The article claims that the issue is schools and businesses jettisoning these devices in bulk and not wanting to go to the effort of resetting them properly.
It seems dubious to me. Shouldn’t the reseller withhold payment until the device is verified to be usable? And shouldn’t schools and businesses be incentivized to reset the devices since they want the full resale value?
I might be wrong but I believe Apple can unlock these machines with proof of purchase. At least I remember carrying a non MDM enrolled device from a departed employee to Apple in the past to have the activation lock removed and all I needed was a receipt and patience.
The company I work for has to do it from time to time with Apple's help. We have Mac users who, for example, return locked Macs when leaving the company... we unlock them then with Apple's help.
There are actually a few ways around iCloud lock, they all aren't great for thieves:
1. An insider (hard to get)
2. Phishing the owner (your device has been found, just sign into your Apple ID on this specific login form...)
3. Physically going to an Apple Store, with faked proof of purchase, and ideally a convincing disguise
4. Resell to some Chinese reseller (particularly because China doesn't use the same IMEI blocklist as the rest of the world), and take whatever they give you, and then it's not your problem anymore
Option #3 is surprisingly popular for petty criminals.
I mean the article says that they "assume they have been destroyed" so maybe it's businesses paying for hardware to be destroyed and now it's not possible to resell instead.
Back in my day, when we returned school supplies our teachers made us erase the markings we made so they could be reused, or else we had to pay the replacement cost. That was a lot more work than wiping a hard drive.
It seems dubious to me. Shouldn’t the reseller withhold payment until the device is verified to be usable? And shouldn’t schools and businesses be incentivized to reset the devices since they want the full resale value?