a
| repair using a stolen part wouldn't work.
| loudandskittish wrote:
| I'm always suspicious when I open comments and see a whole lot of
| people posting variations of the same talking points as top-level
| threads... even if I happen to agree with those points.
| s3p wrote:
| Reminds me of a Louis Rossman video [0] where he shares his
| frustration with Apple's independent repair shop program. He says
| that to get access to genuine Apple parts (and the ability to
| pair them to devices), Apple requires that his shop not be able
| to do certain things like fix a broken angle detection sensor.
|
| It's utter BS, and the lip service companies are paying to right-
| to-repair bills in state legislatures honestly confuses me given
| their directly antithetical behavior. Hope strong repair bills
| get passed and they are fined to hell and back :)
| paulmd wrote:
| > He says that to get access to genuine Apple parts (and the
| ability to pair them to devices), Apple requires that his shop
| not be able to do certain things like fix a broken angle
| detection sensor.
|
| is this a loaded framing for the proposition that "you can't
| perform component-level repairs if you're presenting yourself
| as an apple authorized service center"? because the point of
| apple authorized service centers is you get the apple
| authorized service, not someone drilling and reflowing your
| board to replace components.
|
| it's great that rossman can do this, but he's N=1, and apple
| can't make their entire network out of rossmans. I think it's
| pretty obvious why they have to enforce minimum standards and
| standardized repair protocols in an _authorized service
| program_.
|
| this is the "rossman doesn't like any repair solution in which
| rossman doesn't get paid" thing in action. component-level
| repair isn't the only kind of repair, it's just the one that
| results in rossman getting paid the most.
| rasz wrote:
| But you do know that apple authorized service center service
| is often worse because instead of reflowing components they
| go for stuffing your device with shoe rubber to push chips
| with defective connections tighter to the pcb?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaGHcBZjmWA
| paulmd wrote:
| > But you do know that apple authorized service center
| service is often worse
|
| it seems incredibly dishonest to frame that as being
| something that happens often. can you provide statistics
| about how many apple authorized repairs come back with shoe
| rubber inside?
|
| like if I go to a best buy for apple authorized service,
| you're telling me they have a big box of shoe rubber in the
| back they're using for repairs? Doubt.
| rasz wrote:
| Best Buy doenst repair anything, they sent it to Apple
| Houston, Texas repair center (CSAT sweatshop), those are
| the guys putting rubber because its faster than
| soldering.
| diabeetusman wrote:
| Sorry, which video? Your [0] doesn't go anywhere :)
| ryanluker wrote:
| Might have been this video? Sometimes Rossman's videos ain't
| easy to search for, hah.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHhGBvfGams
| s3p wrote:
| Ah so sorry! Got deleted:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn_v-VxXNoI
| MaintenanceMode wrote:
| iFixit is so fantastic. For any of their flaws or shortcomings,
| they are really trying to grow and improve on a regular basis.
| They have helped my family save so much stuff from the scrap
| heap.
|
| These are the types of actions that help the ethos of "REDUCE,
| REUSE, RECYCLE".
|
| But it comes at the cost of capitalism and pure profit making.
| There's going to have to be a hard reckoning sometime soon that
| we can't keep just throwing stuff away (and paying again and
| again), just so the stock market keeps moving up.
| INTPenis wrote:
| They could have written iPhone 14 in the title. This way it seems
| like they're riding a wave of negative press following the
| "wanderlust" event.
|
| Not that I care, I gave up my iphone and macintosh 12 years ago,
| I'm just noting a pattern of negative press being upvoted and
| this is among it.
| pradn wrote:
| We should take the security aspect of this more seriously. In a
| world where hardware manipulation is possible, from ATM skimmers
| to tampered routers, it's not nothing for only authenticated
| parts to function.
|
| As always, security has to play against other factors - like
| eWaste and convenience.
| specialist wrote:
| I agree with the two conclusions of iFixit's accompanying
| article:
|
| "How Parts Pairing Kills Independent Repair" [2023-01-17]
| https://www.ifixit.com/News/69320/how-parts-pairing-kills-in...
