[Bug 878906] Re: Not obvious that giving your account a password is not physical security

[Dmitrijs Ledkovs]

* They can change the password, but not retrieve it (only salted hash is available)
* They will not be able to access personal files, if encryption was enabled (full disk or home directory only)

** Changed in: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
       Status: Triaged => Fix Released

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/878906

Title:
  Not obvious that giving your account a password is not physical
  security

Status in “gnome-control-center” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “ubiquity” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  If you have a user account with a password, someone with physical
  access to your computer can still access your account by holding down
  Shift during startup, choosing recovery mode, and changing your
  password.

  This is an intractable problem. For example, from Microsoft's "10
  immutable laws of security": "If a bad guy has unrestricted physical
  access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore".
  <http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc722487.aspx#EIAA>

  However, probably it isn't obvious to a non-professional that a
  password alone isn't enough to secure their stuff.

  So perhaps, wherever Ubuntu lets you set a password (Ubiquity, System
  Settings "User Accounts"), it should contain a brief (very brief)
  explanation of this. Something like: "A password doesn’t protect
  against someone with physical access to the computer."

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