So the hard drive on my wife's one year old MacBook has officially started to kick the bucket. Random crashes, slow performance and lots of errors like this in the system log:

disk0s2: 0xe0030005 (UNDEFINED).

Yup, we have bad blocks..all indicating imminent drive "FAIL". I have AppleCare on the MacBook so I call them up and explained the situation. Surprisingly, they didn't give me a hard time. In the past I have had problems with other computer manufacturers (ummm...Dell) in which I would have to argue with the guy/gal on the other end of the phone that the drive was "really bad" and I didn't need to spend hours on the phone with them troubleshooting. So far so good with Apple right?

So I am finishing up the call and the tech is explaining how Apple will ship me a box to send the MacBook back to them for repair. Apparently, they don't do self service hard drive swaps anymore. Weird since it's easy to replace a hard drive on a MacBook. Anyway, the rest of the conversation went something like this...

Apple guy: "Sir, do you have a password set on your MacBook"?
Me: "Yes. Why do you need that?"
Apple guy: "The tech's need it to replace your hard drive"
Me: "Huh? Why do you need my password to replace a bad hard drive? Just pull the old drive out and put the new one in."
Apple guy: "Sorry sir. That's the procedure."
Me: "What if I don't give you the password?"
Apple guy: "Then we can't repair your laptop"
Me: "grrrr...fine...here is my password..ready? a-p-p-l-e-s-e-c-u-r-i-t-y-F-A-I-L"
Apple guy: "Thank you sir. You will have your shipment box in 24 hours."

So for every bad hard drive that comes into the Apple repair center they log in to verify that the drive is bad? What do they do with all the drives like mine that are still functional but have bad blocks? Can Apple guarantee that there are no shady people working in the repair center wanting to steal my personal information? What happens to the data? The sad mac fact (note the "sad mac" picture above) is that no one knows!

I did some research on this and apparently Apple doesn't care too much about your personal data. Dave Winer wrote about this extensively and notes the same problem. The Apple repair "terms and conditions" only states that your information is protected in accordance with the "Apple Customer Privacy Policy" and that you agree that Apple can use your data to perform the "service obligations". Interesting to also note that on the Apple privacy web site under the AppleCare Repair Agreement it also states the following:

"You agree and understand that it is necessary for Apple to collect, process and use your data in order to perform the service and support obligations under the Plan. This may include the necessity to transfer your data to affiliated companies or service providers located in Europe, India, Japan, Canada, People’s Republic of China or the U.S."

Huh? People's Republic of China? That's nice. I couldn't find any reference noting what Apple does with your personal "hard drive" data. They only mention your name, address, things you purchased, etc...

So what am I going to do about this? I'm going to completely wipe the drive (Darik's Boot And Nuke is my favorite disk destruction utility) before sending it back to Apple just to see what happens. I have my doubts that they will actually log in to the MacBook to see if the drive is bad. Let's see if I get the drive replaced or not...I'm betting it will be replaced, no problem.

Sure, Apple is not the only company doing this with hard drives. This is a problem that needs to be addressed by all computer vendors. What they do with your data should at least be disclosed in their repair and/or privacy policy (at a minimum). In the meantime, encrypt your sensitive data (TrueCrypt works well) and securely remove any data you don't want people servicing your computer to see. I'll keep you updated on the repair status... :-)

Just a heads up for all you Mac fanboys/girls...Apple has recently released massive (240 pages each) security configuration guides for Panther (10.3), Tiger (10.4), and Leopard (10.5).

Note the warning from Apple if you are a n00b Mac user:

"To use these guides, you should be an experienced Mac OS X user, be familiar with the Mac OS X user interface, and have at least some experience using the Terminal application’s command-line interface. You should also be familiar with basic networking concepts."

I have paged through the Tiger guide and it's pretty detailed...exactly what I was looking for. Really glad Apple finally released these. Hopefully other security professionals using Mac's (like me!) will take the time to read these guides and harden their systems. Happy hardening! :-)