|
| TDLR: "Put Pairing in the Peoples' Hands" and "Unpair the Future"
|
| Their second point is totally spot on and lost in the food fight.
| Parts Pairing must be disabled for any discontinued models which
| have also fallen out of warranty. (Like if I bought the last
| iPhone 5 and could no longer buy Apple Care for it.)
|
| Further, Apple must provide repair parts. Actual cost for noobs
| like me and discounted for warranty repair shops (any org who
| wants to sign up, eg identity and tax id verified.) Excess
| inventory for discontinued models liquidated to some one's like
| iFixit.
|
| My u/unpopularopinion:
|
| Counterfeit and grey/black markets are a scourge. I absolutely
| want parts pairing for any new devices. Doubly so if my threat
| model included espionage or surveillance.
| ilyt wrote:
| Could be as simple as "allow pairing for every part UNLESS that
| part is on the stolen/blacklisted list"
|
| Then any phone reported stolen would just not work as
| replacement components.
| dzikimarian wrote:
| After reading all robbery comments: Sweet Jesus on motorbike.
| Where do you live people?
| npteljes wrote:
| Well, Apple has to think worldwide.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Seriously. I've never lived anywhere where crime is even close
| to as commonplace as people are saying it is where they live. I
| can't envision what would be good enough incentive to continue
| to live in such a place, either.
| xg15 wrote:
| Which Apple marketing person invented that "theft" argument?
|
| Apple is pulling the exact same kind of shady bullshit that John
| Deere did with its tractors - except that in that case, the tech
| community was up in arms and actually spearheaded a right-to-
| repair movement.
|
| Meanwhile, when Apple does the same thing, everyone seems to be
| falling over themselves trying to find an excuse why, well
| actually, Apple really only has the best interests of its users
| at heart.
|
| What's going on?
|
| Kudos to iFixit for at least showing some stance, but even their
| post is weirdly excusing in places:
|
| > _While it's an improvement over the status quo of just a few
| years ago, when Apple wouldn't sell parts or supply instructions
| or software tools to anyone outside the Genius Bar and a few
| select "authorized" repair outlets, it's still a major problem.
| Apple has made some real progress here--and we've been reluctant
| to criticize manufacturers taking meaningful steps. There are
| good people inside Apple working hard to make this situation
| better._
|
| Since when can investing a huge amount of resources to build your
| own DRM scheme and then paddling back a tiny bit when there is
| too much political pressure be called "taking meaningful steps"?
|
| Would you applaud Microsoft for "taking meaningful steps" after
| they spent years on hardwiring Edge-only links into the OS, then
| eventually carved out a tiny exception after EU pressure grew too
| large?
| max4c wrote:
| Framework should eventually move into phones. Repair-first
| devices are needed for sustainability and also innovation in
| hardware.
| tumdum_ wrote:
| I remember this thread (from the person working of Asahi Linux)
| that explains why Apple does this:
| https://icosahedron.website/@marcan@treehouse.systems/110803...
| smoldesu wrote:
| It doesn't "explain" it, he doesn't work for Apple nor know
| their true intentions. It's entirely his conjecture from the
| POV of a reverse-engineer. In any case, his conclusion
| certainly doesn't align with a "less access is better"
| mentality:
|
| > Advocate for Apple to provide access to their calibration re-
| provisioning processes instead [...] Them not providing those
| tools sucks and is anti-repair.
|
| By that rationale, Marcan might actually support iFixit's
| decision here.
| tumdum_ wrote:
| I'm not sure what is his take on iFixit decision, but he does
| provide some good explanations why some things are the way
| they are. I don't expect that Apple will officially provide
| better info, so that is probably the best we have. At least I
| haven't seen anyone with intimate knowledge of apple hw and
| sw provide a better or contradicting information.
| [deleted]
| bakugo wrote:
| The average Apple fanboy's ability to rationalize every single
| anti-consumer decision made by Apple is impressive. Literally all
| Apple has to do is say "it's for your own safety!" and they will
| defend it to the death.
