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How hackable is the MBP?

V

v2club

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 13, 2011
161
0
My roommate has found a windows laptop and it was password protected and he couldn't log in. However after 2 days searching the web he has found a program, burnt it on a cd, booted the cd and done, no passwords anymore.


1.Does something happen when someone types the wrong password more than 5 or 10 times I mean on Mac?

2.And most importantly how protected am I with using a password, considering that my roommate is quite clueless about computers and yet he was able to get access to a password protected PC quite easily?
 
v2club said:
My roommate has found a windows laptop and it was password protected and he couldn't log in. However after 2 days searching the web he has found a program, burnt it on a cd, booted the cd and done, no passwords anymore.


1.Does something happen when someone types the wrong password more than 5 or 10 times I mean on Mac?

2.And most importantly how protected am I with using a password, considering that my roommate is quite clueless about computers and yet he was able to get access to a password protected PC quite easily?
Click to expand...

Unless if you password protect the bootup sequence (dunno if that's possible on a mac - sorry, I'm a bit ignorant of Macbooks, here), there are always ways around.


Actually, even the UEFI should have mantainance workarounds...
 
v2club said:
My roommate has found a windows laptop and it was password protected and he couldn't log in. However after 2 days searching the web he has found a program, burnt it on a cd, booted the cd and done, no passwords anymore.


1.Does something happen when someone types the wrong password more than 5 or 10 times I mean on Mac?

2.And most importantly how protected am I with using a password, considering that my roommate is quite clueless about computers and yet he was able to get access to a password protected PC quite easily?
Click to expand...
1. Nothing in your case

2. Not very. A user password is not going to stop me if I have physical access to your machine. The only way to be truly secure is to use full disk encryption (FileVault 2 )
 
theSeb said:
Not very. A user password is not going to stop me if I have physical access to your machine. The only way to be truly secure is to use full disk encryption (FileVault 2 )
Click to expand...

What exactly happens if I use FileVault 2?
 
reseting a password is easy..

boot into the the recovery partition, call up the terminal type "resetpassword" it'll bring a screen up to do just that. The best part is you needn't know the old password..


10.6 is a little tougher but not significantly so
 
v2club said:
2.And most importantly how protected am I with using a password, considering that my roommate is quite clueless about computers and yet he was able to get access to a password protected PC quite easily?
Click to expand...
You have obviously no idea how easy that is.
All you need to get past the login password is a simple linux dvd or something bootable. If that harddrive is not encrypted the login password does nothing but prevent somebody from messing with your computer while you aren't watching.
It protects nothing truly it is just a sort of inconvenience. (if you can boot it up some other way)

What helps more is bios level password but that only works from startup. It still means one could just remove the harddrive and put in into some other PC and have access to all the data.
But the notebook is no use anymore. I am wondering if a MBP has UEFI level passwords that can basically incapacitate the logicboard like just about any Windows Notebook.
 
v2club said:
My roommate has found a windows laptop and it was password protected and he couldn't log in. However after 2 days searching the web he has found a program, burnt it on a cd, booted the cd and done, no passwords anymore.


1.Does something happen when someone types the wrong password more than 5 or 10 times I mean on Mac?

2.And most importantly how protected am I with using a password, considering that my roommate is quite clueless about computers and yet he was able to get access to a password protected PC quite easily?
Click to expand...

to protect your computer more effectively, you need to 1) enable FileVault 2 for full disk encryption (10.7 Lion only) and set a open firmware password. The first will keep anything from being decrypted till your password is in, and the second will keep anyone from being able to reset your password without a second (usually more difficult) password.
 
You don't even need a OS X DVD to do it on a Mac:

1. Reboot
2. Hold command key + s key down after you hear the chime.
3. When you get text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account:

mount -uw /
rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
shutdown -h now

4. After rebooting you should have a brand new admin account. When you login as the new admin you can simply delete the old one and your good to go again!
 
v2club said:
My roommate has found a windows laptop and it was password protected and he couldn't log in. However after 2 days searching the web he has found a program, burnt it on a cd, booted the cd and done, no passwords anymore.


