Recently when I’ve turned on my mac while sitting at the airport, I’ve been surprised to find complete strangers showing up under my “Shared” section in the Finder. Not being nosy, I didn’t go poking around in their stuff, but it made me wonder why this was happening.

And more concerning, were other people able to see (and poke around in) my files? I have my files set up to easily share between computers in the office. But that doesn’t mean I want everyone in the airport to see them!

I found the answer in Ask Dave Taylor, who explained that a change in the most recent Mac operating system (Leopard, or Mac OS X vers 10.5) , leaves the Guest account enabled for file sharing by default. If you don’t turn it off, you could be sharing more than you expected!

If you’re a Mac user and haven’t done anything about this yet, check out this post for simple instructions on how to close this security loophole.

Ask Dave Taylor: How do I completely disable the Guest account on Leopard?

No need for all those other travelers to see your business strategy or love letters, right?