| adesanmi wrote:
| I don't understand how this is Anti Consumer in any way? I have
| an iPhone and a FairPhone. One's niche is that it's repairable,
| and the other is that it's not. A consumer who wants a
| repairable would buy something like a FairPhone (modular
| parts!!!) and someone like my mum can get her all-in-one "nice"
| experience.
|
| They're allowed to have an opinion, and with engineering there
| are tradeoffs. They tradeoff design with repairability and have
| the opinion that it is a good tradeoff. They want to test that
| opinion with the market and it resonated. What's wrong with
| this?
|
| I genuinely am confused as to the anti-consumer moniker when
| the consumer has never had more choice?
| bakugo wrote:
| > and someone like my mum can get her all-in-one "nice"
| experience.
|
| This is a great example of what I had in mind. Apple has
| successfully convinced you that pairing every part of the
| phone to the motherboard such that it can never be replaced
| by anyone other than Apple (usually for a price greater than
| the phone itself) is somehow essential to the iPhone
| Experience(tm) and beneficial to the user.
| adesanmi wrote:
| Why would a consumer like my mum care about opening the
| phone up?
|
| You still haven't explained how choosing to tradeoff design
| over repairability is anti-consumer when the consumer can
| buy a FairPhone right now (who, I can tell you, have a
| significantly worse experience and design than my iPhone,
| but I don't care because I can tinker with it!)
|
| I think you just don't like the company and are looking for
| silly reasons to bash them.
| bzzzt wrote:
| Your ability to classify everyone who doesn't agree with you as
| an "Apple fanboy" is equally amazing to me.
| bakugo wrote:
| What else would you call someone who doesn't care about
| repairability in the slightest because they're just going to
| buy whatever new version of their favorite brand's product
| comes out next year for full price regardless of how similar
| it is, if not a fanboy?
| [deleted]
| abtinf wrote:
| This is another dishonest post by Kyle and iFixit. The failure to
| mention a critical a reason for pairing--theft prevention--is
| enough to dismiss the entire piece as hopelessly biased.
|
| Just a few years ago, every major news source had an article
| every other week sounding the alarms about the smartphone theft
| problem. They would universally blame the phone manufacturers for
| not doing more.
| skeaker wrote:
| If the solution to theft is "remotely brick parts that work
| perfectly," it is a shitty solution that doesn't deserve
| consideration. Doubly so when Apple's workaround for that is
| "pay us even more money to double the e-waste by having us send
| you another perfectly working part, but ~verified~!"
| paulmd wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're
| trying for something different here, and we've had ask you
| this many times before--that's not cool.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| paulmd wrote:
| It's a shame you don't have rules against advocating for
| violent criminal conduct! One would really hope that
| would be addressed before tone-policing the criticisms of
| that.
| dang wrote:
| If a post is unambiguously "advocating for violent
| criminal conduct" that's one thing, but I don't think
| your interpretation is something most people would call
| obvious. In fact, one could argue that it's another way
| in which you broke the site guidelines, which include: "
| _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._" -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| It's also not in your own interest to argue aggressively
| or abusively, because it undermines the point you're
| trying to make. I know it's frustrating when people don't
| get the truth of your points and/or repeat false claims,
| but the proper way to deal with that is to make better
| arguments and/or communicate more clearly, not to
| fulminate against the community or throw your weight
| around.
|
| For example, it sounds like you have a great point in
| your GP comment: the parts are known to be stolen because
| the lockout was sent. But this information gets eclipsed
| by the putdowns, snark, etc., which made up the majority
| of your post.
| orwin wrote:
| So, abandonning liberties for a bit of security then.
| abtinf wrote:
| The right-to-repair crowd are the ones trying to use guns to
| prevent me from buying the devices I want to buy.
| npteljes wrote:
| This needs to be said, so that people can make an informed
| decision. Because I think it's important to know that not one
| is better than the other.
| whynotminot wrote:
| I just don't understand how repairing a phone got conflated
| with liberty in these conversations.
|
| Don't like the product don't buy the product.
| npteljes wrote:
| >Don't like the product don't buy the product.
|
| This has never worked, because in a single product, a
| myriad of concerns are bundled together. Just like how
| people are complex, and you can't simply avoid toxic
| people. Or you can't just uproot and go live in a better
| place.
