On 10/27/07, Pietro Gagliardi <pietro10@mac.com> wrote:
>
> OS X has root:
>
> $ ls -ld /var
> lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  admin  11 Aug 11  2006 /var -> private/var
> $ ls -l /private
> total 0
> drwxr-xr-x   107 root  wheel  3638 Oct  2 21:25 etc
> drwxr-xr-x     3 root  wheel   102 Aug  1  2006 tftpboot
> drwxrwxrwt    22 root  wheel   748 Oct 27 18:23 tmp
> drwxrwxrwt     4 root  wheel   136 Mar 12  2007 tmp 2
> drwxr-xr-x    26 root  wheel   884 Oct 27 10:03 var
> $ # run from Tiger
>
> Oh and here's nice security: boot a Mac and hit Command+S while
> booting (before the Apple logo/Happy Mac) and you're root. No
> password required.



Yeah most operating systems have single user mode.  If you can remotely boot
my mac and hold Command-S, I'll start worrying about that one.

Find any linux box and boot with S on the kernel option line.

Solaris can have this done too.

By the way if you're that close to a mac why not boot it in target disk mode
and just read all the data off the disk with a firewire cable?

Physical access == no security pretty much.


On Oct 27, 2007, at 6:20 PM, don bailey wrote:
>
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> >> clearly, you're not getting an account on my machine.
> >>
> >
> > This goes back to the typical MacOSX argument:
> >       "If I have MacOSX laptop and you compromise my local
> >        account, it doesn't matter because you haven't
> >        gotten root, right?"
> >
> > Of course, this isn't true because all your data is owned
> > by your user credentials. If someone compromises a single
> > user laptop they don't need root or any other super user
> > semantic. Being you compromises all the information
> > necessary to hurt you: banking information, SSN, credit
> > card info, e-mail logins, locally stored files, etc...
> >
> > I'd say that's enough of a problem. Even Plan 9's well
> > designed authentication domains don't properly mitigate
> > the issue of the local account being compromised.
> >
> > D
> >
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>