-
Thanks, good to have this explained. I basically use the machine as an image database for reference, and occasionally typing out poems. I connect to my printer via USB, and obviously have another machine for network access, which I can remove from the studio.
And basically you take your Macbook to a repair shop and ask them to remove the network card and accept the risk of doing so (may kill the machine if the engineer is an idiot).
Yeah, don't want to break it completely obvs. But the permanence of this solution sounds good in terms of head space; no physical possibility of going online removes the obsessive niggle. I have a local repair shop but not 100% confident they are incapable of being idiots. Would you like to help me out for a forum donation?
William.-
If you just want to make it difficult for yourself to reinstate network access, simply getting an admin account which is obscure to you to disable the network interfaces in the BIOS set up would do.
-
You need to do step 10 here to disconnect the antennas:
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Unibody+Model+A1342+AirPort-Bluetooth+Board+Replacement/1704.Taking the card out is quite involved on this machine.
Cut the wires if you want to permanently ruin/perfect it.
-
Would you like to help me out for a forum donation?
I don't have the tools for a Macbook, nor do I have the time I'm afraid. I don't even have time to complete work stuff in work hours so here I am working on one of the hottest days of the year which happens to be a Sunday... so nope, can't help in this case.
gbj_tester
grams
Velocio
Do you still need the macbook to function otherwise? 😁
Seriously though... are you a systems engineer? If yes, then no. If no, then yes.
I can basically break any ability for it to do anything even if you connected it to any network. The macbook would no longer be able to receive any updates or interact even with the local network, but presumably you're good with all of this and are OK using USB sticks to move files on and off it.
The phrase you want to be Googling is "air gap"... and air gapped machines are physically incapable of connecting to any network. In security this is the standard for working with malware and viruses of a certain class to observe them.
Here's the kind of thing we're talking about: https://tech.firstlook.media/air-gapping-part-one
And basically you take your Macbook to a repair shop and ask them to remove the network card and accept the risk of doing so (may kill the machine if the engineer is an idiot).
Afterwards you have a Macbook that can do everything except communicate with anything else.