Posco2k8 wrote on July 27, 2009: I’ve taken in my white 13” MacBook to replace the cracking plastic around the keyboard. They did it right there in an hour and never powered it on. So, I am also surprised that they asked for your admin password. It would be really bad in my situation too. They would have access to my GPG private key. Also, all the private RSA keys I use for SSH (and a list of the SSH servers I visit in my config files). Those are all pass phrase protected as well, but it is still an unsettling thought. I think you have a good solution. I would probably be paranoid enough to just copy my hard drive to an external and then just wipe the drive as well as possible with dd or something and then reinstall OS X. Apple should be making some sort of effort to guarantee that your data is safe. Or, they should remove your hard drive from the unit, hand it to you, and just use a test one during the repair process. That would be the best solution for everyone. If it was a software issue, they should attempt to troubleshoot it with you present. Pat wrote on July 28, 2009: I’m actually waiting for Fedex to come pick up my first gen 17” MacBook Pro for repair (getting everything repaired that i can before the Applecare is up next week) and when i called in to set up the repair they asked for my password over the phone. I told the nice woman at Apple support that there will be no password on the machine because I will be doing a clean install before sending it out. I know they need the pasword to get into the machine, but access to my keychain & personal documents? I’ll be formatting my white MacBook as well, when I send it in to have the bottom case repaired (it’s one of the ones with the defective plastic casing). Bill wrote on July 28, 2009: This is just common sense. Before you hand your computer over to [company] you make a disk image. You create an admin account as a courtesy to the technician who will work on the machine. If you have sensitive data (keychain, pgp keys, naked pictures of your SO) that you don’t want to take the chance of someone else seeing, you wipe your account. When you get your machine back, you can restore the image and know that you’ll be in the same state as when you started. Don’t point any fingers at Apple on this one. Alan wrote on July 28, 2009: Apple is telling you they need access to an administrator account to correctly perform your repair. You chose to provide them with an administrator account that also contains your personal information in it. There’s no requirement to do so. Just fill out our screen repair form and let us know the serial number and the problem with your computer and we can send you a link to the correct service and let you know the pricing. Our form even lets you attach a photo of the issue! Apple will be just as happy to use an administrator account that has no personal information in it. Furthermore, they’re just as happy to work on a machine that has no personal data on it at all. You could have backed it up, and wiped your data before bringing it in. Comparing Apple’s legitimate business need for an administrator password on a machine to a shady phishing attempt is quite a stretch. I think you may be feeling a bit unhappy with yourself in that you gave out sensitive information without questioning it, but pointing the blame towards Apple is unfair. ![]() ![]() The Genius you worked with is a professional and also a human, and would understand and happily assist you in making sure you’re comfortable with what information you’re giving up, wether that be by making a second administrator account or removing sensitive data prior to checkin. All you had to do is speak up and I’m sure someone would have listened. Mike Piontek wrote on July 28, 2009: I’m aware of what I could and should have done. I learned from my mistake—I posted this so others can learn from it too. Everyone told me it’d be a quick repair while I waited, so I wasn’t prepared for them to keep it.
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