Stolen Device Protection

[Ready-for-Apple]

Not only that, it must have bern on for a week or two, and you will have needed to have travelled in and out of your home during that time so the phone learned your home.

Where did you get this information?


Since 1 week I have switched on Significant locations again - only for SDP; had it off before to save battery.
Home has also been recognized there and I have also been away from home 3 times, but I still have to wait 1h at home❗️😞

 

[P_Watt]

Where did you get this information?

several weeks of beta testing.

 

[Morac]

Where did you get this information?


Since 1 week I have switched on Significant locations again - only for SDP; had it off before to save battery.
Home has also been recognized there and I have also been away from home 3 times, but I still have to wait 1h at home️

If you had Significant Locations off it can take several
weeks to learn your locations. If it was already on, it should pick things up in a day or two.

 

[Cunir]

hopefully it's impossible for a thief to fake a new home and work address, just be switching it over in maps and contacts. i'm guessing that the phone might have to be unlocked inside the house, and reside their overnight for a few days before apple switch it over. for the work address they might check if you regularly travel there and back from your house

 

[Ready-for-Apple]

If you had Significant Locations off it can take several
weeks to learn your locations. If it was already on, it should pick things up in a day or two.

😧 – also if the Significant Locations named my home address as "Home"?🤔

 

[Morac]

– also if the Significant Locations named my home address as "Home"?

I’m not sure how Significant Locations knows your Home address, but it’s not directly based on the home address in your contacts. My guess is that Apple assumes the location you go to the most and stay at the longest is your home address. It takes some time to learn that though when you first enable Significant Locations.

The reason I know it’s not from Contacts is while trying to troubleshoot why SDP wasn’t recognizing my home as a frequent location, I deleted my home address from my contacts (which also removes it from Maps). I then got a suggestion in Contacts to add a (correct) home address which said it came from Significant Locations.

 

[Ready-for-Apple]

I’m not sure how Significant Locations knows your Home address, but it’s not directly based on the home address in your contacts. My guess is that Apple assumes the location you go to the most and stay at the longest is your home address. It takes some time to learn that though when you first enable Significant Locations.

The reason I know it’s not from Contacts is while trying to troubleshoot why SDP wasn’t recognizing my home as a frequent location, I deleted my home address from my contacts (which also removes it from Maps). I then got a suggestion in Contacts to add a (correct) home address which said it came from Significant Locations.

I deleted now my home address in contacts and as you mentioned this disappear also in Apple Maps.
In Significant Locations it shows my actual locations as "Zu Hause" (German for "Home").

If I open Contacts again I don't get the suggestion to add my home address – on the main window neither in my personal contact, even if I tap edit.🤔

 

[P_Watt]

This is new in 17.4 beta 1

 

[I7guy]

Apple isn’t done tweaking SDP yet.

 

[anonymousmoose]

If you had Significant Locations off it can take several
weeks to learn your locations. If it was already on, it should pick things up in a day or two.

Settings, Privacy & Security, Location services, System Services, Significant locations must be on. Not only that, it must have bern on for a week or two, and you will have needed to have travelled in and out of your home during that time so the phone learned your home.
It’s poor but there it is.

Thanks. I work in a home office so maybe I haven’t left home enough for it to register.

My primary concern was that I had to go through several 60 minute wait times for it to disable. I was getting worried I’d need to put it into dfu and restore from iTunes

 

[P_Watt]

Thanks. I work in a home office so maybe I haven’t left home enough for it to register.

My primary concern was that I had to go through several 60 minute wait times for it to disable. I was getting worried I’d need to put it into dfu and restore from iTunes

The items that need wait times are things you don’t often need to do.
DFU would really only be needed if biometrics failed.
In unfamiliar places:
BIOMETRICS ARE REQUIRED TO:
Access iCloud Keychain passwords
Apply for a new Apple Card
Erase all content and settings
Reset all settings
Turn off Lost Mode
Sending people money with Apple Cash
Use your iPhone to set up a new device
Use payment methods saved in Safari
BIOMETRICS + AN HOUR WAIT ARE REQUIRED TO:
Change your Apple ID password
Enable recovery key
Change trusted phone number or contact
Add Face ID or Touch ID
Remove Face ID or Touch ID
Disable Find My
Turn off Stolen Device Protection

 

[Moparherb]

I turned on the new protection setting on my iPhone 15 Pro Max but I have a question. If a thief knows my log on passcode they should be able get into my settings and turn off “Stolen Device Protection”. Thus being able to do anything they want with my iPhone. Including changing my Apple ID. sounds like a good feature but I don’t think I see the protection that is being touted. Now I haven’t turned the feature off so maybe it’s more secure than I think. Just a question and I realize I’m probably wrong. Thanks for anyone that helps me.

 

[Cruncher]

I think you should read again what Stolen Device Protecton is doing: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/enable-stolen-device-protection/

It helps against the situation you just talked about

 

[iStorm]

I turned on the new protection setting on my iPhone 15 Pro Max but I have a question. If a thief knows my log on passcode they should be able get into my settings and turn off “Stolen Device Protection”. Thus being able to do anything they want with my iPhone. Including changing my Apple ID. sounds like a good feature but I don’t think I see the protection that is being touted. Now I haven’t turned the feature off so maybe it’s more secure than I think. Just a question and I realize I’m probably wrong. Thanks for anyone that helps me.

