Another reason to hate #Apple We're seeing more 2018+ MacBook Pro/Air donations — but Apple's T2 chip means even after iCloud sign-out and reset, the firmware stays locked to the original account.
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@codemonkeymike @bigzaphod Doesn’t Apple have a program that will remove activation lock if you can prove provenance of the device?
TBH it’s also poor educating of the donors on Apple’s part that this step must be done prior to donating.
@Aaron @bigzaphod it was donated 3rd party. How am I to prove it?
Also, id bet you this device is absolutely removed from their iCloud account. Yet remains locked on device.
It's purposely confusing and hard to get around. They could make this better right now. But they won't
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@codemonkeymike @SamuraiSakura Apple skips right over Reduce & Reuse. The order is important.
@ben @SamuraiSakura exactly.
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@codemonkeymike @SamuraiSakura Apple skips right over Reduce & Reuse. The order is important.
@ben @SamuraiSakura and you know if you have apple recycle it. All they're going to do is shred it and reclaim a bit if metal from it. Then do a victory lap about how awesome they are.
Meanwhile how much energy when into reclaiming that tiny bit of metal?
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@codemonkeymike yikes. I was just reading about imjtool and fighting edl qualcomm and some of the tools might help with T2?? I hate this shit
@amsomniac @codemonkeymike
Nah, those are specific to AOSP and Qualcomm devices respectively, T2 is a much different beast. There are some workarounds I've seen using checkm8 to trick bridgeOS into believing it's activated, but those are not truly permanent since machine identity and activation lock is tied to the ECID which is burned into the chip itself, and can't be changed. -
@ben @SamuraiSakura and you know if you have apple recycle it. All they're going to do is shred it and reclaim a bit if metal from it. Then do a victory lap about how awesome they are.
Meanwhile how much energy when into reclaiming that tiny bit of metal?
@codemonkeymike @SamuraiSakura gotta get ready for another Mother Earth keynote appearance
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Hmm… for the hardware firmware I’d still want to have to unlock it on device rather than having an attack surface/backdoor from the internet to exploit. Apple had the issue a couple years ago with thieves exploiting the remote password change to workaround the phone protections.
But I get how it sucks for this use case.
Like a lot of things, for 99% of users who don’t care they should default to a version that’s secure from most thieves but not totally secure from government and then let the users who really care opt in to the stronger lockdown mode.
@HitokiriEric @coldclimate yeah. I mean look. You can unsolder the t2 chip and reprogram it etc. Motivated thiefs can still do it.
But was this when a problem? I really don't think it was.
Again. Look at Chromebooks. They have a firmware level lock too that can't be hacked. And yet it can be decomissioned remotely when the org releases it.
You're telling me apple couldn't do this?! For regular users? Its a racket
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@oscherler @codemonkeymike IME Android tablets don't even have serious bootloader locking, unlike phones. You can basically do whatever with them.
@dalias @oscherler @codemonkeymike
Well, you're still probably getting dropped in EL1, so you're not truly free. The freest device you can buy is a used Chromebook, as they use Coreboot, so you can just compile and flash your own firmware. Thanks to the weird CR50 TPM thingy, if you've got a SuzyQAble, you can even get RW access to the AP firmware and a serial console without having to open the device, provided you run a command and assert your presence (once) with timed power button presses -
@HitokiriEric @coldclimate yeah. I mean look. You can unsolder the t2 chip and reprogram it etc. Motivated thiefs can still do it.
But was this when a problem? I really don't think it was.
Again. Look at Chromebooks. They have a firmware level lock too that can't be hacked. And yet it can be decomissioned remotely when the org releases it.
You're telling me apple couldn't do this?! For regular users? Its a racket
@codemonkeymike @coldclimate Well. When that generation of laptops was new, that was a big feature that Apple was selling hard on. They kept trying to lock them down more and more to attempt to be as secure as possible by default and were so proud of how hard it was to defeat.
I’m not saying they couldn’t do better and better consider different choices to improve the balance for different types of users. Which they have done since then.
I’m just saying that back then, the discussion was all about making them as secure as they could think to make them and that’s what they optimized for. It’s not a surprise they went too far back then when that was top of mind for them.
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@codemonkeymike Suspect you are talking about two different things. For a machine owned by an end user, removing the iCloud account and performing a factory reset absolutely makes that Mac available for activation and use by a new user, T2 or no. However, if the device is owned by the end user’s school or employer and enrolled by that organization to their device management, they would have to unenroll it.
@miked1112 @codemonkeymike you have to specifically remove the iCloud account using these steps, logging out of iCloud and reseting the device is not enough. it's a (purposely?) confusing end user experience. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102773
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@codemonkeymike @coldclimate Well. When that generation of laptops was new, that was a big feature that Apple was selling hard on. They kept trying to lock them down more and more to attempt to be as secure as possible by default and were so proud of how hard it was to defeat.
I’m not saying they couldn’t do better and better consider different choices to improve the balance for different types of users. Which they have done since then.
I’m just saying that back then, the discussion was all about making them as secure as they could think to make them and that’s what they optimized for. It’s not a surprise they went too far back then when that was top of mind for them.
