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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > Permissions.....Kudos to anyone who can help

Permissions.....Kudos to anyone who can help
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tyler_fitz
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Join Date: Sep 2004
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Aug 31, 2005, 08:03 PM
 
Welp, this one is gonna be a tuffy. Here at my highschool is the second year of our one to one laptop initiative (each student gets a laptop). Well, last year, it was the begining, the administration didnt really know what they were doing or what they were getting into. So it was easy for me to retrieve passwords, etc. I even got remote desktop and caused a lil trouble, muahahaha. anyways, this year they really locked down. Every laptop has tiger, and all the students laptops permissions are tweaked so that you can only open the programs you need to. Pretty much all i can do is open word and safari.

Basically what i want to know is, how can i edit my permissions so that i can open programs like msn messenger? I dont have the admin password, and i cant even open terminal. Im pretty much stumped. The only thing i can think of is getting my hands on a tiger install disk, or get a keylogger to find the password, but i dont think ill be able to install it....

p.s. im aware of the consequenses of me trying to do this, i dont need to be reminded
     
rickey939
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Location: Cooperstown '09
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Aug 31, 2005, 08:25 PM
 


Are you serious? You are not an admin, and don't know the admin password, so you are screwed.

I make iBook images that have much higher security and limitations/managed preferences than what you are describing, so I relish the fact that you are struggling hacking into the school iBook(s) that somebody like me has enjoyed locking down so tightly and intelligently.
     
production_coordinator
Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Aug 31, 2005, 08:30 PM
 
tyler_fitz... try using your h@xør SKILLS
     
tyler_fitz  (op)
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Aug 31, 2005, 08:32 PM
 
who do you think i am? Napoleon Dynamite? if only i had hacker skills like he had......and bowstaff skills......... and nunchuck skills.................
     
OreoCookie
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
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Aug 31, 2005, 08:33 PM
 
You can always use webmessenger (which works for msn, but not yahoo)
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
tooki
Admin Emeritus
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
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Aug 31, 2005, 08:55 PM
 
Well, unless they locked down Open Firmware, it should be possible to boot into Single-User mode and edit permissions that way -- but that's assuming that it's even the basic UNIX permissions that are blocking access. (They could be using Mac OS X Server's managed client system, whose limitations are persistent on laptops when disconnected. In this case, there is nothing you can do.)

Regardless, I'd suggest you not tamper with it, not only because it's a violation of your usage agreement, but that if you do something wrong (or even something right, without fixing the consequences), you could cause problems that would require you to go back to them.

tooki
     
CharlesS
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Join Date: Dec 2000
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Aug 31, 2005, 09:31 PM
 
If they are intelligent at all, they will have set an Open Firmware password.

There are, of course, ways around that, but having been on the "other side" for a while, I don't particularly feel like helping you do this. Like tooki, I suggest you don't tamper with it. It's not your computer.

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
rickey939
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Aug 31, 2005, 10:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by tooki
(They could be using Mac OS X Server's managed client system, whose limitations are persistent on laptops when disconnected. In this case, there is nothing you can do.)
Bingo! The mcx_cache is the devil for somebody like tyler_fitz.
     
Big Mac
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
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Sep 1, 2005, 03:26 AM
 
Originally Posted by CharlesS
If they are intelligent at all, they will have set an Open Firmware password.

There are, of course, ways around that, but having been on the "other side" for a while, I don't particularly feel like helping you do this. Like tooki, I suggest you don't tamper with it. It's not your computer.
You were l337, Charles?

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
ant1v1ru5
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Join Date: Sep 2005
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Sep 1, 2005, 03:30 AM
 
Correct your Permissions:

Open "Disc Utility" which is located in you "Utilities" folder inside your "Applications" folder. After the application "Disc Utility" is running, you are prompted to select a "Disc Volume or Image", select your disc image that has Mac OS X installed on it. Next, click "Verify Permissions" after that is completed, click "Repair Permissions".
when Windows™ crashes on you, press:'CTRL+ALT+DEL' and then choose: to 'think different'. if you have any other problems, consult a psychologist.
     
CharlesS
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Sep 1, 2005, 03:31 AM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
You were l337, Charles?
No, I was helping out with the computer lab, locking down the machines and making sure Open Firmware passwords were set so that not just any tyler_fitz type can come in and think he owns the school's computers. Hence, I'm not going to help him, because my loyalties lie on the other side.

