Carbonite time wasters

FiestaST said:
Thankfully I can't relate to OP.

I bought a povo spec M1 Air back in July '23 via an oke from Carb.

Zero issues with the deal, oke was rather flexible with my suggestion of meeting at Starbucks/Starbuck Kanala Walk. A young witou, brought his bra with as well. I checked it (the lappie) out in detail, oke was patient. I was happy, did the immediate transfer then & there. It reflected on his end. We shook hands & respective parties chucked.

That's how a deal should go down.

And no I didn't purchase any overpriced Starbucks/Starbuck.
Click to expand...

There's a joke somewhere in there about bras, lappies and oak trees.
 
I still.dont understand why create a thread about carbonite here ? Leave a negative itrader and move on..
 
With Apple's remote locking feature, are you guys not worried about buying from some random person on the internet?
If they stole that laptop and it is remotely locked you literally have a R17k paperweight.

Or do you guys ensure the boot loader is unlocked while there?
 
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Gnome said:
With Apple's remote locking feature, are you guys not worried about buying from some random person on the internet?
If they stole that laptop and it is remotely locked you literally have a R17k paperweight.

Or do you guys ensure the boot loader is unlocked while there?
Click to expand...
How do you check that?
 
Gnome said:
With Apple's remote locking feature, are you guys not worried about buying from some random person on the internet?
If they stole that laptop and it is remotely locked you literally have a R17k paperweight.

Or do you guys ensure the boot loader is unlocked while there?
Click to expand...
Buy from a reputable person. It’s not rocket science. Facebook marketplace has a ratings system.
 
airborne said:
How do you check that?
Click to expand...
I would immediately remove the firmware password.
They show you how here: https://support.apple.com/en-za/102384

If you can't login at that screen, you can never unlock it, so if they aren't able to unlock on that screen walk away.
And if the laptop was stolen, they can lock the laptop remotely, completely.
It won't even boot and you can't format it or fix it.

It requires a working internet connection to unlock that in my experience.
Basically it is calling home to Apple to check the status of the device because this counts as a device transfer.
 
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Gnome said:
I would immediately remove the firmware password.
They show you how here: https://support.apple.com/en-za/102384

If you can't login at that screen, you can never unlock it, so if they aren't able to unlock on that screen walk away.
And if the laptop was stolen, they can lock the laptop remotely, completely.
It won't even boot and you can't format it or fix it.

It requires a working internet connection to unlock that in my experience.
Basically it is calling home to Apple to check the status of the device because this counts as a device transfer.
Click to expand...

Not 100% accurate.

That only applies to Intel and you’ll only ever see it if trying to boot off USB, it won’t stop you from using the machine.

What you should be concerned about is Activation Lock and DEP (Corporate).

It can be reinstalled via DFU (T2-chip onwards);from another machine and the forced DEP enrolment can also be bypassed so a fresh local user can be setup.

Problem for the buyer is that a normal person reinstalling it will go into the loop of either a personal or corporate lock.

So I would want to see the machine startup and go all the way through Setup Assistant without asking for and Apple ID or stating it belongs to XYZ business.

Things vary slightly from one piece of hardware to another and different MacOS versions.
 
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SauRoNZA said:
Not 100% accurate.

That only applies to Intel and you’ll only ever see it if trying to boot off USB, it won’t stop you from using the machine.

What you should be concerned about is Activation Lock and DEP (Corporate).

It can be reinstalled via DFU (T2-chip onwards);from another machine and the forced DEP enrolment can also be bypassed so a fresh local user can be setup.

Problem for the buyer is that a normal person reinstalling it will go into the loop of either a personal or corporate lock.

So I would want to see the machine startup and go all the way through Setup Assistant without asking for and Apple ID or stating it belongs to XYZ business.

Things vary slightly from one piece of hardware to another and different MacOS versions.
Click to expand...
Yeah I meant, arm there is a lock that cannot be bypassed, whatever it is called.
I know because I tried at the time.
I bought my laptop setup the lock at boot and then couldn't get past it without connecting to the internet.

I googled, people were making a big whoop about how anti-repair Apple is for putting this in place because you literally cannot bypass it.
But it is more about protecting people from stolen property.
 
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Gnome said:
Yeah I meant, arm there is a lock that cannot be bypassed, whatever it is called.
I know because I tried at the time.
I bought my laptop setup the lock at boot and then couldn't get past it without connecting to the internet.

I googled, people were making a big whoop about how anti-repair Apple is for putting this in place because you literally cannot bypass it.
But it is more about protecting people from stolen property.
Click to expand...

Yeah that’s Activation Lock and only from T2 onwards.

But I’ve seen it bypassed before and then user is sold a machine with a pre setup account and all seems fine and happy until then try to format and reinstall.

It gets very OS specific though.
 
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SauRoNZA said:
Not 100% accurate.

That only applies to Intel and you’ll only ever see it if trying to boot off USB, it won’t stop you from using the machine.

What you should be concerned about is Activation Lock and DEP (Corporate).

It can be reinstalled via DFU (T2-chip onwards);from another machine and the forced DEP enrolment can also be bypassed so a fresh local user can be setup.

Problem for the buyer is that a normal person reinstalling it will go into the loop of either a personal or corporate lock.

So I would want to see the machine startup and go all the way through Setup Assistant without asking for and Apple ID or stating it belongs to XYZ business.

