Everyone keeps talking about the security... what about the chance that he will accidently wipe his hard drive, and if yours is a mounted directory he has write access to, some of yours as well???
(back to security.) how about when someone writes a virus that actually works well for linux?? he will trash his whole system, you will most likely just trash your users files... If none of that convinces him, then tell him to take the seatbelts and doors off his car and go hooning at 100mph... he would probably do it... An extra note. Root on a unix box was added for security purposes, not admin purposes... if it was for admin, any authed user could do it... They wanted to limit the damage normal users could do. Root/admin on a windows box was added as an after thought.. (copied (badly) from unix I suspect.) and its as much a tool to deligate admin tasks as it is a security precaution.. after all, in one of Microshafts latest OS's all users are root.. The solution??? block his PC from yours in your firewall rules.. and put his IP in /etc/hosts.deny (with ALL: in front of it) :-) rgds Franki -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of FemmeFatale Sent: Monday, 3 February 2003 12:03 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] OT?, help convince my b/f running as root is bad! At 02:58 AM 2/3/2003 +0100, you wrote: >Hi. > ><Snipped irrelevant entries & redundant stuffs> >Another point regarding his ignorance regarding security is: If he has >to access your computer (file sharing, login, whatever...), consider >his computer untrusted (i.e. owned by some script kiddie) and apply >appropriate (tight) access restrictions accordingly. > >Make him use different passwords for your computer, if he has an >account for it (because the password for his computer has to be >considered to be already logged by some script kiddie). And so on. > >In other words: imply his machine as untrusted as you would if it >operated by some malicious stranger - because maybe it is, and he >doesn't seem to care enough. > >Bye, > > Benjamin. > > Heh, thx Benjamin. On the bright side we've got a router up & running. I'll work on him & hopefully get him to see the error of his way. Tho that is hard to do cause I run as Admin on 2k. Mostly b/c 2k doesn't handle multi-users very well IMO. *sigh* Fwiw, when he first came to live here, I told him I'm going to do my utmost to secure our LAN. And that I wouldn't allow him to compromise it if at all possible. With luck I can use that argument again & with yours in there too, it may sway him. :) Thx luv ------------- FemmeFatale Good Decisions You boss Made: "We'll do as you suggest and go with Linux. I've always liked that character from Peanuts." - Source: Dilbert
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