|
| Individuals have much less liberty than the "free market"
| and "vote with your wallet" sentiments imply.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I mean, I don't and I won't. But fundamentally, the reason
| I have never bought an iPhone is exactly what the GP said:
| I want to be able to do whatever I want with a device I
| own. I'm not willing to give up that freedom for some minor
| security gains.
| tech_ken wrote:
| That seems a touch melodramatic, is a somewhat more thriving
| indie smartphone repair market truly "liberating"? It's not
| like someone has a gun to your head to buy an iPhone
| adesanmi wrote:
| It's an important conversation to have. My mums phone got
| stolen with Find My active. The police refused to do anything
| about it, they tried to phish her details, failed and I
| followed it to Shenzen.
|
| I'm not saying these changes would prevent occurrences, but
| if they couldn't even strip parts from a phone, it makes it a
| less enticing target for thieves.
|
| I do think that a version of the iPhone without these
| restrictions should be available for purchase for customers
| who know that's exactly what they want, not this convoluted
| system.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| While they probably should have mentioned it in the article, I
| don't think that would change the end result. The justification
| for the pairing doesn't change the fact that it makes the
| iPhone more difficult to repair.
|
| Now, the increased theft protection may outweigh the hit in
| repairability for you. People have different priorities, and
| it's understandable if theft protection is important to you.
| But iFixit's repairability score doesn't measure theft
| protection, and they shouldn't grant leniency just because
| there may be a good excuse.
| sjkna wrote:
| Thanks Apple for making my phone a less attractive target for
| thieves by making its pieces useless when used in other phones.
|
| Ifixit: you are not on my side.
| burkaman wrote:
| If you don't care about independent repairability, which is the
| only thing this score addresses, then just don't look at this
| website. The decision doesn't affect you or Apple in any way,
| it's just advice for people looking for a particular feature.
| mortureb wrote:
| It's talking about the benefits of tagging parts. Crooks
| can't make money off my iPhone and so iPhone theft drops.
| It's a relevant point to make in this discussion.
| SenAnder wrote:
| That's why Apple gives the consumer an authorization code that
| they can use when re-selling their phone, to unlock its parts
| and permit their re-use. Since thieves don't get that code, it
| protects phones against theft and allows re-use.
|
| Because if they didn't do that, anti-theft would be just a
| useful excuse to further rob the consumer of agency.
|
| They _do_ give out such a code, right? I 'm just assuming here,
| but since they paint themselves as such champions of ecology
| [1], they must. Because if they didn't, that would make them
| hypocrites, and liars, in claiming there is no way to deter
| theft without taking rights from the consumer. And we know
| Apple is honest and on the consumer's side, so that can't be
| it.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53485560
| notanormalnerd wrote:
| Nobody is hindering you on reselling your device. Use your
| legitimate access to wipe the device and unpair it from Our
| iCloud account and then you can resell it.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201351
|
| My old company had a big problems with leavers dropping off
| the iPhone without giving either their passcode or unpairing
| the device from whatever iCloud account they used, so they
| couldn't even give it to anybody else. Full shelf full of
| 1000EUR bricks all working fine. (Apple didn't have a proper
| device management service back then)
| SenAnder wrote:
| > Nobody is hindering you on reselling your device. Use
| your legitimate access to wipe the device and unpair it
| from Our iCloud account and then you can resell it.
|
| And its parts can then be re-used in other Apple devices?
| matsemann wrote:
| Yeah, hail Apple! They only have us consumers in mind, not like
| the nefarious iFixit people! /s
| MostlyStable wrote:
| If parts weren't so unnecessarily difficult to get in the first
| part, stealing phones for parts wouldn't be a thing. Apple
| created this problem, they don't get to get credit for "fixing"
| it in a way that harms consumers.
| sjkna wrote:
| If you apply that argument to everything that gets stolen you
| will see it doesn't stand on its own.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Which things other than phones are primarily stolen
| specifically to be parted out (and...to be perfectly honest
| I'm not sure I buy that it's even that big a thing in
| phones)? And which companies have made the problem worse by
| artificially restricting part supplies?