1.Does something happen when someone types the wrong password more than 5 or 10 times I mean on Mac?

2.And most importantly how protected am I with using a password, considering that my roommate is quite clueless about computers and yet he was able to get access to a password protected PC quite easily?
Click to expand...


"Found a laptop" and "my roommate" of course ;)

Was this on windows XP? I remember such a utility for XP but thought it was remedied for windows 7. I'm not aware of an equivalent for mac.
 
Last edited:
v2club said:
My roommate has found a windows laptop and it was password protected and he couldn't log in. However after 2 days searching the web he has found a program, burnt it on a cd, booted the cd and done, no passwords anymore.
Click to expand...

So...in other words, you just stole an MBP and now you want our help hacking into it?

You do know you have a legal obligation to report the find to the police, right?

I love the hypocrisy in some people...they wouldn't be too happy if they lost their computer and someone else 'found' it and kept it to themselves.

Why haven't you told your 'roommate' to do the right thing, or reported him to the police? If your 'roommate' is going to do this sort of thing, I can only imagine what your 'roommate' would do with your personal property if you weren't looking...
 
Maybe the roommate hacked into the laptop to identify the owner and give it back?

If I were to steal a laptop, I would just wipe the HD and install a new OS. Sure one can do a lot of crap if you get access to someones private information, but even the online banking login is somewhat useless unless one is a professional criminal.
 
trikky said:
So...in other words, you just stole an MBP and now you want our help hacking into it?

You do know you have a legal obligation to report the find to the police, right?

I love the hypocrisy in some people...they wouldn't be too happy if they lost their computer and someone else 'found' it and kept it to themselves.

Why haven't you told your 'roommate' to do the right thing, or reported him to the police? If your 'roommate' is going to do this sort of thing, I can only imagine what your 'roommate' would do with your personal property if you weren't looking...
Click to expand...

NO in other words I DID NOT just stole an MBP, I have my own MBP, which I bought last year from the Apple Store!

The laptop my roommate has found is windows based!

Where he got the laptop from is none of my business and don't you worry about my personal property!!!

The whole point of this post was to find out how protected am I with my LEGALLY purchased MBP!
 
So as stated in this thread -- not very much if someone has physical access to your MacBook, unless you check out File Vault
 
Ccrew said:
Doesn't it bother you that your roommate is a sleazeball?
Click to expand...

Hey, there are valid ways to find a Windows laptop. Maybe he found it in the dumpster. You may laugh, but a kid at my college found a fully functioning high-end iPod Touch in the trash once because some rich kid got a new one and decided he didn't want the old one anymore, so he tossed it. We should give the benefit of the doubt, especially when, even if you're right, there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you can do about it.
 
i found a laptop at work once. i worked there for five years. told the rest of the staff about it. no one ever came looking for it. so I wiped it and sold it.

don't be so presumptuous.
 
iThinkergoiMac said:
Hey, there are valid ways to find a Windows laptop. Maybe he found it in the dumpster. You may laugh, but a kid at my college found a fully functioning high-end iPod Touch in the trash once because some rich kid got a new one and decided he didn't want the old one anymore, so he tossed it. We should give the benefit of the doubt, especially when, even if you're right, there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING you can do about it.
Click to expand...

I hate it when they do that. If my old device is worthless to me, I feel proud of myself when I hand it over to some poor kid in my neighborhood or some family member who might make good use of it... seriously, who in their right mind throws it in a trash can?
 
saberahul said:
I hate it when they do that. If my old device is worthless to me, I feel proud of myself when I hand it over to some poor kid in my neighborhood or some family member who might make good use of it... seriously, who in their right mind throws it in a trash can?
Click to expand...

people that have more money than they know what to do with, and are foolish as well?

this is all good and well, but this thread is getting way off topic.
 
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