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Comment by kossTKR | Hacker News Reader

I've experienced that repair shops ask "and your password and username is?", many times when handing over my laptop - and i'm always like "what, no i'm not giving you my password" resulting in them looking surprised.

Who the on earth gives their passwords, also all laptops should be encrypted by default. I find it absurd to give away the keys to your bank, search history, personal notes, images, whatever - it's beyond private and personal besides being economically dangerous and very bad job security wise for most jobs.

Not blaming regular people though, but it's weird that people are so lax about giving the keys to absolutely everything.

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I once sent in a ThinkPad for repair and Lenovo explicitly mentioned that I should remove any drives from the device before shipping it. I really think this should be the standard for fixing hardware issues.

Edit: This was during the times when even a layman could do it because drives were in a slot secured by a single screw. These days it might be more complex.

This was my experience with a ThinkPad last year. They could not do on-site (in home) service due to the [redacted] lockdown so I had to do mail-in. They even emailed a PDF with instructions on how to remove the drive.

Sadly this is not possible with a modern MacBook. When I have had to send a MacBook to Apple (or a service partner) for repair I was instructed to wipe the machine (along with ensuring I log out of iCloud to disable Activation Lock and disable Find My). While it is good to ensure my personal data is not compromised it isn't user friendly at all to have to wipe my whole machine for a battery replacement :(

It's not user-friendly at all to require a machine to be sent off for a battery replacement.

For the ThinkPad, it's a 5 minute task which many people can do themselves -- certainly anyone who works in IT.

We've had less strict restrictions than France, but a couple of my colleagues replaced the batteries on their HP laptops. I sent videos, and they saw how easy it was -- less painful than a Covid test.

> For the ThinkPad, it's a 5 minute task which many people can do themselves

Which is still a step backwards. On my ThinkPad I can remove the battery in seconds without looking. Mainly because sometimes I had to disconnect it to reset it completely. If that would take 5 minutes or any kind of tool that's already hard to justify imho. What do we gain from integrated batteries? Nothing that makes up for easy replacement or, in the case of ThinkPads, the option to upgrade the capacity before the purchase.

I appreciate the lower weight and size (and presumably cost) of devices, and I don't need to swap the battery often enough to justify batteries that can be replaced without tools.

Battery replacement is a once-in-a-few-years operation and it's OK for it to take 5 minutes.

I have the T470 (with swappable battery) and the T14 (newest T-line Thinkpad without external battery).

Weight difference is minimal, size difference is minimal. Yes, there is a difference, but I don't notice it really. And I'm someone who actually lugs the laptop around, on buses and trains and while riding a bike. Most people don't even really carry their laptops, maybe from car to office and that's it.

As a person who actually carries their laptop around, I appreciate the swappable battery. Train rides are much less anxious, no need to find a seat with a plug nearby, because I know I have an extra battery.

The T14 is definitely less portable. There's less ports as well, which is quite annoying. The only downside of the T470 is the screen - I like to work outside and a higher brightness screen is crucial. If I could have the T470 with a better screen and AMD CPU, I wouldn't bother buying a new Thinkpad.

I don't know why they call ultraportables ultraportables. Are they marketed for people who sometimes lift their laptop off the table and who are bothered by the "extra weight"?

These days one can use an external battery over USB-C if the internal battery is not enough. And I can use it to charge all the devices plus there is no need to shutdown the laptop to change the batteries.

It's better to use T470 in your situation because T14 is just a cheaper T line product. Its design is less cared to be lightweight. Comparing T470 vs X1 Carbon would be better to compare portability by using embedded battery.

> I appreciate the lower weight and size (and presumably cost) of devices

The newest T14 is more expensive than my Thinkpad from the same series was - as extra thin, hard to repair notebooks usually are. It is a bit slimmer, but in the display part, not the base with the battery. It is a bit lighter, I'm guessing because of a plastic case? I'm not sure, but the case material is noticeably absent from marketing material and the datasheet, while in the case of mine both mentioned the magnesium case and internal metal cage.

Of course that's just a surface-level comparison. But after my really bad time with the Surface Pro I am absolutely not going to buy a laptop with integrated battery as long as I can avoid it. It's just not worth the pain if something goes wrong.

