What I don't understand and why I'm asking this is, why isn't this patched? Should this be patched? What possible value or reason is there for it to be so easy to hack a mac not using filevault?
It appears that a firmware password prevents this problem. If this is so, then why isn't a firmware password more widely known about and encouraged?
It's more like "How to configure standard system tools to do stuff you want."
Potentially any modern O.S. will allow what is described in the article, if your privileges are root/admin.