writing terminal code

Could somebody please tell me how to write code into terminal that would cause my mac book pro to not accept anything into the external drives when it is logged out?

I'm pretty sure you mean:
"Tell me how to execute a Terminal command" ?
(not the same as writing code - at least, not to me)

I just looked and my external is owned by root, a member of the group admin! (I'm a member of the admin group, too)
So I don't think there's an easy and troublefree way to do that.
Are other potential users admin users? If not, then it's easy.

no there are no other user accounts on the computer. I just know a guy that has third party software that would bypass my login screen. I am looking for a way to block him out.

So, it sounds like the only way he can get into your computer is by using your password. Does he have your password?
Change your password to something more secure.

No, he does not have my password. He has a third-party software disc that he puts into the computer that will hack my administrator account and allow him to change the password.

If you do not know any terminal commands, then maybe you could tell me how to rewrite part of the computer's code in the system. I don't really know what to do. I was thinking that I could maybe rewrite the code so that the computer would not accept anything into the external drives when it is logged out. That would keep him from putting in his disc.

So you're saying that someone else has physical access to your computer, and you can't stop him?

Then you need a firmware password.
Setting up firmware password protection in Mac OS X
for newer Macs that shipped with 10.6,
10.6: Set a firmware password from the command line - Mac OS X Hints
for 10.7,
Setting an EFI Password on Mac Computers (Models Late 2010 or Later) .: JAMF Software Knowledge Base

lherriman said:

no there are no other user accounts on the computer. I just know a guy that has third party software that would bypass my login screen. I am looking for a way to block him out.

Click to expand...

lherriman said:

No, he does not have my password. He has a third-party software disc that he puts into the computer that will hack my administrator account and allow him to change the password.

Click to expand...

You've got a larger problem here than a simple software issue. As I understand it here, someone is doing something to "hack" your account but to do so, they need access to your machine. The simple answer here is to not let this person use your machine. Second, if they really wanted to access your external HD, they would just take it. I'd suggest that the real issue here is a personal one and not a technical one.

Yes, I have a firmware password. He can just bypass that too.

You've got a larger problem here than a simple software issue. As I understand it here, someone is doing something to "hack" your account but to do so, they need access to your machine. The simple answer here is to not let this person use your machine. Second, if they really wanted to access your external HD, they would just take it. I'd suggest that the real issue here is a personal one and not a technical one.

Click to expand...

Yes, the person does have access to my computer. I don't have an external HD though. It seems to me like there should be a way to keep him out even if he has access to my computer. If you know of any ways I would really appreciate it.

lherriman said:

Could somebody please tell me how to write code into terminal that would cause my mac book pro to not accept anything into the external drives when it is logged out?

Click to expand...

If you don't have an external HD, what do you mean by "external drives"?

lherriman said:

Yes, the person does have access to my computer. I don't have an external HD though. It seems to me like there should be a way to keep him out even if he has access to my computer. If you know of any ways I would really appreciate it.

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It would seem like this person really knows what they're doing assuming they are able to bypass all security measures. Thus (as noted above), the best way to get around this is to simply prevent this person from accessing your machine. You may also want to think of legal action - depending on your jurisdiction, what this person is doing may be against the law (I'm not a lawyer so you'll have to look into this). I'd approach this person first since the legal route should probably be a last resort.

Who is this person anyway?

First and foremost, there is really no way to prevent accessing a machine someone has physical access to. Period.

Personally, I'd suggest a safe.

No, I don't have an external HD. Sorry, I meant into the disc drive or any of the usb ports. Yes, they are pretty smart. But it's all in this disc that he has. He doesn't really do much except put the disc into the drive. And it's just a person that I know. He doesn't use the disc on anyone's computer unless they have forgotten the password or something like that. He's never used it on my computer. I just was wondering if there was a way to stop something like that from happening to my computer.

First and foremost, there is really no way to prevent accessing a machine someone has physical access to. Period.

Personally, I'd suggest a safe.

Click to expand...

That kinda sucks. I mean if there is a way for someone to get into a computer like that then it seems to me that there should be a way to stop it. Thanks for your help though.

Thanks for providing some clarity. It had sounded as if this person was doing this on a regular basis to you. Who is this person anyway? A friend? IT?

There's nothing we can do if we don't know what software he's using. I also feel the need to repeat what I said earlier - don't let them get access to your machine. You have a MacBook Pro and you can therefore bring it with you. Again, it seems like the larger issue though is trust. Talk to this person if you know them and if not, like I said, prevent them from getting access to your machine.

Technically, there are two kernel extensions that control the operation of your optical drive. I suppose that it's possible to disable them somehow upon logging out (unload them, move them, etc) but doing so would require some technical expertise and risks breaking things.

The question that comes to me is.

Is this computer owned by you or someone else as in school, or job?

If it is your personal system, then like it was suggested, do not give physical access. If you don't own the system, then the question is moot.

He is the IT guy at my college. Yeah, he probably would never use it on my computer, but I was just wondering if there was any way to stop someone else from using the same software. I don't know what software it is though, so I guess there's no way to block it.

he question that comes to me is.

Is this computer owned by you or someone else as in school, or job?

If it is your personal system, then like it was suggested, do not give physical access. If you don't own the system, then the question is mute.

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No, the computer is mine. I don't leave my computer anywhere. I was just wondering if there was any way to stop that from happening if I did happen to leave it somewhere. It just seems to me that there should be a way that a person should be able to block people with this kind of software.

The fact that this person is from IT makes this conversation largely irrelevant. IT personnel, as part of their job, have tools that allow them to do this.

Resetting a password isn't all that hard. In fact, Apple has instructions on their website that show you how to do this (here). In fact, if I carried around my Lion USB drive, I'd be walking around with all the tools that I would need to reset the password for all users on anyone's Mac. Thus, if I wanted to (if I had the time and nefarious intent), I could "hack" any Mac within a matter of minutes. If we assume for a moment that this doesn't work, if someone really wanted your data, they would just take your HD.

I'm starting to think that the disc that IT guy is using may actually be the OS X install disc since this can be used (as noted above) to reset passwords.

lherriman said:

That kinda sucks. I mean if there is a way for someone to get into a computer like that then it seems to me that there should be a way to stop it. Thanks for your help though.

Click to expand...

Well, lets think about this. If you could effectively lock out any possibility of booting from an external source (CD/DVD/USB, etc), you're one software problem away from having a very expensive brick.

FWIW, there are applications out there that will do things like destroy the encryption key if certain actions are taken (failed login attempts etc). Using these though, well.. if that happens, the data's gone. So, helpful if you're worried about the protection of the data on the system from theft, not so much if you actually NEED the data on the system (my work laptop will do this).