No option to encrypt home folder when adding new user via GUI

[Rüdiger Kupper]

Component: user-accouns

When adding a new user via the "user accounts" GUI of gnome-control-center, there is no option to encrypt the new users's home folder.
In contrast, the option is supported via the CLI ("adduser --encrypt-home").
The GUI should support this option, too.

I consider this a security vulnerability mainly for the following reason:

During installation, the ubiquity installer offers the option to encrypt the first administrator's home folder. Having chosen this option, the administrator is likely to assume that new users will be created with the same level of security. (At least, I did. I double-checked just out of curiosity and was very surprised that the new user's home was unencrypted.)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.4.2-0ubuntu0.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-26.41-generic-pae 3.2.19
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-26-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu11
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Jul 23 16:44:27 2012
InstallationMedia: Edubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120423)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_gnome-control-center:
 activity-log-manager-control-center 0.9.4-0ubuntu3
 deja-dup 22.0-0ubuntu2
 gnome-bluetooth 3.2.2-0ubuntu5
 indicator-datetime 0.3.94-0ubuntu2

[Tyler Hicks (tyhicks)]

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but this appears to be a "regular" (non-security) bug. I have unmarked it as a security issue since this bug does not directly cause loss of data/privacy.

You can use 'adduser --encrypt-home' to add a user with an encrypted home directory. It would be a nice feature if the gnome-control-center could configure encrypted home directories, but that is a missing feature and not a vulnerability.