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by derrick_jensen 2071 days ago
One of the value props was the inability to reset and resell if it were lost or stolen. Now that it’s cracked there is more of an incentive to not try and find the owner.

As for actual data security you are probably right
2 comments
grishka 2070 days ago
> One of the value props was the inability to reset and resell if it were lost or stolen.

It's sure one of those nice to have features, but there's no good reason why it has to be mandatory like it is. All in all, having a device purposefully retain some information when you factory reset it is user-hostile.

The "lost or stolen" argument also hardly holds for desktop computers like Mac Pro or Mac Mini or iMac, yet they still have T2s in them.

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hayksaakian 2070 days ago
It seems like this is a feature designed to shrink the "used" market for Apple products -- and not a user benefiting feature.
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grishka 2070 days ago
But one of the things about Apple products that makes people okay with the exorbitant pricing is the resale value. I thought Apple themselves realized this?
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thewileyone 2068 days ago
No, they want both you and the potential pre-owned Mac buyer to buy a new device each.
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threeseed 2070 days ago
> The "lost or stolen" argument also hardly holds for desktop computers

Why ? People's houses get broken into all the time.

And probably 99.999% of laptops never leave a person's house.

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Siira 2071 days ago
Is the crack in hardware or software? Any links on it? I thought the iPhones at least could not be reset by thieves?
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lioeters 2071 days ago
> The mini operating system on the T2 (SepOS) suffers from a security vulnerable also found in the iPhone 7 since it contains a processor based on the iOS A10.

> ..Using the checkm8 exploit originally made for iPhones, the checkra1n exploit was developed to build a semi-tethered exploit for the T2 security chip, exploiting a flaw. This could be used to e.g. circumvent activation lock, allowing stolen iPhones or macOS devices to be reset and sold on the black market.

> Since sepOS/BootROM is Read-Only Memory for security reasons, interestingly, Apple cannot patch this core vulnerability without a new hardware revision.

Crouching T2, Hidden Danger (2020-10-05) https://ironpeak.be/blog/crouching-t2-hidden-danger/

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jeroenhd 2071 days ago
A demo of the T2 hardware exploit on iMacs can be found here: https://blog.t8012.dev/plug-n-pwn/

From what I could find, the encryption keys of the T2 are still secure but the OS running on it is not. Wiping the SSD and/or repairing another might be enough to resell the device without any locks but I'm not 100% sure about that.

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Polylactic_acid 2070 days ago
Every device up to the iphone X has been cracked btw so the factory reset protection can be bypassed.
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Siira 2069 days ago
Can you provide some links?
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