The "your X has been replaced" pop-up doesn't handle the situation where an attacker knows your passcode.
I think you might also be failing to account for situations where you aren't in possession of your phone for an hour or two. Imagine if police in a foreign country take your phone for a couple of hours and then give it back to you. Or you leave your phone in a hotel room to charge for a few hours. Or your phone gets "misplaced" for an hour after going through the airport x-ray machine.
There are many targets other than journalists too, such as people in the USA who develop export controlled technologies, certain tech company employees, defense contractor employees, other government employees, etc. I don't think you can expect every potential target to constantly set their iphone to lockdown mode.
> The "your X has been replaced" pop-up doesn't handle the situation where an attacker knows your passcode.
If this is the case, they can add their own fingerprint or face (alternate look feature) to your iPhone. You’re thoroughly pwned at that point, no hardware swaps necessary.
> I think you might also be failing to account for situations where you aren't in possession of your phone for an hour or two
If I came back to my unattended phone after 2 hours and it was giving me a pop-up about a swapped part, I would never trust that phone again.
> I don't think you can expect every potential target to constantly set their iphone to lockdown mode.
If they are that much of an attractive target, their organizations would be stupid not to enforce it. I know that Lockheed used to give personnel that was China-bound a throwaway laptop and would shred it the moment they returned to the USA.
>You’re thoroughly pwned at that point, no hardware swaps necessary.
Exactly. It boggles my mind the amount of mental gymnastics Apple apologetics will go through to try to justify Apple's anti-consumer anti-repair practices of software locking replacement parts.
I think you might also be failing to account for situations where you aren't in possession of your phone for an hour or two. Imagine if police in a foreign country take your phone for a couple of hours and then give it back to you. Or you leave your phone in a hotel room to charge for a few hours. Or your phone gets "misplaced" for an hour after going through the airport x-ray machine.
There are many targets other than journalists too, such as people in the USA who develop export controlled technologies, certain tech company employees, defense contractor employees, other government employees, etc. I don't think you can expect every potential target to constantly set their iphone to lockdown mode.