Unbricking my MacBook took an email to Tim Cook

https://www.tokyodev.com/articles/unbricking-my-macbook-took-an-email-to-tim-cook

by pwim • 3 years ago

493 369 3 years ago

Mostly unrelated, but I think activation lock and similar schemes should have an expiry date, like 2-3 years. It will drastically reduce the amount of senseless e-waste that are perfectly working computers someone just didn't bother to log out of.

c0pium6• 3 years ago

If it’s a corporate MacBook that’s not a concern.

WWLink• 3 years ago

It should be. Corporations are probably the biggest producers of ewaste there is.

FireBeyond• 3 years ago

On one level it’s not because if you hand me a DEP/MDM MacBook, even T2/ Apple Silicon, it can be completely bypassed in under three minutes with no issues.

qingcharles14• 3 years ago

Last year someone who owned a bar gave me a whole box of iPhones, lots of very new ones that had been left behind and never collected. Out of about two dozen phones only one was recoverable (iPhone 7), all the others were ewaste.

talldatethrow3• 3 years ago

Can't they be sold for parts on eBay?

talldatethrow3• 3 years ago

I worked at car dealerships before, and the number of iPads thrown away eventually because no one can log into them after a while is atleast 10+ that I've personally seen. Basically about 33% of them after a year.

the_black_hand4• 3 years ago

ewaste is problem but bricking them is the only strong security deterent. Many criminals would be happy to steal a brand new iphone and resell it after 3 years.

Eisenstein3• 3 years ago

I don't think you have thought this through. Organized crime gets phones from thieves that go around in (for instance) concerts and pick pocket and then sell the phones which then get sent to a location where they are reset/parted out and resold. Would they be willing to pay money to the thieves just to sit on a hoard of phones for 3 years and then sell them at suitably discounted prices? I'd wager that is doubtful.

Non-organized crime is generally opportunistic. Would the opportunistic criminal know of this reset date, and if they did would they be willing to wait 3 years to fence the phone? I'd wager that is doubtful.

paganel2• 3 years ago

Had the iPhones still remained somehow reasonably priced then we wouldn't have had the thieves problem, or not as big, that's for sure. But when a new iPhone can already cost you ~1300 euros then things change, iPhone users now have a target on their back.

CSMastermind• 3 years ago

When first activating a MacBook, Apple makes it easy to skip setting up FindMy. But given the severe consequences for not doing so, I think either need to revise the setup workflow to make this downside abundantly clear, or revisit their unlock policy altogether.

Seems like a reasonable suggestion, hopefully someone at Apple sees it and adds in a warning about the consequences of skipping that step.

c0pium6• 3 years ago

And then they will immediately get publicly roasted for scaring users into creating that account. There’s no stance they can take here which makes everyone happy.

iJohnDoe2• 3 years ago

Is this because if you do not add the device to your FindMy account, then someone else can add it to their account and lock the device?

If that’s the case, then that should be the warning.

“If you skip this step, then someone could add this device to their FindMy account and lock you out of your device. Apple will not help you under any circumstance if this occurs. We recommend adding this device to your FindMy account to maintain access to this expensive thing you just bought.”

Terretta• 3 years ago

I'm firmware locked out of an OS-update bricked Macbook 2019. I wouldn't care if the OS booted, I don't need the firmware password to use it, only to wipe it. I don't really want to wipe it, I want it to boot.

I bought it with cash in Grand Central. I have my welcome to your New Mac email from the week they launched and it's in Find My still today. But I didn't keep the cash receipt and I password protected the firmware before an International trip, and don't remember that.

Apple will not unlock it, though it's in Find My, and has only been mine for its entire history. (They also won't unlock it, fix the bricked OS update, and lock it again, which would be fair enough. But as I see it, they broke my machine, and they prevent me from unbreaking it.)

So FindMy won't save you from yourself. :-/

toomuchtodo5• 3 years ago

It is delightful that OP was able to get Tim’s exec team to fix this for them. Broadly speaking, this indicates that there needs to be a mechanism to bind your IRL identity to your digital identity and your device(s). Instead of showing proof of purchase, you provide a government credential you bound to the account and or the device, and assuming trust in the identity proofing process, you receive access to your device or account because you are known to be who tied the device to your IRL identity.

Emailing Tim doesn’t scale.

(I have filed comments with the FTC on this account recovery matter regulatory gap; identity is a component of my work in infosec, primarily in financial services)

jtriangle8• 3 years ago

Tying your real identity to a machine is a piss poor solution to this problem, and it is as such because you're not understanding the problem itself.

The issue at hand is that devices are being sold where you do not take ownership of the private keys used to configure it. Not your keys, not your device.

toomuchtodo5• 3 years ago

Right, this idea that your keys are your ownership interest is not grounded in legal reality and why legal matters end up in court or with regulators: they are the arbiters of the law, not some crypto primitive (which while arguably useful and convenient for security and access control, is not what defines ownership). It’s some tech bro idea of what the law should be, not what it is. The device is yours regardless of the state of private keys on the device, what Apple’s PKI web and FindMy asset status indicates, etc. Observing a judge or regulator issue an order to resolve such an issue, along with penalties for not, makes this clear.

You continue to own what you own as long as you can prove who you are (assuming you haven’t transferred the asset or belonging to someone else legitimately; save your bill of sale!). Tech doesn’t write property law, it is a servant to it and operates within the legal framework (for obvious reasons). Code and keys are not the law; the law is law.

Obscurity4340• 3 years ago

* nacho

judge20202• 3 years ago

Being able to "take ownership of the private keys" will benefit us on HN and not many beyond that. Apple sells Macbooks to anyone who can afford one, and I would bet money we'd see 100x the number of complaints of inaccessible laptops (via selling them or otherwise) if you needed to store keys from initial setup until the end of its usage or from people forgetting to transfer the keys to the new owner(s) of said laptop.

jimt1234• 3 years ago

First time I've heard "Not your keys, not your device." I love it. Thanks.

piuantiderp• 3 years ago

This sounds so annoying, why does it have to be gov-issued?

toomuchtodo5• 3 years ago

Because those are credentials of last resort trusted at scale. Losing who you are is much more challenging than a secure hardware token or a soft crypto primitive. If you lose a gov credential, the government itself does the hard part of identity proofing to reissue a credential for consumption by those who require identity assurance to complete a transaction or action. A business or other party can then trust that credential, reducing the risk of loss through identity fraud.

