From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v622) In-Reply-To: <6ca31021b2462e48d3e273e28950c0eb@terzarima.net> References: <6ca31021b2462e48d3e273e28950c0eb@terzarima.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Dave Lukes Subject: Re: [9fans] First-timer help Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 01:33:01 +0100 To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@cse.psu.edu> Topicbox-Message-UUID: 69f0bb0c-ead0-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On 18 Jul 2005, at 00:17, Charles Forsyth wrote: >>> So when I'm not around and somebody decides to boot the computer and >>> delete all my files, that's just okay then? > > they could anyway, at least with Linux. (boot the > installation/recovery > CD and get a root shell. even without the shell, at the very least all > the ones i've used recently allow me to wipe an existing installation > and replace it with a new one. i enjoy that.) This is all interesting but pretty much irrelevant. If you store data on a machine to which other people have physical access, there are many simple ways for them to remove or tamper with it. Many of these methods (powerful magnet, hammer, open the case and steal the drive(s)) are pretty much hardware- and OS-independent. "This system is secure until removed from the hermetically sealed Faraday caged concrete box". That is one of the reasons why plan9 regards "your computer" as being a network terminal with some computing capability rather than a mainframe on your desktop. DaveL.