I'm... I'm... (sighs). I'm just happy I have my laptop back.

A week or two ago, my Macbook Pro went dead. I assumed total power failure, but the hard disk was intact, and most likely everything else as well.

Turns out, a combination of third party (cheaper) batteries and a malfunctioning power cord left the computer unable to boot. Being that I still had a month of warranty, I got a new power cord and battery out of it.

Working this through the Alaska Mac Store was... trying. Their store isn't "Apple," but rather, a private business that works with Apple to complete warranty work and ship parts to and from Alaska to support the Alaska Mac Store's customers. This means: zero chance of instant gratification, even for the simplest things.

It took the tech 15 seconds to figure out that the laptop would boot with a different power cord. However, in order for them to replace the cord, they had to keep it for four days to wait for their "purchasing" employee to take a shift, put in the request for the new power cord with Apple, and have Apple overnight a battery and power cord, then wait another day for a tech to "install" the power cord and battery.

I can take care of probably 95% of the problems I have with my various computers. For the other 5%, I have yet to find a place in town that's impressed me with their level of service. At no point did the Mac Store call to update me on the status of my laptop. Granted, it was probably the lowest priority they had among their support tickets, and I wasn't technically a direct paying customer (Apple likely reimbursed them for their time), but phone calls are cheap, and quick, and as the sole method of communication between you and the client, should be used. At my work, if we haven't called or emailed a customer to notify them of work done, that particular task is considered incomplete.

There's also the question of why they had to a) keep my computer, and b) force me to give up my password to run their diagnostic tool. If the problem is glaring without even having to log in to the computer, there should be no reason to spend extra time on the Mac Store's part trying to find something.

(Also, I changed my password to one of my trash passwords before I gave it over. Fuck them.)

I have important shit on my computer. Like everyone does. Things you don't want to lose, but also things you don't necessarily want strange individuals perusing. I have literally years worth of work stored in my various source code repositories. I have my ideas for writing. I have 10K+ pictures of friends and family. Things that I would very much consider intellectual capital in a business sense.

Take, for instance, a tool like foremost (foremost.sourceforge.net). Initially used by the Air Force for data forensics, it was apparently released to the public some time ago. Its function is simple: based on user commands, look for well-known data boundaries in a given file. File formats like JPG, GIF, PDF, etc., all have signature starting bits and signature ending bits, making for data boundaries that can be scanned for in any given set of bits. This means that, unless a hard drive partition is encrypted, someone without a) access to the computer with a password or b) knowledge of the underlying filesystem, can reliably extract items from a drive image. They can do it quickly, and without ever touching the filesystem such that it would indicate that the drive had been scanned at all.

The scary thing is that this works even after you've deleted files. File deletion, by default, and unless explicitly told differently, is not removing anything from the drive, it is only removing the reference to a file. This means that even if your computer forgets about something, that file, and its well-known boundaries, still exist on the drive.

Granted, the file may eventually be overwritten, either completely, or partially, hopefully corrupting the file beyond retrieval. And formatting a drive (to some degree, depending on your paranoia, and your system defaults) will usually blow away files.

My point is: I've had lots and lots of things on my computer. I've done backups and recoveries for other people. I make it a point to delete people's files the moment I'm assured they've performed their own backups (not only do I want the space back, but I don't want to know anything about people they wouldn't tell me in person). Tools like foremost mean that it's not only what I have on my computer currently, but anything I've ever had and didn't have the time to write zeroes over that I have to worry about. Things that have nothing to do with me, but ultimately would come back to me if indeed they were found to be suspect.

Which comes to why they would be searching in the first place. In 2008 (consumerist.com), it was reported that a Best Buy Geek Squad found child porn on some guy's computer. That the guy was collecting child porn is horrible and disgusting. However, nothing was cited as to the legality of the search performed on the guy's computer. One might assume it was a routine search, or maybe it was on the desktop, or maybe it was being backed up and the Geek Squad employee just happened to notice bad things being transferred. More likely, though, it was an automated tool, say, to aid the Geek Squad employees in finding files that would need to be backed up (ask yourself "Where are all of my important files, exactly?", and you'll see what I mean).

I know about these types of things because it's my job. And maybe I'm a little paranoid. But when the Mac Store asked me to sign and initial my agreement to having my computer scanned by the "Apple Diagnostics Tool," and then releasing them of all liability, particularly in a support case which had absolutely no reason to perform such a scan... I got super nervous.

TL;DR: Trust no one.

(Also, it felt like I was handing over my child-that-I-cared-for-like-a-piece-of-equipment to a bunch of emo kids. Seriously. Get a haircut.)