Not setting up Find My bricked my MacBook

I had a similar issue with Apple a few days ago. I was running and an AirPod fell out of my ear and I just happened to be by a drainage drain. It fell through the grate. I immediately rode my bike to the Apple Store (still with a working case and left AirPod) and purchased a replacement right AirPod. The Apple person who helped disconnected the left one and told me to have it plugged in for 30 minutes so the case and AirPods could reconnect and connect to my phone.<p>Except they didn&#x27;t. I brought it back to Apple after lots of phone calls and troubleshooting and Apple has now told me that something must have gotten messed up with the software. I am able to buy a new pair of AirPods if I would like to, or I can spend $250 for them to diagnose the issue (the price of a new set of AirPods).<p>I can&#x27;t imagine having a problem like this that seems so obvious to be a software bug and passing that cost down to the consumer instead of making it right. I left the Apple Store in a worse situation than when I arrived. I had a working case and one working AirPod. I left with having spent $90 on my replacement AirPod, with none of them working.<p>I worked at Apple years ago in Apple Retail. I am shocked the people there thought this was the right approach to take. I love Apple products, but this is making me rethink the Apple ecosystem. I am certainly not buying another pair of AirPods. The environmental impacts of this also irk me. Instead of trying to solve the problem they want me to just throw away my AirPods and buy new ones.<p>If a company has a software issue and pushes the cost of that bug onto the consumer the company is incredibly unlikely to ever solve it. Apple pushed the pain point of their software issue onto the consumer. That&#x27;s a painful experience as a customer.

Should have been a travel insurance claim.<p>This person lost their laptop at an airport - to all intents and purposes it was stolen. They even bought a replacement on the assumption they weren&#x27;t going to see it again.<p>The person who returned the laptop returned an unusable MacBook that Apple refuses to even confirm is the original laptop that belonged to them. In addition they incurred shipping and import costs to have this brick shipped. But they don&#x27;t have <i>their laptop</i> back in working order, so... effectively that laptop was stolen and destroyed, just as surely as if a stranger at the airport had grabbed it and smashed it in front of them.<p>Let the insurance company deal with this stuff.

Why would someone not set up activation lock? This is exactly what it is for!<p>&gt; An attacker could “prank” someone by wiping their MacBook, activating it with their own Apple ID, and then reporting it as lost. The victim then has no way to recover it.<p>When you lose physical control of a device, there&#x27;s an even bigger denial-of-service vulnerability: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;media.istockphoto.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;breaking-a-laptop-computer-with-hammer-picture-id646884838" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;media.istockphoto.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;breaking-a-laptop-compu...</a><p>There is really no solving denial-of-service problems associated with losing a device. The priority in that case should be preventing unwanted disclosure of data, which is exactly what Apple did here.

Activation Lock is a weird feature. Users love it when it helps prevent device theft. But really, at the end of the day, you&#x27;re giving up control of the device to Apple.<p>Apple has already stopped supporting activation of certain versions of iOS[0]. Also, just as a user can request locking down a phone at any time, Apple could technically lock down your device when they see fit. They&#x27;re not going to do that, but the fact that it&#x27;s possible is a bit freaky.<p>Someday, far in the future, their activation servers will go down, and no unactivated Apple device will be usable. Already, it is not possible to set up a new device without an Internet connection. Hopefully the jailbreak community figures something out by then, or maybe Apple would release a tool...<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forums.macrumors.com&#x2F;threads&#x2F;apple-no-longer-activating-iphones-on-ios-9.2113888&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;forums.macrumors.com&#x2F;threads&#x2F;apple-no-longer-activat...</a>

Forgot this was Hacker News for a second.<p>Hardwares doing its job; locking unauthenticated users out of it. Unfortunately, this is a consequence of not understanding how to use it and you not using it.<p>I wish Apple was more informative about the risk of not using Find My, but this is software doing a good thing. The reason why Macs become bricks is because 9&#x2F;10 of the times they’re stolen. And guess what? You’re not getting past Activation Lock. Really good deterrent.<p>Sorry this happened to you, but this is Apple doing a good thing and something I wish more manufacturers did.

