Security vs. Convenience

Remember how Ken Hess' Daniweb pieces used to get picked on here? Well, I nominate this article for the Pointless Piece of Piffle prize-- surely it surpasses anything Mr. Hess ever wrote for Daniweb!

Agreed.

Agreed as well.

There's one interesting topic in it though: auto-login. I made my system auto-login (in fact, it doesn't login at all because it just starts X and the windowing environment as part of the boot process), but I'm still not sure if this poses a security risc. I'm really happy with my boot-time from 'power button till working Firefox" of about 40 seconds though, without a pause halfway to login.

It's a risk if someone has physical access to your computer. But then you know the old Unix dictum: "Anyone with physical access to the machine owns it." A login password won't prevent booting up a USB or CD Linux and copying everything, or bashing the computer open and removing the hard drive.

I just love articles that leave you wondering 'wtf did I just read?' I wont even insult Ken with comparing the two, that was worse than Matt Hartley. Happily Ken has come a long long way and I look forward to his stuff now.

Deadline approaching.

What should I write about?

Deadline still approaching.

What should I write about?!!

Deadline is almost here!

WHAT SHOULD I WRITE ABOUT?!!!

I'VE GOT TO WRITE SOMETHING!!!!!

ANYTHING!!!!!

Oh, here's an idea....

Quoting:It's a risk if someone has physical access to your computer.

Hehe, tell that to the people struggling to use it even with my permission. They're unable to find the start menu or icons (because every virtual desktop only has one icon and the start menu only appears after a right-click and is almost unreadable), and even unable type in their own name on this Dvorak-keyboard, where the Dvorak overlay stickers are faded and unreadable!

BTW the 'rescue SD card' to boot if the harddisks / OS fails is lying on the computer itself, so if physical access is a problem, I'm screwed anyway. Luckily it's Gentoo with only a CLI on it, so only the most determined attackers (those willing to discard the mouse, manually start my RAID array and mount LVM volumes) will stand a chance.

Quoting:Hehe, tell that to the people struggling to use it even with my permission.

It's even worse with mine. My girlfriend knows Linux pretty well and even she refuses to use my desktop. Becuase of Awesome WM and Vimperator there is no desktop, no icons, no menu, nothing. It's all keyboard shortcuts. Same thing inside Firefox.

This one is for family members who need a quick reference:

[url=http://gus3.typepad.com/cheat sheet.odt]http://gus3.typepad.com/cheat sheet.odt[/url]

Save and open in OpenOffice.org. US Letter, landscape, suitable for folding in half and taping to the monitor. The indicated Ctrl-keystrokes are nearly universal.

NOTE: Get it quickly. Due to financial constraints, I don't know how much longer my website will be up.