Jay Imerman

Q: How to prevent stolen Mac from being reinstalled?

I think the theft deterrent for mobile devices (Activation Lock) is superb and extensive.  With Activation Lock, a mobile device cannot be unlocked, reinstalled, reset, unlocked, reused, etc. - without the proper cloud and device credentials.  However, the same is not true of a Mac, is it?

 

I know you can use Location to find your Mac, if it is online, and if the IP address location scheme it is using hasn't been spoofed, like via a VPN or some proxy obfuscation.  I also know that you can use File Locker to encrypt your drive, so that nobody can access your drive's data.  However, the hardware itself - if someone takes a Macbook Pro or iMac, for instance, and all they are interested in is the hardware, it seems they can pull out the boot disk, pop a new one in, install OS X, and voila, they have a "new" computer, right?

 

It seems that Activation Lock should extend to OS X, so that the hardware itself (even once a new OS install is performed) will not activate without a valid Internet connection, and authentication against the iCloud.

 

What happens in the event of a System Board replacement?  I think Apple can come up with a scheme there as well.

 

Long story, but I was wondering if there was something like Activation Lock for OS X already?  Or, is that a feature we need to request Apple to include in 10.12?

Posted on Oct 14, 2015 5:45 AM

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