Darth Revan pvraj

Background and Purpose

The 2016 MacBook Pro no longer receives the latest OS and Apple officially restricts it to Monterey. My primary concern is security, and this end of support means the end of OS security updates (and the more rare firmware updates from Apple). I have a newer machine I use that is supported; but the 2016 MBP is still a capable machine that can be derisked and made less insecure by installing Ubuntu; not using the machine for any sensitive data/tasks; and hardening up the both the macOS and Ubuntu partitions. The purpose of this guide is to address that.

security issues irrespective of OS

Known hardware vulnerabilities in Intel processors are an issue regardless of what OS you use (another reason to consider the whole machine "insecure" for sensitive tasks)
firmware vulnerabilities. Apple packages firmware updates with their OS updates, but also stops publishing these over time. I need to do some more reading here; it's possible another OS like Ubuntu, may work around or minimize

Derisking an unsupported/outdated Apple Watch for offline-only use

Purpose

An old Apple Watch Series 4 no longer receives security updates; the last I can see here was 10.6.1. Over time this leaves the watch open to more unpatched vulnerabilities that later models are patched for. But we can still make use of the unique hardware (heart rate, EKG) and fitness tracking features to get utility out of the device. This post describes how I reduced security risks on my watch to give it new life.

The TLDR:

remove the apple watch from your current/personal Apple ID, unpair it from your personal iPhone, and factory erase it
create a dummy Apple ID; use an old throwaway iPhone that has been factory erased; pair it to the watch; do the 1 time setup for EKG
Keep wifi/bluetooth/location services off; keep the watch in airplane mode

Background

TBD

Missed opportunities in existing material post Disney acquisition

TBD

Ideas

Great Hyperspace War/Develompent of Hyperspace Travel (more sci-fi heavy)

Pre interstellar travel era (by most species at least)