Things vary slightly from one piece of hardware to another and different MacOS versions.
Click to expand...
So both of those aren’t as hard locked as an iCloud lock on an iPhone which has no work around other than the account’s iCloud password?
 
airborne said:
So both of those aren’t as hard locked as an iCloud lock on an iPhone which has no work around other than the account’s iCloud password?
Click to expand...
Activation Lock is pretty damn hard locked, but only applies to machines that have the T2 chip in.

But sometimes a machine isn't Activation Locked but is still "owned" by a company through Apple Business Manager and therefore can be controlled remotely in that way.

So it might appear like it's just fine but then you try and clean install it and it pops up saying this belongs to so and so and will now enforce their policies.

Corporate devices and Personal devices behave a bit differently and as such an Activation Lock doesn't always "reach" the machine for the lack of Apple ID (when not used) involved and therefore they are in a kind of limbo state in between.

Flipside is as much of a problem with people using personal Apple ID's on their corporate devices and then the Activation Lock is purposely blocked from working so that someone can't leave the company and lock out a machine and cause a pain in the ass and this is likely where many of these half-locked devices come from.

I for instance black hole such devices to basically reinstall but then reboot with a changed password and a Lock Screen message so that someone can't use the machine. It would appear to be just fine until the first reboot when the user can't login and needs to reinstall again and it just loops like that.
 
SauRoNZA said:
Activation Lock is pretty damn hard locked, but only applies to machines that have the T2 chip in.

But sometimes a machine isn't Activation Locked but is still "owned" by a company through Apple Business Manager and therefore can be controlled remotely in that way.

So it might appear like it's just fine but then you try and clean install it and it pops up saying this belongs to so and so and will now enforce their policies.

Corporate devices and Personal devices behave a bit differently and as such an Activation Lock doesn't always "reach" the machine for the lack of Apple ID (when not used) involved and therefore they are in a kind of limbo state in between.

Flipside is as much of a problem with people using personal Apple ID's on their corporate devices and then the Activation Lock is purposely blocked from working so that someone can't leave the company and lock out a machine and cause a pain in the ass and this is likely where many of these half-locked devices come from.

I for instance black hole such devices to basically reinstall but then reboot with a changed password and a Lock Screen message so that someone can't use the machine. It would appear to be just fine until the first reboot when the user can't login and needs to reinstall again and it just loops like that.
Click to expand...
That sounds like a nightmare, which MacBooks have the T2 chip, the Apple silicon ones?
 
SauRoNZA said:
Activation Lock is pretty damn hard locked, but only applies to machines that have the T2 chip in.
Click to expand...
Far as I've read, it is impossible to get past that lock.
Unless you have the original purchase receipt or you have access to the Apple account that the laptop is registered to.

And as I said, my understanding is, you can remote lock a laptop once that laptop is opted into your account.
So someone can sell you a laptop on airplane mode and then you connect to the internet and RIP laptop.

So super important to make sure you unlock that before concluding the transaction.
ie. if they stole the laptop, never connected to the internet, they show you the laptop logged in.
You go home, connect to internet and the lock applies because it called home to Apple.

And in case it isn't clear to anyone, this is at the "BIOS" level
This was what I ran into, I bought a new laptop, set the password and then I couldn't create a partition in the BIOS without an internet connection.
I tried to keep the laptop offline so I could just reinstall, clean slate from a USB stick, but nope, needed to have internet active to install new from a USB stick where it verified I'm the owner of the laptop.
There was no way around this.

Whether you can login or not is immaterial because you as soon as you remove the partition you can't put a new one on there without calling home to Apple.
All this to verify ownership.

Goes without saying the whole thing is locked down tight, there are no exploits or just replace this or that and you are home free.
On the Intel hardware, rumor is you can remove the RAM sticks and get past this.

But Apple silicone, not even maybe.
 
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Gnome said:
Far as I've read, it is impossible to get past that lock.
Unless you have the original purchase receipt or you have access to the Apple account that the laptop is registered to.

And as I said, my understanding is, you can remote lock a laptop once that laptop is opted into your account.
So someone can sell you a laptop on airplane mode and then you connect to the internet and RIP laptop.

So super important to make sure you unlock that before concluding the transaction.
ie. if they stole the laptop, never connected to the internet, they show you the laptop logged in.
You go home, connect to internet and the lock applies because it called home to Apple.

And in case it isn't clear to anyone, this is at the "BIOS" level
This was what I ran into, I bought a new laptop, set the password and then I couldn't create a partition in the BIOS without an internet connection.
I tried to keep the laptop offline so I could just reinstall, clean slate from a USB stick, but nope, needed to have internet active to install new from a USB stick where it verified I'm the owner of the laptop.
There was no way around this.

Whether you can login or not is immaterial because you as soon as you remove the partition you can't put a new one on there without calling home to Apple.
All this to verify ownership.

Goes without saying the whole thing is locked down tight, there are no exploits or just replace this or that and you are home free.
On the Intel hardware, rumor is you can remove the RAM sticks and get past this.

But Apple silicone, not even maybe.
Click to expand...

Yeah the ideal option would be simply seeing them do Erase All Contents and Settings in front of you or doing it yourself.

What to do before you sell, give away, trade in or recycle your Mac - Apple Support (ZA)

Reset your Mac to factory settings to prepare it for the new owner.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

If it restarts to Setup Assistant you are golden.

If they can’t complete that process they don’t have the Apple ID password tied to the machine.
 
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