Optional of course. For those who want to ride the lightning, they should be able to opt out and eat the loss if they so choose (assuming loss of authentication mechanisms, whether that be passwords, passkeys, private key(s), hardware tokens, totp seeds, etc). For the rest of us, “here is my driver’s license, state ID, or passport, please unlock my property or I’m engaging state and federal regulators and the legal system.” To do otherwise is in violation of consumer and citizen property rights.

crooked-v• 3 years ago

Estonia has a system a little like that: https://e-estonia.com/solutions/e-identity/id-card/

qingcharles14• 3 years ago

What about those of us who are unable to obtain government ID?

toomuchtodo5• 3 years ago

You’re default fucked anyway current state based on this anecdote. Broadly speaking, government should make it as straightforward as possible to obtain a legitimate government credential from an equity perspective for a variety of lifetime identity needs (and about 1% of the US population has no government ID). Out of 200 countries, 170 have a national ID system.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/08/voting-...

josu• 3 years ago

here needs to be a mechanism to bind your IRL identity to your digital identity and your device(s)

No, this creates more problems than it solves.

wkat42423• 3 years ago

I absolutely don't want my identity tied to my hardware. Because once it's there the industry will start campaigning to link it to online accounts as well.

I definitely don't trust the government and industry that much.

ahepp4• 3 years ago

Broadly speaking, this indicates that there needs to be a mechanism to bind your IRL identity to your digital identity and your device(s)

The link between digital identity and device ownership would have been sufficient to prevent this situation without involving IRL identity. The author had a chance to establish that link, but chose not to.

I enjoy Apple's services, but I can understand why someone wouldn't want their computer phoning home to a big tech company all the time. It's pretty difficult to understand why someone who doesn't want their device phoning home to Apple, would be OK with their device phoning home to the government?

primax• 3 years ago

I've long wanted something like this for addresses or contact details.

You register your address somewhere, and give access to it to companies by signing their certificate. When you update your contact details, you do so in one place and it sends a notification to each organisation to update their details.

It'd be better as well if you could revoke your permission with that company so they can't contact you.

jtriangle8• 3 years ago

I'm glad the machine was restored to usable condition, I've had a laptop stolen from me in the past, it was returned in an evidence bag, in about 1000 pieces, which was very frustrating to get an excited call a year after it'd happened telling me the police had recovered it, only to be greeted with, well, an unusable husk.

That said, yours is a completely artificial problem imposed upon you by the company you made a purchase from. You don't have the private keys to your own device, which means ultimately, your usage of that device is conditional on being in the good graces of a group of very wealthy, indifferent, strangers.

That, in, and of itself, is the issue at hand here, and while you've found yourself a favorable outcome, you're likely an exception to the rule.

Zambyte• 3 years ago

You don't have the private keys to your own device

This here is the misunderstanding. It's simply not possible for you to own Apple's computers.

wkat42423• 3 years ago

Yeah laptops are going the same way as content "No you're not buying a book/movie, just a license to use it". It's a bit depressing.

judge20202• 3 years ago

What is the better solution that retains the anti-theft capabilities of the device? The value of stolen (activation-locked) iPhones and Macs is largely only on in overseas markets where they can strip the device down to usable parts - or, if you're lucky, you'll get threatening text messages telling you to remove the device from your icloud[0, 1] so they can sell it as a fully working phone.

The inability for a thief to just flash the device with fresh firmware and use it as if it were new is a key selling point of the device and might justify the higher price tag to some buyers.

0: https://old.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/13yn1o0/phone_st...

1: https://old.reddit.com/r/applehelp/comments/16fcd4c/recently...

torstenvl2• 3 years ago

I fail to see how Apple's corporate policy robbing you of your device is somehow an anti-theft capability.

If you are permanently deprived of your rightful property, you are a victim of theft. Whether it's via EULA and private keys, or via street thug with a wrench, I'm not sure it makes any realistic difference.

jtriangle8• 3 years ago

Depends on the person/application.

I, alone, have the keys to my laptop's drive. The device itself is cheap, and insured in most cases, so, if it gets stolen, no worries really.

For a macbook and a not-tech-savvy user, well, we exchange cars all the time, and cars have keys, usually some flavor of RFID included. Cars are less than perfect of course, but, most can add/remove keys given a set of conditions are met. I don't think it'd be outrageous to just have an iphone app that handles the key exchange upon sale. Mix that with a little user education, a little UX, and you're good to go. More or less that'd involve a user resetting the machine and part of that process would include de-enrolling their 2nd factor from the machine to prep it for sale.

That maintains all of the same functionality and then some.

twodave3• 3 years ago

This line of argument just _irks_ me. I don't care enough about thieves for this to even matter to me. And I think this is zero-sum for the consumer. Maybe more devices get stolen (probably not, if I'm a thief I'm still snatching it and throwing it in a river or something). What this really does is suffocate the secondary parts market, so it costs more to repair the things or they just require a replacement.

Many, many users of these devices have rarely, if ever, had anything stolen from them. And as one such person, I don't want to hear a company tell me I can't even have the _option_ of an open device because "it's for my own good". I can damned well decide that on my own.

spookie• 3 years ago

You could encrypt your boot partition as well as the others. ahem... A "friend" of mine does this and he sure looks silly decrypting the laptop 2 times upon turning it on!

Of course, this approach only solves the biggest problem when your device is stolen (your data won't be easily accessible, if at all really). But I wager this friend of mine recognises that as the only thing that has any actual value in there. There are ton of devices out there.

SenAnder• 3 years ago

What is the better solution that retains the anti-theft capabilities of the device?

Include the unlock key in the box the device was sold in, and in Apple's database. Tech-savvy users can, possessing the key, change it. Tech-unsavvy users can behave the same as they have now, even if they lost the key, as long as they didn't change it. So long as they don't carry the key with the device, all the anti-theft remains.

The freedom-respecting solution is literally trivial. The only reason it is not implemented is because Apple likes owning your devices.

matheusmoreira• 3 years ago

The better solution is to not have "anti-theft" nonsense to begin with. They invariably involve giving up the keys to the machine to the trillion dollar corporation. It's not our computers anymore, it's the corporation's and they're merely allowing us to use them. This "anti-theft" stuff is really just DRM disguised as a feature.

akira25013• 3 years ago

What is the better solution that retains the anti-theft capabilities of the device?

One that doesn't literally make the device unusable in the case of a mistake. We protect far more valuable property with far less fancy mechanisms. If you're genuinely worried about theft, then you need layers of simple security, not a one shot nuclear bomb embedded into your device.

