Via 9to5Mac. Reminds me of bank robber Willie Sutton’s alleged response when asked why he robs banks:
“Because that’s where the money is.”
The hoodie bandit approach to grabbing high end merchandise from Apple Stores has proven effective. As long as a way isn’t found to stop this approach from working, this is going to continue to happen.
Even knowing that the display devices (Macs and iPhones/iPads/iPods) self-brick when removed from the store isn’t enough to deter these thieves. Spare parts market must be booming.
It’s interesting. We keep saying that, repeating other people who have said that. But is it really true? Are people really repeatedly robbing a store in spite of the fact that the phones they end up with self-brick?
Good thread here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/9id7p3/witnessed_apple_store_in_santa_rosa_being_robbed/
Also:
https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/17/apple-store-security-tethers-demo-devices/
To that end, I’m expecting to hear a story about someone’s repaired iPhone having been discovered to carry replacement parts from stolen merch.
i don’t know that there is a way to discover that sort of thing outside of the logic board which would contain the serial number of the original item perhaps. certain cameras, haptic engines, speakers and displays could probably be reused.
apple is probably like every other retail company and has a ‘do not ever try to stop them’ policy to avoid the chance of one of these idiots being armed. and I say idiots because if they had any sense they would case a store to find out when deliveries are and rob that. i bet even the smallest stores got a good 300 or more iPhones for launch day and that would be a lot of money in stolen goods. and it all comes to them through fed ex or such
actually I don’t think they do ‘self brick’. but i do suspect that apple keeps a record of every IMEI and serial and has a way to brick them in iTunes servers, flag them for no getting genius bar service and can have them blacklisted for carrier service as appropriate. and it’s probably some kind of automated system so as soon as they see the items are gone they can give them the bam. and it looks like most of them have some kind of super restricted demo mode on them so you can bet a thief would try to restore as soon as possible and would hit that snag of it not activating afterwards.
I was under the impression that at least several major components would be identifiably numbered.