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by southerntofu
1948 days ago
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From what i can see, it does not seem to work. Here in western Europe in the big cities many people buy locked phones second hand and the vendor explicitly says you have to get it unlocked, which is a service provided by many phone shops (somewhat under the table). These locked iPhones sold for 50-200€ are acquired by users who will turn to their tech friends/neighbors to get it unlocked. When these tell them they can't help with that (no package in Debian for that yet), they end up spending 20-50€ in a shop to get it unlocked anyway, financing a very shady market. Previous discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19845934 Quote from the article that sparked the discussion: > To do this, they phish the phone’s original owners, or scam employees at Apple Stores, which have the ability to override iCloud locks. Thieves, coders, and hackers participate in an underground industry designed to remove a user’s iCloud account from a phone so that they can then be resold. At the end of the day, if the thief doesn't get the phone unlocked themselves, they will sell the phone for half (or less) the price they would have sold it unlocked, but they're still making a buck. |
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Thieves will not profile a person using a premium locked phone against stealing it because it might not be worth it. They don't care about that. They will take whatever they can if only for practicing their skills.
Locking phones does not deter theft but unlocking them will offset the price of unlocking from the phone-shop to the thief increasing the profitability of theft.
I personally don't care about Apple, their phones, their M1's and their ecosystem. But acting out your premise leads to a place I don't like. And others as well. And if you think you can buy a cheaper premium phone if it is unlocked, ask yourself why thieves would continue to sell you cheaper if they know they give you a usable device?