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Comment by ricardobeat | Hacker News Reader

Providing your password to a technician under any circumstances is a terrible idea to start with. Depending on how careless you are[1] they might gain access to your email, social media, bank accounts and all kinds of personal, legal and financial documents. Pictures are the least of your concerns.

The only safe way to do this is to 1) be present during service if it’s a software issue, 2) backup your data somewhere else, and wipe the device clean before handing it in.

[1] safe to assume that people who take their laptops to service shops know _nothing_ about security

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If the device is nonfunctional, and has encryption enabled (e.g. Bitlocker or FileVault) you MUST give them your password if you want it repaired and cannot afford to lose data. That is the COMMON CASE. A lot of shops/businesses aren't going to agree to a "stand over my shoulder while I work" clause least of all because your repair goes into a backlog until they can get to it.

> backup your data somewhere else, and wipe the device clean before handing it in.

Well over half the devices going in for repair cannot do that, that's why they're going in for repair.

> safe to assume that people who take their laptops to service shops know _nothing_ about security

Safe to assume that the people being judgmental online know nothing about the technical expertise of the average device owner.

I'd never take a device into somewhere with personal/sensitive information on it, but I recognize I am in an extremely privileged position in having the knowledge and expertise to do so. Even a fully broken screen wouldn't stop me from backing up/wiping. That isn't typical at all.

Probably the best setup to avoid this is to have something like Linux home folder encryption, and to set a separate account just for maintenance. If the device breaks, the technician is given the maintenance account password, not the one with access to your private stuff.

That's fine for hardware issues, which really wouldn't require the personal drive at all to fix. The issue arises for when a software-related issue occurs and the person who could do what you just described could probably also fix it themselves.

Macintosh computers have a "recovery startup" mode where it boots on a minimal OS partition (chosen by holding cmd-R right after power-on). All current Macs gets such a partition as part of normal OS install. This enables checking HW without having access to the customers data (i.e. encrypted partition).

All computers and phones should have such a recovery/repair mode.

I would not be surprised that if this continues to be a problem, then EU will mandate that repair should not be allowed to ask for password and that all devices must have a repair mode. It seems like a straightforward extension of GDPR.

>If the device is nonfunctional, and has encryption enabled (e.g. Bitlocker or FileVault) you MUST give them your password if you want it repaired and cannot afford to lose data.

That needs to change. We create two user accounts for all of the laptops we give out. Someone working on the device only needs to have access to one of the accounts. Windows is still too stupid to hide user data from other users. But at least it's something.

I was with you until the third point. People who know about security in technical fields are uncommon. No tot mention the average Joe .

I do not understand how this is being judgmental? How much do you know about the operation of a nuclear plant, or knee surgery? You are not expected to, same with cybersecurity where knowing to not share your password over a random phone call is already complicated to teach.

The technical guy you went to for help asking you "the numbers you type when the computer starts" sound completely legit.

On macOS at least, if you want to keep data encrypted, you can use encrypted disk images. If you want a more user friendly alternative, you can use https://www.espionageapp.com, which lets you encrypt folders (note: I wrote Espionage).

> If the device is nonfunctional, and has encryption enabled (e.g. Bitlocker or FileVault) you MUST give them your password if you want it repaired and cannot afford to lose data.

In corporate settings key escrow may be used. Windows for example can store bitlocker credentials in AD.

> ...bank accounts...legal... Pictures are the least of your concerns.

Yes and no. Even the least-skilled young repair tech can ogle Hot_Bikini.jpg on impulse, with ~zero expectation of being caught, and an easy "victimless" rationalization. Vs. doing things you allude to would require a very different (and far rarer) sort of perp.

Given the CBC's limited resources, need for clicks, and (if they're sane) aversion to getting involved in serious crimes - using sexy pictures for their story was the right way to go.

> Given the CBC's limited resources, ...

CBC has been getting well over a billion dollars of taxpayer money each year lately, and they also have advertising revenue on top of that.

CBC does not have "limited resources".

Implicit CPC induced calls to defund the CBC aside, we agree that CBC's budget is not infinite and is therefore a limited resource?

Speculation: The editor who was calling the shots on this story had only a microscopic sliver all the money at his beck and call.

FWIW, this looks to be CBC's latest quarterly financials -

https://site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/documents/impact-and-accoun...

- and I notice that both the taxpayer funding and advertising revenue have fallen year-on-year.

I always thought the best way to do handle this scenario is to have removable storage. If a device breaks you could swap that out and send the device for repairs with zero worries. Of course it doesn't fly today because Apple started the board soldering trend... Let's hope for a return to sanity in technology

People just don't realize that giving someone free reign to their phone is the same as giving someone remote access, basically, to your brain.

It's just hard for the mind to grasp how such a physically small device can grant access to so many things.

Maybe once we move more explicitly to phones as bionic extensions of ourselves, people will understand the access they're granting on a visceral, gut level.

My phone would grant access to some text messages, some YouTube history, and an email account that I never use.

And I'm guessing detailed tracking of everywhere you've went, but hey, you trust that 'turn off location tracking button' don't you?

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