Well, let's assume that the box does not have removable media.

This scenario reminds me of a conversation me and a workmate had about
self-destructing hard drives: wire the "case open" switch to a blasting cap
embedded in C4 or magnesium surrounding the hard drive. And then use a
rechargeable battery to keep the circuit powered. :)

What would be a cool LKM is doing a similar function in software; a
self-destruct module that kicks off when someone changes the root password
in single user mode and wipes the drive.

Ok, it's Friday... :)

John Hebert

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Harney
To: [email protected]
Sent: 9/19/03 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: [brlug-general] Is there a kernel patch to stop single user m
ode?

Mat Branyon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

and a BIOS password can be bypassed as well.  (remove the hard drive.
reset the BIOS)  better to just protect rom physical intrusion unless
your "threat model" is a relatively unskilled/unkowledgable attacker
that would be easily thwarted by a grub/lilo password.



> That being the case, a BIOS password would be needed as well.  I could
> always pop in a knoppix cd and steal john's computer data ;)
>
> --mat
>
> On Fri, 2003-09-19 at 11:36, Kevin Bucknum wrote:
>> >
>> >Is there a way to stop someone with physical access to the box 
>> >from booting
>> >into single user mode and changing the root password? I'm not 
>> >interested in
>> >solutions that require setting a boot or poweron password in 
>> >the BIOS. I'd
>> >like something that could be done in the Linux kernel, so as 
>> >to apply to
>> >multiple platforms.
>> 
>> Both Grub and Lilo have password options to prevent access.  Downside
is if
>> the machine has to reboot due to power issues someone will have to be
at he
>> console.  If the machine has bootable removable media then nothing
will
>> prevent it however.   
>> 
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-- 
Scott Harney<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"...and one script to rule them all."
gpg key fingerprint=7125 0BD3 8EC4 08D7 321D CEE9 F024 7DA6 0BC7 94E5

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