>... I am absolutely not going to buy a laptop with integrated battery as long as I can avoid it.

Unfortunately it's becoming more and more difficult to find removable battery equipped laptops, what current model lines do have that still?

Spoken like someone that should probably be using a desktop.

Personally, having backup batteries is a requirement for the places I work.

Yes, that's why USB-C powerbanks exist. I can charge my laptop from one and it's nicer than lugging around laptop batteries, plus the laptop can be thinner.

Such a bizzare way to respond.

Laptop being thinner is a trade off you're willing to make, I am not.

Charging a battery with another battery is extremely inefficient.

Lugging around laptop batteries is exactly the same thing as lugging around power banks, except laptop batteries don't require a dongle and a cable to tether you to a table.

Laptop batteries mean you laptop can continue to in fact work from your lap.

I am a big fan of removable batteries but even I can see the huge advantage of USB-C Powerbanks. An additional ThinkPad battery can cost ~$100 iirc. And this battery will only ever work with this specific laptop model.

A powerbank for the same price will probably have a higher capacity, and be able to charge any USB-C device.

All this is not a reason for integrated batteries, but Powerbanks using a universal interface are clearly more practical.

a few generations ago ThinkPad when to a dual battery setup so unless your ThinkPad is pretty old I bet it has both an internal and removable battery.

as to "What do we gain", they claim they can make them thinner and lighter, but the T14 seems to be the same Thinkness and a T450/T460 so.......

I had a second battery instead of a CD, as well as the 9 cell. Trouble is the latches weren’t fewer, it would often slip out, and that would cause the machine to lose power momentarily knocking it out of “sleep”.

The T480 was the last T-series model with dual batteries. The newer ones all have only the embedded battery.

Let alone, impossible to do if the device will not even boot.

also relies on it being in working-enough-order to do the erase to begin with.. plenty of machines broken enough to not to power on but still hold data...

I mean it's not like you're ineligible for service if you can't wipe your machine, I imagine there are alternative directions if that is one of your issues.

Thinks have slightly changed since then.

"Keep Your Drive" is now a non-free (but not that expensive) "service upgrade". Disks are still removable on most models and it's not hard, but you still have to open the bottom of the laptop. (For ThinkPads, through ultra thin models like the X1 or "unusual" models like the ThinkPad Yoga might be more problematic.)

EDIT: Through it also depends on you service/guarantee contract. If you normally have a service contract where a technician will come to you but for some reasons that currently don't work you probably can keep your drive anyway etc. Also KYD extends to some other cases.

>"Keep Your Drive" is now a non-free (but not that expensive) "service upgrade".

It's almost more of a donation in my experience. Don't pay it, remove the disk, no consequence. It's also a good idea to put the OEM ram back in the machine if youve upgraded. One of the few things they may balk at and return it unfixed.

In the case where you're sending it in for a repair under warranty, I imagine for some classes of problems the manufacturer could refuse warranty service if you've removed the drive, especially since most designs now make it really easy to accidentally damage something while doing that.

In the US they would have to prove your removal of the drive is what caused the damage,

I am not sure how it easy to damage something when removing a NVMe drive, it is trivial to remove the drive and should not even come close to damaging anything

Put the OEM RAM back? Hard to do otherwise when it's soldered to the laptop.

Well then you also couldn't have upgraded it which was a condition he specified for putting the OEM RAM back.

Clearly. But it's a complaint along similar lines of laptops being harder to work on.

My first computer repair, (epson 486) I left the drives and extra memory in when I sent in for repair. It must have had something really wrong as I got back a new machine without the hard drive and extra memory I had installed. It took a little bit to discover what was going on. Long hours on the phone trying to get those back (or something back.. that machine was maxed out at 16mb? of ram..)

M.2 drives are still removable in the X1 Yoga Thinkpads. The notable difference from thicker T series is that RAM is soldered.

Yes but some of the more special models are harder to open.

> I once sent in a ThinkPad for repair and Lenovo explicitly mentioned that I should remove any drives from the device before shipping it. I really think this should be the standard for fixing hardware issues.

YES. THIS. I am in vehement disagreement with Apple soldering SSDs to motherboards for partially this reason (among others, including making data recovery much harder, and lack of user upgradeability).