&gt; I also needed to pay ¥11,100 of import duties on it - it didn’t seem to matter that the MacBook was mine.<p>I traveled to Mexico a few weeks ago. In my luggage I had two MacBook Pro laptops and an old ThinkPad. To my dismay the people at the airport in Mexico demanded quite a bit of money, telling me that because I had brought more than one laptop I had to pay import taxes. I am a tourist from Europe traveling with three laptops. I begrudgingly paid up. It’s abusive and stupid to demand import taxes in situations both like that in the OP story and like they did from me.

Just take Apple to small claims court. Every single person who runs into a Stupid Apple Problem like this should immediately file in small claims court. Apple can continue this kind of policy because they have no incentive to fix it. Sometimes if someone makes a stink (on HN or other) in an act of Deus Ex Apple, they will descend from the cloud and fix it. Maybe.<p>But if 20 or 200 people go to small claims court they will have to pay legal fees to represent themself. They may decide fixing the problem is cheaper that lawyers fees<p>It is relatively easy to go so small claims court.<p>1. SearchEngine your state and small claims. - for example &quot;New Hampshire Small Claims&quot; =&gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.courts.nh.gov&#x2F;our-courts&#x2F;circuit-court&#x2F;district-division&#x2F;small-claims" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.courts.nh.gov&#x2F;our-courts&#x2F;circuit-court&#x2F;district-...</a><p>2. Follow the directions.<p>3. Get your ducks&#x2F;facts in a row. Collect receipts, emails, phone notes. Get the names of people you talk to.<p>4. Get the procedure in a row. Much of court is about procedure. Forget to notify the other party? You are dead in the water. Miss a deadline, don&#x27;t follow rule 33.b.7A? you lose. But you just have to be diligent. And if you make a mistake ask the judge if you can fix it.<p>4. Serve Apple.<p>5. Show up at Court, bring your documentation, find out what else you need to bring.<p>6. Be a fair and reasonable person.<p>Some states like New Hampshire allow you to appeal small claims decisions to the state Supreme Court. Do not accept easy failure. Many judges and lawyers look down on commoners and find them annoying. Don&#x27;t be annoying and don&#x27;t accept arbitrary rulings by a judge.<p>In New Hampshire a coffee shop owner took Instagram to court, lost the case and appealed to the NH Supreme Court who reversed the decision.<p>Do not be a victim, but do not expect to win. Do expect to make it clear to Apple that you will contest the &quot;oh this is policy&quot; or &quot;oh we can&#x27;t do this&quot; kind of nonsense.<p>And do submit your experience to HN.

I don&#x27;t understand why if you have the invoice apple won&#x27;t remove the FMM activation lock from the device.<p>I have gotten apple to unlock devices just with screenshots of them being managed in an MDM at one time and a copy of my work badge.<p>An invoice is like the golden ticket they require that you have.

&gt; But when I opened it up, a stranger’s profile greeted me. Evidently we had swapped laptops going through security. So I raced back, and returned the stranger’s laptop, and explained the situation.<p>A friend had this exact problem going through airport security. It ended up being a <i>huge</i> ordeal getting things settled.<p>Before hearing his story I was against putting stickers on my laptops, I felt it ruined the clean aesthetic. However, after hearing that story I always add a sticker to my laptops just to be <i>damn sure</i> there are no mixups like this.

they kept the unlocked laptop and bought an icloud locked device on ebay and sent that one to you, thats why it took a long time and they wouldnt return it to their airport.

&gt; Since Apple isn’t able to handle legitimate requests to disable the Activation Lock like mine, you should turn on Find My on your own MacBook, or risk it becoming a brick like mine.<p>Why do people accept this nonsense when it&#x27;s Apple? They wouldn&#x27;t for any other company.<p>You bought and paid for a laptop from them. It&#x27;s broken. You&#x27;ve gone through their process and they haven&#x27;t fixed it. At that point you escalate to a credit card chargeback and&#x2F;or small claims court.

Laptop stickers, and don&#x27;t let your belongings out of your sight at the airport.

&gt; Since Apple isn’t able to handle legitimate requests to disable the Activation Lock like mine, you should turn on Find My on your own MacBook, or risk it becoming a brick like mine.<p>Or not buy MacBooks anymore. I don&#x27;t want my computer doing anything out of my control.