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
rickey939
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Sep 1, 2005, 07:25 AM
 
Originally Posted by ant1v1ru5
Correct your Permissions:

Open "Disc Utility" which is located in you "Utilities" folder inside your "Applications" folder. After the application "Disc Utility" is running, you are prompted to select a "Disc Volume or Image", select your disc image that has Mac OS X installed on it. Next, click "Verify Permissions" after that is completed, click "Repair Permissions".
That. will. not. work. for. multiple. reasons.
     
d4nth3m4n
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Sep 1, 2005, 02:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by ant1v1ru5
Correct your Permissions:

Open "Disc Utility" which is located in you "Utilities" folder inside your "Applications" folder. After the application "Disc Utility" is running, you are prompted to select a "Disc Volume or Image", select your disc image that has Mac OS X installed on it. Next, click "Verify Permissions" after that is completed, click "Repair Permissions".
i usually don't hassle noobies, but this is a really stupid post.

try reading more than just the title when you reply to threads.
     
Anubis IV
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Huh?
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Sep 2, 2005, 04:27 AM
 
Wait wait...this is actually very easy to solve in one of two ways:
1) Procure another computer that is identical to yours, install a clean copy of Tiger on it, then swap the hard drives. Ta da, yours now has no problems...except that it probably won't work as intended.

2) Buy your own computer like the rest of us do, then abuse it as you see fit. I scratched together my money and got a PowerBook for myself when I was fresh out of high school three years ago. Do what you want with your own computer, but treat other people's computers according to the terms that you agreed to abide by.

Anyway, you won't get much help here with a problem like that. We don't tend to help out people that are looking to circumvent security and the like.
"The captured hunter hunts your mind."
Profanity is the tool of the illiterate.
     
ghporter
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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Sep 2, 2005, 08:53 AM
 
Tyler, if you're getting the idea that we won't help you radically change the way "your" laptop is configured so that you can chat in class or whatever, you're right. It really isn't "your" computer to start with-the school system issued it to you so you can do school work with it, not so you can play.

And your admission that you "caused a lil trouble, muahahaha" should remind you WHY these computers are so well secured. Yours was almost certainly NOT the only "trouble" anyone caused, and that sort of thing endangers any student laptop initiative. Screwing around with the computers instead of using them for the purpose they were intended plays into the hands of the naysayers and people who do not understand computers and how they can be used in an educational setting-you were basically tempting the school system to take away ALL of the laptops with your "trouble." Is a little chat worth messing things up for THE WHOLE SCHOOL? Are you willing to be known as "the guy that killed the laptop program?" Just a little food for thought.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
d.fine
Mac Elite
Join Date: May 2004
Location: on 650 cc's
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Sep 2, 2005, 09:16 AM
 
Don't touch those permissions!!


stuffing feathers up your b*tt doesn't make you a chicken.
     
olePigeon
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
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Sep 2, 2005, 06:25 PM
 
You could reinstall the OS.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
recomdos
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Join Date: Sep 2005
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Sep 4, 2005, 07:03 PM
 
You could reinstall the OS.
yep - but then you'd need to install the software you want, with licenses. Be interesting to see what happens to you with an illegal copy (or certainly wrong user license on) of software is found running on the network. Take the advice of the so many 'in the know' users of this forum and don't mess with it.

...just my 2 pence
     
Detrius
Professional Poster
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Asheville, NC
Status: Offline
Sep 5, 2005, 12:52 AM
 
I just heard on NPR the other day about kids that hacked into these computers so that they could install their own stuff, but they were arrested when they returned the laptops to the school system at the end of the year.

Here's a list of what you need to do to take control of the laptop:

1: do something special with the hardware
2: do something special with the software
3: do something special in single user mode
4: do something about passwords
5: do whatever you want with the laptop
6: hope you don't get arrested for 1-5.

Due to #6, we aren't going to give you specifics about 1-5, as that would make us accomplices. Being an ACSA and a past ACDT/ACPT, I (and several other people here) know exactly how to do what you are asking, but you are asking us to do something potentially illegal, so we won't help.

Have a nice day!
ACSA 10.4/10.3, ACTC 10.3, ACHDS 10.3
     
   
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