Apple fanboys all over the world will hate on me every single time saying "What if I told you that Apple just makes the best PC". Fuck that. I want a removeable SSD so repair technicians don't need the SSD to repair other parts of the PC.

I own about 6 thinkpads. I bought the other 5 after realising how much of a dream they are to open. So easy thst I could instruct a family member to remove the SSD over the phone if needed.

You just can't. They're soldered onto the motherboard.

My Lenovo laptop has removable NVMe drives that are accessible with a philips-head screwdriver.

Sure but assuming the victim in the arcticle had a recent Macbook, it would be soldered.

You replied to a comment about Thinkpads.

.. on a post originally about Macbooks :)

Apologies for the confusion. I should have said "Macbook" in my original comment.

Just like Thinkpad owners, to hijack an Apple thread. /s

Certainly not in every device. But access to the drive has definitely gotten more difficult on average. I also have a newer ThinkPad where the drive is still replaceable, but it requires taking the laptop apart.

Same here with Tuxedo Computers, I had already removed the drive because that's standard procedure. If a repair shop ever asks me my password I'm just going to another one because that is to me a clear sign they're incompetent.

(to be absolutely clear: I recommend Tuxedo computers. They suggested I remove the harddrive when sending me shipping instructions, something I had already done, but I found it very reassuring they said so and hence recommend them to tech-illiterate family and friends as well)

I believe Apple customers would have a hard time adhering to this policy these days.

When I sent my Apple laptop in for a battery replacement, their suggestion was to backup and wipe the drive.

Which is also quite absurd considering how much hassle it is to restore your backup once it's shipped back. (sure it's still much better than giving repair shop access to your hd).

Yeah, honestly, I'm not sure why one couldn't run an external technician boot image, do minor checking for on-board drive health in an unused area, and never touch the customer data. Though sometimes I understand that the entire main board gets swapped. That would shorten the repair timeline, and the malfunctioning board can be assessed and repaired or disposed of on some other timeline.

Yes, but "hassle" and "security" are synonymous a lot of the time. even if their policy was that they didn't use the boot drive, I'd rather wipe it. No reason to give someone your data, your employers' data, etc.

And as someone who has recently had a MacBook Pro repaired, they swapped virtually everything. Keyboard, Mboard, Touch Bar, etc. the only original thing now is the screen. I would have had to restore from backup anyway. As a plus, my SSD is now brand new so any wear on it after 2.9 years of service is gone :)

You can only wipe the drive if the computer will boot, not something a lot of devices that need repair are happy to do.

Honestly, I've not had this particular issue in about 10 years, but you're right. If it is dead enough it won't boot, then I guess wiping it would be tough. For me, the combo of Target disk mode, recovery partition, or external boot drive have always gotten the job done. But yeah, if the logic board is really dead and not just "failing" then I might be tempted to use a drill.

yea. I can understand them suggesting backup your hd before shipping it to repair, because shit happens and they could need to swap your hd. but also suggesting customer to wipe it means even when shit doesn't happen customer still need to deal with the hassle of restore the hd once repair is done.

Yeah but you get emojis where the function keys normally are on lesser laptops.

It's trivial to restore from a Time Machine backup (it wouldn't be much use if it wasn't).

Time Capsule was discontinued in 2018. I am not sure I want to trust Qnap or Synology on my TimeCapsule backup for Security Reason. I dont have another Mac to do Backup. And dont want anything to do with iCloud or iCloud backup / restore is very slow even with 1Gbps Internet connection.

How is a customer suppose to backup and wipe their devices?

Just plug a USB/Thunderbolt drive in. The first thing macOS does is ask you if you want to use it for backups.

Those top at 2.8GB/s these days, so about 6 theoretical minutes for 1TB drive. In reality it's probably more of a half hour?

Have you tried recently? Phone icloud backups are even worse.

>Have you tried recently?

Yes, it was fine. If you are in a hurry you can even boot from a Time Machine backup.

> this should be the standard

> Apple customers would have a hard time

I took it to be implicit to the wish that hard drives be owner-serviceable.

I imagine that taking out the HDD would've been beyond most Apple customers even when the storage was removable and the computer was held together with (somewhat) standard screws.

