Not obvious that giving your account a password is not physical security
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
gnome-control-center (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Low
|
Matthew Paul Thomas | ||
libclass-spiffy-perl (Ubuntu) |
New
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
ubiquity (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Low
|
Matthew Paul Thomas |
Bug Description
If you have a user account with a password, someone with physical access to your computer can still access your account by holding down Shift during startup, choosing recovery mode, and changing your password.
This is an intractable problem. For example, from Microsoft's "10 immutable laws of security": "If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore". <http://
However, probably it isn't obvious to a non-professional that a password alone isn't enough to secure their stuff.
So perhaps, wherever Ubuntu lets you set a password (Ubiquity, System Settings "User Accounts"), it should contain a brief (very brief) explanation of this. Something like: "A password doesn’t protect against someone with physical access to the computer."
Changed in ubiquity (Ubuntu): | |
assignee: | nobody → Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) |
Changed in gnome-control-center (Ubuntu): | |
assignee: | nobody → Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) |
description: | updated |
Changed in ubiquity (Ubuntu): | |
status: | New → Triaged |
importance: | Undecided → Low |
Changed in gnome-control-center (Ubuntu): | |
importance: | Undecided → Low |
status: | New → Triaged |
Changed in ubiquity (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Confirmed → In Progress |
Changed in gnome-control-center (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Triaged → Confirmed |
Changed in ubiquity (Ubuntu): | |
status: | In Progress → Confirmed |
* They can change the password, but not retrieve it (only salted hash is available)
* They will not be able to access personal files, if encryption was enabled (full disk or home directory only)