iPhone X iPhone remote unlocking, unlocking bricked phones now possible?

[absente]

Long story short, I live in China and I came across some sellers that provide "remote unlocking services" for any iOS devices - starting with the "Phone is locked - connect to iTunes" issue up to even the "activation lock" which basically protects a stolen device from being used again.

Out of curiosity I put it to the test - I locked an iPhone [a spare one with a fresh icloud account] up to the point where I should connect it to iTunes to be able to restore it. I then gave that person just the IMEI, icloud username and password and my phone number. A couple of hour later he messaged me to have a look at my phone - which was restarting or updating e.g. the apple logo with the status bar was visible. After logging in with my icloud credentials and setting a new passcode i was still able to see all the files etc.

To my surprise I found later dozens of other people offering the same service, depending on the model for roughly $40-60.

So how is that possible? To my knowledge even Apple employees cannot unlock a 'bricked' phone, or a phone that had too many passcode failures. I always thought iOS devices have a somewhat good security.

PS: I am able to provide proof if needed to moderators, I intentionally didn't put it in the OP in order not to break any laws or whatever.

 

[Puonti]

I don't believe there can be any meaningful discussion about this topic as presented.

Discussing how or why things work the way they work in China is best done on the Politics, Religion and Social Issues forum. Suffice it to say a lot of the things that society thinks are "okay" are not considered okay by much of the rest of the world. So we can't delve into that part of the topic.

Bypassing hardware security measures is widely considered illegal, and certainly not a topic that should be discussed on these forums in such detail that you'd get a satisfactory answer to your question. So we wouldn't get far there.

Plus, sharing iCloud credentials is against the terms of service so you're already in breach there, and sharing details like a phone number and IMEI with questionable characters is just dumb. That's a discussion that'll go badly in a hurry, so let's not do it.

You want my best guess? There's a security hole somewhere that'll get patched eventually and for the time being people are willing to part with their money to play with fire.

 

[NoBoMac]

Moderator Note:

Discussion around bypassing security measures is not permitted.