It doesn't feel like that long ago (granted, it was the best part of twenty years...) that my Mac laptop had a lever underneath which popped the HDD clean out. That was a lovely design.

Apple has been making their devices much harder to open as time has passed. My 2011 MacBook didn't have any kind of a lever mechanism but after taking out about ten Philips 00 screws, the lid lifts clean open.

And now my 2019 work MacBook requires taking out non-standard pentalobe screws, then using a suction cup to pry the lid open slightly in order to cram a wedge tool in-between to pop it open and then you need to slide it out in order to actually get it out.

I'm an Apple customer and I'm happy with my pre-2013 era Macbook Pros with 2x2TB SSDs and 16 GB RAM, which is more than the basic configuration of modern offerings. Unfortunately, the last OS they can run is Mojave so I'll have no choice but to upgrade to M2 when M3 comes out.

It really makes me sad Apple gave up this environment-friendly policy and started to aggressively glue everything preventing upgrades.

> and started to aggressively glue everything preventing upgrades.

The best way to prevent such practices is not to buy their products.

I feel this is a bit like popping your hood at the car shop, but taking your key with you. I can absolutely see why repair shops would want to verify that a) it's not a software problem and b) everything still works fine afterwards, both of which is hard w/o the password.

Sure, you can send in a wiped device or a device without hard drive - and if you can do so yourself, this is probably fine. But for the "average" user it's quite likely a better experience, assuming you can trust the repair shop - but then again, they have full access to your hardware plus the knowledge and time to permanently bug your device. If you really don't trust them, you probably should not give them your device at all.

I can see the issue here and I'd probably err on the side of privacy given the choice, but the other side has a point.

>I feel this is a bit like popping your hood at the car shop, but taking your key with you.

Do you leave all your valuables in the car when you drop it off at the shop? Or do you take them out first?

For once I think a car analogy is actually useful. But, in this analogy, "taking all your valuables out of the car" would be like removing all the important documents from the computer. Which would be a reasonable thing to do, I guess, if the computer shop really needed access to do the repairs that they need to do.

Another possibility -- maybe the computer is so borked that you can't even log on to remove your important documents. This seems more like calling somebody because your key broke in the lock... which... I guess most people would stick around? It is a little bit of a mismatch, because it is a quick fix and it isn't like you can go anywhere anyway.

Also, people from the general public don't know how to write random bits to a drive. Deleting files doesn't actually wipe the information, it just marks the space as available on the OS. Repair agents could still take an image of the drive and recover many of those secret documents.

It should be standard procedure in the repair world to hand the hard drive to the user to take home and keep only the PC for servicing.

Be aware that this can be completely different between HDDs ("spinning rust") and SSDs. HDDs don't get data cleared until it's explicitly overwritten, SSDs with OSes that support TRIM shouldn't have a lot of stray data left behind.

Also when wiping SSDs get something like Parted Magic (since at least 2018 likely earlier) that can properly erase SSDs. DBAN is NOT appropriate for SSDs in any way - extra wear from the writes, and wear leveling means you have zero idea where they're actually going.

Well, the protection strategy for my valuables is not "leave the car locked in the shop". And then there's that one customer who's "rattle" is something in the glove compartment, to extend the metaphor further.

So, in keeping with my points above, I would probably move the really valuable stuff out, but for some customers taking everything out will prevent the technician from removing the issue (and they will probably be blamed for it) and if I feel the need to completely get everything saved out of the car beforehand, I would not trust that shop with my car, either.

Let's not water the analogy down so far that it loses all connections to the current case.

I doubt anyone would leave an album with their nude pictures in the car hoping that the mechanic wouldn't do anything with it. Like...posting it all over the block where the customer lives.

This. Protecting data is practical for those of us sufficiently technically literate, but I've helped a fair number of people over the years that certainly would not be capable of doing it. (Admittedly, selection bias--the people who are asking for software help aren't the most technically knowledgeable.)

They can do this from a guest account.

Full disk encryption will protect your data.

No, it won't. They could simply put in a different BIOS chip, which records you password the next time you enter it. Or a malicious RAM chip that injects a virus at runtime and extract your data that way. Or a bugged keyboard that transmits your key presses, combined with a full copy of your disk ...

