|
|
#26 | |
|
Quote:
|
||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#27 | |
|
Quote:
|
||
|
|
0
|
|
|
#28 | |||
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
You don't need to worry about security of your data if you restrict who has access to your computer and if you practice safe computing. Read the What security steps should I take? section of the Mac Virus/Malware FAQ for tips on practicing safe computing. |
||||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#29 | |
|
Quote:
And my conclusions are only based on ignorance if your information that you have written to me is incomplete or in error, because it was YOU who said "most" log files will not contain any sensitive or personal information, indicating that "some" may. And those links you posted, how can I know with complete certainity that they contain complete and accurate information? Perhaps the author is ignorant? Last edited by 2012Tony2012; Jan 28, 2013 at 09:55 PM. |
||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#30 | |||
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
||||
|
|
2
|
|
|
#31 | |
|
Quote:
As per your admission, you have never read every log file on Mac or from every App, so some Apps may store private information somewhere I don't know about, but that some cleaner Apps know about. For example, a few weeks ago I was the one that located hidden folders left behind by some Apps that other experienced Mac users did not know about when "completely removing Apps". So my point....even many experience users do not at times know every place information may be stored. I find your last paragraph rather tantrum throwing, showing immaturity and lack of empathy. I have lost all respect for you as a result, as I had hoped you could be reasoned with maturely and I thought you had good empathic skills, my assumptions were in error. Best wishes in your trying to educate people, but I believe you are spreading a false sense of security always telling people that the Mac can take care of itself, which I have found is completely untrue. |
||
|
|
2
|
|
|
#32 | ||
|
Quote:
Quote:
Thanks! It's been working well for years, as many are willing to learn. It's not a false sense of security, regardless of what you choose to believe. It's fact. Your assumptions about what is or isn't true is suspect, as are the FUD-like arguments you make about log files, which indicate you haven't taken any time to learn what type of information is found in such files. If you were more aware, you wouldn't be eager to delete log files. Last edited by GGJstudios; Jan 29, 2013 at 01:03 AM. |
|||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#33 |
|
I used to be a OS "under the hood tinkerer". Once I stopped, my Macs have never run better. I've been using OS X since early Tiger, and had to completely reinstall it - due to a "maintenance" application that was highly recommended. That's when I stopped, and that's when I noticed that OS X does a good job of handling, well, everything. It may not be as much fun... but I recommend that you just leave it alone.
Memory management is just fine, once you understand what OS X is doing. The one thing I do is quit everything just before I open up Photoshop if I want it to claim as much memory as possible (up to the limit I've set for it.) After it's opened up I'll reopen whatever I need. I don't even know if this is still necessary... old habits....
__________________
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton |
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
#34 |
|
2012Tony2012: your computer's memory management is weird. I've never once needed a separate program to free up memory–OS X has always done an excellent job for me, and this on at least five separate computers. Nor have I ever deleted a log file (what's the point? Mine isn't even 40MB, which is a trivial amount of space on a modern drive). Your concern that there may be personally identifiable information in there is understandable, but I also think it's a bit silly. Were someone to want to ransack your files they would ignore the logs and go straight for your encrypted partition.
__________________
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. |
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
#35 |
|
I will consider all comments and give it some thought. If I know that never any personal or private or sensitive information is stored anywhere on the Mac that I am not aware of, then I would stop using any "cleaning apps" all together and just let the Mac do it's thing. But until that time, I will continue to be diligent.
|
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
#36 | |
|
Memory Management
Quote:
|
||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#37 | |||
|
This is an important enough topic, that other people are going to read in the future. I think some clarifications are needed so that other people don't make the same mistakes that I think you are making. So.... go ahead and do what you think is best. It is your computer after all.
Quote:
2) OS X is based on BSD/UNIX. It was designed from the ground up to be secure. Leaving sensitive info in log files is a rookie mistake. So, while individual apps may make that mistake, the OS won't be. This thread has been about deleting System Logs, not individual app's logs. While GGJstudios may not have personally read every single log on every single, I believe he is correct because his conclusions are backed up by people who do in fact know about these things. In the same way that I haven't read every single study on the theory of gravity, and yet I believe that when I drop something it will fall down. One other thing... you mention that you are relying on programmers in Mac community to write the apps to delete these logs that allegedly hold sensitive information. But, if these programmers have less than pure motives, then they may be using fear to get you to use a cleaning application that compromises your security. In a case like this, I would trust Apple's programming more than a small 3rd party outfit that may be using your fear of being compromised against you. Quote:
[QUOTE=2012Tony2012;16745161] Quote:
So... do what you want... it's your computer. But please do not recommend it as a good course of action. If it makes you feel better, then great. But your advice is making other people less secure, not more secure. imho, of course....
__________________
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton |
||||
|
|
3
|
|
|
#38 | ||
|
Quote:
Quote:
2. Can you prove and show that NO system file logs contain any information about internet activity? 3. Just because you believe in gravity, does that make you 100% certain that no private or senitive information is saved and stored on your Mac? 4. Do you have evidence that Apps such as Ccleaner, IceClean, Magician, Onyx, iBoostUp have bad motives and that their apps are part of some conscipracy? 5. Your whole post seems based on what you have heard from other people's opinions about Mac being secure. You have not really posted any evidence. Have you personally read every single line in every single log file to accuarely conclude that there is no private or sensitive data anywhere on your Mac stored somewhere without your knowledge? OR are you making assumptions? |
|||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#39 | |
|
Quote:
But I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Just like I'm not going to lose any sleep about Feb 15th. Even though I only read expert opinions that we will be fine, I have not actually done the orbital calculations myself.
