Re: Lackey - most people use their full name for their user ID on a Mac. Showing up to a Mac repair shop with a laptop in someone else’s name can be a problem and set off legal alarms.
Re: FileVault - People are stupid and even today don’t think about protecting their files on their computers. Heck, far too many still think “Password” is a good password. You have to enable FileVault - and one valid major problem with FV and other OS level encryption systems is that if you have a hardware failure and don’t have a backup elsewhere, your data is gone.
Re: Apple - If an Apple depot tech discovers evidence of major crimes in the course of repairing the laptop, they’re contractually obligated to report it. They don’t actively snoop, but if you do something dumb like leave evidence in plain view on the desktop, they’re going to see it. Same with many other brands’ service depots. Many pedophiles have been busted when their broken equipment is sent in for repair and the evidence of their crimes is discovered.
Re: Looking at data - I work as an IT consultant. If a customer leaves a computer with me for service, ghosts me and doesn’t come back, I reserve the right to look through their data for information to allow me to try to recover on my invoice for services rendered. It’s in my service agreement and it’s a common enough clause.
There was an interesting item in the TechCrunch article today. Repair techs scan computers for known message digests / hashes of child porn images and videos. So they don’t need to look at the drive contents, just create hashes and compare against known illegal content. Is that correct?
I’ve not heard that before and it strikes me that would require a LOT of computing power and time.
Interesting that the service agreement grants you permission to look through the drive to find information to get the asset back to it’s owner. I didn’t know that clause was in the agreement.