Sure, it's a bit more sophisticated than Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V. But if you're running a computer repair shop, it is quite likely that you have a good amount of technical knowledge. If someone has hardware access, you can usually see your device as compromised - especially if they have a lot of time and are expected to open up the device.

If that's your threat model, you should not be using any repair shop. And the attacks you describe are not just "a bit more sophisticated than Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V", they're most likely far beyond the abilities of most repair technicians.

> If that's your threat model, you should not be using any repair shop.

That's exactly what I said in my first comment:

>> If you really don't trust them, you probably should not give them your device at all.

> And the attacks you describe are not just "a bit more sophisticated than Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V", they're most likely far beyond the abilities of most repair technicians.

The RAM one, yes. ROM chip swaps, on the other hand, are rather common. You will need to be able to solder quite well, but given the current state of macs, this is basically a given for anyone doing repairs on them. You'd of course need to get a malicious ROM chip, which might not be so easy, but probably doable - the technician only needs to be able to swap it, not to manufacture one.

And if you can't get your hands on one - your can order a keylogger right now, for just a few bucks! [0] This was just the first result; if you invest a bit more time, you can surely find a smaller one or more fitting one. The keyboard is probably connected with USB [1], so no trouble there. As a bonus, you get all the passwords of accounts that were not saved at the time.

Sure, simply unlocking is a bit easier. But it's not like this stuff is beyond anyone who is able to debug and solder on a Mac.

[0] https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005001988834597.html?

[1] It's in my laptops; I don't know the specifics for macs, but I doubt is something more sophisticated than a strange plug.

There are levels of trust.

"Trust not to source and install malicious hardware in order to potentially steal unknown to them data" is a magnitude apart from "Trust not to go snooping around through unprotected photo albums."

I've always either told them to wipe the drive, or setup a deliberate 'apple support' account before taking it in.

I sympathise with the young woman who was the victim here, but apart from "send your device unlocked" Apple do also recommend wiping the device before sending it.

When PINs started to become more common here, I had supermarket and continence store workers asking me to tell them the pin to my card, when paying for stuff. It didn't help that they'd ask me in Thai, I'd not understand, my wife would translate, and I'd immediately respond - in English - to the staff "Are you fucking crazy?".

Thankfully that idea didn't last long. I guess enough other people had similar reactions in their native tongue that they realised that's a really stupid way to do business.

I had this experience at an Apple authorised repair center (ie. not Apple Store but a shop that is partner with Apple): they almost forced me to give the password of my Mac, even after I argued that we set up security/Filevault explicitly to protect data and it would be stupid to give the password to anyone after that... They argued that when they change the component (battery problem), they have to test that everything works fine. I found that really shady!

At the Apple Store, they also asked for the password, but when I said no way, the support person was just "ok, no problem".

>At the Apple Store, they also asked for the password, but when I said no way, the support person was just "ok, no problem".

Can we take a moment to realize how crazy this is? I'm glad they didn't fight you, but the fact that they didn't means that they know in an instant that _they never needed the password in the first place to do what you asked them to_. This means that them asking for the password is them asking you for the private key to your entire personal life for no other reason than "most people will give it to them".

It could mean that they just won't do as much testing if they don't know the password, which means there's a greater risk you'll get your computer back and discover there's still something wrong with it.

Which might also be a perfectly reasonable tradeoff, but there's nothing inherently nefarious about it. And people can make different choices depending on the amount of private information on their laptop.

They NetBoot in order to run diagnostics. They don’t need your password.

The article is about someone's iphone being repaired - surely you can't netboot a locked iphone?

It should still be able to run diagnostics.

Automated tests don't catch everything.

I once refused to give my MBP password to the technician at the Apple store for some hardware repair, and he said that they just wouldn't be able to verify the repair completely. I'm not sure how true that was, but it did catch me off guard that they would even ask for a password.

Having done this kind of support before (mixed hardware + software), a large number of people present their computer with multiple vague problems that can very well be a set of issues with both the actual physical hardware AND with whatever they have done to their actual user account on their operating system.

Most want all their problems fixed with as little action required on their part as possible, with as much certainty as possible, and do not care about security in the least.

People are hard to reach once they are out of your sight, and get very unpleasant when things take a while....even when they take a while largely because they didn't get back to you in a timely manner (because you turn out to actually need their password to troubleshoot their configuration).

