Is it safe to provide your raw system profile to software vendors for tech support?

Question

I have a very expensive piece of software that began crashing after a recent system update, which presumably broke something. Unfortunately, the system logs the app throws aren't detailed enough for me to debug it myself.

The software vendor has asked for my complete system profile: is that a safe thing to do? Is there any sensitive information contained in the system profile that should make me think twice about providing it?

I know my LAN hostname would appear, which I don't consider a problem, as well as my username (which would show up in paths).

Answer 1

The biggest question is, how much do you trust the vendor? If you have a decent relationship with them and they are honest, there isn't too much to be worried about - however I would definitely not send the serial number or UUID. If someone were to get a hold of it, they could request bogus things for it like a warranty repair, get a replacement, never send in an original, and use a bogus credit card number as collateral (Like a gift card with $5 on it). Then when it comes time, you might need something fixed, and Apple will say no because of that shady stuff in the past.

However if you are uncomfortable with any of this and you do have a good relationship, just ask them what they want specifically so nothing additional gets sent.