Hello, I am new to this community, although I have been a long time user of Linux/Unix on desktops, laptops, servers, etc for the last decade or so. I have used many distros including Gentoo, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, etc.
Now that should qualify me to be smart enough to not listen to the Apple store employees, and take them at their word. But we're not all as smart as we maybe wished we were.
I am sorry and ashamed to admit, that I or someone in my family (Im not going to point any fingers) clearly left the back sliding door unlocked one night about a week ago now. The next day, we noticed that the door was unlocked, but nothing really seemed to be missing, and nobody had heard anything in the night. Seemed too good to be true. Sure enough within about an hour, "have you seen my laptop?"
Clearly it was missing.
Really for such a bit of gross incompetence, we should feel lucky that this was all that they took. We should be thankful(and we are) that nobody got hurt, and that whoever walked in that night didn't do anything beyond taking off with the first thing of value that they saw (likely they realized people were home)
Several years ago, I reluctantly made the decision to purchase a used Macbook. I still to this day find them to be obnoxiously overpriced for what they are. But I got a decent deal on it, and it was an aluminum cased one with "retina" display that would run at 2880x1600. Both durability, and screen space were very important to me in my selection. There are few other options with this kind of build and screen res today, and even fewer back in 2015 when I bought it. It was a 2012 Macbook pro 10.1 with 15" retina, i7-3615QM, 8gb ram and a 256gb SSD. A little old by today''s standards but still a great machine. Especially running Linux, it was rock solid. I used it as a dual boot with Ubuntu-Mate 19.10 and MacOS 10.8. Although I rarely booted mac ever, which is why I never upgraded. But I did at least set up "find my mac" luckily(for all the good its done me)
At the Apple store while researching Macbooks way back when, I wanted to know about their security features, being that we were talking about such an expensive device. I asked them specifically (if someone were to just wipe my laptop with a new os of some kind) whether it could be found with their security features. They assured me that all of the security features on Macbooks and all other apple products are hardware based, everything they need to function is in the hardware and firmware, so not to worry about such things with apple products. I found this peculiar at that time, so I then had them confirm this with several other employees, all claiming the same.
I am guessing, for the Mactel platform anyways, that must have been referring to an implementation of Intel's AT technology with Apple as the service provider.
My Macbook happened to be made during the short period when Intel's Anti-Theft technology was still a thing. i7-3615qm does have AT if you look at the specs at Intel.
Here is the feature breakdown for Intel AT:
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/do...logy-brief.pdf
Looks good right? about what was described to me in the apple store. It claims that it works even when the disk is wiped with a new OS because its built into the chip.So in theory as soon as someone boots up Linux or MacOS, as long as it is network connected, it should show up on "find my ..." through the icould account.
Since this has not happened, and upon further reading:
https://community.mcafee.com/t5/Anti...ed/td-p/368217
It appears AT has not only been discontinued on all products made since 2015, but any current subscriptions(in 2015) had to be ended or the device will be locked at end of term. Now this is Mcaffee, which was acquired by Intel a while back, but the same seems to hold true for other providers:
https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/...ons/v103215908
https://community.norton.com/en/foru...-deactivate-it
Seems that all suppliers of Intel AT implementations I can find have been halted due to Intel discontinuing the technology. Every mention of it on Intel's site other than in the specs of certain cpu's have been removed. Apparently several people who didn't get the message in 2015 got locked out of their laptops.By the sound of this, I never had a working implementation of Intel AT, or the same would have happened to me(unless Apple still has a working implementation of this and we don't know about it)
Intel however is apparently no longer in the Anti-Theft business.
I REALLY should have done a proof of concept test when I first got the Macbook. Although back then its possible that it might have worked that way.
Given what I was told at the apple store, I expected it to show up just about right away in my icloud account's find my mac feature after realizing it was gone. It has been silent for almost a week now that I have been looking. I have a bad feeling that this might be because Ubuntu is my default boot, and that some part of the "find my ..." requires something that is only in MacOS.
I am guessing whoever has it, is either discouraged by the password login in Linux, and is either just letting it sit around collecting dust, or they are smart enough wipe it and install some sort of OS they can use(or they know someone who is) Either way, I have become further and further discouraged, as it has not shown up as I was assured that it would. I find it unlikely that it is just sitting around collecting dust. According to the police, when things get stolen they usually change hands pretty quickly, and continue to do so until they land in someones hands who can actually use it.
In all the research I have done on Macbooks since the incident, I cannot find any place that definitively states whether security measures that work with "find my ..." are actually hardware based, and will work regardless of what OS configuration it is used in, or if it is software based and depends on MacOS, like I am starting to suspect.
