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That rule #1 doesn't quite apply in this situation. That you should never need to give out passwords is mostly a safeguard for social engineering and phishing

That rule #1 doesn't quite apply in this situation. That you should never need to give out passwords is mostly a safeguard for social engineering and phishing scams for accounts stored on a server over the internet. Only a malicious third party would ever ask for these types of account passwords, because those with legitimate needs to access it (you and the service operator) already have it (hopefully just the hash in the case of the latter). The password you're referring to here is an encryption key for a local hard drive that nobody else has access to. If they do in fact need access to the encrypted OS partitions stored on your hard drive in order to diagnose your problem, then they have no choice but to ask you for your encryption key. That's cryptography working as intended.

QuantumRoar 11y ago
I disagree. Not even someone who's there to help you should know your passwords. Consider that many people use the same password for a lot of accounts. On top of that, they already have your email address. By asking their customers for their passwords, they don't just ask them to hand over all the data on their computers, but they also make them vulnerable with regards to their internet accounts. If I have a hardware problem with my display, I don't want them to read my hard drive. Apparently they still try to do so, which I think is a severe violation of privacy. I'd have completely understood if they'd asked me to wipe my hard drive because of some data crawling Apple hardware test with an uplink to HQ. So they do have a choice "Can you make a backup and wipe your hard drive?" But asking me for my encryption password means they fail to understand why people encrypt and they don't care for the integrity of your computing.
- gambiter 11y ago
  Apple techs have access to external drives with multiple versions of OSX installed. If they need to boot your device to test the hardware itself, they will use one of these. If those tests indicate no hardware issue, their only next step is to check out your OS. That would require administrator access to your machine if you're using whole drive encryption. I mean, I get what you're saying... they should have verified those things up front before asking for access, but I'm pretty sure they work on the concept of getting you the fastest service they can, balanced with the amount of customers they need to help simultaneously. My guess is that the admin password is a default question because they know they _generally_ will need it, so it's best get it up front rather than waiting hours or days for the customer to get back to them. Personally, when I had to take my Macbook in, I just zero'd out the sensitive data, changed my admin pw to something temporary, and let them have it. I know this will be a TOTAL surprise, but the multibillion dollar corporation didn't use this as a chance to hack my life. What a novel thought.

QuantumRoar 11y ago

I disagree. Not even someone who's there to help you should know your passwords. Consider that many people use the same password for a lot of accounts. On top of that, they already have your email address. By asking their customers for their passwords, they don't just ask them to hand over all the data on their computers, but they also make them vulnerable with regards to their internet accounts. If I have a hardware problem with my display, I don't want them to read my hard drive. Apparently they still try to do so, which I think is a severe violation of privacy. I'd have completely understood if they'd asked me to wipe my hard drive because of some data crawling Apple hardware test with an uplink to HQ. So they do have a choice "Can you make a backup and wipe your hard drive?" But asking me for my encryption password means they fail to understand why people encrypt and they don't care for the integrity of your computing.

gambiter 11y ago
Apple techs have access to external drives with multiple versions of OSX installed. If they need to boot your device to test the hardware itself, they will use one of these. If those tests indicate no hardware issue, their only next step is to check out your OS. That would require administrator access to your machine if you're using whole drive encryption. I mean, I get what you're saying... they should have verified those things up front before asking for access, but I'm pretty sure they work on the concept of getting you the fastest service they can, balanced with the amount of customers they need to help simultaneously. My guess is that the admin password is a default question because they know they _generally_ will need it, so it's best get it up front rather than waiting hours or days for the customer to get back to them. Personally, when I had to take my Macbook in, I just zero'd out the sensitive data, changed my admin pw to something temporary, and let them have it. I know this will be a TOTAL surprise, but the multibillion dollar corporation didn't use this as a chance to hack my life. What a novel thought.