"Wipe the device and start fresh" is understandably not a valid solution to most users (especially as anything other than last-resort), even though it'll rule out a large portion of potential software problems.

---------

To note on some other elements I see in this thread:

- Hardware diagnostics exist in some form on most devices. They do not catch every problem that exists, and are often especially bad with more intermittent issues. If the complaint is that Facetime drops out after 10 minutes, the most certain you can be that the issue is resolved is by running those diagnostics AND booting to their actual user account and having Facetime work for 15 minutes. No one cares that "it passed the Camera diagnostic" when they've still got a problem when they get home with their "fixed" device. Many people actively want you to be signed into their account and do exactly what they did to confirm the issue no longer happens.

- IIRC you can't actually boot a modern (T2) Mac to an external drive without an Admin password being entered at least once to change the Startup Security Utility settings.

- Whether being run as a business or as internal support in an organization (more so a college or the like with personally owned devices), time matters. Getting credentials from everyone who's willing regardless of if they turn out to be necessary is absolutely terrible security practice, but great for turning around repairs more quickly and with fewer repeats of devices coming back because the issue isn't fixed.

--------

tl;dr - Sensible security practices are at odds with everything else the average person wants from their computer repairs.

Similar with restoring account access that's been lost for some reason. Certainly, there are good practices and better practices. But somewhere between show up in Cupertino between 10am and 1pm on Friday with these notarized documents and just restoring access because someone requested it in some unverifiable way, there is a large spectrum of tradeoffs.

ADDED: And, indeed for a sufficient threat model, the correct answer if a laptop or phone breaks is to throw it out and get a new one. It would be rather paranoid, but it would be the safest thing.

Personally, I have backups usually so my general attitude would be no password, fine to wipe the device.

I had a similar experience with a battery replacement. I declined to share the password, and the owner claims he was able to run the battery diagnostics without the password.

I believe they can boot up from an external device, or over network, and run the tests. There's absolutely no reason to give them your password.

I went through a battery replacement (out of warranty, but still covered by Apple), and I was never asked for the password. But maybe they didn't even bother to run tests, since it was literally pushing the keyboard up ever so slightly, the touch pad wouldn't click anymore (haptic feedback very weak) and the bottom plate was bulging out. It was pretty obvious what is up. The nice thing tho, I ended up with a new battery, new keyboard, new touchpad and new bottom plate. I guess every (most?) cloud has a silver lining? :)

This is blaming users for something they shouldn't have to do. The onus should be on manufacturers to keep private data private by default. And also to sell systems that make it easy for repair shops to back up and restore private data without braking the privacy.

You can't start with "It just works" and then add "As long as you spend hours backing up and restoring your data before you can send it in for repairs, just - you know - in case."

Maybe the millions that were paid out will make Apple think about a more user-oriented solution.

Australians lost AU$840 million dollars last year to scammers.

It's on the government have strong regulations that separate the sewage from the drinking water; strong regulations about who can connect what to the electrical power system; etc etc; require doctors to not pick their noses immediately before they perform surgery (gloves, masks, washing hands etc); encourage people to wash their hands after they poop.............

And inform people of good security practices, through public policy and school education.

I can't really see another way of educating the whole population on something they're otherwise fairly disinterested in.

There's a US-nationwide chain called "ubreakifix". I brought my Pixel phone there to have a broken screen replaced, and they wanted my passcode. I told them they were insane, and they acted as if I was the first person who ever declined. I can't believe they even ask, especially when there's no need for it whatsoever for a screen replacement.

Similar thing for me, was best buy about 4 years ago in NYC. Handed an iPhone for. screen replacement. They wanted a password.

Them: "what's your password"

Me: "I'm not giving that to you"

Them: "We'll have to wipe your phone then"

Me: "Fine by me"

Me: pickup phone next day, screen fixed all data still there

Can confirm this, and they wouldn't accept my Samsung without it. I gave them a fake PIN and things went fine.

Opposite experience here w/ two uBreakiFix stores and a Pixel 3. Neither time I was asked to provide the PIN. The first time I asked and they gave me a strong "no". No factory wipe, etc.

