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?
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.
> 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.