This is something I can’t figure out, because my understanding is that no matter what OS you install, unless you bought your Mac with cash, your serial number and credit card are now connected…and will always be spilling data about you.
Thanks for any advice…I’m wondering if it’s worth it to install a new OS.
No, if what you described were true it would be impossible to give someone an apple computer without getting confused for the person you gave it to.
Or to refurbish and use a mac from the trash can without being mistaken for the previous user.
I have done both with no problems.
Apple does know what you bought from them… because they sold it to you and gave you a receipt and kept a record of it to accurately account for taxes just like wal mart does when I buy a bag of apples from the produce department.
Wal mart doesn’t serialize their apples, but they do serialize their game consoles and keep track of those, so maybe that’s a better example.
I guess I gotta ask: what do you think is happening between the credit card and the serial number of the computer and how do you think it’s happening?
I don’t think purchase info is necessary tied to hardware out of the box beyond asset tracking. That would cause issues with gifting.
The easy answer is if you don’t run the software, it can’t collect data.
However, the firmware is network capable and certain diagnostic tools and recovery modes can call home. I am not familiar to the extent, however.
This also does not stop other devices, Apple included, from detecting the Mac and reporting home hardware/location data.
What data?
It’s possible there’s something in the firmware or BIOS that transmits some things to Apple; I do not know for sure, but maybe someone else will show up here who knows details about this. Even if that is so, Apple gets significantly less data because anything built into macOS won’t be running.
It’s more likely hidden chips on the motherboard or in other circuits are sending data back to China. I, like you, doubt Apple is doing anything beyond the software level.
To what extent the Apple product is spilling data to Apple, it’s the Apple software doing it, which Linux would mitigate, but depending on which mac you have, it may not even support Linux yet. If anything, you should probably be more paranoid about Windows on modern Intel. The secure enclave shit Windows 11 requires has its own network stack it can use to phone home sans the OS knowing.
from what i remember before i jumped from macos to debian is that debian does not collect data, save for maybe like crash reports or something but that can be toggled off. the packages you install may collect data, depending on what you’re installing.
