A Sys Admin's worst nightmare

[Simon Wong]

I have setup an Internet Cafe for a mate of mine in a far away land.

In what seems like a nightmare I haven't woken up from yet, he is
proposing a crazy marketing stunt to pull in people to the Cafe.  A
$1000 reward for obtaining the root password off one of the PC
terminals!

I don't even want to repeat that, I'm just trying to think of it as the
ultimate vote of confidence ;-)

Outline of the system design is:
      * The PCs are all running Ubuntu Breezy (as is the server).
      * The local user accounts are supplied via NIS from a central
        server (only user accts, all passwords disabled) as all
        authentication is done via PAM radius, back to the central
        server.  Yes, I know LDAP will be in v2.
      * IPsec secures communication between each PC and the server
      * There is an admin account with full root sudo access on each PC
        and the root password has been set the same (doesn't seem like a
        lot of point if "admin" has root sudo access anyway to have it
        different - correct me if I'm off track here)
      * The PC admin/root passwords do not match those on the server

Rules of engagement
      * Must be on-site and present (no at/cron jobs)
      * Cannot boot off anything else (of course)
      * Cannot change boot parameters
      * No malicious activity (I know, what does this mean under these
        circumstances?!)
      * They have to open a file only readable by root and report back
        the contents plus the root password plus the method of attack
      * I am going to push for this to only be for 1-2 weeks tops

I'd love some feedback from people on what further preps I should
undertake.

I know that sounds very open ended but should I really trust the default
installation to be safe enough?

Of course, a public system like this is always open to naughtiness but
legitimising it is really scary.


-- 
Simon Wong
Dependable Technologies Pty Ltd
ABN 35 108 656 131

simon at dt.net.au  | www.dt.net.au
mob 0438 609 011 | ph +61 7 3367 0847 | fax +61 7 3009 0431

* Dependable IT Solutions *



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