gabe@gabegold.com
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2019 15:09:31 -0500
In spring, 2017, a teenager walked up behind a woman leaving the Metro in
Northeast Washington DC and put her in a chokehold: "Be quiet," he said. And
"delete your iCloud." He grabbed her iPhone 6S and ran away.
<https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/district-man-sentenced-four-years-prison-robbery>
Last month, there were a string of similar muggings in Philadelphia In each
of these muggings, the perpetrator allegedly held the victim up at gunpoint,
demanded that they pull out their iPhone, and gave them instructions:
Disable `Find My iPhone', and log out of iCloud.
<https://web.archive.org/save/https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1085607855179382784>
In 2013, Apple introduced a security feature designed to make iPhones less
valuable targets to would-be thieves. An iPhone can only be associated to
one iCloud account, meaning that, in order to sell it to someone else (or in
order for a stolen phone to be used by someone new) that account needs to be
removed from the phone altogether. A stolen iPhone which is still attached
to the original owner's iCloud account is worthless for personal use or
reselling purposes (unless you strip it for parts), because at any point the
original owner can remotely lock the phone and find its location with Find
My iPhone. Without the owner's password, the original owner's account can't
be unlinked from the phone and the device can't be factory reset. This
security feature explains why some muggers have been demanding passwords
from their victims.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xyq8v/how-to-unlock-icloud-stolen-iphone