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alphaq_up

macrumors newbie
Jan 30, 2017
2
1
It seems like a lot of work, but if you work for organized crime, you pay kids to do it for a few bucks on a large scale and make a lot of profit.

The black market for iDevices is insane. Working at Apple, we saw many resellers every day. Same guy would come in every day with 2 phones that don't turn on, are registered to someone on the other side of the country, and they don't care about the data on the device. Usually they tell some ridiculous story (in very broken english) about how it's their sister's phone and she can't be here, and it got hot and doesn't turn on, yada yada yada...They come in looking to get them swapped for new phones. Somewhere down the line I am convinced that organized crime is involved.

My theory:

Phones are stolen by petty thieves on the street and out of cars...The thieves sell the phones cheap to people involved in organized crime. The phones are activation locked of course, so they can't just be resold. So they tamper with them and either switch the serial number (shown in this video) or make them unable to power on (usually by damaging certain logic board components.) Bring them to Apple, get them swapped for good new phones, and then re-sell...or better yet, illegally smuggle them back into China without paying taxes and sell them for massive profit. basically iPhone laundering

bro, if a device is activation locked.. you cannot bring it to the genius bar to get replaced m8 lol
 

The_Martini_Cat

macrumors 6502
Aug 4, 2015
286
328
Don't know why they don't have sparse serial numbers ... where swapping 2 numbers would not give you a valid number, but just shift you into ether-space of nothing.
 
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skinned66

macrumors 65816
Feb 11, 2011
1,373
1,225
Ottawa, Canada
I think they could bring it back, they just have to find a way to prevent overwrite of the device data. We'll just have to give them time.
 

69Mustang

macrumors 604
Jan 7, 2014
7,895
15,043
In between a rock and a hard place
LIES! MacRumors members were positive Apple did this ONLY to make more money. That is the only explanation which MR members could find at the time so it must be the only truth and nothing else can explain why it was removed!
Maybe you should get your eyes checked. I say that because: 1. That font is yuuuuge. 2. There were plenty of quotes attached to that post that said the exact same thing in this current post. In fact, I'd go so far to say those aforementioned quotes are the reason we have this post today.

Hey, but who am I to get in the way of a little narrative building? Carry on.
 

flyinmac

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2006
3,579
2,465
United States
I don't see how this will stop the problem. They can just keep changing the numbers until it works. It just takes away the ability to confirm an unlocked number before trying it.
 

Art Mark

macrumors 6502
Jan 6, 2010
482
1,203
Oregon
Interesting post. But true. It shows how security has to be constantly dynamic and changing to meet the different conundrums posed by criminals.
Nothing is static. It's not jus ta master lock on your locker. This will all be a moving target for the foreseeable future. What you want is a company being preemptive and being willing to upend what they have done to make it better. Also you don't want 'official' back doors on devices which of course will not stay just in officials hands.
 

stridemat

Moderator
Staff member
Apr 2, 2008
11,364
863
UK
I know I shouldn't condone such behaviour, but that commitment to the cause is impressive. I'm impressed with the entire process that they have to get though.
 

CEmajr

macrumors 601
Dec 18, 2012
4,451
1,241
Charlotte, NC
It's a pretty fruitless battle. The whole activation lock in itself and everything. People are still and will always continue to steal iOS devices whenever the opportunity presents itself. A thief is highly unlikely to return a device just because it's activation locked. If he stole it then he got it for free. He doesn't care that it's now worth $100 instead of $250.
 

SuperMarioKart

macrumors member
Sep 9, 2015
59
18
probably needs a hardware redesign, change the chip so that the serial number can't be changed.

Apple had previously sent broken phones back to China, scrapped the chips for reassembly, and then shipped the phones to Apple stores to serve as warranty replacement devices. Now they sell refurbished 6S/6S+ on their website, so I'm sure reprogramming is a vital tool that they use. And the hackers(or whatever you call the people that have duplicated this process) have no doubt gained some confidential knowledge from current or former Apple or Foxconn employees to develop those programming tools and perfect their techniques. Apple needs to add a new level of security and then wait for the hackers to steal some security keys and catch up in a few months before the cycle continues.
 

robnbill

macrumors regular
Jul 5, 2007
118
34
Northern VA - Fairfax Area
bro, if a device is activation locked.. you cannot bring it to the genius bar to get replaced m8 lol
I think you can - but - you need to show proof of purchase - because they can undo an activation lock in the store. Alternatively, you can do it through AppleCare - but, it takes longer.

*Spelling correction
 
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647156

Cancelled
Dec 4, 2011
276
375
Surely all they need to do is make the tool report whether or not the serial number entered is on the list of locked ones i.e. not tell you if it's actually a valid serial number?
 
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wolfaaron

macrumors regular
Jul 31, 2012
138
45
It would be nice if Apple would make an announcement on things that could affect its users and not just leave them in the dark guessing for so long.
 
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tywebb13

macrumors 68030
Apr 21, 2012
2,944
1,632
Not sure if this is really the reason apple shut the website down because the video has been online for 6 months already. So if this were the reason then why wasn't it shut down 6 months ago?

There is nothing especially sinister about the video or other aspects of the company that produced it. They are not necessarily in business just to help theives. In fact the video is very technical in nature and not many people would have the skills to successfully change the serials.

It could obviously be a problem if new serial numbers coincide with those for other devices - but apple could overcome this potential problem by creating a whole heap of dummy serials which are not associated yet to any device - but which could be still used to change the serial over to a new one if the device was bought legitimately - not stolen - and without impacting other devices. I would be more supportive of this approach than either shutting down the website or making it impossible to change the serial.
 
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avanpelt

macrumors 68030
Jun 2, 2010
2,956
3,877
Apple just shut down an exploit that was probably bringing in millions of dollars to thieves. Good on them.
 
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jpn

Cancelled
Feb 9, 2003
1,854
1,988
i watched the video.

and i couldn't help thinking how cold and evil it was.
- google allowing this video to be on YouTube
- the BGM (background music)
- the cool, precision and cleanliness of the operation as shown
- the time that it takes to do this entire process: to make money you would need to actually have 1 person do each operation and set up an assembly line process in order to do scores of iPads per day

it shows an industrial tool that supports unethical actions.
 

dooganau

macrumors newbie
Sep 7, 2016
12
100
I have been watching REWA video's for months now. They just feel so damn therapeutic to watch, and the amount of ingenuity to essentially bypass an activation lock. I understand that Apple implements activation locks to prevent theft, but the theft still occurs, I assume they just get parted out to repair other phones. Anyway, main point, REWA videos are great and you should check out some more.

Edit;

I should point out that I not condone by-passing these sort of security measures but companies like REWA exist because of apples strict policies and the need for these solutions to exist in countries in which apple stores and authorised repairers are not readily available. In our countries, we can just approach an apple store and get out phones swapped or fixed. In countries like Turkey, India and Pakistan etc these easy solutions are not available and fall on the greater service industry to provide solutions to the benefit of the consumer. I am sure when this company first designed this activation lock work around they had no idea that it was locking other consumers out of their devices.
 
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