Re: [9fans] First-timer help

[Dave Eckhardt <davide+p9@cs.cmu.edu>]

>> also if you are certain you've rebooted (eg, little reset button
>> or perhaps power cycle) there's much less chance that preceding
>> person using the same terminal has left something lurking

> Yah, now you're just trusting the bios, the local disk (if any)
> and the network.  Much more secure ;-)

If you can't trust the BIOS, you can't trust *anything* about
the machine.  There are business-card-sized CD-R's, so if you
do trust the BIOS you can have a read-only bootable system in
your wallet at all times.  If you use the disk only for a
"cfs -r", you don't need to trust its contents.

What's the nature of the interaction between factotum and the
auth server?  If somebody who owns the network can interpose
themselves between you and the auth server, can they end up
with your password, or at least authenticate once as you?

Dave Eckhardt