Macs broadcast users name over zeroconf

I do not own a Mac, have never owned a Mac and have never thought about buying one.

With that said, there are quite a few people who come to the coffee shop which I frequent who have MacBooks or iBooks or whatever they're called. I have the Avahi service applet running and I noticed that some lady's full name was set ast the Mac's computer name. Thinking about it, I figured that listing her last name was something that people might not like, so I mentioned it to her by addressing her with her full name.

Needless to say, she was not happy when I informed her how it was that I knew her name. Within a few minutes of digging, she found the place where the computer's name was listed and changed it.

Since then, I've told four or five other people with Macs the same thing. None of them were thrilled by this default behavior.

Broadcasting someone's full name over a network is not a good idea. So what I'm asking is what Mac sites should I post this to in order to get the word out to Mac users who may not want this behavior?

cptnapalm said: I do not own a Mac, have never owned a Mac and have never thought about buying one.

With that said, there are quite a few people who come to the coffee shop which I frequent who have MacBooks or iBooks or whatever they're called. I have the Avahi service applet running and I noticed that some lady's full name was set ast the Mac's computer name. Thinking about it, I figured that listing her last name was something that people might not like, so I mentioned it to her by addressing her with her full name.

Needless to say, she was not happy when I informed her how it was that I knew her name. Within a few minutes of digging, she found the place where the computer's name was listed and changed it.

Since then, I've told four or five other people with Macs the same thing. None of them were thrilled by this default behavior.

Broadcasting someone's full name over a network is not a good idea. So what I'm asking is what Mac sites should I post this to in order to get the word out to Mac users who may not want this behavior?

Uh, we all know but thanks. When you login it shows you the computers name you just have to change it in the settings.

I'm afraid that you are incorrect. Each person I've mentioned it too had no idea that their name was being broadcast over the network. I'm five for five for "What?!?!" and "How do I change it?" since I first noticed a week ago.

cptnapalm said: I'm afraid that you are incorrect. Each person I've mentioned it too had no idea that their name was being broadcast over the network. I'm five for five for "What?!?!" and "How do I change it?" since I first noticed a week ago.

Great, but everybody on mac sites already know...

Ack... This is just not good default behavior... Its one thing to have it as the user's first name, since not much can be done with that, but with the last name, additional information about the person can frequently be discovered without too many hassles.

Well, I'm not trolling, but at least the lady could change her computer's name without losing access to the sudo command!

lol... I think it's really a case of "social inertia". Way back in Classic Mac OS, the person's name was always set as part of the computer's name. There were no privacy issues, as there was no wireless networking back then. The same practice, having been engrained in the developers' thinking, kept going after the invention of practical wireless networking and Bonjour; and the security implications of this legacy behaviour were not considered.

Maybe you should try and contact Apple (somehow) and ask them about it?