| sjkna wrote:
| I was talking about stealing in general, but... vehicles?
|
| Also I don't know of any major phone manufacturer that
| sells genuine parts besides Apple.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| If you were taking about theft in general, then I don't
| even know what point you were trying to make.
|
| And yes, other companies selling fewer official parts
| (although I've never been unable to get screens,
| batteries, or replacement charging parts for my non-apple
| phones) is bad, and I already criticize companies that
| fail to make parts available. When they start doing part
| pairing, I will criticize them for it to. The fact that
| this behavior is bad has nothing to do with it being
| Apple. Not making parts easy to get: bad. Making
| replacement parts not viable without input from
| manufacturer: also bad.
| abtinf wrote:
| Cars. And they have a massive OEM and aftermarket parts
| supply chain.
|
| https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/cars-most-
| likely-...
| MostlyStable wrote:
| Cars being stolen to chop shops is a thing, I am
| extremely skeptical that it's the primary reason cars are
| stolen.\
|
| -edit- Yeah even according to your source, a pretty tiny
| minority appear to be stolen for parts. Probably because,
| as you point out, parts are so easy and relatively cheap
| to get, except for inherently valuable parts like
| catalytic converters. And guess what? If people start
| stealing iPhones to harvest the gold/rare metals, parts
| pairing is not going to fix that.
| pseg134 wrote:
| Stealing phones for parts is only a "thing" because any U.S.
| carrier would still block a stolen IMEI. If you steal a car,
| for example, you can use it to for its primary purpose which
| is to drive. If you steal a phone, you can only sell it for
| parts.
| paulmd wrote:
| yeah, used cars apparently mostly get exported to ghana and
| some other countries that have extremely loose customs who
| don't care about stolen goods moving in.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/auto-theft-canada-1.6953242
|
| if you could re-use a phone, people would just factory
| reset the phone after stealing it, and people did it. then
| apple locked that down. then people started stripping the
| phone for parts instead, and apple started serializing
| parts. Etc.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Posts like these have convinced me that Apple is actually a new
| religious movement masquerading as a tech company.
| Zambyte wrote:
| [flagged]
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| Sounds like an Android distro "Boot Lollipop--you're broke,
| sorry--that's Android!"
| IshKebab wrote:
| Come on, as if iPhone thieves know about replacement component
| cryptographic pairing requirements.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Tough question as someone who got an iphone 14 to replace their
| iphone 12 that was stolen after being choked out and held at
| knife point, presumably to be sold for parts.
|
| I'd sacrifice just about anything to not black out with a knife
| at my neck again. So I'd say overall I'm pro this.
| spunker540 wrote:
| I've never had to repair my iphone (just get a new one every
| 4yrs) and appreciate that my phone is less profitable to steal,
| "repairability score" be damned. But I live in a dense city and
| take public transit, so the trade off is worth it to me. If I
| wanted something repairable I'd buy a different phone.
| ho_schi wrote:
| That is _one of the many reasons_ why use ThinkPads.
| * Maintenance Manual with explosion diagrams and step-by-step
| guides * Short guide videos for important parts (terse
| and helpful, very good hidden on Lenovos Website) * OEM-
| Parts from Lenovo itself or dealers
|
| Side story. I ordered a X13 Gen 3 (because the new reverse notch
| is "meh") AMD (because Intel is "meh") but the HiDPI was not
| selectable. So I ordered it without HiDPI, ordered the HiDPI
| display and cable (yes!) from the repair website and replaced
| both :)
|
| And the best thing...it was shipped with Linux and it reacted
| "Oh. Should I turn on scaling?" :)
|
| Probably not was Lenovo intended but in the end both sides are
| happy.
| hedora wrote:
| I get how this is helpful for hobby hardware, but the last time
| I had a problem with a Lenovo, I sent it to the on-site
| authorized repair depot (my employer had a special gold plated
| contract with them), who couldn't replace it because it needed
| a replacement display cable they didn't stock. They diagnosed
| it, and sent it to Lenovo, who said it would take 30 days to
| replace the cable.
