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Logging if my personal files are looked through when in for repair?
- Thread starter ZAK248313
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Not that I know of. But if you are paranoid enough, get an external hard drive and clone the drive. Reinstall OS X and that should keep the data from the repair guys. When it comes back, clone the external drive back to your original drive and *boom*, everything is back to normal.
Or if it's just a few files, put everything into a folder and make a password protected .dmg file in Disk Utility. Just make sure you don't forget the password.
It's not paranoid at all.
But my advice is this: rather than try to protect the data on your machine, take the data off, wipe the drive, and send it in. That way there's nothing they can do to get access to your data.
It's a minimal bit of protection, but I always create a user account named Apple on my Macs, with administrative privileges. It's for use by Apple Techs if they ever help me with technical problems. I them the password and they can use it to log in. I never have them log in under MY user name.
I know that's not going to keep them from snooping through my files if they make an effort, so I still remove files that must be for me or my family only, but it discourages casual snooping. You have to decide how much trouble you are willing go to through for how much "safety".
In general, someone might have a technical problem that has to do with their specific login account, or with specific files in their home folder, so they might think that Apple needs to use their account to solve the problem, but I would never send a Mac in for service for a problem of that type. In fact I'd probably not send a Mac in for any software-only problem. I'd handle it myself, get help online (e.g., at MacRumors), and/or reinstall Mac OS X or apps myself to clean things up.
I know that's not going to keep them from snooping through my files if they make an effort, so I still remove files that must be for me or my family only, but it discourages casual snooping. You have to decide how much trouble you are willing go to through for how much "safety".
In general, someone might have a technical problem that has to do with their specific login account, or with specific files in their home folder, so they might think that Apple needs to use their account to solve the problem, but I would never send a Mac in for service for a problem of that type. In fact I'd probably not send a Mac in for any software-only problem. I'd handle it myself, get help online (e.g., at MacRumors), and/or reinstall Mac OS X or apps myself to clean things up.
I second the advice of backing up files then zeroing out the drive, but I'd use two different external drives if possible. One for the Time Machine backup, one for the image that is cloned or restored. This way, all your data isn't vulnerable to one hard disk failing.
If you don't want to erase your files (leaving them open to being snooped), you could installer a keylogger (and then uninstall it when you get your Mac back.)
logKext is good.
logKext is good.
It's also a great way to cause all sorts of potential legal problems for yourself.
Seriously, skip that solution. Image the drive, wipe it, and restore when you get it back. It'll only take a couple hours all told, and it's a 100% reliable way to avoid the compromise of your privacy.
Yeah, that's true.
It's really a much better idea to just securely erase the hard drive.