&gt; An attacker could “prank” someone by wiping their MacBook, activating it with their own Apple ID, and then reporting it as lost. The victim then has no way to recover it.<p>An attacker can also prank you by running a drill through your laptop.<p>I feel like this story is just a longer version of &quot;I left my laptop at the airport and never saw it again.&quot; The moral should be don&#x27;t let your laptop leave the airport without you.

&quot;Apple ID requires you to have a phone number associated with the account, and only allows one phone number per account.&quot;<p>That&#x27;s not right.<p>Login to applied.apple.com &#x2F; iCloud and add multiple phone numbers to your Apple ID for 2FA purposes.

Pro tip: when you put your laptop on the tray also put some other personal belongings in the same tray (but not ON the laptop) such as shoes, belt, watch etc. This way it would be more difficult for other people to get confused when they pick their own stuff<p>Second tip: Add some stickers to personalize your laptop

Less than a year old device and it is no longing functional. That would be covered by consumer rights in Europe. I would start a small claim against the apple store if i was in that position.

It sounds like the other person tampered with the computer. Either by swapping HW, or adding their own iCloud info.<p>I believe at least with older MacBooks, if you swapped the logic board, it’d effectively remove any kind of association with the iCloud account &#x2F; MDM. I wonder if OP can do that.

Ah yes, Apple support. It&#x27;s been decades, sure things must have changed now, but as an anecdote. Back then my wife and me both used computers for work at home. I had a Dell, she had an Apple. When my Dell needed repair, a technician would come to the house next business day (it was a standard support option you clould choose back then even for their &#x27;consumer&#x27; line) and perform the task. When her Mac needed repair, the only option was to deliver it by hand to the Apple store in town, and then you could pick it up again in 2 weeks. There was no other option. That was the last time she used an Apple product for work.

Something doesn’t sound right.<p>I’ve had the same phone number of mine connected to different Apple IDs over the years. Based on different places that I’ve worked I’ve been able to tie my phone number to different Apple IDs with different email addresses.<p>The other thing that the author should’ve done is physically, walked into an Apple Store and asked them to remove the lock. I’ve had this removed a couple of times for clients of mine with no issue. You just have to show a receipt and someone at the store will go in the back and come out in 2030 minutes later at the machine unlocked.<p>This makes no sense this article

&gt; included having them use remote access on my iPhone.<p>I don’t understand what this refers to

Why are people still buying Apple products?<p>For another two weeks I am making my living as an Apple developer.<p>Then I&#x27;m gone.<p>I started programming in the late eighties on Mac Plus<p>In the intervening years, they have gotten awful<p>Everything looks good, but it all mostly works<p>Mostly works is not good enough<p>Just walk away

There are an awful number of Macbook got bricked and there no no other way to destroyed it as scrap. Yes, it is quite intended, but irony for the company claimed that they protect the environment.<p>An old article, not sure the same one I read, but same problem: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;article&#x2F;akw558&#x2F;apples-t2-security-chip-has-created-a-nightmare-for-macbook-refurbishers" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vice.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;article&#x2F;akw558&#x2F;apples-t2-security-ch...</a>

The iCloud thing is weird, is it possible that the email was automatically created for you using your username? I believe that Apple used to do that or something similar, regardless of which email the AppleID actually used. Alternatively, it seems like whoever had your laptop had your full name, so maybe they factory reset your laptop and then created a new AppleID under that name. Unclear why they would go to all this trouble to then brick it and send it back to you, especially when they already owned a comparable one which you had returned to them. Do you recall enough to confirm whether the AppleID on the other laptop matched the name of the person who emailed you? Or does it match the one you&#x27;re currently seeing?<p>Overall this truly sucks, sorry you had to go through it. However I&#x27;m not sure if &quot;Not setting up Find My&quot; is what bricked your laptop. Rather it sounds like you didn&#x27;t utilize Find My, and then an adversary was able to use it to brick your laptop. It&#x27;s frustrating that Apple isn&#x27;t making an exception to help unblock you here, but I can also understand how they might have a pretty strict anti-theft policy that you&#x27;re falling just outside of.

