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Comment by bberenberg | Hacker News Reader

So what does this mean for Apple devices? They will have to back away from pairing? If yes, then it should work everywhere? Or will they agree to pay whatever fines in CO to avoid changing this elsewhere? Is there another option I should be thinking about?

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My guess is they will retain "parts pairing" from a technical perspective, but frame it as an anti theft measure, and focus on preventing use of stolen device parts.

Perhaps they'll relax the restrictions on "non first party" components (likely you'll lose some functionality that aftermarket parts don't actually support), but use pairing to lock out parts from stolen phones.

I suspect that part of their strategy is to try to make stolen iPhones less attractive to thieves, and effective parts pairing would likely reduce the market for stolen phones stripped for parts.

Of course, if you can "blank" off a stolen part to appear as an unofficial one, that doesn't work! That idea is therefore likely to face challenges.

The challenge will be what is really meant by parts pairing - to some extent if you want to do some features securely (say touch ID), you probably want to pair the reader to the secure enclave with a shared AES key and similar. There could be tooling to reset and re-establish that pairing on an unlocked device.

Legislation often struggles to define exactly what is required though, so it will certainly be interesting to see how Apple responds.

Fine let me take my phone to the official store, do some authentication and let them give that configuration of components the stamp of approval. That way they know that I am aware of all the parts that comprise my phone and want them to work. If some component turns out to originate from a phone that was reported stolen then fine, it's not part of their remit to act on that and not my problem either, assuming I bought it fair and square. (Assuming common law or similar, ymmv)

Under the law, the rightful owner of stolen property can demand its return. If it's currently installed in your phone, that's your problem, even if you bought it "fair and square" - that just gives you a claim on the merchant who sold you stolen goods.

The exception to this is currency: if you're fairly paid with stolen money, you get to keep the money, regardless of whether the rightful owner is able to proof that it was originally theirs and stolen.

Which law is that now? As I'm sure an expert like you knows, this will vary by jurisdiction.

The fact that somebody may take a replevin claim against me because the digitizer in my phone was removed from their stolen phone does not, imho, have any bearing on Apple's rights and responsibilities with regard to me as a customer.

Friend, you were the one who assumed "common law or similar". This is ancient common law precedent from England.

> As I'm sure an expert like you knows

Sigh. You're both making claims that could be different between jurisdictions. If you don't know that, then you should probably stop now.

Probably should have stopped earlier to be honest

> assuming I bought it fair and square

Depends on here you live. In some places, buying stolen parts is illegal. In those places, they would probably have a defense, since it would not be “fair and square”.

Not sure what fair and square means wrt buying stolen property. In most cases you would lose possession of it, in some cases you’re actually criminally liable.

I'm referring to the concept also known as "bona fide purchaser"

Bona fide purchaser is a rare exception that seems like it would never apply to stolen iPhone parts.

> My guess is they will retain "parts pairing" from a technical perspective, but frame it as an anti theft measure, and focus on preventing use of stolen device parts.

Isn't that just what they already do? Apple has consistently framed the parts pairing as being about theft deterrence. I don't believe them for a second (and nor should anyone), but that is certainly what they claim.

They also use the United States Customs to seize repair part shipments to undermine independent repair operations. Louis Rossman has some excellent videos on this.

What do you believe then?

I'm not GP, but I agree entirely with them. I believe apple is doing it to maximize the value of official parts, and to make it as hard as possible for people to do self-repairs and for third party shops to do repairs. They want you fully in their walled garden, and that includes their retail stores.

I don't doubt at all that they see the theft deterrence as a significant benefit. I wouldn't even doubt that internally they justify many of their actions based on theft deterrence.

However, if it was only about theft deterrence, I would expect to see some things be a little bit different. If they actually supported customers repairing their devices, or third-party stores, there would be differences in how they approach this. We have plenty of history of Apple's behavior to know how they feel about self-repair and third-party stores, without even considering the theft deterrent actions.

How utterly and incredibly serendipitous for Apple, that they are able to solve the problem of theft, and it just so happens to also accomplish a ton of their other goals that they have been working on for a long time!

This is pretty vague. You claim there would be “differences” if it were actually about theft deterrence and that it accomplishes “a ton of other goals” but don’t give an example.

The problem with most of the theories about Apple having ulterior motives about parts pairing is that there’s no evidence that parts sales are even a blip on their revenue, not to mention a profit center. I have trouble imagining what those motives might be besides securing devices and restricting use of black market parts.

A specific goal Apple has is to "ensure the user experience" of repairs, aka ensure that you are only use Apple-approved parts. Their "anti-theft" conveniently also locks out "unauthorized" third party parts. This is not a conspiracy, they have openly said this in the past. They usually refer to the third party parts as "counterfeit" but that's only a small percentage and they have a history of going against legitimate sellers. And yes there absolutely is evidence of them caring about parts sales. They actually train US CBP on how to "recognize" counterfeit Apple parts and they give them instructions on how to proceed when they find them. What other corporation gets that much say/power with law enforcement?

What is it about Apple that makes you trust them so much? Is it so hard to believe that a company formed around a ruthless businessman would continue to be ruthless? Or why would you believe that after Jobs died they suddenly changed?

Nothing you describe is anti-consumer. Counterfeit or poor quality replacement parts from third parties harm Apple customers. All those efforts improve the reliability of repair service for users and deter criminals and counterfeiters.

The only serious potential issue I see with all of these restrictions is if they make 3rd party repairs too cumbersome or cost prohibitive. If not, then I see no downside, other than losing the ability to use cheap but sketchy replacement parts.

there’s no “maybe” about it, people forget that this was legislatively mandated at the time, and considered a positive step to prevent muggings and phone theft (which were drastically reduced by these measures). And this was actually done over the objections of the tech industry at the time.

https://www.techlicious.com/blog/call-for-kill-switch-to-dea...

https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/20/tech/mobile/smartphone-kill-s...

https://www.pcmag.com/news/cell-phone-kill-switches-prompt-d...

Apple has already announced they are killing parts pairing as it is currently implemented. They will, however, block the use of parts which came from a parent device marked as stolen.

https://www.macrumors.com/2024/04/11/apple-to-allow-used-par...

This makes perfect sense and is a Good and Right thing to do. It properly devalues stolen goods while allowing a third party repair shop industry to exist that purchases "for parts" broken devices from some users and more cheaply repairs others' using said parts.

The main thing potentially missing is there has to be a way that the shop can verify the given device's parts are not marked stolen prior to purchasing it "for parts"...

That seems like a hard problem for a phone that won't boot. You'd only be able to verify the device's serial from the labels. To validate each component you'd have to take the device apart.

Stolen phones are blacklisted by serial and IMEI2, so the label will cover the vast majority of cases (unless they’re putting stolen parts inside of a legitimately purchased case…?)

> unless they’re putting stolen parts inside of a legitimately purchased case…?

Which they have no reason to do unless the device is functional (and then the parts could be identified in software), because they could just as easily fill a non-functional device with cat litter or old newspapers instead of going through the trouble of sourcing functional stolen parts.

That seems like a completely reasonable trade off. Phones that don’t boot are pretty much worthless right now anyways.

but that still implies that they will not allow 3rd party parts (non-genuine), which would run afoul of this law, right?

I assume they will just price their repair parts accordingly. Maybe this will drive 3rd party development of compatible parts, and then consumers will decide to pay for the Apple OEM part or the knock-off.

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