The inability for a thief to just flash the device with fresh firmware and use it as if it were new is a key selling point of the device and might justify the higher price tag to some buyers.

Is that why people care about theft?

015a2• 3 years ago

There are two kinds of people in the world; people who believe "anti-theft" is a reasonable justification for this, and people who believe that this is just another tired "trade freedom for security" argument.

You'll rarely convince either side to change their mind on this. Its an issue that pokes at a really deep element of personal philosophy.

Here's my argument from the opposite side to try, however: Asking about how you can retain the anti-theft capability isn't relevant to the discussion, because sacrificing freedom for that, especially to the degree Apple does, is not worth any trade-off. This is the same right to repair issue that HackerNews, generally, derides John Deere for; the main difference, beyond Apple's psy-op level marketing, is that Apple hasn't pushed exploitation of this control as hard. But: They absolutely, undeniably do exploit many of the people within their system of control, not just indirectly ("the control is exploitation" is kind of a dumb argument), but very directly, between extremely high upfront costs, high repair fees, cryptographically refusing to allow third party parts, etc. Additionally: their self-control in pushing further exploitation is almost definitely a product of market success, because in the mega-capitalist system Apple lives in benevolence may be the result of culture or leadership, but it is allowed by market success, and denied during market failure.

A lot of that boils down to the original thesis; very fundamental personal philosophy. I don't believe, personally, that it is ethical for individuals or companies to do something unethical (non-negotiably asserting significant control over physical goods they sell) because it enables something ethical (reducing incidents of theft).

That might be controversial, which is fine. I think a point of that which is likely even more controversial is the argument that even asserting control over devices in isolation is unethical. I hope it isn't controversial, but I feel like it might be simply given the way the world is turning. That's a different topic of discussion; but in short, I think there's a strong argument that restricting freedom to independently modify and repair physical goods you purchase is a form of classism. Additionally, to turn the dial to 11 on this, that this assertion of central control has a very real, negative impact on national security.

CivBase• 3 years ago

I see this argument made all the time. Is there literally any other product for which this is seen as an acceptable "anti-theft" feature? Imagine if we did that to cars.

m4632• 3 years ago

you could have a hardware dongle that you initialize when you activate your phone/laptop. It can be stored at home or in a safe. Then that dongle can unlock the device completely at any time.

Instead, the keys are stored by apple and never returned to you.

ShadowBanThis014• 3 years ago

There apparently ARE no "anti-theft" capabilities. Look at this:

"They explained to me that the MacBook was wiped in the middle of August (after I had lost it) and then reported lost by a newly created iCloud account"

How can an unauthorized user suddenly claim ownership of a wiped computer and then "report it lost?" Why does Apple accept a loss report from someone who is not the owner of the computer? If this is actually what happened, there's no excuse for that glaring stupidity.

simion314• 3 years ago

What is the better solution that retains the anti-theft capabilities of the device?

Apple can afford to pay smart people to think for days for a solution. The solutions we will give here after 1 minute of thinking will not be optimum.

Log_out_• 3 years ago

Allow the owner to neuter anti theft if he wants? Make it trapdoor opt out?

prmoustache2• 3 years ago

What is the better solution that retains the anti-theft capabilities of the device?

A private key that is given to you upon purchase and that you can store in your password manager.

xxs3• 3 years ago

solution that retains the anti-theft capabilities of the device

First, this is a self-imposed problem; spread crime (theft) won't be solved by reducing the access.

Next, I could have an encrypted drive and a key stored in a key stored in a bank, or an USB storage, or print, or whatever. As a matter of fact, I do have such laptop.

And last - car thievery is still a thing in the EU, even though registering a stolen car is exceeding hard - they are either sold for parts... or exported to Russian (not so much recently for obvious reasons). Of course, Apple comes and tells that only they can repair the laptops/phones/etc. b/c of thievery and serialized parts.

trevyn• 3 years ago

What is the better solution that retains the anti-theft capabilities of the device?

I have a private key, not on the device, that matches a public key on the device. The device will not perform certain significant operations without a signature from my private key.

C'mon people, this is not rocket science.

varispeed• 3 years ago

If Apple didn't actively block supply of spare parts, this wouldn't be as attractive as it would have been much cheaper to buy parts from the manufacturer than steal phones, ship them overseas and get (most likely) forced labourers to strip them for parts and ship back.

It Apple's corporate greed that fuels that and government corruption that allows it.

trinsic24• 3 years ago

I equate this to owning a car, but giving the master keys to a third-party that doesn't have your best interest at heart, with the ability to lock the owner out of the car simply because his keys were taken.

Any anti-theft method needs to give complete and full control to the owner of the device so this kind of bullshit doesn't happen.

The fact that Apple doesn't provide a mechanism for the owner to gain full and complete control of his device at any given moment has more to do with Apple wanting to control their technology for ulterior motives.

We live in an age where corporations want to take away ownership, and we're letting it happen because we're stupid enough to think that they have our back.

Brian_K_White• 3 years ago

a: Trivial. User controls the keys, the service only controls the service.

b: Irrelevant. There is a value to the consumer, but it is not worth the cost. There are countless possible conveniences that could be made possible if you were just willing to let someone else have essentially power of attorney over your life.

c: Even if you want to say that there is a technical limitation making a: impossible, and you have a different opinion on b:, the laptop WAS ultimately unbricked, which means all arguments and excuses that were given up to that point to justify not unbricking were proven demostrably false.

I don't just mean they always had the physical ability, I mean the fact that they were ever eventually willing, proves that all along the necessary information existed to allow them to. If there are supposedly two facts: "We can't know it's really you." plus "For integrity and principle reasons, we can't do it if we can't know it's really you.", then even Tim Cook should not have done it no matter the publicity pressure. Tim Cook should have made it a big promotional selling point plastered on those big Apple billboards in NYC how they refused to do the wrong thing even in the face of massive public pressure. Instead, they did it, which means they could have done it in the first place, not just physically but logically.

It proves that they chose not to for reasons which are valuable to Apple and NOT to the user. Another aspect of b: value not worth the cost. Cost being being at someone else's mercy who you have no leverage over.

smashed• 3 years ago

This.

Any other reply is going to be apologetic rambling.

hackerfooze• 3 years ago

One of many issues solved by blockchain technologies. You can completely cut out the middleman and get access to your data.

davely• 3 years ago

How does blockchain solve this problem?

