booting with 'single' option

[Eamonn Sullivan]

On 26/09/05, Duncan Lithgow <duncan at lithgow-schmidt.dk> wrote:
> In order to rescue myself from a full /home dir I added 'single' to the
> boot string. I'm a bit troubled by the fact that it let me in with
> administrator privileges without asking for a password. Is that normal
> behaviour?

Yes. Someone with physical access to your computer can do anything
they want. They stick a liveCD in it and mount from there. They can
carry your hard disk home with them too.

I see this a lot, but I just don't understand how adding a password to
change boot options would really add to security, other than
momentarily slowing someone down. Am I missing something?

You can secure your BIOS by requiring a password, take out the CD and
floppy and carry your hard disk home with you at night. That would
increase security, and is completely operating system independent.

-Eamonn