If I have to go somewhere via an international airport, and that somewhere is outside Schengen zone, I’m not taking any laptop with me that I would mind parting with.<p>Which is why I have a small stack of old thinkpads and whatnot.<p>The risks range from misplacement to customs officers being corrupt and petty, or airport security being draconian and wanting to poke around.<p>Thankfully, VPNs like Tailscale or Zerotier exist, and I can leave the dearer pieces of tech at home and get into them when I need them.

If Find My was not activated, therefore there was no Activation Lock, the most likely scenario is that the other person just reset and activated it themselves with this &quot;mysterious&quot; new iCloud account and is lying about it. The device can still be attached to Paul&#x27;s original Apple account if its not removed from the list of devices by Paul, new activation lock or not.

Did the author try asking the UAE person to de-register the computer from their account?<p>Not seeing any mention of that but that seems like it would be my first step before trying to get Apple to do anything. They were willing to send it back to you, so if they really did just wipe it so that they could use it, seems like they&#x27;d probably be willing to remove the lock.

A side note, the author (Paul) is one of the nicest people I knew in Tokyo. Sorry about your laptop buddy.

I read as far as “Or so I thought. About 30 minutes before my flight was boarding, I pulled out my laptop to do some last minute work. But when I opened it up, a stranger’s profile greeted me.”<p>At this point, everything below that line is working as intended. Be glad you still have your identity and bank accounts whole.<p>I know this sounds harsh but, your laptop and your data is just as personal and vital to you as your phone. When going through airport security, throw your ID and phone in the same basket as your laptop. If they make you separate them, throw your ID in the laptop basket. Better, put a sticker on your laptop. Stop keeping it pristine and uniform like everyone else’s macbook. Then you would easily know you picked up the wrong laptop. Next time buy a Lenovo.

To my eyes: you send a formal letter to Apple, describing the issue, with proof of purchasing and advise them if they do not unlock <i>your</i> device, regularly purchase they have to respond to a formal aggravated theft complaint because not only the device it&#x27;s yours but also you data (a copy of them, maybe) it&#x27;s on it and their tool prevent you to access them.<p>I do not know the Japanese law but here in EU such complaint PLUS a copy with some chatty journals will make the deal VERY quickly.<p>Sometimes peoples tend to avoid biting when they should.

Availability is a key part of security. When Apple can trivially authenticate that this man is the legitimate owner of the device, given he:<p>1: Bought it 2: Possesses it<p>I’m not sure how “But it’s not him linked with the Apple ID” is a legitimate reason not to assume him the owner pending any evidence to the contrary. If the man had his laptop stolen by somebody at the post office, who set it up with their own Apple ID, does Apple just shrug its shoulders and go “lol how is this our problem buy another Mac XD”.<p>Going through an onboarding process does not actually prove ownership, at all. I don’t believe what Apple is doing is actively illegal but it sure smacks of bureaucratic ineptitude.

Or, you know, stop buying apple products.

It&#x27;s a disgusting waste of resources and extremely anti environmental that Apple bricks its devices.<p>Loads of old second hands Apple devices can never be used again.<p>I suppose that&#x27;s exactly what Tim Cook wants.<p>Shouldn&#x27;t be legal.

While I appreciate the security implications for Apple of reversing Activation Lock when they can&#x27;t verify that you are the current, legitimate owner of the hardware (given Find My hasn&#x27;t been set up), there is something intensely frustrating about the idea of a perfectly functional piece of hardware becoming unusable because of a software lock.<p>Perhaps Apple should consider making Find My mandatory? I can&#x27;t imagine this is the only case where this has happened.

The macbook should still be usable if you wipe the OS and replace it with Linux. Still, that shouldn&#x27;t be necessary, considering this is a problem that Apple created.

It was stolen and a security feature was turned on. I think the fact that you lost physical control of your own hardware is why your MacBook is bricked.

I only used a macbook personally around 2009, but I imagine these days you can&#x27;t just buy a new drive and install MacOS on it...<p>I don&#x27;t understand why we accept a product there the above isn&#x27;t possible. If security is the argument, those claims need to have some proof of a widespread problem actually existing that was solved by removing the ability to swap your drive in your own computer.

