this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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Context: this is a legit screenshot I took on my workplace around 1.5 years ago. Hopefully it's been patched by now? Completely ridiculous behavior

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

My current and previous jobs provided macbooks for "security" and the one with my last job would not charge on the right USB ports. I assumed this was just expected, like only one side was actually hooked up to the battery while the other was just for data transfer.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Power delivery has different requirements, so it's normal that not all ports allow it. And it's also possible to have USB-C ports that are only on USB 2.0 hardware.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In this case, OP just had busted USB controllers. All USB-C ports are intended to be equivalent on MacBooks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

As an aside, the new imac has 4 usb-c ports: two are thunderbolt, two aren't.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Intended doesn't mean that they are. The left side is definitely better than the right, and they get really high CPU usage when charging/using their monitor with their right side USB ports instead of the left.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yes, I know. I chose my words quite intentionally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think you can just lockdown the bios with a super strong password to get the similar security as macbook, no? Since I think the only one major security feature avaliable on mac, but not on PC, is a locked down bois, so attacker cannot install a malicious OS.

Assuming your bios is reasonably secure and you are using a reasonable OS with reasonable security feature enabled (like linux with LUKS and TPM auto-unlock, or windows with bitlocker), PC should be reasonably secure compare to a mac.

I would love to know what other security features mac provides that is not avaliable on a PC.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess MacBooks are easier to deploy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Could be, I imagine there would be less work if everyone has the same OS.

I dont work in IT, but I remember there are excellent tools by Microsoft to do mass IT management (but who want to use windows anyway /jk)

would be interesting to see a comparison of IT tools avaliable macOS, Windows, and Linux distros. And how much advantage does immutable OSes like silverblue, macOS, and chrome OS provides against mutable OSes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I was talking specifically about MacOS X vs. everything else because, for example, you don't have to setup the bios. Just hand out a macbook for everyone and (mostly) deployment compñete, i guess

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Unix based systems tend to be able to be hardened to a higher level than windows devices. Apple provides a lot of apis for preventing unsigned code from running, which can go a long way beyond a locked down bootloader.

It's less that they're intrinsically more secure, it's just that it's a bit easier for a determined admin to lock it way further down while also not irritating the user.

I seem to recall Chromebooks are even better, but you sacrifice a lot more.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Ugh, luckily I've been able to choose my hardware and OS for the past... 16 years at work. I would hate to use somebody else's choice of desktop for programming. Actually once said no to a work offer when they said they'll give only MacBooks for the people.