
Gotta wonder if Steve knows - alexandros
http://scripting.com/stories/2010/06/12/gottaWonderIfSteveKnows.html
======
rg
More than once, when I had a Lenovo ThinkPad that needed depot service for a
hardware fault, Lenovo has told me to remove the HD and keep it; at the depot
they insert a temporary freshly-imaged HD, complete the repair and battery of
tests, and send the ThinkPad back to me empty, for me to replace my own HD.
(If I were still to have a problem, then I could complete the repair myself by
replacing the HD.) This has always worked flawlessly.

~~~
iampims
That's great. But with new Apple laptops, there's no way to remove the hard
drive, let alone replace the battery :(

~~~
uros643
Oh Really?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoHNcjCyAvU&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoHNcjCyAvU&feature=related)

~~~
iampims
… without voiding the guarantee ?

~~~
brianpan
They might not replace your computer if you mess it up while taking it apart,
but you're not going to have a problem getting support with a new hard drive.

My coworker replaced the keyboard in a MacBook Pro and when he called to ask
AppleCare if they would still honor the warranty they said yes.

------
jfager
My gf had to take her laptop into the Genius Bar a little while ago for an
airport issue. Apparently, a routine part of the intake process is to ask for
the user's account password. This pissed me off so much I almost caused a
scene in the store.

Obviously, if they have the hardware, they can do pretty much whatever they'd
like, so it wasn't that they would be able to use it to look at her personal
files or whatever (we had already removed anything personal before bringing it
in).

It was that they, acting as a trusted authority, were telling people that it's
okay to give away your password. It also means that anyone who uses the same
password for their machine as they do for their email or their other accounts
is handing their life over. Of course people shouldn't be doing this, but of
course very many do, and it's just completely irresponsible of Apple to
explicitly put people in a position where this could easily be exploited by
some faceless tech behind the counter.

As much as I love their products, I really hate how Apple operates sometimes.

~~~
grantheaslip
Whenever I've had to bring my computer in, they've always told me to create a
new account called something like "Apple" or "Apple Store", and they probably
should have asked for the same thing from her.

I suppose there are times where the computer won't boot and they really don't
have any other choice besides asking you for your password--the employee might
have just mixed up their protocol, though that's not to say that it excuses
that mistake.

~~~
cookiecaper
How is it that they need to know the password in that instance? If the problem
is that the computer doesn't boot, they just have to get it to boot, not log
in to your profile and start monkeying around.

~~~
donohoe
Sometimes there is a software issue, firmware update, diagnostic software etc
that can help.

Not always, but it happens enough that they'd need to be able to log-in.

Still agree that asking for your pwd is reckless.

------
mechanical_fish
Isn't it obvious why this policy exists?

Apple doesn't want to be in the business of fielding customer complaints about
missing or unreadable files. Which, in the context of a hard drive replacement
or repair, is not exactly an uncommon outcome.

Apple also doesn't want to be in the business of helping people recover files
from dead drives.

Apple _really, really_ doesn't want to be in the business of ensuring that the
drive it removed from a computer goes back to the same owner as the original
machine. Try to imagine what the Apple repair depo looks like: Drives
everywhere. Try to remember that a drive inside a computer is protected by a
user password, but a drive sitting outside the computer is not protected at
all. Except perhaps by Filevault, which many users do not enable. If you think
getting _no_ drive back is bad, imagine the scandal if you got someone else's
drive, and someone else got your drive.

Apple's simple policy solves all of these problems. They don't send drives
back. Instead they promise to erase them. Either you find this credible or you
don't. If you don't, you'd better be using Filevault, because once you put an
unencrypted drive in the hands of a tech its content is as good as disclosed.
And if you are using Filevault, what is the problem with refurbing your drive?
It's filled with unreadable encrypted data!

Finally, dare I suggest that nobody except the typical HN reader is better at
disposing of old hard drives without a security incident than Apple is? I bet
if you hand a broken hard drive back to the average buyer, outside of a
computer, 90% of those drives will eventually get thrown away intact. Exactly
how is throwing a readable hard drive in your local dumpster more secure than
Apple's dedicated drive-erasure-or-disposal facility?

~~~
ericb
> Exactly how is throwing a readable hard drive in your local dumpster more
> secure than Apple's dedicated drive-erasure-or-disposal facility?

I agree with many of your points, but would argue throwing a hard drive in a
dumpster is more secure. Bank robbers rob banks because _that's where the
money is._ Where would tech savvy people looking for unerased hard drives find
a supply--where the hard drives are! Those folks are more likely to work at
Apple than dumpster dive for a living.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Well, it depends on the threat model. If someone has the plan to search
through a thousand hard drives belonging to a cross-section of random people,
one byte at a time, looking for something of value, then sure - it might be
worth the effort to corrupt someone at Apple.

But if you are an industrial spy looking for a particular secret, or a
personal enemy looking for data about one person, or an aspiring burglar
casing a particular building - you look in the trash can belonging to your
target.

I think the latter threat is as plausible as the former.

------
cookiecaper
I don't understand why companies can't leave hard drives alone. My little
brother recently sent in a Dell Studio for a keyboard repair. He went against
my advice and went through Best Buy for the RMA instead of doing it himself.
He signed a bunch of documents denying liability and giving Dell/BB the right
to do whatever they wanted with the machine, pretty much.

When he got the laptop back, he was told that the "hard drive was going bad",
so they proactively replaced it with a new one with a default image. This made
me really mad, but they don't care or understand. Even if it was going bad,
that was still HIS hard drive. The computer was still under warranty so they
should have shipped the old disk back with the new.