Stolen Device Protection makes it so that Face ID/Touch ID is required for some actions. A thief doesn't have your face or fingerprint, and wouldn't be able to turn it off.

 

[Moparherb]

So you are saying if my daughter or some friend tried to turn it off they couldn’t??

 

[Moparherb]

Thank you all. After rereading what it does I see that turning off the protection is one of the items that it protects against. Sorry for not carefully reading…….

 

[anonymousmoose]

The items that need wait times are things you don’t often need to do.
DFU would really only be needed if biometrics failed.
In unfamiliar places:
BIOMETRICS ARE REQUIRED TO:
Access iCloud Keychain passwords
Apply for a new Apple Card
Erase all content and settings
Reset all settings
Turn off Lost Mode
Sending people money with Apple Cash
Use your iPhone to set up a new device
Use payment methods saved in Safari
BIOMETRICS + AN HOUR WAIT ARE REQUIRED TO:
Change your Apple ID password
Enable recovery key
Change trusted phone number or contact
Add Face ID or Touch ID
Remove Face ID or Touch ID
Disable Find My
Turn off Stolen Device Protection

What I’m saying the problem was, is that ever after 60 minutes the countdown kicked off again multiple times

Stolen Device Protection

I had some issues with SDP where it wouldn’t deactivate despite waiting for 60 mins. I turned it on Tuesday night, tested it by entering the wrong passcode on purpose. It activated the 60 minutes delay. But, after the countdown it just starts again, over and over. I didn’t leave my location...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[P_Watt]

What I’m saying the problem was, is that ever after 60 minutes the countdown kicked off again multiple times

Stolen Device Protection

I had some issues with SDP where it wouldn’t deactivate despite waiting for 60 mins. I turned it on Tuesday night, tested it by entering the wrong passcode on purpose. It activated the 60 minutes delay. But, after the countdown it just starts again, over and over. I didn’t leave my location...

forums.macrumors.com

What I did was start the delay then start a 1 hour timer and within a minute of the hour being up I made the change. If yours doesn’t let you do that then it probably needs a DFU to clear it

Leaving it some considerable time after the hour is up means you may miss your chance. I haven’t tested it enough times to see what “considerable” equates to

 

[anonymousmoose]

What I did was start the delay then start a 1 hour timer and within a minute of the hour being up I made the change. If yours doesn’t let you do that then it probably needs a DFU to clear it

Leaving it some considerable time after the hour is up means you may miss your chance. I haven’t tested it enough times to see what “considerable” equates to

Ah. That explains how I managed to deactivate it after the 4th or 5th try. Apple needs to perfect this feature. It seems like a hasty release, needed more testing and context around how it works

 

[Bazza1]

I'm at something of a loss as to how useful this would be for people who travel a lot - it only recognizing your control over it a 'home' or 'work' or locations Apple recognizes you may have been at before. Otherwise, not so much.

Frankly, I would have been happier with Apple not making it so easy to bypass a 'locked' iPhone by a non-user in the first place. And a special PIN that you would punch in that would lock the device and auto-connect with 911 services with a prerecorded message and coordinates - much like their accident reporting already does.

 

[Vlad Soare]

This "protection" is just a lousy compromise to slightly alleviate an enormous design fault. Namely, that Apple allows the iCloud password to be reset using the PIN of the device. This is absolutely stupid. The protection of the device and that of the iCloud account should be two completely different things. Losing the PIN should only cause you to lose the device, not the whole account. All the iCloud security settings, password, hardware keys, you name them, are totally worthless if they can be bypassed by saying "I forgot my password" and having it reset by merely providing the iPhone's PIN. This is the basic issue, which people have been complaining about for years.
Instead of fixing this incredibly major bug, they've implemented a convoluted workaround to slow down the attacker in case of theft, but at the expense of annoying and hindering you the rest of the time. Disappointing to say the least.

 

[P_Watt]

This "protection" is just a lousy compromise to slightly alleviate an enormous design fault. Namely, that Apple allows the iCloud password to be reset using the PIN of the device. This is absolutely stupid. The protection of the device and that of the iCloud account should be two completely different things. Losing the PIN should only cause you to lose the device, not the whole account. All the iCloud security settings, password, hardware keys, you name them, are totally worthless if they can be bypassed by saying "I forgot my password" and having it reset by merely providing the iPhone's PIN.
Instead of fixing this incredibly major bug, they've implemented a convoluted workaround to slow down the attacker in case of theft, but at the expense of annoying and hindering you the rest of the time. Disappointing to say the least.

Agreed, that dumb intentional change happened in ios15 IIRC, but think of the staff they no longer need to manually recover forgotten passwords the old way, must have saved $millions

 

[Apple_Robert]

Turn off Significant Locations.

 

[P_Watt]

Turn off Significant Locations.

To do what?

 

[Apple_Robert]

To do what?

So that you have to use Face ID all the time to make any changes to your account.