Quote:
Originally Posted by meeera
Wouldn't this mean, if enacted completely, that anyone who stole a phone could immediately erase all security measures on the phone, install a fresh OS, and stop the owner tracing or locking the phone?
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Yes. Just like it is with any normal computer, any normal (non-Apple) laptop, or any other non-smartphone device in the world. If you have physical control over a device, you should be able to wipe it and flash whatever software you want onto it and get it back into stock condition removing everything the previous owner did.
A car also doesn't brick itself when it's been stolen, even though it's worth way more than a phone, and it also has
a cell connection where that could be implemented. When a car is stolen then it can be driven by the thief as usual, until the police happens to find it (or not).
I'm fine with a software re-flash wiping all internal storage so attackers can't access any personal data, but there's already way too much electronic waste being generated, and throwing away perfectly functional devices just because they're locked with a password nobody knows is a thing that shouldn't happen. It means throwing away perfectly functional devices because of stupid decisions from Apple or similar manufacturers.
Otherwise that'll leave way too many loopholes. Apple currently has a way to theoretically remotely brick all iPhones in existance just by pushing a software update or whatever that engages an iCloud-lock-like thing that only Apple can remove. That's not supposed to be a thing. There's way too many devices that go dead and unusable because the servers are being shut down.
Same as what a couple of Android manufacturers are doing (like Xiaomi): The bootloader is locked by default, but they graciously allow you to unlock it - by manually requesting it through their support which takes a week or two. That's also not an open device, because they may stop providing these unlock requests at any time. If they no longer want you to install custom firmware, they just stop responding to these unlock requests, and done, no open devices anymore.
In my opinion, every device is supposed to have a non-updateable bootloader that you can use to flash new (and/or old and/or custom modified) firmware onto a device, no matter what A) the currently installed firmware does, B) any previous owners did, or C) what the manufacturer does through its cloud or through its servers.
Like it's currently already implemented in AVM's routers and access points (very very common in Germany). They can all be linked to a cloud account and controlled from there, and through the UI / the Cloud you can only update the firmware to a firmware signed with the same keys as the currently installed one (so, AVM's), but through the unchangeable bootloader which you can access locally (without opening the device or voiding the warranty!), you can flash any firmware you desire, official or custom-made, upgrade or downgrade, whatever. You need to have physical access (a direct LAN connection to the device without any switch/hub/router/etc. in between), but you do not need to know any account or device passwords. And once you do that, all changes that have been made to the device before, including any cloud connection, software modding, software hacks, and so on, are gone completely.