Root account

Pete Holsberg pjh42 at verizon.net
Thu Apr 19 15:33:29 UTC 2007


Brian Fahrlander keyed the following on 4/19/2007 1:49 AM:
>  -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
>
>  Pete Holsberg wrote:
> > Brian Fahrlander keyed the following on 4/18/2007 8:27 PM:
>
> > logwatch? Where do I get it?
>
>  It's in the repos.

I'm new to Ubuntu-land. What are repos?

> >> you'll see just how bad it is.  It's also a good reason to use
> >> usernames with parts of the first AND last names, not just
> >> "george" and a password of "password".  They try them by the
> >> millions per day, literally.

> > That's very interesting. I used to admin a Unix system -- started
> > out in an AT&T 3B2 and ended up on a Sparc running Solaris.
> > Usernames were assigned by a script; first 7 chars of the last name
> > plus first initial was the default simplest case, but friends got
> > whatever they wanted, usually their initials. I've had no reports
> > of any successful break-ins!

>  Ah, the 3B2; I remember hearing you'd GET one of those things, and
>  500 acres of land, if you'd move to Australia where they were trying
>  to set up a think-tank of some sort.

Hah! Bell Labs gave us two and 10 Unix PCs around 1984 with Writers 
Workbench for our English department.

>  If your Sun box isn't on the net,

The machine with that domain name (and I'm not saying what it is) has 
been on the Internet since 1986 when we were using a phone line and a 
proprietary 19,200 modem!

>  you probably won't notice them. But every night-or-two I get a
>  boatload of requests, which are all meaningless, since I use
>  RSA-keys-only.  But for those that don't know, they need to.

> > None reported so far.

>  Let's try to keep it that way.  :>  The script idea is a great thing;
>  when these guys try, they try several hundred combinations which
>  usually include "admin" and "test".  I actually got compromised on
>  one of those, once.  :/

> >> I've used Unix since 1989; trust me- great idea to keep it the
> >> default way.

> > Got you by 3 years! :-) But I'm just getting back into it after a
> > Windows-only period of more than 6 years!!

>  Well, I learned, one autumn day that Unix was WAY advanced over DOS;

Did you ever play with 4DOS on your PC. Very Bourne-shell-like!

>  I worked out a text file containing my resume and "lp filename" and
>  waited for the huge daisywheel to start flying.  A guy came looking
>  for me, "Hey- did one of you send a print to our New Mexico
>  location?"
>
>  :stun:
>
>  We were still salivating over one of the contractors getting a new
>  386 with an entire FOUR megs of ram....and this machine's connected
>  cross-country!
>
>  My start in computers was wiring Z80's in my bedroom...I used to
>  strain to listen to other people who said the word "computer" in the
>  restaurants....now I cringe when I hear it; it's always a virus.  :/

Our first CP/M PCs were Z80-based units from TDL. But a friend and I 
built an IMSAI and stuck a Z80 board in it. Full 64K RAM, too!

>  It's been a long, strange trip, I can tell ya that much.

Indeed!






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