Same. I've had them replace phone screens for me multiple times--both in Austin and Atlanta--and neither location asked for the PIN nor reset my phone.

The usual reasoning behind this is to confirm the phone is properly functioning before opening it up.

Lots of people try to scam repair shops bringing broken phones in.

On top of that repairs can often break fingerprint scanner connections and depending on the screen type its good to check camera functionality after screen replacement.

> confirm the phone is properly functioning

They could have the user unlock the phone in front of them without revealing the code to confirm this.

In my case the screen didn't work at all. I couldn't backup the device, log out of any accounts, etc. I still wouldn't have given them the passcode if I could have done that, but if my only option were to backup and wipe the device before the repair, I would have reluctantly done that. In this case I had no way to secure the device at all, and I couldn't wipe it remotely because the only critical thing on it was my TOTP app (which I've since replaced with one I can sync/backup).

Of course they can, but that means having the user come in to unlock the device and potentially sending them home again if you have to do additional repairs after testing it with them.

It’s all a balance of convenience vs privacy. Best solution is to wipe the device before repair, which is what I have done every time but it’s a hassle even when I have a backup to restore.

Ya I once went to get my iPhone screen replaced, the technician wanted me to turn off my passcode just to diagnose the problem. I of course said I am not doing that. Instead I backed up my iPhone and reset it. This is ridiculous how can they even dare to ask people to turn off passcode and hand over their phones with so much personal information. This was not even an apple Genius Bar. This was an Apple premium reseller. I am sure many non tech savvy people just handover their iPhones this way.

Regular people are slowly catching up and understanding the consequences of technical stuff. For example, I think for years I struggled to provide concrete examples when trying to explain why people should care about privacy. Now, unfortunately, it's obvious that we should care about privacy because without, we're essentially provided a blueprint to our brains and how we can be psychologically exploited, e.g. fake news, conspiracy theories, etc...

I think these are concepts that before would have seemed liked sci-fi, but after 2020, I think most regular people seem to have an intuitive appreciation for how damaging this can be. It's a shame that it's taken such a tragic schism to allow, but here we are and it's better late than never.

Another example would be people probably have a better intuitive understanding for motivations behind decentralized architecture, after seeing people being removed from certain platforms. Note: I'm not saying I'm for or against this in any way, but I am saying that the technological architecture is sort of the lay of the land, in a way that I think people understand better than they used to.

And no, I would never in a million years give my password to a repair technician in the past either. Hopefully others now are starting to get a sense for why.

I worked at a tech support desk at my university, and we asked for passwords. We were supporting software, so there's really no way around that. I always felt a bit uneasy that a dozen college kids had full access to the data on every machine in the shop. We should have at least recommended that folks change their password when they picked the machine up, or set a temporary password while it was in the shop.

I had the same issue. I sent my phone to ubreakifix (Google's official repair partner) for a repair with warranty. After completing the repair they asked for my password and said that if I didn't provide it it would void the warranty on my phone.

I refused and they eventually relented while still providing the warranty but it ended up delaying the repair by 5 days (for a 2h repair).

This is really bad. Apple can and should fix this through policy and training. They talk so much about privacy and so many people have bought into Apple ecosystem because of it that. Many years ago, I had to take an iPhone for repair, my first and only time. It was a week old brand new phone whose proximity sensor wasn't working. The service person said he would need to take it to the back room and debug it. I insisted he diagnose it in front of me and I refused to hand over my phone for him to take it to the back room. Later, I had to wipe the device and send it in for replacement. But I was not happy that they asked me to unlock the phone and hand it to them to take it to the back office.

The problem being, if the device is so dead, that you cannot factory reset, or otherwise, wipe it, what do you do?

My daughter's MacBook Pro, with lovely soldered down solid state memory died, and had to go in for repair. There was simply no way to wipe it, and no physical drive to pull.

Same thing with most phones. Soldered storage, glued shut case. If it dies under warranty, what do you do? You have to trust the repair chain, or just chuck it in the garbage.

They asked for my password when I took a MacBook I took get repaired, it wouldn't power on.

I told them in no uncertain terms they cannot have my password, full disk encryption was enabled, and then pointed out if they can get the machine to the password prompt I'll be satisfied it's repaired.

