User privacy

[Robert Heller]

At Tue, 16 Feb 2021 23:23:30 +0800 "Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> Content-Type: text/plain
> 
> On 16/02/2021, Volker Wysk <post at volker-wysk.de> wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > Am Dienstag, den 16.02.2021, 14:18 +0000 schrieb Ian Bruntlett:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I'm sorting out an existing Lubuntu 18.04 laptop for a mother and
> >> daughter. At the moment when I run umask I get the result "0002" which I
> >> believe means that different users can read each other's files in their
> >> $HOME directories. They want to stop each other from reading their files.
> >>
> >> Now I have a rough idea on how to arrange this. I believe a different
> >> umask value has to be specified however I don't know:-
> >> * What value of umask to use
> >> * Where to set that value so that it is set as the default on
> >> bootup/login.
> >
> > You don't need to touch the umask. Just delete the permissions for "others"
> > on the home directories:
> >
> > chmod o-rwx /home/HOMEDIR1
> > chmod o-rwx /home/HOMEDIR2
> >
> > Bye,Volker
> >
> 
> Is it "others" or "group"?

I believe the default for most Linux distros is to put each user in their own
group -- old school UNIX "default" was to put all users in the group "users"
OR at the admin's discretion to put each working group into their own group.
Assuming a stock Ubuntu install, then there is little reason to mess with the
group perms on the home directories. Only the user (u) and others (o) will
have much meaning/effect.

> 
> I preferred it when it was numbers; the 777 system, so, for example,
> chmod 007
> .
> 

You can still do that if you want.

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