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+---- Thread: How Would You Wipe a Computer to Prevent Tracking? (/showthread.php?tid=5436235)
How Would You Wipe a Computer to Prevent Tracking? - Crazydude409 - Oct 17, 2016
Recently, a friend of mine came across a MacBook and plans on keeping it for himself. He's not the most tech savvy person, so watching him clear and restore it was a little hilarious. I believe he did everything he knew how to, but I just have a feeling that if someone wanted to, they could track it back to him.
I don't plan on helping him as I wasn't involved nor am I too concerned about someone tracking it, but I wanted to ask a hypothetical.
If you came across a laptop, what steps would you take to clear it and make sure that it was impossible to track?
* - Armada - Oct 17, 2016
Flash the drive clean with a fresh install of OSX, if I am not mistaken this should fix the issue (I however am NOT a MAC expert..)
* - Fantom4242 - Oct 17, 2016
First of all, this is a general advice, your operation system should be open source.
If not, you're basically handicapped.
For instance, Linux distributions are operation systems, which are open source.
* - Rushax - Oct 17, 2016
Smash it up.
/25 Characters.
Sorry couldn't resist, but yeah as others have said. A complete wipe of OS & re-install.
* - M5DD - Oct 17, 2016
Wipe or get a new drive; then install debian
* - patflexx - Oct 17, 2016
First thing I would do besides just Overwriting, not just wiping the harddrive would be to take off any external sticker IE. the Serial Number. Call me paranoid but I do know thats how most of the people who pawn stolen electronics end up getting caught, the victim gives the cops the serial number.
Thats how I got my 360 back a few years ago when I had a break in, three days after reporting it, cops call me and have me meet them at the pawn shop to confirm it was mine. It was another three months before I saw it thanks to the lengthy time before they were able to take him to court and charge him, (he cleaned out four apartments in the building I was at).
Speaker at Defcon 18 has a great story about idiots not taking the right digital precautions after theft: He Hacked His Computer Back after over a year of it missing! Long but entertaining:
Defcon 18 Pwned By the owner - What happens when you steal a hackers computer
* - Deus Ex Machina - Oct 17, 2016
The thing about macs is that they all talk back to Apple. So Apple will know if this computer is in use if you're using OSX.
* - pomwtin - Oct 17, 2016
Perform low-leve formatting (aka null the disk) with dd to avoid any chance of file recovery, then use OS that is not made by apple...
* - ktpstudsteak - Oct 17, 2016
If you have a toolkit and a HDD handy, switching out the HDD might be a good option. Especially if you screw up the other one trying to put another OS on it.
* - THC - Oct 17, 2016
Reinstall the OS, remove anything that could identify it (including interior stickers), scratch off the serial number.
* - SIM-3051398 - Oct 17, 2016
Fill your bathtub with water simply pick up the computer which you are trying to wipe clean and drop it into the bathtub let it sit there for a hour or so, by doing this you are wiping the hard drives of the US governments main frame which disallows Donald trump to track you. P.S this isn't a shit post I swear :)
* - Legionhoster - Oct 18, 2016
Well he will traced out from the physical address of his network card of laptop plus the HWID.
If you just want to wipe out your traces then first reinstall the OS and then install disk wiper or cCleaner.
Use secure free space disk wiper to wipe out the free space. There is method in that which securely writes the data 37 times or more then it becomes almost impossible for any software to recover and difficult to a hardware recovery analyst.
There are a lot facts using which he can be traced out though.
* - Asdethprime - Oct 18, 2016
Hi Crazydude409 ,
You see it's not very easy to track a laptop if you simply format the Operating System and chance the Operating System to something that is open source.
Here is how this work, the operating system can read your MAC address/BSSID which is hardcoded in your computer. You can fool an external devices communicating with you with a fake MAC you can't however do that to your built in operating system. Apple does keep log of the operating system. So if you just uninstall and re-install the operating system the system itself can track you everytime you connect to the internet.
However, if you install a Linux distribution (which works perfectly on your MAC) you are going to be track.