@codemonkeymike @coldclimate Keep in mind how proud they were of resisting government attempts to access devices and saying that they would design them so that Apple would have no ability to unlock them for governments.
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@brandonscript @codemonkeymike while they could simply give, don’t know, a certain number of years out of production and, honestly, they call them unsupported, so why not nuke the T2 on these? You know how many Macs I’ve seen that ended up being trashed because of this? It’s entirely irresponsible and yes they ought to be forced to back down a bit. We’re not suggesting that delicate and precious Mac users have their data stolen, nor their computing devices.
@csgraves yeah, resetting after a time limit without a claimant would be great. @codemonkeymike
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@Victorsigmoid have you seen the video of that? I just watched it and holy shit its intense haha.
I mean I AM considering it.. but what a nightmare.. its' super time consuming.. and you still need another up to date mac to hook it up to in DFW mode..
So even after ALL that.. you still end up needing a current Mac.. god i hate them
@codemonkeymike @Victorsigmoid
Fun fact: you don't actually need a Mac for a DFU restore: https://github.com/libimobiledevice/idevicerestore -
Another reason to hate #Apple We're seeing more 2018+ MacBook Pro/Air donations — but Apple's T2 chip means even after iCloud sign-out and reset, the firmware stays locked to the original account.
Without donor contact, these machines are useless.
I've upcycled ~1,000 older Macs, but T2 era machines will end that. It's controlling, creates e-waste, and will only get worse. #righttorepair matters — Apple couldn't care less.
@codemonkeymike @bigzaphod So your problem is that Apple is prioritizing the hardware and data integrity of THE OWNER and the owner did not properly unlock the device before it was recycled (or stolen). Sorry, but that doesn’t sound like an Apple problem. As an owner, that is what I want.
I understand that I sucks to be in your position, but Apple is doing the right thing here.
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@richardazia but you can't even boot to USB without unlocking it.
That's the issue. Id love to install Linux on it. But i can't
@codemonkeymike look up target mode. There is a key combination that allows to recover macs. You can choose to reinstall macos, safe boot or install another OS.
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@richardazia but you can't even boot to USB without unlocking it.
That's the issue. Id love to install Linux on it. But i can't
@codemonkeymike https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/mac-help/mh21245/mac look for the startup options process. That is what i use.
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@codemonkeymike @bigzaphod So your problem is that Apple is prioritizing the hardware and data integrity of THE OWNER and the owner did not properly unlock the device before it was recycled (or stolen). Sorry, but that doesn’t sound like an Apple problem. As an owner, that is what I want.
I understand that I sucks to be in your position, but Apple is doing the right thing here.
@maverick604 @codemonkeymike @bigzaphod and I think you really don't understand what your planet is and why Appel sucks on all levels. They just want to keep your datas in their datacenters.
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Another reason to hate #Apple We're seeing more 2018+ MacBook Pro/Air donations — but Apple's T2 chip means even after iCloud sign-out and reset, the firmware stays locked to the original account.
Without donor contact, these machines are useless.
I've upcycled ~1,000 older Macs, but T2 era machines will end that. It's controlling, creates e-waste, and will only get worse. #righttorepair matters — Apple couldn't care less.
@codemonkeymike I've had to give this same bad news to more than one person who bought a used Apple computer. Somebody will sell their Mac or iPad or whatever to a pawn shop or something without doing a reset and there you go. My brother managed to unlock one he got used from Rent-A-Center, but had to spend over an hour on the phone with Apple customer support to do it. I have a feeling if he'd gotten it from Facebook marketplace or a pawn shop or something he'd have been out of luck.
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@magnetic_tape @codemonkeymike I watched the ifixit video, https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Remove+MacBook+ID+Activation+Lock+by+T203/143072
@Victorsigmoid @magnetic_tape @codemonkeymike
Have you looked at the price for the T203 unlock kit? AliExpress has them for $275 and upwards.
Probably makes more sense when recovering quite some devices. But nothing likely what someone does for a 2-5 Macs. And then you need the appropriate hotglue gun and a functional Mac along side to reprogram the T2 chip.
Might be worth it if you got a pile of macs which the OP picture shows.
But it is clearly not good for the ability to repair/fix used machines. Quite good for device security though.
Just wondering if this approach renders previous data completely unreadable or if it's possible to scrape off data from the device somewhere in this process.
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Another reason to hate #Apple We're seeing more 2018+ MacBook Pro/Air donations — but Apple's T2 chip means even after iCloud sign-out and reset, the firmware stays locked to the original account.
Without donor contact, these machines are useless.
I've upcycled ~1,000 older Macs, but T2 era machines will end that. It's controlling, creates e-waste, and will only get worse. #righttorepair matters — Apple couldn't care less.
@codemonkeymike what is the correct process that I should follow if I am about to donate a Mac with T2 chip in order to avoid this?
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@noodlemaz Apple will just shred it.. so it's "recycled" for the metal.. but they're not re-using it.
In my experience, it's best to wipe it, then set it up with a new local account with a dummy admin password.. then put it as a sticky note on the keyboard.
If you plan for it to be useful again. You don't need an icloud password, just a local admin password.
Hope that helps!
@codemonkeymike the battery is dead, it doesn't hold charge. So not sure it can be?