You still have to rely on a middleman (the blockchain), which I believe isn’t infallible either (human input error, adversarial attacks, phishing, social engineering, network availability, etc)

microtherion9• 3 years ago

Yes, of course! Blockchain COMPLETELY solves the problem of losing your keys or having them stolen

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hard-drive-lost-bitcoin-landfil...

jtriangle8• 3 years ago

I mean, you could use blockchain for this and create a viable solution. I don't think that's the only solution, or even the best solution in this case, but, worth considering the idea at least.

tinus_hn4• 3 years ago

The person is praising Activation Lock and criticizing the fact you can skip setting it up. Yet you want to turn it into a claim Activation Lock is a bad thing.

Nothing more than the typical ‘hurr durr Apple bad’ commenting common on this site. Dull, pointless, not interesting.

jtriangle8• 3 years ago

I like apple products just fine to be honest, you've really missed the mark here. The issue is, as stated, you do not own the keys to the device you've purchased. That's a huge problem, and as OP's story shows, can result in the loss of access to your device.

I think apple is currently doing the best job out of everyone as far as hardware security is concerned. That does not mean their implementation is anything close to perfect, it's more that everyone else is doing a poor job, or forgoing any attempt at it in the first place.

thefz• 3 years ago

That said, yours is a completely artificial problem imposed upon you by the company you made a purchase from.

Nobody owns even their hardware anymore.

khazhoux• 3 years ago

your usage of that device is conditional on being in the good graces of a group of very wealthy, indifferent, strangers.

Was it necessary to say “wealthy”? That doesn’t seem relevant, but rather incidental.

karamanolev• 3 years ago

Their wealth is a core reason for their indifference, so I'd argue yes, it was necessary.

caeril• 3 years ago

problem imposed upon you by the company

No, this is an entirely self-inflicted problem by the user.

It's 2023. Everybody knows about the telemetry, the unserviceable hardware, the "fuck you" style bug reporting and customer service, and of course the fact that you no longer own your own machine.

Anybody buying Apple (and to a large extend Microsoft) at this point, knowing they have no intention of letting you have access to your own device, also knowing that there are superior open-source options, deserves precisely what they get.

jtriangle8• 3 years ago

knowing that there are superior open-source options

Most do not know however, nor do they desire to know, and likely, they will never know. If you want to make something actually better for someone who's not you, blaming them for not making it better is hardly a solution.

Also stands to reason that, hackernews is popular with people in the industry, maybe not the actual decision makers, but, certainly people with more pull than most. It's important to express how things ought to be for that reason alone.

qingcharles14• 3 years ago

Whenever I have an issue with a product that support can't/won't resolve I go to one of those sites where you can buy contact info and purchase the CEO's email addresses and phone numbers then go at them. I just had to do it for the recent Google class action payout (got me my check overnighted).

I did it with Cash App though and it backfired ("Your account has been terminated for contacting employees outside of the support system")

Now, how much is Sundar Pichai's cellphone number going to cost me? I just want to get into my Google account that I have the username, password and recovery email for, but not the old phone number.

Scoundreller• 3 years ago

Another option is contacting shareholder relations.

Helps if you're a stockholder, but you don't have to be (you can decide on the ethics of going through non-standard methods when standard methods don't work). Those inboxes are usually monitored by competent people and they'll at least forward your email to the right people so they can close out the case that gets created on every email on their side.

Patio11 goes into this here: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r... in the section: "Where exactly should I address letters?". Also goes into contacting their legal department. If you can't find an address, can always send a letter to headquarters "ATTN LEGAL DEPARTMENT", those get opened by expensive people.

I've emailed shareholder relations for a company I owned, a smaller company, like $2b, about some question I had about one of their annual reports. Didn't get a response after a followup. Sold half my stock because of their non-response and was very happy I did (unsure if my question was a sensitive topic for them, but c'mon, at least give me a fuck off reply)

qingcharles14• 3 years ago

Thank you. I was thinking of following up with Cash App's legal dept just to see if they have anyone worth a crap working there who might see sense and reverse the decision.

trinsic24• 3 years ago

Thanks for the info. I accidentally downvoted you while copying the text, sorry about that.

throwup2383• 3 years ago

I did it with Cash App though and it backfired ("Your account has been terminated for contacting employees outside of the support system")

Write the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They'll get you sorted right quick.

qingcharles14• 3 years ago

First thing I did. Didn't help at all :(

lolinder3• 3 years ago

Is this illegal somehow? I totally understand why a company would take a hard stance against customers contacting employees through weird side channels, and I have a hard time imagining what law they would be violating by enforcing that rule.

arcastroe• 3 years ago

If you're willing to share, I'd love to hear the Cash App story. Seems like a slap in the face for them to terminate your account for trying to resolve an issue with their service.

qingcharles14• 3 years ago

In very quick summary: I bought a product online using my Cash App debit card. Turns out with more research company was a total scam. After 6 weeks of not shipping anything I asked for refund. They shipped "something" to me, but FedEx failed to deliver the box (said I was out but never even came down my street) and the package was returned to the sender. Sender closed their corporation and opened under another name and continued scam.

I asked Cash App to do a chargeback. They told me their system doesn't allow chargebacks where the goods were "delivered." I told them they were never delivered. They argued that they were delivered back to the sender, therefore they were "delivered." I got all their execs cellphones and started politely calling them. One escalated it to their "Executive Support" who gave me the same answer, then my account was terminated. They did issue me a refund as part of the termination, but I can no longer use Cash App which is very frustrating for someone at the bottom of the food chain like me who interacts regularly with people who only use Cash App as their banking.

    In the interest of resolving your dispute, we are providing, as a one-time courtesy, a reimbursement of $93.75 for your transaction with Wibargin, LLC.  Additionally, we are electing to terminate your Cash App account (as allowed in our Terms of Service, section XIII.8).  As a result of the termination of your Cash App account, you will no longer be able to use Cash App and its services going forward.

    You will be able to access your account in order to cash out your remaining funds, however all other features, including the Cash Card, will be permanently disabled.

thejosh• 3 years ago

Here in Australia we have the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) which is designed to help consumers, we also have pretty good consumer laws - this has stopped various companies from expanding here due to not wanting to deal with our Government, however given Australians spend $$, they need to dance to their tune.

nuker2• 3 years ago

In my case (below) ACCC said they dont engage for individuals, its an industry level org. Quote: "The ACCC is not a complaints handling body, so we are unable to help you resolve your dispute"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38691458

aardvarkr• 3 years ago

Where in the world can you buy information like that? Seems incredible that something like that exists

qingcharles14• 3 years ago

SignalHire was the one I used recently, and Jigsaw was the one before.

