[KLUG Advocacy] Re: linux security

[Mark]

> Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> 
> Austrami.  It takes about ten keystrokes.

I googled Austrami but no relevant returns (unless you carry around a
small Australian primate in your pocket).  Do you have a URL for them?

> > Or, is it that
> > the file is encrypted but all windows machines use the same key?
> 
> That used to be true in NT, I don't know if it is true anymore.

Whether they are encrypted or not is rather moot since the algorithm has
been broken.

> Nah, they just changed the Administrator account password, 
> and then put the old value back. 

That was the freaky thing.  I thought I had deleted the standard
administrator and guest accounts. (after making another admin level
account, of course.)


> You'd never know.  The format of the SAM 
> is known,
> boot up without that pesky OS in the way and it is all just 
> blocks on a
> platter - move them around at will.

Which is why most laptops have hardware, usually BIOS level, passwords
built into them.  No one ever uses them, of course, but they are still
there.  Back when Zenith was still making computers, the had both a
hardware key lock and a sub-BIOS password system.  Like most users, I
turned the key to the on setting and disabled the initial login.

> to enter/load that secret every time you restart the KDC (reboot the
> computer), but this is rarely done since it is a REAL PITA.
> 
The standard problem with good security.

Mark