4 ms·

They used to have this. It was the Life boat connector. You would connect a magic black box to another mac and the connector to the logic boards life boat conne

They used to have this. It was the Life boat connector. You would connect a magic black box to another mac and the connector to the logic boards life boat connector and you were able to migrate the customer data from the dead board. HOWEVER since they started encrypting the userdata at a hardware level they removed that port (because unless you went via the T2 chip the data you extracted from the drive would just be random data). EDIT: Could they in theory add a port to machines going forward that as long as the T2 chip (or what ever they use today, i think they incorperated it into the M1 chip itself) was still functional (as it holds the keys). Sure, why not? But they would have create a way to unlock the T2 (or what ever chip) but apple could create a way either by having a master key or devise keys based on serial numbers, etc etc etc. The Mac they use to recover data via the life boat connector could phone home to Apple and with the right auth be granted an auth to unlock the chip and allow data retrival. If I were to give apple the benefit of doubt, they might not want to as they don't want a way to be compelled to decrypt customers data on their hardware (Be it a 3 letter agency or a rouge employee).

542458 5y ago
What about a port for unlocking the storage via T2 with the user’s password as normal, just bypassing everything else on the mobo so that data would still be recoverable if the dead component was something other than the T2 or storage?
- Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
  My understanding is that the T2 chip and storage works like how the iPhone does. Everything on flash is encrypted but you have system data and user data. The keys to system data are unlocked during the boot process (the T2 also replaces the SMC so it also handles the POST). User data is encrypted with different keys (which are probably locked with the users password). This way the machine can boot without a password (like how on a iPhone you don’t enter your passcode until the phone has finished booting). If you were to replicate that hand shake between the OS and chip, sure apple could have created a “lifeboat connector” on T2 based macs. However the “isolated island” of the PCB communicates with would get more complex (you don’t want to be back powering the whole board from the connector, if there was a simple short on the board somewhere which was preventing the machine from powering on, then with no isolation you could be also “powering that short” from the lifeboat connector and be unable to recover data without more work. On M1 MacBooks things have been stepped up a notch. The Application processor and the security processor that handles the encryption are now the same chip, so you would have to power a “whole lot more”. To top it off the flash chip which is to your SSD and the RAM chip are on the same package as the M1 unit as one big System On Chip. Think of it like this, it’s like if a Intel I7 processor also had the ram and SSD on that chip you brought when you built your machine. Now it’s a lot more harder to create a lifeboat connector. Not impossible but harder. Now as Apple will have a lot of data on their own repair program they can look into how often they were able to / could be bothered to recover data off their older models and how much it pissed the customer off and probably decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. If I were giving them the benefit of the doubt. They think their customers data will be more secure without it. But it’s another reason why right to repair is important. As we have seen with phones, people are willing to write off the phone and pay decent cash to recover the pictures of their kids they had on their phones. With schematics, 3rd parties could much easier create tools and fixes to get the SOC in a workable state just long enough to recover data (Apple R&D prob even have have test boards where they can swap the SOC, If the SOC, Ram, Flash are all ok and not had LCD backlight voltage sent down the data lines... And recover the data. But their "repair techs" have to now learn how to remove the SOC package from the main board). If the chip that contains the keys itself is dead, even with all documentation and access to parts you wanted, you are SOL as these chips are typically designed to create the keys on chip and never let them out.
  - 542458 5y ago
    I don’t have anything else to contribute, but thank you for the detailed reply!

542458 5y ago

What about a port for unlocking the storage via T2 with the user’s password as normal, just bypassing everything else on the mobo so that data would still be recoverable if the dead component was something other than the T2 or storage?

Crosseye_Jack 5y ago
My understanding is that the T2 chip and storage works like how the iPhone does. Everything on flash is encrypted but you have system data and user data. The keys to system data are unlocked during the boot process (the T2 also replaces the SMC so it also handles the POST). User data is encrypted with different keys (which are probably locked with the users password). This way the machine can boot without a password (like how on a iPhone you don’t enter your passcode until the phone has finished booting). If you were to replicate that hand shake between the OS and chip, sure apple could have created a “lifeboat connector” on T2 based macs. However the “isolated island” of the PCB communicates with would get more complex (you don’t want to be back powering the whole board from the connector, if there was a simple short on the board somewhere which was preventing the machine from powering on, then with no isolation you could be also “powering that short” from the lifeboat connector and be unable to recover data without more work. On M1 MacBooks things have been stepped up a notch. The Application processor and the security processor that handles the encryption are now the same chip, so you would have to power a “whole lot more”. To top it off the flash chip which is to your SSD and the RAM chip are on the same package as the M1 unit as one big System On Chip. Think of it like this, it’s like if a Intel I7 processor also had the ram and SSD on that chip you brought when you built your machine. Now it’s a lot more harder to create a lifeboat connector. Not impossible but harder. Now as Apple will have a lot of data on their own repair program they can look into how often they were able to / could be bothered to recover data off their older models and how much it pissed the customer off and probably decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. If I were giving them the benefit of the doubt. They think their customers data will be more secure without it. But it’s another reason why right to repair is important. As we have seen with phones, people are willing to write off the phone and pay decent cash to recover the pictures of their kids they had on their phones. With schematics, 3rd parties could much easier create tools and fixes to get the SOC in a workable state just long enough to recover data (Apple R&D prob even have have test boards where they can swap the SOC, If the SOC, Ram, Flash are all ok and not had LCD backlight voltage sent down the data lines... And recover the data. But their "repair techs" have to now learn how to remove the SOC package from the main board). If the chip that contains the keys itself is dead, even with all documentation and access to parts you wanted, you are SOL as these chips are typically designed to create the keys on chip and never let them out.
- 542458 5y ago
  I don’t have anything else to contribute, but thank you for the detailed reply!