http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/show_bug.cgi?id=3789





------- Additional Comments From [EMAIL PROTECTED]  2003-26-06 12:53 -------
I notice that you continue to speak of an "increase" in security, as opposed to
taking a further security measure.  Instead of thinking of security as a matter
of degree, think of it as sets of measures that can be taken, depending on the
circumstances.

It is immaterial whether it's called, or in the exact form of, a "question
tree".  The number of questions should be small.  I listed four possibilites
above.  Sure, five max. sounds good to me.

Few people "like" to fill in questionnaires.  But I like less finding that my
newly-installed system is not usable for my purposes, and having to do searches
for what might be causing the problem, read through a lot of documentation, and
make guesses, to fix it.  

It seems to me that the configuration dialogs for msec are very much like very
long questionnaires, with questions that many users would find very hard to
understand.

Some of the issues I mentioned cannot be answered by the setup program itself. 
For instance, only the user knows whether other people are going to have access
to the console, and how trustworthy they are.  Such issues are germaine to
security setup, so it would be good for msec to obtain this information from the
user.

For me, this is not a small matter.  Msec issues remain my worst problem with
this release.

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------- Reminder: -------
assigned_to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
status: NEW
creation_date: 
description: 
I have a problem with the notion that system security is so simple it can be
described by a single number, 0 - 5.

I run my desktop machine heavily as a single user in an appartment where I live
alone, and I run the machine as a web server.

Level 4 won't let me run my server, but level 5 does all sorts of bad things to
me as a user!  Msec wants to time-out my terminal sessions as though somebody
were going to walk by and see some vital information.  It locks my primary user
out of vital services.  It won't let me log in as root. (granted, some of these
are just bugs in the ability to re-configure the settings, but they're wrong to
begin with).

I propose that you re-think your security criteria.  As a suggestion, consider
asking several questions, such as:
   Degree of access to console: 
        (1 person, a few trusted people, a few untrustworthy people, anybody)
   Internet exposure
        (none, behind a firewall, direct)
   Servers
        (none, or list)
   Importance of info
        (unimportant, personal, highly desirable financial records...)
Some options shouldn't be possible: for example, a machine containing personal
information shouldn't have its console available to just anybody.

Based on a small number of questions, a reasonable security scheme can be worked
out.  But I don't think a few "security levels" can capture the complexity of
the problem.

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