Basically whenever a friend of yours installs some shitty free app on their phone and it demands to exfiltrate all their contacts your email address and phone numbers get scooped up and sold to the highest bidder. You can guarantee Tim Cook has a bunch of friends, grandmas, etc that have no idea how to use their phones and have 400 apps installed all syphoning off Tim's contact details.

mathrawka• 3 years ago

Curious to which Google class action payout you are talking about.

I'm still waiting for the check from https://googleplaydevelopersettlement.com/, was it this one?

sureglymop• 3 years ago

We just had a thing like this in my company. A customer asked a technical question to our assistant who forwarded the question to the dev team. Within an hour (before she could reply) they wrote an angry email to the CEO "exposing" her and overall acting petty. The CEO then forwarded that email to her supervisor who then just forwarded it to her again. It was quite unpleasant for every party involved. It's just a hit and miss and if one does this, it definitely shouldn't be an petty/angry rant.

toyg2• 3 years ago

So your dev team humiliated a random female employee for trying to provide good customer support...?

Sounds like a fun place to work for. /s

soundarana2• 3 years ago

Buying a private phone number and contacting it for support could be considered harassment.

verisimi2• 3 years ago

What about when your device is bricked, and you can't use it any more and the company does not engage with you?

What the legal system says, the words they use, are not that interesting...

neom• 3 years ago

I got a pair of Airpod max back from Apple (they'd evidently replaced them with a refurb pair.) Didn't use them for a couple of days till I heard them making a sound. I pulled them out and got a notice on my phone that the AirPod Max I had was associated with an iCloud account. I wasn't super stoked about getting a pair of trackable headphones given to me by Apple so I emailed Tim and explained the situation. Got a call back the next day from someone in the Apple exec service team asking for the details, I explained and mentioned I wanted 2 things resolved. Non-refurbished pair of headphones and an understanding if they could have indeed been tracked or not. The next day got an answer back on both of them: no, can't have a non-refurbished pair. And, yes, could have been tracked via the find my the headphones were attached to, sorry about that!

Washuu• 3 years ago

The fact that they are replacing them with a refurbished product is ridiculous in the first place.

angulardragon032• 3 years ago

Refurbished Apple products are generally in almost indistinguishable condition from new, and are thus likely in better condition than a device you bring for repair months or years into using it. Using refurbished devices to replace used devices is a surefire way to "reduce, reuse, recycle" (especially considering that refurbishing also re-uses any returns Apple receives).

xp84• 3 years ago

Wow, I didn’t see that one coming. Can’t believe they just told you tough sh— on the headphones!

crazydoggers5• 3 years ago

I’m sorry, but I honestly feel like this is the OPs fault entirely. It’s clear they had disabled account security on the laptop, in order for the other user who swapped laptops to add their account to that laptop. It’s not even that they didn’t enable “Find My” (which it does during initial setup, all you need to do is add an iCloud account)… he disable the password required setting to open the Mac. (Yes you can disable the requirements for logging in, but it’s definitely not the default setting) If you jump through such hoops in the first place to weaken your computer’s security, your can’t claim it’s not your fault when someone encrypts your computer on you.

I buy Mac’s specifically because for me this is a feature. I have backups. And if someone steals my laptop or I lose it, I’d much rather be out the money and the hardware and have it 100% bricked unusable and inaccessible, than have any possibility of my data getting accessed. (Not to mention making it worthless to the average petty thief).

Creating a work around, no matter how many N levels of authentication means there’s a hole for social engineering, and I’m definitely not a fan of that.

So it’s a trade off. If you don’t care about such level of security, then there are other laptop options, but please don’t ask Apple to start making their security weaker because there are those of us who want it this way.

And if you’re traveling with your laptop, put a password on it at least, and better yet encrypt it.

the_black_hand4• 3 years ago

Agree. OP messed up. How would anyone not bother to set a password or "find my" on a $1200 Macbook? That's just negligence and complaining to Apple about it is a bit silly. I haven't set up a Macbook in a while, but I bet you have to go out of your way to disable those security features.

crazydoggers5• 3 years ago

It’s a little like buying a Lamborghini, and then speeding and totaling it, and then complaining they need to make it not as fast so you can’t do that.

s3p2• 3 years ago

How funny. I had my mac repaired by apple a few months ago because of a strange display issue. Repair was free and took ~2 days. Just checked Settings and it turns out Find My has been off this entire time.

Just goes to show that some of us genuinely forget! Not all of us remember to re enable this stuff 0.2 seconds after we turned it off.

Edit: I'm sure HN already knows this but just adding in here: Apple doesn't accept devices for repair until Find My is turned off and that's why mine was disabled

lokar2• 3 years ago

You can reset a Mac without a login if it does not have “find my” activated.

crazydoggers5• 3 years ago

That’s not true with new Macs. If you go into recovery mode it first asks you for the machine password. If you say you forgot; then it will try Apple ID.

OP specifically states this was a new M2, so it’s not possible unless he left it unlocked.

It might be possible if he never associated it with an Apple ID at all (literally the first thing the setup asks you to do, I’ve never tried not). Without an Apple ID though, you can’t update/upgrade the OS, download App Store software, use iCloud backup, iMessage, FaceTime, apple care, contact warranty support etc etc. And Mac is pretty good about bugging you to do this. So if he did this, saying just “I didn’t enable Find My” is a bit disingenuous.

So to be clear, you cannot reset a Mac without a login just because it does not have “find my” activated.

BTW, then he also admits “maybe I setup an iCloud account I don’t remember.” But his other linked article about this states “They presumably can see that my Apple ID is associated with it.” Ummm. If that’s the case, why doesn’t he recover the Apple ID first? So on closer inspection a lot of things don’t add up, other than the fault was almost certainly his.

the_black_hand4• 3 years ago

why would anyone in their right mind not set up "find my" ?

iJohnDoe2• 3 years ago

The location data could be subpoenaed later. Account could be compromised later and used to get location of person. Apple could get hacked tomorrow or 6 months from now and all location data leaked.

Journalists. Human Rights Activists. Etc.

the_black_hand4• 3 years ago

The vast majority of people do not have to deal with these concerns. The odds of you losing your device are way higher than Apple getting hacked by orders of magnitude. If you are someone who falls into these professions then you probably should know what you're doing and disable it, or buy a different phone, or have some kind of backup security in place.

gruez• 3 years ago

At least on macs you can enable find my with location services disabled, which mitigates your concern.

fh9302• 3 years ago

Find My network uses E2EE so the location can't be subpoenaed.

trynumber92• 3 years ago

I don't set it up. Crime is not really an issue in my house.

crazygringo2• 3 years ago

I mean... it's not until you get robbed/burgled.

grishka2• 3 years ago

I didn't do it because while I do use a Mac, I don't need or want any of the Apple's online ecosystem.

oneplane• 3 years ago

This has happened with various anti-theft systems for a really long time, most of those cases not having a happy ending (some sort of class-action payout of a few pennies at best).