Very small nit: there&#x27;s a reference to the Apple T2 chip. The Apple Silicon devices don&#x27;t have a T2 - the functionality is integrated directly into the SoC. If it <i>had</i> been a T2 device then it would be possible to &quot;simply&quot; jailbreak the T2 and wipe all enrolled ownership data, since the T2 is based on the Apple A10 and has the same bootrom vulnerability.

Seems like a warranty claim if your device is broken

Those problems are unavoidable in a monoculture. Worst, we are trying to adress them by putting more power on the monopoly in charge.

The best part about stories like this is that I just know the person is going to go out and buy another one, even though they are now fully aware that they don&#x27;t own any Apple device they &quot;buy&quot; and are actually just renting it from Apple until they decide not to allow you to use it anymore, instead of just buying a real personal computer.

Had no idea Find My did this. I always leave it off for privacy reasons, but I&#x27;m realizing thats probably not worth it.

This story will certainly start a trend of people covering MacBook lids with the most unique sticker combination possible.

I’m a bit confused.<p>According to Apple’s documentation Activation lock is enabled when you turn on Find My Mac and disabled when turned off.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT208987" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.apple.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;HT208987</a><p>How did it get activated in the first place if it the author never set up “Find My”?

I dunno, something just doesn&#x27;t smell right about this guy&#x27;s story.<p>For example a search of his blog post for the words &quot;recovery key&quot; yields zero results.<p>You don&#x27;t <i>need</i> to setup Find My. But you must use <i>at least one</i> of the many options that Apple provides you to regain access.

I managed to remove activation lock by proving that I was the original owner (invoice) of the MacBook.<p>Was that no option?

If you bought the laptop with a credit card, you should try doing a charge-back. Airport story aside, the laptop is now bricked at Apple&#x27;s discretion, so you should just get your money back from them to cover a new one.<p>CC companies are usually pretty sympathetic in cases like these.

He has a purchase receipt and his name is connected to this specific device in apple&#x27;s systems!<p>What else would apple want to unlock it? The only scenario where they should not do this if he sold this laptop and then stole it back but that is so unlikely they should just unlock it.

I just take it for granted that using any Apple device means activating Find My for it and with the same iCloud account.<p>And my iCloud account is sacred just like my password manager&#x27;s master password.<p>Or the keys to my house, or car.

I think the fundamental problem here was choosing to use an apple product. I loathe the software on my M1, and there is nothing I can do about it besides hope that Asahi adds support for everything

I understand that it should be an option: don&#x27;t track me by Find My network but also there should be an option to register as my device to guarantee that others can&#x27;t register.

Yet another company whom never relinquishes real ownership when they &quot;sell&quot; it.<p>At best, any Apple &quot;purchase&quot; is at best a rental.<p>Stallman is right. And always has been with tech.

Reading this actually makes me feel more secure about my Mac laptop.<p>It seems that social engineering attacks on Find My are pretty well guarded against.<p>Just remember to set up Find My.

With all the locks, DRM and hostile Software in place - an Apple device is never yours really. You are always on the mercy of corporate apple.

&gt; Since Apple isn’t able to handle legitimate requests to disable the Activation Lock like mine, you should turn on Find My on your own MacBook, or risk it becoming a brick like mine.<p>Or don’t buy overpriced gear from a company that is aggressively user-hostile. Take them to some kind of small claims court. It is your device, you purchased it from them, and they have no right to refuse to un-brick if they have the ability to do so, just because you didn’t do the magic handshake in the right way.

Did the switch occur when op somehow put his laptop in somebody else&#x27;s bin or was this the work of airport security?

That title is a very hard to parse sentence.

Don&#x27;t be surprised to find out who owns the hardware when the time comes. All these &quot;security&quot; features are IMO excuses to remove more and more control from the user and bring it to Apple. If you fall for it, you have only yourself to blame. Next time, buy a machine that you truly own. This is the number one reason I will never buy anything from Apple, not even a simple air pod.

Why would you give a third party control over your device? You&#x27;re just renting overpriced devices from Apple at this point, one of the many reasons I stopped buying iPhones (that and they&#x27;re just awful anyway, the UI&#x2F;ux is offensive.)<p>By using this crap you&#x27;re allowing Apple to brick your device on a whim etc if they feel like it.