The only thing even mentioning such a system besides Intel AT, is Apple's MDM which is a business deployment, and not part of "find my ..." from what I can tell. It was the only thing that clearly stated "I can see when one of my devices comes online, even if the the OS has been changed" But no real way to track from what I (and this guy) can tell:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads...-macs.2195160/
Everything regarding finding macs these days seem to eventually refer to this new thing:
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-fi...phy-bluetooth/
Which sounds a lot more like what I was expecting, but this is new in 2019. Doesn't bode well for getting back my 2012 model with a 2012 version of MacOS.
The funny thing is, is that it actually requires two Apple devices to work (which is funny because I do not even own one anymore) AND they both have to be running the newest Macos Catalina, or iOS13. Now I could have installed Catalina on my MB, although it is the oldest MB that will support it, but iOS13, that's another story. That means I not only need another very expensive Macbook, but a 1000+ iphone as well, just to be able to find my laptop?! They sure are going all in for platform lock in, haha. And what if my laptop and phone get stolen at the same time?! Then you just can't find either I guess... And unlike most people, I don't know 10 people with brand new Iphones off the back of my hand that I could call at any time day or night to use their Iphone to try and track a just stolen laptop or iphone if it were to have this new tech. The one person I know who actually owns a newish iphone, I am lucky to see a handful of times in times a year.I guess overpriced decadence apparently isn't a top priority for my family or community. That's not to say that they don't have money, just they would rather save it, or spend it on things like houses etc, and keep the $100 phone that does everything the iphone does except find my macbook. :)It'd literally be cheaper at this point to get another two 2012 Macbooks than to get a $1000 iphone. That is just ridiculous. And really you should have a spare apple device just in case you get mugged and get both your laptop and iphone stolen at the same time, which I'm guessing happens more often then you'd think.So macbook, iphone, ipad to leave at home. Sounds like an expensive proposition. I like the idea of 2 used Macbooks which could then be used to locate each other I suppose. Assuming they don't both get stolen at the same time.
Now despite needing a second apple device to use this, it sounds great for iphones and ipads, but with macbooks, there is stilll the issue that you can simply boot off a flash drive, and scrap the os, and this is useless, as it depends on the newest MacOS. So I suppose an EFI password would be a good idea as well. Although upon further reading even that can be undone (on macbooks anyways) in a matter of minutes. I cant find the post right now but it didn't include instructions, but the guy was pretty sure it could be undone in about 10 minutes.
If I was smart (or rather if only I had known I was lied to at the apple store) then I might have installed something like Prey (preyproject.org) but even that would not protect against the laptop being wiped. Its claim to multi-os function is a cross platform software package. Ie. it has to be installed on each OS that it is to be used on.
Furthermore, you would need a guest account that does not require a password.
Can we even do a passwordless guest account in Linux?
A good friend of mine who seems to know a fair bit about hardware says that "it should show up eventually, the mechanisms they use are actually built into the CPU which is soldered to the motherboard, and are based on the mac address." So what I am taking from this, is that if someone manages to get this machine working, and goes online with it, some server somewhere would recognize it, regardless of the OS it was running? This seems unlikely to me, as how could a server literally scan the entire internet looking for a specific mac address. Maybe if it visited some Apple equipped website, it would be recognized, but still sounds unlikely.Sounds more like a detailed description of Intel AT, which clearly is no longer a thing.
Furthermore, now I am reading that there is something called mac address spoofing? I asked my friend about that, but he said it wouldnt matter. Couldn't get a clear explanation on that though, as he had just told me it operated off the mac address. I'm suddenly not 100% sure how up to date his information is...
I have reported this to the police, and spoken to apple directly about it, but the moment I am actually able to explain to them that I am not running MacOS as the primary (default) OS, they tell me that that falls outside of their support criteria, and they cannot help me. Its funny how the people in the store have no problem with the idea when they are trying to sell you something, but when it actually comes down to it, they are completely unwilling to help you.Even if they have this functionality I was promised, what good is it if nobody will help you to use it.
What I am trying to figure out is if there is any hope of finding it. "find my mac" on icloud has been zero help at all.
If only I had made OSX boot by default with a guest account, then whoever stole my Macbook would have likely at least placed it near an open wifi at some point, and tried turning it on. This way it should cause "Find my mac" to work look up its location. Certainly if they connected to a secure wifi. I would say "or plugged it into an ethernet port, but it doesn't have one, and the chances of someone connecting a usb ethernet port are pretty slim.
End of Rant...
To the point:
I am trying to find someone else who has had experience with Macbooks running Linux. Hopefully this is the right place. I want to know whether you are able to use the "find my mac" feature on icloud to locate your Macbook when running Linux/Ubuntu, assuming it is network connected. If there is anything at all that can be done, I most certainly want to act sooner rather than later. It has already been a week. Please if you have any information at all that could help, I would really appreciate it. Just a yes or no on the "find my mac" thing would be a huge help!