I wouldn't be surprised that there is no real 'have your cake and eat it too' version of this where you can make something secure (both integrity and confidentiality) while also not risking losing access or ownership yourself. At least not yet.

It has the same issue trying to make a 'regulatory backdoor' in a crypto system, it just weakens the system and as a result just means such backdoors get abused by everyone making the crypto system worthless.

hliyan• 3 years ago

Every business should be able to service their customers in human-to-human interactions. "We're too big to have humans speak to our human customers" is becoming normalised and that's a trend we need to reverse. Growing revenue streams without investing in the support those revenue streams need, is a bad business practice.

lotsofpulp4• 3 years ago

You can get a phone call from an Apple representative very quickly in my experience.

https://support.apple.com/contact

edude03• 3 years ago

It's a poor moral practice perhaps but arguably a good business practice to spend as little as possible on "cost centres"

tadfisher2• 3 years ago

Agreed. f Apple did this they'd quickly go from a $1 trillion dollar company to a $999 billion company.

balderdash• 3 years ago

It’s short term thinking - if you want don’t want repeat business burn your customers.

I got given a Patagonia bag (not my thing), the wheel broke off (thanks AA), took it to a store, and the customer service was so good I’m a convert. Conversely, I recently stopped using a service I spent >$20k a year on because their customer service was so bad. Can you boost profitability short term? Definitely, but I suspect in the long term you trading long term customer NPV for short term profits

woutr_be• 3 years ago

I recently had a human at my local banks' branch (after 30 minutes of waiting) tell me I should call their phone hotline to get my issue resolved. They couldn't (or refused) to do it in person.

j16sdiz• 3 years ago

In many bank, the teller just don't have access to the system that can resolve your issue. They can call the hotline on your behalf, help you fill out forms and verify your identity.

eviks2• 3 years ago

Have you had no experience of a useless human wasting more time than a chat bot?

dijit2• 3 years ago

Ironically part of why I use Apple products at all is the human support staff available to me when I lived in London.

Problem with Dell, HP, Lenovo -> ship it back and pray

Problem with Apple -> walk into covent garden and ask.

My experiences with Apple support has been nothing except glowing. (Apart from one work incident where our IT supplier ordered Applecare (3 years service warranty) instead of Applecare+ (2 year accidental damage) - and my employee dropped his laptop).

bitwize• 3 years ago

Reminds me of the time my dad bought a TRS-80 and the screw holes were filled with Glyptal to prevent end-user repair or modification. He drilled through the Glyptal, then contacted the literal president of Tandy to complain. Tandy never sealed the screw holes to its computers again (though they did still do the "warranty void if this sticker is broken" trick on some of their equipment). I doubt Apple will fix their practices though. They may be in the right: as soon as that MacBook got stolen it should have been considered compromised and completely forfeit. Cryptographically tying your hardware to your digital identity, as Apple does, provides, among other things, a means to recover your hardware without having to consider it untrustworthy.

Hell, Tandy may have been in the right. TRS-80 hardware was bodgy as all get-out and sometimes downright dangerous to open: the cathode on the CRT was dangerously close to the mainboard and likely to fry the computer, if not the user, if the user wasn't skilled enough to open the machine very carefully.

musicale2• 3 years ago

Tandy never sealed the screw holes to its computers again

Good that they actually fixed it when he complained!

They also apparently sold a terrific "technical reference manual" that explained the hardware design and operation in detail and also included a parts list and schematics:

https://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/publications/manuals-servic...

I believe Apple used to provide schematics for its early machines as well.

ryandrake4• 3 years ago

It's never OK to prevent a purchaser from doing something with the item he purchased. If I buy something from a company, I should be able to take it apart, learn about it, fix it, resell it, or throw it in the trash, all without begging the manufacturer for permission. We should not normalize this practice of manufacturers having these "tethers" into the products they sell.

RagnarD• 3 years ago

That such an email led to a positive resolution for him should be a giant red flag to Apple. I doubt this is just a corner case, so it means that Apple's systems are badly flawed and need to be corrected.

shinryuu2• 3 years ago

Any system is flawed in different ways. The fact that apple has a course corrective measure through cooks email is a positive.

eviks2• 3 years ago

Any system has some course corrective action, so then it's not a positive

nuker2• 3 years ago

I believe my letter to Tim Cook worked too!

MacOS Big Sur broke support for high refresh rate external displays for Intel Macs. It was the DSC feature of HDMI/DP protocols, 4 years ago. Everyone that had it working at 4k@144Hz in MacOS Catalina, got only 60Hz in Big Sur and later.

Apple Support / Engineering department had me to install Catalina, show that 4k@144Hz actually works, got a ton of diagnostic data and came back with "you may downgrade to Catalina as a solution" LOL

Wrote to Tim Cook, with case number and, wait for it, MacOS Sonoma had it fixed!

gojomo• 3 years ago

Seems another example of Apple pretending it can't (or never would) do something related to stolen equipment – that they can & actually do if you just reach the right person with the right request.

My related story of someone likely circumventing my activation lock, using either fake docs or a compromised Apple-authorized agent, a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38622248

silcoon2• 3 years ago

Why I don't buy MacBook for personal use anymore:

- in 2019 spent more than €3K to buy the best macbook 15' available (> 2 months of average salary in my Europe country)

- 2 weeks before the warranty (1y) the spacebar broke, the SPACEBAR!!!. It was a design issue and it got replaced in a few days by the local service under warranty.

- 1 year later, the battery starts dying out. Go to the authorized repairer and it was going to cost me ~€750 to replace the battery since I had to replace the entire keyboard and trackpad to do that.

- I found a PC repair shop that said he can do it for a couple hundred €, and it worked fine

- 3 months later the laptop shut down unexpectedly. The apple refused to fix it (even paying) because I used a battery not official. The Mac is now a brick

So 2.5y of personal use (not professional) cost me €3.5K. More expensive than a cheap car.

edit: the battery replacement with all top case cost me ~€750. Confirmed looking back at the emails

astrea• 3 years ago

Meanwhile Andy could’ve gotten Apple Care for 3 years for $140 USD (~ €128).

suprjami3• 3 years ago

I've worked in laptop repair for various brands before (Acer, Dell, Compaq). Whenever people ask my advice I always recommend they buy a laptop extended warranty, and I buy it myself. It usually pays for itself on the first service call.