Hmmm, can you return this product as faulty using your warranty?

&gt; The stranger wiped my MacBook, set it up for themselves, and turned on Find My<p>How would the stranger know your MacBook&#x27;s password. Unless it was a very simple password, I don&#x27;t think this option is very likely.

Apple is a very happy path company. I set up everything and all my shit is on their stuff. Thank you for sharing your experience. Good to know where the hard edges are.

The title is clickbait.<p>TL;DR author did not lock MBP to themselves, <i>lost it, someone else wiped it, locked it to themselves</i> and used for a bit before returning without unlocking. That&#x27;s the point of locking, it&#x27;s not yours now.<p>Sure the problem is Apple&#x27;s GUI around how to lock it to yourself. I personally always have Find My on so it never occurred to me that&#x27;s how it locked.<p>But it&#x27;s very far from &quot;not setting find my bricked the device&quot;. I feel cheated.

Apple creating e-waste like this should negate every single claim they make about environmental friendliness.

to avoid this scenario i write my name in sharpie on all of my macbooks

This is indeed a cautionary tale. But soon enough, this taking out electronics at airports will be a thing of the past as more and more airports deploy luggage scanners like the ones at Dubai airport where you don&#x27;t have to take anything out of the bag.<p>In general, here&#x27;s my operational security to prevent scenarios like this:<p>1. All my luggage has uniquely identifiable tags and stickers on them. This includes my laptop, mobile phone, chargers and cables. This largely avoids myself or someone else mistakenly picking up wrong things. When I&#x27;m asked to take out electronics at airport security, I use 4 trays in sequence – carry-on luggage, all my electronics in the tray, and my backpack, my shoes. This way, my electronics tray is sandwiched between my luggages. I also put my laptop in a thin cushion sleeve and I have not been asked to remove the sleeve. I also put all my smaller electronics and cables in a clear plastic zip bag and put it in the tray. Then, I try to cross the human x-ray at the same time as my luggage (most airports do a good job of ensuring this if you stay in the lane next to the luggage line). When I pickup my luggage I&#x27;m super focused to make sure I verify I got back my stuff correctly.<p>2. My corporate MacBook and iPhone does not allow iCloud account on it. Hence, there is no Find My. But it is tied to corp MDM. If anyone were to find it and try to wipe and install, the MDM will force a profile on it. When I report my laptop is lost, they will put it in lost mode (via MDM) and also remote wipe it. Also, they have loss&#x2F;theft insurance to cover the cost of the laptop.<p>3. On my personal MacBook and iPhone, I have had firmware lock (on Intel ones), and always had FileVault (for M1&#x2F;M2 silicon, this is same as firmware lock) on with recovery key (not iCloud recovery). Recently I have turned on lockdown mode as well. I do have an apple account for Activation Lock, App Store and TV. And I have advanced data protection mode on for this iCloud account and I have disabled iCloud Web. I have recovery key and recovery contact for this iCloud account. I don&#x27;t want my data on iCloud servers without end to end encryption nor do I want Apple to be able to unlock&#x2F;wipe my devices without a cryptographic consent from another iDevice I possess. With File Vault on, nobody else who gets my laptop can unlock it or wipe it or reinstall it. On some of my devices, location service is off, so Find My can&#x27;t show the location but it can still activate lost mode or remote wipe the device.<p>4. I have both physical sim which is locked and eSIM on my iPhone. And my iPhone is locked with a password. I disable Face ID while traveling.<p>5. Similarly, I have advanced data protection on my Google accounts.<p>6. I use physical Yubikeys with pin locks for 2FA.

Sue them?

Look, Apple haters: there’s much to criticize about this company, and I understand everyone who wants to be in full control of their devices (and all related encryption keys), but this story is just documenting the feature working as expected. If Apple would unlock the devices after validating a proof of purchase, the next HN headline would be about some unlock scam for used devices on eBay. And if you cannot foresee what would happen if people would have to manage the unlock keys themselves, then you probably should get out of your bubble.<p>So maybe you can argue that this feature should not exist at all. Or be able to be deactivated permanently by burning a fuse in the device. But in that world there would be more people without their devices than in our current one.