Re: Mac OS 9 Idle Lock Bug

From: gabriel rosenkoetter (grat_private)
Date: Fri Oct 29 1999 - 13:57:35 PDT

  • Next message: Zachary Keane: "Re: Mac OS 9 Idle Lock Bug"

    On Fri, Oct 29, 1999 at 09:57:18AM +0200, Flothow, Sebastian wrote:
    > so you can log out the current user and quit all apps without having to
    > enter a password? i think this is the real security flaw, not apps which ask
    > wether you want to save changes.
    
    No, the dialogs still show up if you try to quit from that logout
    screen, which means that you can click cancel in any of them, cancel the
    logout process, and have access to the "locked" machine.
    
    Having the logout button quit apps is no different than having a logout
    button in xlock, and is a regular practice in any crowded lab. (The one
    here doesn't show up for half an hour.) It's not fair for others to
    occupy a machine they're not actually using in a lab.
    
    I'll grant that Mac OS 9 is a little bit different in that if you have
    some long running process you can't just ssh in and run it, but the only
    kind of long-running process anybody could want to do on a mac is a
    Photoshop filter (or similar).
    
    This will be an incredible boon to people who run labs full of macs for
    students at universities, provided Apple gets their act together so that
    it isn't blatantly insecure (defeating the purpose of having a locking
    procedure at all).
    
           ~ g r @cs.swarthmore.edu
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 15:09:18 PDT