I'm convinced these people are either intentionally being nefarious, or they were dropped on their fucking heads at birth.

The answer is “everyone”. I’m particularly aware of this as I just spent the past two days setting up my non technical parents-in-law with 1Password. Not to go out on a tangent here, but on the whole, authentication is broken for “normal” people. By the time someone takes a computer in to a repair facility, giving the person on the other end their password is about the least of their concerns.

i agree, if it's a hardware issue there's no reason to require a login. If the repair is finished and the tech can get to the login/pin screen then the job is done.

If it's a software issue then maybe they do legitimately need a password but i would never hand one over without very careful consideration. And, strange hands on the keyboard of my laptop or phone would be watched very very closely at all times.

I good app would be one that disables the network stack, bluetooth, and cell modem with a separate secure pin.

I think it should be a standard to have hardware come with a full suite of tests that can be accessed by anyone, without any kind of login. Otherwise, repair shops will keep asking for full access.

In my case, many years ago, I got asked by a phone repair shop to backup the phone and wipe it before handing it over unlocked. My understanding was, they had no good way of doing proper diagnosis and after-repair testing without full access to the system.

Like a password enabled BIOS option to allow for booting off of external storage with no access to onboard storage provided? “Valet mode” if you will.

Valet mode! Excellent.

Macs have an "Apple hardware test" you can boot into. And you could as well just boot from an external drive to run all kinds of diagnostics.

Phones however...

There is a diagnostic tool for iPhones/iPads, too. It's just not accessible to the general public.

https://www.ifixit.com/News/33593/heres-the-secret-repair-to...

Androids usually have some magic buttons to get into a bootloader prompt; you could have a diagnostic in there, perhaps.

You can boot into fastboot (a barebones flashing and unlocking mode implemented by the bootloader itself) and recovery (a real kernel + minimal UI on top to apply updates and wipe). From fastboot mode, you can boot into an arbitrary image, but that obviously requires an unlocked bootloader. Unlocking the bootloader almost always performs a wipe "to protect data".

In principle, it should be possible to have a diagnostic mode the same way recovery is implemented. But there are no device I know of that have this.

I see what you mean, but that sounds like a gigantic attack surface for all the companies that sell oppressive regimes tools for hacking into arrested human rights activists' phones.

It depends on how it's designed. It wouldn't be that expensive to add a second memory chip. Provide some way to boot to the alternate, when the alternate is running the primary isn't even powered up. Zero attack surface.

> If the repair is finished and the tech can get to the login/pin screen then the job is done.

Not entirely https://www.macrumors.com/2018/09/17/iphone-calibration-proc...

It is actually sometimes necessary to do some calibration and system tests, I don't know the details but it's basically because Apple wants to screw over third-party repair shops.

Also remember that's one of the excuses that Apple uses for being against right to repair.

I'm just glad they have an excellent example here of how it's fundamentally BS

Even at the app store, they asked me to remove the password on my device. I still don't understand why there isn't a better way to do diagnostics.

At the time, she would have been 16. I imagine she just wanted her phone fixed and the thought didn't occur to her.

If you don’t hire degenerates, then your employees won’t do degenerate things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

software issues..

It's a heuristics quirk. It starts with "unknown unknowns" - the things you aren't even aware that you should be concerned about. Then add in a relationship where someone is trying to fix something for you. If you've never been trained to refuse information from someone who's seemingly trying to help you, it would never occur to you.

When you go to the doctor and they prescribe you pills, most people don't question it and just take them. And that leads to a lot of people taking antibiotics that they don't need. Or when you move and need to sign up for internet, phone service, power, water, electricity, gas, etc.... almost all of them will ask for your social security number. Even I don't know when it's mandatory and when it's optional, so usually I ask them first, but sometimes I don't.

The last time I witnessed this was some malware that infected an ex-roommate's laptop. The malware pretended to be an anti-virus and said she had a virus on her computer that it would fix. But first she needed to pay for the software - by putting in her credit card info & social security number. She complied because the files on her laptop were very sensitive and she didn't want lose them, and she had no idea that there was no reason to ask for a social to pay for this software.

We could probably do more as a community to educate people on keeping sensitive information secure. Part of it involves media outreach, as most people seem to get their news from the TV or Facebook.

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