> They send them to countries where they aren't locked
iphones will remain locked regardless of what country they're in. I presume you're talking about states who are seemingly unwilling to pursue/prosecute claims of theft?
there's still a fairly lucrative parts stripping market and there are extreme efforts that are used to "unlock" locked devices - it has been known in the Chinese marketplace that you could get paired chips to do SMD rework with a "clean" set of identifiers. they'll swap the SOC, the flash, and the wireless all for a few bucks.
older iOS devices as well are also vulnerable to having their syscfg rewritten via exploits, so you can "clean" a locked device that way as well with a good set of serials. Apple Watches are a hot one for this.
> They send them to countries where they aren't locked
iphones will remain locked regardless of what country they're in. I presume you're talking about states who are seemingly unwilling to pursue/prosecute claims of theft?
there's still a fairly lucrative parts stripping market and there are extreme efforts that are used to "unlock" locked devices - it has been known in the Chinese marketplace that you could get paired chips to do SMD rework with a "clean" set of identifiers. they'll swap the SOC, the flash, and the wireless all for a few bucks.
older iOS devices as well are also vulnerable to having their syscfg rewritten via exploits, so you can "clean" a locked device that way as well with a good set of serials. Apple Watches are a hot one for this.
On top of that a sizable percentage of theft victims don't even bother to report it stolen.
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