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I opened my Terminal today and saw this:

StaceysiPhone6s:~ jcz$

  • Who is Stacey?
  • Why is she in my Terminal?
  • What happened?
  • What should I be worried about?
  • How do I fix it?
user2428118
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Jeff
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1 Answers1

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At some point, your network assigned StaceysiPhone6s an IP address. Then, your laptop got that IP address. Your Mac then looked up the DHCP logs to find out who 'owned' that IP and found "StaceysiPhone6s". So, it used that info to set the local hostname value.

Example: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/30552/os-x-computer-name-not-matching-what-shows-on-terminal

schroeder
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    Perfect, very reassuring. Thanks for not being so alarmist! – Jeff May 01 '17 at 16:20
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    oh, I forgot to add: BURN YOUR LAPTOP AND ANY USB DEVICE THAT YOU EVER PLUGGED IN! And you should probably burn any flat surface it ever touched for good measure. – schroeder May 01 '17 at 16:21
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    Not taking any chances, I'll start with self-immolation – Jeff May 01 '17 at 16:23
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    Good man, you'll go far in infosec! – schroeder May 01 '17 at 16:30
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    1) What dhcp logs? 2) It's more likely OS X evaluating dhcp option 12. – bot47 May 02 '17 at 03:39
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    But that still leaves the question: Who is Stacey and what was she doing with her iPhone on your network? – Stephan Bijzitter May 03 '17 at 09:54
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    This answer rather misses the core bug, that OSX is trusting the DHCP server to tell your machine its own name rather than using whatever name you gave it, or a default one. From any reasonable privilege model the DHCP server is at best untrusted and preferably considered malicious. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE May 04 '17 at 01:19