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by Sidnicious
3652 days ago
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Maybe not so amusing! As far as I know, you’ll need to take the machine apart to reflash it, plus special hardware — because when a firmware password is set, a Mac requires the password to choose a different boot disk. with this feature, Apple HQ can give a service center the ability to clear a particular firmware password without giving them a universal backdoor (hardware or software). |
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This doesn't take very long. Maybe 5 minutes to disassemble the machine.
As for hardware, you can flash SPI chips using a Teensy and a clip chip. [1] The total cost of parts is under $30.
Incidentally, I highly recommend investing in one of these if you're doing firmware development for routers. It's so much easier to flash a backup than muck around with TFTP.
> because when a firmware password is set, a Mac requires the password to choose a different boot disk.
This is hardly unique to Apple. Most PC laptop manufacturers also disable changing the boot device or choosing a temporary boot device when a setup password is enabled.
> with this feature, Apple HQ can give a service center the ability to clear a particular firmware password without giving them a universal backdoor (hardware or software).
Um, this is how it works for PC firmware passwords as well. Unless there is a keygen available, most modern implementations use a hashed value from the serial number or hard drive as the master unlock password. It's unique to the laptop being unlocked.
[1] https://trmm.net/SPI_flash