|
| I bought a cheap desktop in the meantime, which still works
| fine, ten years later.
|
| When the laptop came back, Lenovo diagnosed it "no fault
| found", and didn't replace the faulty cable. Not only was the
| display still intermittent (due to the bad cable), but their
| technician removed and then improperly installed the insulator
| for the backlight's high-voltage transformer, so it was painful
| and unsafe to touch the laptop if the display was on.
|
| Compare this to Apple, where I drive into any big city, hand
| them the broken shiny thing, a bag of money containing about
| 10% its retail price, and it Just Works when they hand it back
| to me (almost always on the same day).
|
| Maybe Lenovo can repair their own stuff these days? I haven't
| observed this anywhere I've worked since.
|
| (My evidence that they can't fix their stuff is that there is
| usually a pile of broken Lenovos in the back of the IT office.)
| danaris wrote:
| > a bag of money containing about 10% its retail price
|
| ...or, if you bought AppleCare and it's still within that
| time frame and not an egregiously obvious user error
| situation, no (additional) money at all.
| daggersandscars wrote:
| Anecdata: if you need a Lenovo repaired and you're covered
| for onsite service, have them come to you.
|
| I had a similar experience with sending an X1 Carbon to
| Lenovo's repair center: "No problem found".
|
| When I called to complain, I was told they recommended on
| site service over sending machines in. The repair tech was
| prompt, pleasant, and skilled. The machine was fixed in 30
| minutes.
| vanchor3 wrote:
| Lenovo once told me that extreme image persistence on the
| display was "normal" and there was nothing to repair. You
| could display some sensitive information on the screen, lock
| the screen, and still be able to read the previous
| information on the lock screen around 3 minutes later.
| m463 wrote:
| > a bag of money containing about 10% its retail price
|
| In my experience that is a low value. It has always been
| repair this one, or buy current model for 20% more than
| repair cost.
| jchoksi wrote:
| I just finished reading the comment thread for the "Snowden
| leak: Cavium networking hardware may contain NSA backdoor" news
| item and so security and privacy issues were at the forefront
| of my mind.
|
| So, when I read your comment about "That is one of the many
| reasons why (we) use ThinkPads." I think people need to be
| reminded about Lenovo's (POST IBM SALE) controversies.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in...
| drcode wrote:
| Most comments in this thread:
|
| I don't want to have ownership of devices I pay money for,
| because if I don't own anything, nobody can steal it from me.
| _silicon wrote:
| This is on the nose. I have no clue what the limit is for what
| you can convince people to surrender, but I don't think we are
| even close.
| npteljes wrote:
| Well, yeah. Ownership is responsibility, and the world is
| shifting towards more convenience, so less responsibility. So
| we're also going towards less ownership as well, with products
| being turned into services and leases. And frankly, in a lot of
| cases, I don't mind it.
| [deleted]
| adesanmi wrote:
| When people stop robbing phones for them to end up in Shenzen and
| stripped for parts, this will stop. This is a deterrent to make
| stealing iPhones less convenient and I'm all for it.
|
| People already have to try to phish people's iCloud details after
| stealing their devices to resell, costing them time and money and
| making it more annoying to try and steal.
|
| I do think people who want to repair their phone should have
| access to a version without this stuff and deal with the
| consequences themselves.
|
| For everyone else, including myself, please continue to make it
| annoying for thieves to target iPhones.
| M4v3R wrote:
| I've heard that take many times, but is there any actual data
| to back this claim? I mean think about it - your average thief
| is not the kind of person that will know what part
| setialization is or how to tell iPhone models apart to know
| which ones to steal. They steal your purse, bag or just
| anything and sight and only then deal with the loot, discarding
| what's useless. I would be very surprised if serializing the
| battery or screen is putting any significant dent in the number
| of stolen iPhones worldwide.
|
| Apple has already created a pretty good deterrent to prevent
| iPhone theft - the Find My iPhone system. It's better because
| it's actually useful to the user and works even if you turn the
| phone off. The way I see it there's absolutely no need to
| serialize the parts as an additional measure to prevent theft
| (given also what I said in the first paragraph)
| explaininjs wrote:
| When this eventually makes it to "basically every iphone out
| there", and thieves stop being able to go to the local repair
| shop to trade in the iphone they stole for a wad of cash,
| they will stop targeting people with iphones.