Hopefully one day soon I can rejoin my fellow Mactel Linux users!
Thank you So much!
Now that should qualify me to be smart enough to not listen to the Apple store employees, and take them at their word. But we're not all as smart as we maybe wished we were.
I am sorry and ashamed to admit, that I or someone in my family (Im not going to point any fingers) clearly left the back sliding door unlocked one night about a week ago now. The next day, we noticed that the door was unlocked, but nothing really seemed to be missing, and nobody had heard anything in the night. Seemed too good to be true. Sure enough within about an hour, "have you seen my laptop?"
Clearly it was missing.
Really for such a bit of gross incompetence, we should feel lucky that this was all that they took. We should be thankful(and we are) that nobody got hurt, and that whoever walked in that night didn't do anything beyond taking off with the first thing of value that they saw (likely they realized people were home)
Several years ago, I reluctantly made the decision to purchase a used Macbook. I still to this day find them to be obnoxiously overpriced for what they are. But I got a decent deal on it, and it was an aluminum cased one with "retina" display that would run at 2880x1600. Both durability, and screen space were very important to me in my selection. There are few other options with this kind of build and screen res today, and even fewer back in 2015 when I bought it. It was a 2012 Macbook pro 10.1 with 15" retina, i7-3615QM, 8gb ram and a 256gb SSD. A little old by today''s standards but still a great machine. Especially running Linux, it was rock solid. I used it as a dual boot with Ubuntu-Mate 19.10 and MacOS 10.8. Although I rarely booted mac ever, which is why I never upgraded. But I did at least set up "find my mac" luckily(for all the good its done me)
At the Apple store while researching Macbooks way back when, I wanted to know about their security features, being that we were talking about such an expensive device. I asked them specifically (if someone were to just wipe my laptop with a new os of some kind) whether it could be found with their security features. They assured me that all of the security features on Macbooks and all other apple products are hardware based, everything they need to function is in the hardware and firmware, so not to worry about such things with apple products. I found this peculiar at that time, so I then had them confirm this with several other employees, all claiming the same.
I am guessing, for the Mactel platform anyways, that must have been referring to an implementation of Intel's AT technology with Apple as the service provider.
My Macbook happened to be made during the short period when Intel's Anti-Theft technology was still a thing. i7-3615qm does have AT if you look at the specs at Intel.
Here is the feature breakdown for Intel AT:
https://www.intel.com/content/dam/do...logy-brief.pdf
Looks good right? about what was described to me in the apple store. It claims that it works even when the disk is wiped with a new OS because its built into the chip.So in theory as soon as someone boots up Linux or MacOS, as long as it is network connected, it should show up on "find my ..." through the icould account.
Since this has not happened, and upon further reading:
https://community.mcafee.com/t5/Anti...ed/td-p/368217
It appears AT has not only been discontinued on all products made since 2015, but any current subscriptions(in 2015) had to be ended or the device will be locked at end of term. Now this is Mcaffee, which was acquired by Intel a while back, but the same seems to hold true for other providers:
https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/...ons/v103215908
https://community.norton.com/en/foru...-deactivate-it
Seems that all suppliers of Intel AT implementations I can find have been halted due to Intel discontinuing the technology. Every mention of it on Intel's site other than in the specs of certain cpu's have been removed. Apparently several people who didn't get the message in 2015 got locked out of their laptops.By the sound of this, I never had a working implementation of Intel AT, or the same would have happened to me(unless Apple still has a working implementation of this and we don't know about it)
Intel however is apparently no longer in the Anti-Theft business.
I REALLY should have done a proof of concept test when I first got the Macbook. Although back then its possible that it might have worked that way.
Given what I was told at the apple store, I expected it to show up just about right away in my icloud account's find my mac feature after realizing it was gone. It has been silent for almost a week now that I have been looking. I have a bad feeling that this might be because Ubuntu is my default boot, and that some part of the "find my ..." requires something that is only in MacOS.
I am guessing whoever has it, is either discouraged by the password login in Linux, and is either just letting it sit around collecting dust, or they are smart enough wipe it and install some sort of OS they can use(or they know someone who is) Either way, I have become further and further discouraged, as it has not shown up as I was assured that it would. I find it unlikely that it is just sitting around collecting dust. According to the police, when things get stolen they usually change hands pretty quickly, and continue to do so until they land in someones hands who can actually use it.
In all the research I have done on Macbooks since the incident, I cannot find any place that definitively states whether security measures that work with "find my ..." are actually hardware based, and will work regardless of what OS configuration it is used in, or if it is software based and depends on MacOS, like I am starting to suspect.
