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OS X untraceable

J

jstork

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 24, 2013
3
0
Hi all,

I tried finding an answer to this for a while, hitting a brick wall often.

Is there a way to play a game, any game, let's say WoW, or LoL, whatever, without leaving traces. What I mean is, once the game is run on the mac, and it exited, there would be no way to find if it ran at all.

Help appreciated )
 
jstork said:
Hi all,

I tried finding an answer to this for a while, hitting a brick wall often.

Is there a way to play a game, any game, let's say WoW, or LoL, whatever, without leaving traces. What I mean is, once the game is run on the mac, and it exited, there would be no way to find if it ran at all.

Help appreciated )
Click to expand...

You've got to admit, that's an odd request. A little more information would be helpful.
 
It's a little cumbersome, but you could clear the Recents menu, and then relaunch the apps/documents to repopulate the menu, excluding the game.
 
I think your best bet would be a bootable external hard drive. Install the game on the external hard drive and all the files the game creates or modifies will be on this drive which you can unplug and take away.
 
Depending on how deep you need to go with this, I'm thinking a VM or a Live DVD of some kind. Neither solution would be great for gaming performance, but should make for easier cleanup.
 
jstork said:
Hi all,

I tried finding an answer to this for a while, hitting a brick wall often.

Is there a way to play a game, any game, let's say WoW, or LoL, whatever, without leaving traces. What I mean is, once the game is run on the mac, and it exited, there would be no way to find if it ran at all.

Help appreciated )
Click to expand...

no use for action games but for say football manager or CIV, then you could run it on another computer and use teamviewer.


i used to play football manager a lot at work using teamviewer to dial into my home mac.
 
Untraceable -- so ominous

This request has me laughing. Usually people want to be anonymous with their online activities. But to hide the fact that you played a game... man, must suck.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

Logging in as a guest still can leave logs and stuff, so that doesn't work. Deleting recent items does not remove traces of game being run.

Playing off an external hard drive is a good idea, but I'm pretty sure it leaves logs and stuff as well.

Is there a way to clean up perhaps after? Like i know if the game has errors logs will be kept, but don't know how to clean them. Also, not sure what other things are being recorded.

Basically, after you run the game, should be untraceable, as in a mac employee won't be able to find anything.

Thanks!!
 
Honesty is the best policy. You cannot get caught doing something if you never do it to begin with. Just a suggestion... ;-)
 
Last edited:
big brother is watching

dual boot on carbon copy cloned external SSD with thunderbolt with vpn to hide internet traffic

Your OS will be exactly the same but it will have games so when you want to play shutdown plug in games drive startup press option? will show games drive click it it will start up to identical mac but with games and when you are done shutdown unplug and hide drive. it leaves no traces because main drive was off while you were playing games.

if you require the much to hide you game play you probably shouldn't be playing in the first place or change your situation or play easier to hide games or on a separate device like have work open on the computer but be playing angry birds on iphone (I'm all for playing games work but, there comes a time when you have to ask is it worth it). More info would definitely help, are playing at work and you dont want you boss or it to find out, are you a kid with nosy parents.....
 
In Windows (Bootcamp), you can create a Restore Point, which acts like a system-wide save state.
After that, (install and) play your game as usual.
When you're done, get back to your created Restore Point, which loads that save state and removes any traces of data computed after that state.
It works for virus removal, so I don't see why it couldn't work for games.

Here's more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Restore

In OSX, I have no idea about how to do this. Maybe continue your search in this direction...
 
I really would like to know why this person whats NOBODY to trace what GAMES they have played, I see absolutely no reason to HIDE normal gaming activity.

I think they are trying to find a way to HIDE any online usage, therefore something is very wrong here, hence no advice coming from this quarter.
 
Washac said:
I really would like to know why this person whats NOBODY to trace what GAMES they have played, I see absolutely no reason to HIDE normal gaming activity.

I think they are trying to find a way to HIDE any online usage, therefore something is very wrong here, hence no advice coming from this quarter.
Click to expand...

There is no evidence it is about hiding online usage just traces of an application being run from system logs etc. I suspect it is someone who is trying to play wow etc either on a Mac without parental permission or perhaps in a computer lab. That's far more likely I would expect.

Your insinuation that something is "very wrong here" is a pretty big statement to make IMHO, you make it sound like someone wants to do something despicable or massively illegal! I doubt a post on the games area of Mac Rumors is how someone would ask for such help!

That said if you want to learn how to remove traces of yourself from a system or run a game on a computer lab machine I think you should work it out for yourself and learn some skills, you don't learn anything by being a script kiddie. I also don't want to help someone break someones rules, be that School, Parents etc :)

So for that reason I also am not giving any suggestions but some Google & lateral thinking could give you loads of potential ways of playing a game on a Mac and leaving no evidence.

Edwin
 
Washac I see your point, but as edwin said thats not what's going on, lol.

My parents basically grounded me from playing any games on any devices for 4 months, which is unreasonable (and mean) as I do very well in my studies and just want to play on the weekends.

Thanks for the other people who put their suggestions up! If there are any other ways please throw them in!

And I have look into this myself, but I don't have any technical skills with the computers. And since the simple things don't work 100% and don't remove any traces, I need your suggestions.

Thanks, looking forward to replies :eek:
 
jstork said:
Washac I see your point, but as edwin said thats not what's going on, lol.

My parents basically grounded me from playing any games on any devices for 4 months, which is unreasonable (and mean) as I do very well in my studies and just want to play on the weekends.

Thanks for the other people who put their suggestions up! If there are any other ways please throw them in!

And I have look into this myself, but I don't have any technical skills with the computers. And since the simple things don't work 100% and don't remove any traces, I need your suggestions.

Thanks, looking forward to replies :eek:
Click to expand...

Ah I see, anything and everything you do online or messing with or deleting logs is going to leave evidence of this activity, even the best get caught so your work is really cut out here, sorry I cannot help, and sorry for my insuation.
 
jstork said:
Washac I see your point, but as edwin said thats not what's going on, lol.

My parents basically grounded me from playing any games on any devices for 4 months, which is unreasonable (and mean) as I do very well in my studies and just want to play on the weekends.

Thanks for the other people who put their suggestions up! If there are any other ways please throw them in!

And I have look into this myself, but I don't have any technical skills with the computers. And since the simple things don't work 100% and don't remove any traces, I need your suggestions.

Thanks, looking forward to replies :eek:
Click to expand...

Maybe the better option is to talk to your parents and try to reach a weekend compromise.

Do you know how skilled your parents are with computers? Do you want to risk them having the ability to find out what you did no matter how well you think you hid your tracks? Are you prepared to live without your devices for a period of time if you get caught (and speaking as a parent that would be a very real option)?

Just some things to consider...
 
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