|
| I take it you've never been to an impoverished area? Holding
| an iphone paints a _massive_ target on your back.
| toast0 wrote:
| Making the parts useless won't immediately stop theft, sure.
| It's the same with making catalytic converters
| hard/impossible to fence. People still steal them, because
| they're working off an older state of the world. But once
| you've stolen enough stuff that you couldn't market, you
| figure out not to steal that anymore. (Although if you're
| stealing bags, harvesting cash and throwing the bags in the
| river, phones in the bags are still gone)
| quenix wrote:
| > I mean think about it - your average thief is not the kind
| of person that will know what part setialization is
|
| It _doesn 't matter_. The market will dictate behaviour. As
| soon as the value of iPhone parts drops at the end of the
| chain (Shenzhen et. al) this will propagate all the way up to
| the street criminals.
|
| Perhaps they will not discriminate by iPhone submodel (will
| not matter after a while of the serialisation policy), but
| they will (and do) discriminate by brand.
|
| Much smartphone theft includes robbers grabbing the phone out
| of unsuspecting victims' hands, forcing them to surrender it
| at gunpoint, or pickpocketing it.
| adesanmi wrote:
| I don't know if there's data to back this up. I'm simply
| assuming based on what I know. What I know comes from people
| I went to school with who have stolen phones before telling
| me at the pub. There is a price for the type of device you
| bring in. The ones on the bikes or mugging people actually
| drop it off to the people who send stuff off to China. Those
| people give a standard price for the type of phone, he quoted
| PS100 for an iPhone 11 and PS120 for a Samsung Galaxy.
|
| He corroborates your point regarding not discriminating the
| phone he stole, to be fair.
| adesanmi wrote:
| Regarding your second point, I agree with the Find My praise,
| however Find My itself illustrates why every little thing
| done to make it "more of a ballache" to steal an iPhone, more
| costly for the thieves, is reducing the demand and these
| "papercuts" can add up in a sizeable way.
|
| But your point is valid, and I can understand why you hold
| that opinion.
| [deleted]
| LightHugger wrote:
| This is complete nonsense, if apple cared about phones being
| stolen for parts, they would just start selling the damn parts
| so people could repair their phones. Right now the reason parts
| are so valulable is because there's no other way to get them!
| Apple's unrepairability policy FUELS theft not the other way
| around.
| [deleted]
| triceratops wrote:
| The counterargument to that is cars are regularly stripped
| for parts even when spares are easily available to buy.
| deely3 wrote:
| Does this counterargument mean that DRM is actually good,
| and in the future all cars should be unfixable without
| approval of producer?
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Elon Musk seems to think this way, and every other car
| manufacturer has let this cancer metastasize in otherwise
| perfectly fine EV designs because dealers won't sell a
| car without something to keep people coming back every
| six months for maintenance.
| eddythompson80 wrote:
| Phones are stripped for parts that _can_ be sold, which
| almost never include the main board or the TouchID or FaceID
| modules.
| audunw wrote:
| > they would just start selling the damn parts so people
| could repair their phones.
|
| They do. Have you been living under a rock?
|
| https://www.selfservicerepair.com/en-US/home
|
| And there's no way for Apples policy to fuel theft when the
| stolen phone and parts from that phone can't be used for
| anything. You might have had a point a few years ago when
| they neither sold parts nor did the pairing stuff.
|
| I think they're moving in the right direction. But like many
| here have pointed out they should allow you to unpair parts
| in a phone you own.
|
| There are comments here from people who have been robbed at
| gunpoint and forced to unlock their phone and disconnect it
| from iCloud. I think Apple could solve it by making it a 24
| hour process that can be reversed. But that just illustrates
| that it's actually a hard problem to solve properly.
