securing an Ubuntu box in a shared office?

[Florian Diesch]

Eric Hanchrow <offby1 at blarg.net> wrote:

>>>>>> "Anonyma" == Anonyma  <anon-bounces at deuxpi.ca> writes:
>
>     Anonyma> I know that anyone who can get into a computer can make
>     Anonyma> it insecure (by putting the hard drive in another machine
>
> Encrypting the hard drive should protect against that.  Look at the
> "encfs" package.
>
>     Anonyma> 1.  set a BIOS password
>
> I suspect that doesn't really protect against anything.

It protects against an attacker changing your boot device order to boot
from some removable media.


>     Anonyma> 2.  set a GRUB password so no-one else can boot it into
>     Anonyma>    single-user mode
>
> Ditto -- if they might take out your hard disk, then you gain little
> by preventing them from logging in as root.

At least they *have to* take out the hard disk which is much more
difficult and conspicuous than just rebooting.


> Anyhow, doesn't booting single-user demand a password anyway?

Using the "init=/bin/bash" kernel parameter doesn't.



   Florian
-- 
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/>