Re: [9fans] writing code

[Tim Newsham <newsham@lava.net>]

>> I mean, turn it on, pick a random user name which is likely to work, and
>> you're in with no password or anything. Am I the only one who thinks this
>> is not so terrific?
>
> [answer 1]
> i think it's realistic.  a boot cd would get you the same access.
> if you get physical machine access, you win.  typing a password
> to authenticate to the local system gives you the feeling of
> security, not actual security.

To prevent this you either need to prevent someone from booting
(ie. bios password and hope they dont go through the trouble
of yanking the drive or resetting the bios) or you need to
protect the disk (after all thats probably what they want to
get at after they log in, not network access or the gui).
Something like:

    http://phk.freebsd.dk/pubs/bsdcon-03.gbde.paper.pdf

would address this nicely.  For those who don't want to chase
down the paper, it's an encrypted disk format used by the
FreeBSD group.

Tim N.