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From: Mitchell Blank Jr <mitch@sfgoth.com>
To: John R Moser <jmoser5@student.ccbc.cc.md.us>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Small security option
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 18:25:11 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20030918012511.GI1086@gaz.sfgoth.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.A32.3.91.1030917204729.33040A-200000@student.ccbc.cc.md.us>

John R Moser wrote:
> Some sysadmins like to disable the other boot devices and password-protect
> the bios.  Good, but if the person can pass init=, you're screwed. 

1. If you have physical access to the machine you're screwed anyway (boot
   from a CD... if BIOS is password-protected just temporarily put the
   harddrive in another machine)

2. In the relatively rare cases that you have physical access to the console
   but not the machine (locked down kiosks or secured lab settings) you can
   (and should) secure the bootloader.  This prevents any malicious command
   line options (think "root=my.nfs.server:/toolkit") not just "init=".

So this patch is basically pointless.

-Mitch

  parent reply	other threads:[~2003-09-18  1:16 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2003-09-18  0:55 John R Moser
2003-09-18  1:11 ` Rene Rebe
2003-09-18  1:25 ` Mitchell Blank Jr [this message]
2003-09-18  1:25 ` Chris Wright
2003-09-18  6:11   ` bert hubert
2003-09-18 11:15 ` Richard B. Johnson

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