I don't trust anyone else to clean out disks on my behalf. There are far too
many instances of negligence on the matter. If the drive really was going bad,
they should have sent it back and let me destroy and dispose of it personally.

How do I know that they don't have a FBI hookup that scans all of the "bad"
drives before refurbishing or disposing, or how do I know that they don't have
a contract with the MPAA/RIAA to allow their anti-piracy goons to do that? How
do I know it doesn't pass through a group of teenagers who parse it for nudes,
as happens at most computer repair shops?

Yeah, it sucks pretty bad. My family is completely indifferent to it and it's
probably too late to call and try to get something done about it. : (

~~~
silvestrov
If you don't want your stuff to end up in weird places, wipe the hard drive
before sending the computer to repair.

The computer could get lost/stolen while in shipment. The repairment isn't the
only potential leaks for your personal stuff.

~~~
moolave
And these days we are grateful to have companies like Dropbox or Backupify for
that.

~~~
gloob
I just use an external. Bigger, faster, no subscription fee.

------
nerfhammer
All the more reason to TrueCrypt/FileVault your drives

------
chasingsparks
As you can see below, this post was timed perfectly for me. I was at the Apple
store to get a harddrive replaced 10 minutes after this was posted. I did a
little digging and wrote a blog post on the same issue, which I'll post here
to prevent 100 apple stories from taking up the front page.

 _I'm angry because I think apple is earning money from product failure!_

[http://pathdependent.com/2010/06/12/apple-owns-your-
harddriv...](http://pathdependent.com/2010/06/12/apple-owns-your-harddrive/)

~~~
ugh
Aren’t there other shops in the US that will repair your MacBook for you? It’s
not as if you have to go there, at least not if you are out of warranty.

~~~
chasingsparks
I believe it's an Apple policy. For example, see:
[http://www.macservice.com/applemacbookair.html?_kk=macbook%2...](http://www.macservice.com/applemacbookair.html?_kk=macbook%20air%20repair&_kt=077b97e4-93bc-4155-8f34-634ea08674ca&gclid=CKbx3f-um6ICFRY75QodBEksxQ)

 _The old drive (working or not) is returned to Apple. If you wish to keep
your original drive, Apple charges a significant core charge._

~~~
ugh
Non-Apple shops, obviously.

~~~
chasingsparks
I wanted the OEM harddrive. From what I understand, they are difficult to
source for unauthorized service providers. (The link I responded was an
Authorized Service Provider.)

------
neonfunk
When I've sent a laptop to AppleCare, they're very explicit about the
possibility that they won't return the same drive, and that you should backup
your data. That said, they've never actually taken a drive from me. So Winer's
claim that "they take the old drive" isn't well researched.

Beyond that, Winer straight up doesn't know what they do with the drives; it's
pure speculation. What he's really saying is that he doesn't trust Apple. If
that's the case, he should take it to an independent Authorized Apple Service
Provider that he does — it's just that simple. [Edit: not only can you still
get AppleCare coverage at independent providers, but you can easily negotiate
with a technician to keep your drive. At the place I worked, the drives that
customers abandoned we took great pleasure in destroying!]

Further, when Winer says, "If Steve thinks it's confidential, maybe he should
take some steps to protect the info?" — is that not exactly what he's doing?

~~~
K3G
I believe that Winer is talking about cases in which the hard drive will be
replaced. If you know your disk has issues, but it still operates, shouldn't
you be able to keep your old drive?

It seems shady to me to give over an old drive full of personal information
without giving the user the option to keep it.

~~~
neonfunk
Yeah I guess you're right, looking back at this. I mean, why not just give the
original drive back? There's no good reason. You're right.

------
tedunangst
"I mean seriously, most of us don't have the kind of money Steve has. If our
bank accounts were cleared out by an identity thief we'd be fairly screwed."

But if Steve's bank account was cleared out, he'd be OK somehow? $0 is $0
regardless of how much money you had before you lost everything.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
People with Steve's wealth don't keep their life savings in a checking
account. Any single checking or savings account is on the order of 100,000th
of his total net worth.

~~~
tedunangst
I think that says more about how one should manage or protect their money than
about Apple's repair policy. If losing your computer would bankrupt you,
you're doing it wrong....

~~~
K3G
Exactly. It for this reason that tools such as dd, rsync, and Time Machine
exist.

------
snprbob86
I just came from the Apple store. There was a problem with my brand new
machine, so they replaced the whole machine and did a data transfer for me.
Without me even asking, the tech assured me that a secure disk erase is part
of the data migration procedure.

------
chasingsparks
HackerNews is almost omniscient. I am in the Apple Store right now, waiting
for a genius to talk to me to replace my first gen Air drive. I did not know I
couldn't get my drive. Now I can at least prepare for the argument and try to
stay civil.

~~~
Terretta
They gave me mine back. It's useless without a unique ribbon connector though.

------
ams6110
Is there really a market for refurbished hard drives? They are so cheap new.

~~~
ojbyrne
Presumably they go in refurbished macs, which apple sells on their website.

~~~
nooneelse
Has anyone ever tried (publicly) to recover previous user data from one of
them?

~~~
adbge
I've personally run some recovery programs on a Samsung replacement drive I
received (from Samsung, not Apple) and I was able to recover files that
presumably belonged to a previous owner. I didn't bother checking if it
contained any personal information (I was only interested in recovering a
corrupted dotfile), but it seems possible that sensitive information could
have been contained on said drive.

------
grendel
Had a bad drive on a iMac 2 yrs ago. They asked if I wanted my defective
drive. Of course I said yes. This was at a genius bar.

