PS. If this is the wrong forum for asking, please let me know which group in Apple I should contact.

macOS Version 15.2 Beta (24C5073e) resolves this issue!

QUESTION to the development community: a) What terminal level commands should be used to remove the hard-wired "Allow incoming connections"? b) What other integrity checks should I run on the firewall configuration to see if other aspects of its operations are now botched?

Second image is now attached.

Thanks CMDdev! Activation Lock protection does give me confidence now that you mention it and I will leave the stolen device on my account! Additionally, I am taking extra steps to remove the credit cards on the device, and then for me to log into services accounts to force all device sessions to expire.

GeekM11 -- did anyone get back to you on this? I'm interested in hearing the response here to your question.

UPDATE: as of macOS 14.2.1, I'm no longer experiencing corrupted TimeMachine backups on SSDs and thus Finder.app search has been working fine.

Additional question : on a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, what is the equivalent settings to disable "Put Hard Disks to Sleep"?