iCloud Remote Wipe

POB · 16 Dec 2012 at 15:59

My Macbook Air was stolen (with my MS Surface & Nexus 7) :mad:

I have issued the remote wipe via iCloud but not sure of the following:

1) The MBA boots into Windows 8 by default
2) I had a password on the Mac side and the Windows 8 side.

I'm curious as to what sequence of events someone would have to complete before it got wiped.

If it did get wiped would it delete my Windows partition as well?

Would using the built in recovery function just circumvent the whole remote wipe?

Thanks.

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:07

POB said:
I'm curious as to what sequence of events someone would have to complete before it got wiped.

Just a format.

POB said:
If it did get wiped would it delete my Windows partition as well?

Yes.

POB said:
Would using the built in recovery function just circumvent the whole remote wipe?

Yes as remote wipe is only activated once the icloud account is logged on.

POB · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:13

So kinda pointless. Would be nice if it was attached to the serial number.

I was kinda hoping for a bricking of the machine so it was only worth the scrap value of Al.

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:14

POB said:
So kinda pointless. Would be nice if it was attached to the serial number.

I was kinda hoping for a bricking of the machine so it was only worth the scrap value of Al.

I tried it myself just incase mine was lost/stolen. I restored it and then iCloud Remote Wipe wouldn't work after that.

POB · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:17

So without encrypting the data, the laptop would have been more secure if I had not put a user password on it, in the hope the thief would connect to the internet.

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:19

POB said:
So without encrypting the data, the laptop would have been more secure if I had not put a user password on it, in the hope the thief would connect to the internet.

Yep, I don't have a password on mine for this very reason and I don't keep any files on it at all.

shine · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:21

POB said:
So without encrypting the data, the laptop would have been more secure if I had not put a user password on it, in the hope the thief would connect to the internet.

This is why you should keep the Guest account enabled then the theif can connect to the Internet.

shine · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:22

mrbell1984 said:
Yep, I don't have a password on mine for this very reason and I don't keep any files on it at all.

Out of interest where do you keep your files?

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:24

shine said:
Out of interest where do you keep your files?

on an external HDD / Online storage.

shine · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:27

mrbell1984 said:
on an external HDD / Online storage.

Do you have to enter a password to unlock the online storage - I'm just trying to work out if your method is secure and if its worth investigating. Currently everything I need lives on my MBP with backups to external HDD/cloud.

EDIT: Just to be clear my MSc dissertation is looking at consumer attitude towards security on mobile platforms (laptops, tablets, phones etc) so I'm interested in different points of view.

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:31

shine said:
Do you have to enter a password to unlock the online storage - I'm just trying to work out if your method is secure and if its worth investigating. Currently everything I need lives on my MBP with backups to external HDD/cloud.

EDIT: Just to be clear my MSc dissertation is looking at consumer attitude towards security on mobile platforms (laptops, tablets, phones etc) so I'm interested in different points of view.

Yes, a password has to be entered but I don't use client software. More HTTP drag & drop. There are no files that can be accessed if my MBA was lost or stolen.

shine · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:35

mrbell1984 said:
Yes, a password has to be entered but I don't use client software. More HTTP drag & drop. There are no files that can be accessed if my MBA was lost or stolen.

I don't have the patience for that!

Interesting approach though.

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:36

shine said:
I don't have the patience for that!

Interesting approach though.

So you would rather people could go snooping in your files? I like that idea a lot.

The amount of IT hardware open where I can just take out the drive and look through the files is crazy. I have found bank details in text files and all sorts. (Yes, this is illegal but this shows how much data can be stolen).

shine · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:44

mrbell1984 said:
So you would rather people could go snooping in your files? I like that idea a lot.

The amount of IT hardware open where I can just take out the drive and look through the files is crazy. I have found bank details in text files and all sorts. (Yes, this is illegal but this shows how much data can be stolen).

No, I encrypt the contents of my drives/cloud backups instead.

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:48

shine said:
No, I encrypt the contents of my drives/cloud backups instead.

That's OK then, what about home users who don't know the word encryption.

shine · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:53

mrbell1984 said:
That's OK then, what about home users who don't know the word encryption.

I don't care about them as long as my data is safe!

That's what I'm researching - how aware people are and what can/should be done to increase protection.

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Dec 2012 at 16:57

shine said:
I don't care about them as long as my data is safe!

That's what I'm researching - how aware people are and what can/should be done to increase protection.

You don't care about other people but you are researching on what can be done to increase protection. That's funny.

So if I stole your laptop/USB Sticks / CD's / DVD's you would be 100% certain your data would never be accessible?

shine · 16 Dec 2012 at 17:00

mrbell1984 said:
So if I stole your laptop/USB Sticks / CD's / DVD's you would be 100% certain your data would never be accessible?

I don't have anything interesting on optical media/USB sticks other than music/movies. My important data is on the MBP, external drives and cloud storage. All are encrypted but no encryption technique is secure forever. So there is a need to make sure you keep up to date and adapt but that would apply to any security measures.

POB · 16 Dec 2012 at 17:00

The best protected item was the MS Surface as its encrypted out of the box.

The MBA was really a travelling laptop that did not contain much stuff, they unpluged and left the USB hard disk which contained the bulk of the data.