[mullen]

> “We receive four to six thousand locked iPhones per month,” laments Peter Schindler, founder and owner of The Wireless Alliance, a Colorado-based electronics recycler and refurbisher. Those iPhones, which could easily be refurbished and put back into circulation, “have to get parted out or scrapped,” all because of this anti-theft feature.

Maybe 6 thousand people get their phones stolen every month and don't want the theft to get any value out of the phone?

This whole article is pretty stupid. Apple is making iPhone and, now, Macs worthless if they are stolen. It is up to buyers of used iPhones and Macs to make sure their "new" phones are not locked. Apple is just responding to what customers want for the benefit of customers and not thieves.

[eropple]

So you picked up, before you spun up your hauteur engine, that that number is not six thousand stolen iPhones, but six thousand trashed and recycled ones? And that there's no way to communicate to a user that their lock prevents it from being done?

There's no reason why a user can't be asked by Apple "hey, a recycler received this locked iPhone, do you want to wipe and unlock it for recycling?" save for an unwillingness to implement it; as-is, this just and only just generates waste. But it let you get mad, so that's cool, I guess.

[filleduchaos]

I think the (valid if cynical) implication is that a large number of those "trashed and recycled" phones were trashed and recycled by people who are...not the owners.

[shkkmo]

Which is why a system that allows recyclers to verify if a device was stolen and return stolen devices and get locked non-stolen devices would be good?

[soraminazuki]

Or maybe recyclers should verify that the devices they get are unlocked before asking Apple to insert security backdoors.

[shkkmo]

How would that help people whose devices were stolen? What would be the "backdoor" of allowing recyclers to prompt users to remotely unlock or authorize apple to issue a signed unlocking code for that particular device?

Based on the anecdotal commentary, it seems like many recyclers and refurbishers do attempt to educate users that devices should be unlocked. It also seems like this doesn't always happen for sundry reasons so there is still a lot of waste.

[soraminazuki]

> How would that help people whose devices were stolen?

Remote unlocking won't help people whose devices are stolen either. Worse, recyclers would have very little incentive to help because they paid for the device.

> What would be the "backdoor" of allowing recyclers to prompt users to remotely unlock or authorize apple to issue a signed unlocking code for that particular device?

You'd need to store the encryption key somewhere and make it available for remote use. This is scary enough IMHO.

> it seems like many recyclers and refurbishers do attempt to educate users that devices should be unlocked.

This is not about user education. Recyclers should not accept locked devices in the first place.

[retrac]

Perhaps. Thieves don't strike me as the type to be more eco-conscious than average, though. I'm betting they're mostly just thrown out. Many people can't be bothered with the hassle of trying to sell a used device.

[threeseed]

Not the thieves themselves but buyers.

Used to be very common for someone to buy an iPhone on eBay, realise it was activation locked and then see comments everywhere on how to remove it.

My guess is many of those people would end up just throwing the phone away.

[FireBeyond]

Hah.

I had the buyer of my stolen iPhone 8 on eBay contact me and say "Hey, it says this phone is yours - since you've probably already replaced it, can you help me unlock it so I'm not -also- getting ripped off?".

Pretty ballsy.

[lonelappde]

Maybe for a fee it's worth it.

[aroch]

They "recycle" them by going to Walmart and putting them into a recycling kiosk like [1] and get cash/gift cards instantly. They're not recycling so much as fencing....

[1]: https://us.ecoatm.com