That said, a thousand Euros to replace a battery is ludicrous. No consumer should be charged that, warranty or no.

For reference, I recently got a second hand recent ThinkPad with a dud battery and bought the genuine replacement battery for AU$200 (€123) and could replace it myself as it's an FRU.

Apple should not be charging literally an entire order of magnitude more for the same part, regardless of the service cost.

zakki• 3 years ago

It doesn't solve the problem when it happens 3y+1d.

paulpauper2• 3 years ago

damn. cheap $400 Toshiba laptop from 2013 still going strong. and another one from 2015.

martinsnow2• 3 years ago

You're not getting the same performance out of that laptop, as you're getting from a new macbook pro. Don't be obtuse.

musicale2• 3 years ago

1 year later, the battery starts dying out. Go to the authorized repairer and it was going to cost me > €1K to replace the battery since I had to replace the entire keyboard and trackpad to do that.

So what you seem to be saying is that Apple laptop batteries cannot be replaced for less than €1K if the laptop is out of warranty?

Absolutely incredible. If that's the case, it should really be reported as front page news so that nobody else makes the mistake of buying an Apple laptop ever again.

Jtsummers• 3 years ago

https://support.apple.com/mac/repair

It costs $249 for a 2019 15" MBP battery (not 15', not sure they ever made them that big, GP's laptop may be special). GP's issue is that Apple, per their story, wanted to replace the keyboard and trackpad as well and wanted to charge more on top of the battery replacement.

pfannkuchen• 3 years ago

I’m entertained that Apple has an informal customer support service built under Tim’s email. He doesn’t actually personally read these does he? I’ve heard of a few other examples where this worked, including for other companies. How does this work internally?

wkat42423• 3 years ago

It's a practice started by Steve Jobs who (very rarely) read customer emails and followed up. Not always positively. The iPhone 4 "you're holding it wrong" thing came from there too.

Knowing cook's process driven nature he probably just put a team on it.

footlose_3815• 3 years ago

For most people, this is a "You didn't know the consequences, so you never did it" kind of situation. I partially blame the process. The OOBE workflow gives you the option to not enable Find my Mac, so some percentage of users refuse. Not all Mac owners are fluent in Apple's walled garden.

But to counter my last point, owning a mac requires a mild investment in learning, and a lot of buy-in for their ecosystem, including linking and locking it with an online account. Apple Store. Apple Music. Activation Lock / iCloud everything. Not all users are fully aware of that though, and OP's scenario is one of those journeys.

But now that you know, this scenario is analogous to keeping a spare key outside your car. Someone can take it and install a new lock cylinder.

If your laptop changes hands and someone wiped it and put an activation lock of their own on it. This is working as intended. There's no functional difference between selling it to that person because anyone can wipe a machine and put a new lock on it.

The alternative includes setting up an activation lock of your own, or putting MDM on it.

This is a feature of Apple's walled garden. You either go all-in, or you go against the grain and lose the benefits and get blindsided by an unforeseen experience.

Personal thoughts: I manage Macs for a living, but never will buy one of my own. Not just the walled garden complaints above, but a 5 year old Lenovo with similar specs is a better technical investment than a 5 year old Mac. The Mac will be slower with 5 years of OS updates, meanwhile the Lenovo you won't really notice a difference. It's also less than half the price.

Kon-Peki• 3 years ago

This policy is to prevent people from selling their laptop to someone (who sets up an account with Find My Mac) and then stealing it back and requesting Apple to make it theirs again.

jojobas3• 3 years ago

Selling and stealing back can't possibly happen often enough to warrant that, can it?

thih92• 3 years ago

With an attack vector this significant, frequency matters less. Would you want to rely on a laptop if some third party (original owner) could reassign it to themselves?

Asooka• 3 years ago

That sounds only slightly less plausible than using it to hack and blow up a nuclear power plant. A scenario against which the MacBook has zero protections in place.

BlackFly• 3 years ago

No policy they put in place will actually coincide with the legal definition of ownership though. In many jurisdictions, there are conditions where you can lawfully purchase stolen property, there are some caveat emptor issues, but assuming the lock occurs after purchase, Apple could in theory be compelled to unlock the laptop for the new owner. There are all kinds of other less dubious ownership transfers as well. Apple just isn't in a position to arbitrate them all while the law recognizes a second hand market.

encoderer• 3 years ago

How many people work in the “office of the ceo” in a company like Apple or Amazon? Does he have like 5 assistants that cover different areas or is this a fully staffed org with 30+ people around the world?

kazinator• 3 years ago

A user being denied access to a resource they own is a security issue. It has a name: denial of service (attack).

jojobas3• 3 years ago

Any Apple device connected to the interwebs is at Apple's sole discretion.

They literally can lock you out at any time. Think different.

keepamovin• 3 years ago

My theory is that the shop reset the MacBook and reported it as lost with a new Apple ID in order to extort the person//Perhaps the person didn’t want to admit it, but they actually paid money to the shop, who initially gave it back to them “unlocked”. Later the shop could lock it again by reporting it as lost, as a way to ask for more money from the person again.

Wow...

Moral of the story is never take your Apple devices for any kind of internal repair to anyone except Apple authorized shops. There's a lot of tiny device shops that do fantastic work with all kinds of phone screens, protectors, fixing broken stuff...but there's definitely some unscrupulous ones out there. Really sad that these scammy ones give the tiny hard-working little shops a bad name...:(

ahepp4• 3 years ago

The story is 2500+ words in two different articles, to summarize:

* The author's MacBook was lost/stolen

* Because the author hadn't set up Find My, someone else was able to reset the laptop

* When the author recovered the laptop, someone else had set up Find My and reported the laptop lost

* Because someone else had set up Find My, the author was unable to reset the laptop

* Apple refused to reset the laptop for the author, despite the author having a receipt for the laptop's original purchase

It's interesting to me, because it's actually an inversion of the whole "we don't own our devices anymore" trope. The author successfully begged Apple to backdoor an otherwise effective security and ownership protection.

Apple gave the author the tools to recover their laptop in the event it was lost or stolen, and the author consciously chose not to use those tools. Possession is 9/10ths of the law, and if you don't have Find My enabled it's 10/10ths of the law.