The only thing even mentioning such a system besides Intel AT, is Apple's MDM which is a business deployment, and not part of "find my ..." from what I can tell. It was the only thing that clearly stated "I can see when one of my devices comes online, even if the the OS has been changed" But no real way to track from what I (and this guy) can tell:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads...-macs.2195160/
Everything regarding finding macs these days seem to eventually refer to this new thing:
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-fi...phy-bluetooth/
Which sounds a lot more like what I was expecting, but this is new in 2019. Doesn't bode well for getting back my 2012 model with a 2012 version of MacOS.
The funny thing is, is that it actually requires two Apple devices to work (which is funny because I do not even own one anymore) AND they both have to be running the newest Macos Catalina, or iOS13. Now I could have installed Catalina on my MB, although it is the oldest MB that will support it, but iOS13, that's another story. That means I not only need another very expensive Macbook, but a 1000+ iphone as well, just to be able to find my laptop?! They sure are going all in for platform lock in, haha. And what if my laptop and phone get stolen at the same time?! Then you just can't find either I guess... And unlike most people, I don't know 10 people with brand new Iphones off the back of my hand that I could call at any time day or night to use their Iphone to try and track a just stolen laptop or iphone if it were to have this new tech. The one person I know who actually owns a newish iphone, I am lucky to see a handful of times in times a year.I guess overpriced decadence apparently isn't a top priority for my family or community. That's not to say that they don't have money, just they would rather save it, or spend it on things like houses etc, and keep the $100 phone that does everything the iphone does except find my macbook. :)It'd literally be cheaper at this point to get another two 2012 Macbooks than to get a $1000 iphone. That is just ridiculous. And really you should have a spare apple device just in case you get mugged and get both your laptop and iphone stolen at the same time, which I'm guessing happens more often then you'd think.So macbook, iphone, ipad to leave at home. Sounds like an expensive proposition. I like the idea of 2 used Macbooks which could then be used to locate each other I suppose. Assuming they don't both get stolen at the same time.
Now despite needing a second apple device to use this, it sounds great for iphones and ipads, but with macbooks, there is stilll the issue that you can simply boot off a flash drive, and scrap the os, and this is useless, as it depends on the newest MacOS. So I suppose an EFI password would be a good idea as well. Although upon further reading even that can be undone (on macbooks anyways) in a matter of minutes. I cant find the post right now but it didn't include instructions, but the guy was pretty sure it could be undone in about 10 minutes.
If I was smart (or rather if only I had known I was lied to at the apple store) then I might have installed something like Prey (preyproject.org) but even that would not protect against the laptop being wiped. Its claim to multi-os function is a cross platform software package. Ie. it has to be installed on each OS that it is to be used on.
Furthermore, you would need a guest account that does not require a password.
Can we even do a passwordless guest account in Linux?
A good friend of mine who seems to know a fair bit about hardware says that "it should show up eventually, the mechanisms they use are actually built into the CPU which is soldered to the motherboard, and are based on the mac address." So what I am taking from this, is that if someone manages to get this machine working, and goes online with it, some server somewhere would recognize it, regardless of the OS it was running? This seems unlikely to me, as how could a server literally scan the entire internet looking for a specific mac address. Maybe if it visited some Apple equipped website, it would be recognized, but still sounds unlikely.Sounds more like a detailed description of Intel AT, which clearly is no longer a thing.
Furthermore, now I am reading that there is something called mac address spoofing? I asked my friend about that, but he said it wouldnt matter. Couldn't get a clear explanation on that though, as he had just told me it operated off the mac address. I'm suddenly not 100% sure how up to date his information is...
I have reported this to the police, and spoken to apple directly about it, but the moment I am actually able to explain to them that I am not running MacOS as the primary (default) OS, they tell me that that falls outside of their support criteria, and they cannot help me. Its funny how the people in the store have no problem with the idea when they are trying to sell you something, but when it actually comes down to it, they are completely unwilling to help you.Even if they have this functionality I was promised, what good is it if nobody will help you to use it.
What I am trying to figure out is if there is any hope of finding it. "find my mac" on icloud has been zero help at all.
If only I had made OSX boot by default with a guest account, then whoever stole my Macbook would have likely at least placed it near an open wifi at some point, and tried turning it on. This way it should cause "Find my mac" to work look up its location. Certainly if they connected to a secure wifi. I would say "or plugged it into an ethernet port, but it doesn't have one, and the chances of someone connecting a usb ethernet port are pretty slim.
End of Rant...
To the point:
I am trying to find someone else who has had experience with Macbooks running Linux. Hopefully this is the right place. I want to know whether you are able to use the "find my mac" feature on icloud to locate your Macbook when running Linux/Ubuntu, assuming it is network connected. If there is anything at all that can be done, I most certainly want to act sooner rather than later. It has already been a week. Please if you have any information at all that could help, I would really appreciate it. Just a yes or no on the "find my mac" thing would be a huge help!
Hopefully one day soon I can rejoin my fellow Mactel Linux users!
Thank you So much!