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.

@codemonkeymike @SamuraiSakura Apple skips right over Reduce & Reuse. The order is important.

@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

@ben @SamuraiSakura exactly.

@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?

@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.

@codemonkeymike @SamuraiSakura gotta get ready for another Mother Earth keynote appearance

@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

@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

@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

@csgraves yeah, resetting after a time limit without a claimant would be great. @codemonkeymike

@codemonkeymike @Victorsigmoid
Fun fact: you don't actually need a Mac for a DFU restore: https://github.com/libimobiledevice/idevicerestore

@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.

@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.

@codemonkeymike https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/mac-help/mh21245/mac look for the startup options process. That is what i use.

@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.

@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.

@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.

@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?

@codemonkeymike the battery is dead, it doesn't hold charge. So not sure it can be?

@codemonkeymike I do appreciate that T2 chips make my macBook basically not a good target for thieves though: They by know understand that stealing these devices is not worth it and don't even attempt.

But it will take time until donors understand that they need to do EACS, which is quite simple:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102664

But this isn't widely known yet. There's been some people who had luck with going to Apple Stores and providing some kind of guarantee that these are donated pieces but it's a hassle. But for such a big stack, buying a T203 would potentially make sense, could perhaps even be part of a hacker space's tools.