That means if someone else gains possession of your device, and you chose not to use Find My, there is nothing Apple can or should do to save you. How would they know who the legitimate owner is beyond possession or Find My? People sell used MacBooks all the time.

Just because the author was the original purchaser, doesn't mean they are the rightful owner. In this case I believe the author probably is the rightful owner, but I would rather Apple not be the judge of that.

This is literally only a problem for people too stubborn to set up Find My, who also care deeply about recovering their laptop if it gets lost. Think about how paradoxical that is!

asdgaijion• 3 years ago

It's interesting to me, because it's actually an inversion of the whole "we don't own our devices anymore" trope.

No it isn't. "Find My" is controlled by Apple, not entirely by the user. The fact that it is possible for Apple to undo the lock proves that the device isn't controlled by the owner.

ahepp4• 3 years ago

The fact that it is possible for Apple to undo the lock proves that the device isn't controlled by the owner.

I agree

I think it's an inversion of the trope because this is presented as a good thing, and something that Apple should do more of.

rbut• 3 years ago

This is literally only a problem for people too stubborn to set up Find My

I disagree with this. I have never enabled Find My because for privacy reasons I don't want my location being transmitted to Apple.

What would be better is some means of opting out of Find My being able to ever be enabled on my device.

If I ever sold my device I'd have to communicate that to the buyer, and I may lose some resale value, but that's a compromise I'd be willing to make.

ahepp4• 3 years ago

That's an interesting idea. Some kind of e-fuse that can permanently disable Find My. As you say, there are some concerns for resale, but let's assume those can be worked out.

I am not sure I see the feature being very useful. If you have lost your laptop without Find My enabled, and someone else gained possession of the laptop and wanted to activate Find My but couldn't because of this feature, you would still almost certainly not be able to recover the laptop. So what does the feature do?

Take this story, for example. If the laptop hadn't been bricked, it seems unlikely that it would have found its way back to OP.

chongli9• 3 years ago

You can turn on Find My and disable location services for the device. That prevents it from being tracked but still enables you to lock and remote wipe.

What would be better is some means of opting out of Find My being able to ever be enabled on my device.

How would that work? A fuse inside the device? Seems like it would make the device vulnerable to an electrical hack.

Why would Apple develop such a feature anyway? I bet fewer than 1% of users would use it.

jrmg• 3 years ago

It’s also interesting how almost all the negative responses here are comparing the situation to what would’ve happened with a laptop that has no feature like ‘find my’, and somehow concluding that the original owner would’ve been in a better situation if ‘find my’ did not exist.

But the reason the laptop was bricked was that someone other than the owner _deliberately bricked it_ (by turning on ‘find my’ and locking the laptop to a new iCloud account). It’s always been the case that a thief could break your laptop (and not return it!).

Additionally, the only reason they got their (non-functioning) laptop _back_ was that the thief realized they couldn’t unlock it and thought it was tied to the original owner’s iCloud account! If it had been working, I don’t think they’d have got it back.

Lockal• 3 years ago

In the summary you skipped few points:

1) First article mentions: "I have a couple of theories though. I set up Find My with an Apple ID that I don’t remember"

2) Second article mentions, that he attempted to report this as a vulnerability bug bounty program and disappointed that it wasn't considered a vulnerability.

3) The whole premise of "an email to Tim Cook" looks like a clickbait. By the point when he sent this email, his previous blog post already reached the top of Hacker News. There is no indication that Tim Cook was involved. The email was processed by staff in Japan.

The combination of these 3 facts make the whole story look very fishy. Given that author does not remember if he configured "Find My" at all, consequent "we don't own our devices anymore" sounds like populism and appeal to sentiment rather than a logically valid inference.

dang• 3 years ago

Not setting up Find My bricked my MacBook - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37865941 - Oct 2023 (556 comments)

gymbeaux2• 3 years ago

Oh absolutely it was an extortion attempt from the shop. Name and shame if you can.

artdigital• 3 years ago

Wait so help me understand this - how did the store revoke the existing activation lock?

Or did this happen because OP forgot to setup FindMy when they first got the device?

gymbeaux2• 3 years ago

Sounds like the latter

turquoisevar• 3 years ago

I’m happy for OP, but this is for the most part working as intended.

Ownership is hard to establish in a world where selling 2nd hand and gifting items exists. Last thing you want is to facilitate a boomerang scam or give an abusive partner control over someone’s device.

As far as I know Find My is opt-out nowadays and while Apple could see if they could tweak the onboarding language a bit to warn people of potential bad outcomes, you want to keep onboarding clean in general and including all ifs and buts for every feature would make that impossible.

I think there’s also something to be said for the lack of curiosity amongst users these days. Apple publishes manuals for all their devices which go into great detail and get updated with every major OS update.

Devices also offer up a tour (macOS) and tips (iOS) that go over useful features. And there’s of course the option to look into features yourself.

DeathArrow• 3 years ago

So what should other people in this position do? Complaining on HN and emailing to Apple CEO isn't a working model.

What about a lawsuit against Apple?

politelemon• 3 years ago

A simple lesson I feel many including the author are missing after that ordeal. It's not your MacBook.

user_of_the_wek• 3 years ago

I'm sure this is true for a lot of companies, many have a support department that takes care of the "difficult cases". On of the quickest ways to get in touch with them is through sending emails or letters to the CEO. Bonus points if strongly worded, although the people working there will hate you while trying to help you out. They might be better connected and have options to handle things that a normal support person doesn't have.

Source: I'm married to someone working in one of those departments.

ChrisArchitect• 3 years ago

What is this scenario where someone's laptop gets stolen and then somehow returned to them? Is that common? Never heard of that ever. And with all this information about what happened to it while it was stolen. So weird.

trodat14• 3 years ago

I wonder if Tim could get my stolen Apple ID back? A thief took my phone after watching me enter my passcode, so they were able to change the “trusted phone number” and lock me out. There’s a new feature in iOS 17.3 to prevent this but it wasn’t available at the time.

Several calls to Apple Support explaining the situation and offering to provide any form of identification they’d like hasn’t helped; their policy is that the phone number is the key piece to verify your identity, even more so than the email for the Apple ID.

I lost a couple hundred in purchased apps, but losing years’ of photos was the worst. I had apparently selected an option to keep the full-res images in iCloud, so my backups only contained thumbnails. Lots of lessons learned, but such a frustrating experience.

nektro• 3 years ago

and this is why devices like this need biometrics not/and passwords

Unbricking my MacBook took an email to Tim Cook

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