__________________
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton |
||
|
|
0
|
|
|
#40 |
|
No app that you could install will scan every single log file, looking for such information, either. Deleting log files is ridiculous, as they will only be recreated by apps as you run them, and in the interim you've lost potentially valuable troubleshooting information. The purpose of log files is not to store personal or sensitive information, but to assist in tracking app execution events. No reputable app stores any personal information in log files.
|
|
|
|
0
|
|
|
#41 | ||
|
Quote:
How much of the logs will be kept is something that the sysadmin usually decides. It seems that in this case someone wants to limit the amount of logs to safe some disk space. I don't think it will do much harm. Most problems are instant and repeatable anyway so it is very easy to recreate errors messages in the logs. Saying that he is not helping his Mac by doing this shows a misunderstanding of what a logging system is supposed to do. One should be asking himself what he gains by limiting the logging. In this case it's probably lot's of effort for something that brings you little gain in reducing disk space and amount of writes to the ssd making it pointless. The only thing you'll benefit from this entire process is gaining knowledge of various systems in UNIX (OS X in particular). The way OS X is doing the logging and clean up of old logs is fine. The defaults are good enough for the average person. Quote:
To prevent somebody from booting into some kind of cd to get to the data on your disk you need to do at least 3 things:
If you really want to be secure you need to power off the machine instead of using the hibernate/standby/sleep modes. This will clear the RAM which will disable the possibility to capture the encryption password (when using whole disk encryption with something like Filevault 2) via something like DMA (through Thunderbolt for example). Security means that you need to apply it to several levels. There simply is no such thing as applying only 1 measure to be safe. Think of security as a plan, a design. Deleting logs or certain information in those logs is completely useless in this case. The actual data (docs, pictures, etc.) is much more interesting. You can't commit fraud, identity theft, etc. with information from most log files but you can with things like a picture from someone's passport, creditcard, etc. |
|||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#42 |
|
I never indicated they are a requirement. They can be helpful, if they're not deleted.
No, there's no misunderstanding. Aside from saving a relatively small amount of space, there is zero benefit in deleting log files, which means you're not helping your Mac by deleting them. |
|
|
|
0
|
|
|
#43 | ||
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
|||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#44 |
|
This thread has won the "tinfoil hat" award!
__________________
You have NO Constitutional right not to be offended. 27" iMac; 24" iMac; 15" MacBook Pro; 13" MacBook Air; 64GB iPad; 16GB iPhone 3G; 16GB iTouch; 16GB blue iPod Nano |
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
#45 | |||
|
Quote:
![]() Also, can you point me to some experts sources where they mention going through every single line on Mac OS logs and where they concluded no sensitive or private data is never written there? ---------- Quote:
---------- Quote:
|
||||
|
|
1
|
|
|
#46 | ||
|
Quote:
Quote:
This is one example of why I recommend against deleting them blindly, especially for the reasons being suggested. |
|||
|
|
0
|
|
|
#47 |
|
Sheesh.
![]() I will say, that there are a few issues NOT discussed here. 1. Early versions of MacOS X rotates logs and purges old logs early in the morning (around 3:15am). If your machine is never running at that time, log files can become quite large, though insignificant when compared to current hard drive sizes. Later versions attempt to get around this problem by delaying the scheduled time by the amount of time your machine was asleep or shut-down, but again, if your machine is not running at that NEW scheduled time, the maintenance scripts may not run. 2. The maintenance scripts in themselves do not rotate and purge all log files, so there may be log files that are never rotated or purged. 3. Where log files can become significantly large, you may notice a lag in performance or non-functioning add-ons. This can especially occur after a system update, after installing new software, or migrating a system from one Mac to another. If this happens, then getting to the root cause is pretty important, but easily reproducible even if the log files are deleted. 4. Deleting log files in itself, does no harm to your system. Even the system eventually deletes logs after a pre-determined period of time. If you like doing it, or it gives you a feeling of security, go ahead and do it, but there is no evidence that it actually makes your machine more secure - but of course, that could change. If there was indeed any app that put clear-text passwords or other identifiable information into log files, they most likely would be discovered at least within 6 months by the community at large. For example, there was an instance where VM Swap files were retaining passwords which was discovered by the Mac community, though that has long since been resolved. That's my 2c. I await to be flamed.
__________________
iBook14" 1.42Ghz, G4 DigitalAudio 733Mhz, iMac Snow 700Mhz, iBook SE 466Mhz, PowerBook Pismo 500Mhz, G3 B&W, G4 MDD 1.25Ghz, iMac 233 1998, iMac G4 USB2 1.25Ghz, iMac C2D 2.16Ghz, MacMini G4 1.25Ghz |
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
#48 |
|
ATTENTION: GGJstudios
Can you give a few different examples where you personally looked through your log files, and for what reason and how it helped you? |
|
|
|
0
|
|
|
#49 |
|
I don't recall specifics at the moment, but I've used them several times over the years to help diagnose problems with apps and track other activity. There have been several threads posted where logs were used to identify and understand system and app behavior.
|
|
|
|
0
|
|
|
#50 | |
|
Quote:
I would rather believe that the absence of any evidence that log files - installed on every Mac and readable by anyone - contain sensitive information means that they don't have sensitive info. As opposed to the closed and proprietary nature of 3rd party apps that are installed in a minority of Macs, and whose results are not transparent to everyone. But it's your call.... it is your info after all.... trust the 3rd party apps developers who can disappear overnight.
__________________
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. - Jack Layton Last edited by snberk103; Feb 2, 2013 at 01:05 AM. |
||
|
|
0
|
![]() |
|
«
Previous Thread
|
Next Thread
»
| Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 03:18 AM.








To prevent somebody from booting into some kind of cd to get to the data on your disk you need to do at least 3 things: 
Linear Mode
