Recent comments in /f/gadgets

olqerergorp_etereum t1_j26gozr wrote

Reply to comment by fazalmajid in A17 chip for iPhone 15 may focus more on battery life than power, suggests report by MicroSofty88

ohh would you care to elaborate more on the matter? or to provide additional links to that info? sounds really interesting and sounds as apple it's starting to struggle for real this time to compete with the rest of the phone market I'm happy that this time they're going with improving battery life first BUT if they start to lag too far behind the rest of the competition, people will start to mock apple more and more

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IThinkIKnowThings t1_j26gh56 wrote

Reply to comment by Levelman123 in New York breaks the right to repair bill as it’s signed into law | The bill was signed by NY governor Kathy Hochul on December 28th, making New York the first US state to broadly protect a consumer’s right to repair their own tech. by chrisdh79

Culpability. It's much harder for Apple, who's ultimately responsible for their poorly-trained employees' actions, to get away with stuff like that. They're way too big with way too much government oversight. The public outrage alone would be palpable, with demands for Apple to pay. Meanwhile if Joe Blow jail breaks some stolen iPhones no one outside of law enforcement and those affected would know.

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Guffawker t1_j26f7j6 wrote

Reply to comment by blastermaster555 in New York breaks the right to repair bill as it’s signed into law | The bill was signed by NY governor Kathy Hochul on December 28th, making New York the first US state to broadly protect a consumer’s right to repair their own tech. by chrisdh79

No one is saying that....you're making a gross assumption on how things like that work. We are talking about manufacturer password/admin use to "reset" the phone, not "unlock" it. No one is saying the data should be widely accessible, but that's a SEPARATE thing. You can make the device function again without allowing access to the user data.

That's the whole point. We shouldn't sell devices that become bricks just because of theft (and in a lot of cases we don't, users just don't have that access). Having a way to reset the phone into working order is NOT the same as allowing unauthorized access into the phone. I'm advocating the former. Not the later. Stolen phones getting bricked does nothing, because people will still steal your phone, because it's always a user opt in feature, and users won't always use it. People will steal your phone in the hopes it's unlocked, because it's a small, incredibly easy device to lift, check, and bin if not the case. Even then, people will still steal them in hopes that they will be able to do something with it.

No amount of anti-theft measured are going to prevent someone from stealing a phone. You can lift 100 of um off people and if 1 person doesn't have a password, those 100 you stole don't matter. These measures just mean they get thrown in landfills instead of used. Shit, it might even REDUCE theft in the end, because if you can steal 1 and be able to make a buck off of it, you don't have to risk stealing 100. Phone theft works on the same "operation" as email scams. Doesn't matter how secure 99% of them are, you are looking for the 1% that isn't.

Again, no one should have access to your data. Full stop. Don't invent bs to my argument because you don't understand it. But you should be able to reset a phone into working order. That's the whole point. Your data is still safe, the theft already happened, the bricked device didn't prevent it, so instead of artificially keeping your stock off the second hand market and ending up in landfills, let's make them actually usable.

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FeralCJ7 t1_j26duhz wrote

Reply to comment by blastermaster555 in New York breaks the right to repair bill as it’s signed into law | The bill was signed by NY governor Kathy Hochul on December 28th, making New York the first US state to broadly protect a consumer’s right to repair their own tech. by chrisdh79

I was a cop for 14 years and just got out. I absolutely remember iphones getting stolen constantly when they were fairly new; gradually the thefts have tapered off due to being able to be tracked so easily by the owners and locked remotely.

I agree with you that allowing software to unlock these devices would just increase thefts.

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Mygaffer t1_j26d8nz wrote

Reply to comment by FeralCJ7 in New York breaks the right to repair bill as it’s signed into law | The bill was signed by NY governor Kathy Hochul on December 28th, making New York the first US state to broadly protect a consumer’s right to repair their own tech. by chrisdh79

Nope, that's not at all what that's about. It's literally a software lock only put in to prevent replacing broken parts. NOTHING to do with device security.

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blastermaster555 t1_j26c6ai wrote

Reply to comment by Guffawker in New York breaks the right to repair bill as it’s signed into law | The bill was signed by NY governor Kathy Hochul on December 28th, making New York the first US state to broadly protect a consumer’s right to repair their own tech. by chrisdh79

So if someone steals your phone, unlocks it, then downloads data that lets them steal your identity, that's alright?

Stolen phones get bricked is good if everyone does it - then phone thefts go down because word on the street is, it's not worth it.

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azvnza t1_j26a3pg wrote

Reply to comment by Levelman123 in New York breaks the right to repair bill as it’s signed into law | The bill was signed by NY governor Kathy Hochul on December 28th, making New York the first US state to broadly protect a consumer’s right to repair their own tech. by chrisdh79

a big example is more for iphones, you can’t remove the icloud account without the password. there is no way to do it, and it is still linked to the account post factory reset.

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Guffawker t1_j268gkr wrote

Reply to comment by FeralCJ7 in New York breaks the right to repair bill as it’s signed into law | The bill was signed by NY governor Kathy Hochul on December 28th, making New York the first US state to broadly protect a consumer’s right to repair their own tech. by chrisdh79

Theft will always happen. It's not going to change. Theft still happens right now even when people know the device is basically non-functional. The difference is it would just get tossed in a dumpster since it's a brick. That's absurdly wasteful. Now, you're down a phone and have a brick in a landfill. You don't fix that issue by making tech obsolete if it's stolen, you fix that issue by tighter regulations on repair/second hand shops. Every device has an SN, that SN can be registered. It can be tracked to the owner. Realistically there are ways that could fix this both in ensuring the device is being sold by the proper owner, and having the software check/alert the owner when the device is reactivated or reset.

This doesn't even get into the fact that you can accidently lock your own phone, forget your password, buy something second hand, etc and be left with a brick. This kind of thing doesn't help anyone. Your phone will still get stolen because the thief doesn't gaf if it's locked or not. If it's locked they bin it, if not they sell it.

These aren't anti-theft measured....these are measure to limit the second hand use of these devices, and keep prices high by artificially regulating the amount of devices that can end up on the second hand market. That's the problem.

The whole "locks only keep honest people out" applies to comp sec as well. Let's not keep contributing to e-waste by pretending things like these do anything for our "security". Once your device is stolen, it's stolen. This just determines if it ends up in a trash can or usable once it is.

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Felaguin t1_j265htk wrote

Reply to comment by PROJECT_curse in New York breaks the right to repair bill as it’s signed into law | The bill was signed by NY governor Kathy Hochul on December 28th, making New York the first US state to broadly protect a consumer’s right to repair their own tech. by chrisdh79

Of course they did. This is the same crowd that labels a bill “anti-inflationary” when the provisions of the bill only spur inflation rather than counter it.

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