|
| I don't care at all about 3rd party parts. I've been burned
| too many times. It's not environmentally friendly if you buy
| a brand new shitty part that you end up discarding along with
| the phone a few months later because the part was bad. Just
| force Apple to sell good quality genuine parts at a low
| price. The sum of the parts should equal the price of the
| phone. Yes that will be unprofitable for Apple, but
| governments can force it through regulation in the name of
| sustainability
|
| If they stop selling parts then they should be forced to
| disable parts pairing for that model... then relying on 3rd
| party market as a fallback is an fallback
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The problem with SSR is that they give you the shit
| AASPs/Genius Bar gets, which is finished assemblies
| designed to be swapped out by low-skill workers for minimum
| wage. This dramatically increases the price of the repair
| because you're now swapping out a large number of
| components instead of just one.
|
| Louis Rossmann used to beat Apple on the price of repair
| specifically by desoldering individual chips and swapping
| them, which is far cheaper per repair. But it's more
| expensive to train workers to do this kind of repair, and
| Apple doesn't like paying for skilled labor in America, so
| they just make the consumer eat the cost of whole
| assemblies.
|
| At the same time Apple has also insisted on locking down
| their supply chains so that you cannot buy factory original
| components at all. They don't want you to be able to buy
| the chips that go into their phones, because they're
| worried you might pull a Strange Parts and cobble together
| a whole iPhone out of them.
|
| It's oddly convenient how all of these things - the need to
| stop iPhone chop-shopping, the need to stop product
| cloning, and the need to have cheap labor costs - all just
| so happen to result in a _really shitty_ repair experience
| that makes buying a new one always the best option.
| riscy wrote:
| > they give you the shit AASPs/Genius Bar gets, which is
| finished assemblies designed to be swapped out by low-
| skill workers for minimum wage
|
| > all just so happen to result in a really shitty repair
| experience
|
| You're saying getting genuine parts and instructions
| directly from Apple that are simple for a low-skill
| person to install is a shitty repair experience?
|
| All this uproar is about is needing to contact Apple for
| them to link the part to my phone. How is that a shitty
| experience?
| lesuorac wrote:
| > You're saying getting genuine parts and instructions
| directly from Apple that are simple for a low-skill
| person to install is a shitty repair experience?
|
| He's saying when the screen doesn't work because a 1/5
| penny transistor broke he'd rather pay $15 in labor for
| the tech to replace it than >$15 for a new screen
| assembly.
|
| And related, people are saying they'd rather be able to
| pay the $15 in labor when Apple End-of-Lifes the device
| and no longer produces that assembly.
| kemayo wrote:
| > This is complete nonsense, if apple cared about phones
| being stolen for parts, they would just start selling the
| damn parts so people could repair their phones.
|
| They did that. https://selfservicerepair.com/en-US/home
| adesanmi wrote:
| I assumed the reason Apple's phones are stolen for parts are
| that, unlike a lot of Android counterparts that can be reset,
| Find My is so bulletproof that (without phishing) iPhones are
| essentially expensive paperweights in terms of reselling
| whole. So people started getting creative and selling the
| parts, so Apple started to serialise those too.
|
| Either way, I don't think Apple set out to make the iPhone
| unrepairable just because. There just weren't letting
| repairability getting in the way of the design and aesthetic
| they want, and I think it's fine for them to have this
| opinion. They couldn't achieve both so they biased towards
| design, and look to slowly iterate towards repairability
| compromising as little on design as possible.
|
| Sounds like a sensible strategy.
| specialist wrote:
| Both you and u/agentultra are correct. Manufacturers must
| make parts available and reasonably priced.
| agentultra wrote:
| Good.
|
| I replaced the battery in an iPhone 5 earlier this year and it's
| ticking along fine. The longer it stays out of the dump (or a
| desk drawer) the better. All of the carbon and precious minerals
| mined to make this device aren't likely to be recycled into new
| devices: they'll end up on the shores of a country in the Global
| South along with all of the other tech detritus that we throw
| away. The resources are spent, the damage done, I want to get as
| much use out of it as possible.
|
| It's measures like pairing that make me question whether Apple's
| recycling program is even legit or more corporate green-washing.
| Has anyone done an independent audit of their process and where
| materials end up once devices enter the program?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-19 23:01 UTC)