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Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

The previous owner CAN unlock if they're able to and they know they're supposed to. Unfortunately I suspect a lot of devices are intentionally donated or recycled while unintentionally locked. I wonder what percentage of SMBs have proper MDM set up for their devices versus just a bunch of personal apple IDs with no way for the org that owns them to unlock them?

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This is a self-correcting problem: if I buy a Mac from you on Craigslist I’m not going to say “oops, no big deal” if I can’t use it - I’ll ask you to unlink it, reverse a charge, or even take you to small claims court.

Over time, people learn this and it becomes routine just like people buying used cars know to check that the seller really owns it and isn’t lying about the collision history.

how do you reverse a cash payment?

You don’t, which is why many people either avoid them, carefully check before paying (Apple has a detailed “before you buy” guide for this exact reason), or in the worst case that’s why I mentioned small claims court since regrettably some people will misrepresent what they’re selling.

Apple could help by emailing the owners and asking them if they want to unlock the device or report it stolen. That would remove the ambiguity, help honest recyclers and users and the environment, and generate evidence against thieves.

You could even go a step further and require the person requesting the unlock to provide photo ID and affirm that they are claiming to be the legitimate owner of the device to dissuade thieves from trying to use it and also for the unwitting receiver of stolen goods you now have a way to get that back to the real owner and potentially track down the thieves on the other side of the transaction. Sadly I doubt that would result in police actually taking action against thieves but a macbook is expensive enough to be felony theft in most places. The guy selling it on Craigslist probably isn't going to use a burner phone, meet away from his home, and use a rental car just to sell a stolen macbook. I think there are much better odds of identifying them if Apple would try and get devices past activation lock and track these cases down.

That just means it’s an education problem. Not an apple problem.

On one side everyone wants security and privacy. But when they get it they complain when it prevents them reselling devices that are not theirs.

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