3 ms·

If you do work related stuff on your computer, your work should be taking care of the computer. This is why most people get assigned a computer by their places

by CHY872 11y ago

If you do work related stuff on your computer, your work should be taking care of the computer. This is why most people get assigned a computer by their places of employment, and are not expected to use their own. The place of work has their own tech team who deal with these types of issues. It's a really bad idea to do work stuff on a home computer because it makes your device much more vulnerable to being snooped on and controlled (for example, your place of employment may gain the ability to remotely wipe your device), and generally if you are in such a pickle then you should just not give them your password. Again, it could be a software issue. If I complain that my WiFi isn't working, and you take it in to have a look, and your diagnostics say that WiFi works, then without the password you can't do anything at all. If my problem is that Safari runs really slowly and you can't log in, you're not going to be able to fix that. If your only fix is then to reinstall the operating system and hope for the best, then you've done a terrible job. In any case, the tech has physical access to your computer, and in the presence of that you should not assume any security from your disk encryption. FDE is good for one loss of control; after that you should assume compromise.

Dylan16807 11y ago
>it could be a software issue They can still do some tests. It's not like wiping the hard drive helps solve software issues. >FDE is good for one loss of control; after that you should assume compromise. If the threat model is a malicious actor, yes. If the threat model is accidental plaintext password leaking, there is a huge difference between the scenarios. I could construct a similar argument against password hashing on servers...
- gambiter 11y ago
  >If the threat model is accidental plaintext password leaking, there is a huge difference between the scenarios. That's just fear mongering. Why would you not change your password before taking it in? You should be changing it regularly anyway, and you shouldn't be using that password in more than one place. The idea of it leaking from a technician's database is irrelevant because you would change it as soon as you get the machine back.

by CHY872 11y ago

Dylan16807 11y ago

>it could be a software issue They can still do some tests. It's not like wiping the hard drive helps solve software issues. >FDE is good for one loss of control; after that you should assume compromise. If the threat model is a malicious actor, yes. If the threat model is accidental plaintext password leaking, there is a huge difference between the scenarios. I could construct a similar argument against password hashing on servers...

gambiter 11y ago
>If the threat model is accidental plaintext password leaking, there is a huge difference between the scenarios. That's just fear mongering. Why would you not change your password before taking it in? You should be changing it regularly anyway, and you shouldn't be using that password in more than one place. The idea of it leaking from a technician's database is irrelevant because you would change it as soon as you get the machine back.