"Could, for example, a curious/malevolent colleague gain access over lunch
assuming no prior knowledge..." The _shutdown_ part came from follow-up
messages which indicate that accessing a system could be relatively easy if one
could reboot the system.
A curious colleague could gain prior knowledge & use that to exploit the weaknesses more than any one else. More thefts come from within a company than any where else so the assumption of no prior knowledge is FALSE.
Because rebooting would bring the need to unlock the MBR which may not be possible.
Hold on that is totally NOT True. I'll repeat myself one more time. That is only true if one boots the HD but what happens if I boot a pocket sized cd or external USB device ? I'll tell you, having the MBR encrypted will do no good at all because I wouldn't be booting that HD at all. Are you telling me that these machine do not have other drives at all ? I've asked this several times & have gotten no answer.
Andy said: "Even password protecting the BIOS won't keep us out, that only needs an extra reboot to fix."
If one needs to use a pwd to even access the bios then the only way to access the bios is if one clears the cmos. I may be able to do this with a floppy based program or use the jumper on the mobo to clear it but it's not quite as simple as an extra reboot either otherwise I've wasted many hours & users dollars resetting the cmos because they forgot their pwd. If one were to use the security that is already available in XP & on the system's hardware then one certainly would NOT need an Encrypted MBR especially since the other methods are better & cheaper.
Not everyone uses NTFS, although that is certainly an option. Off hand I don't know the degree of encryption, if any, used by NTFS.
Why do you think MSFT is trying to force everyone to NTFS? The file system while not encrypted is inheritably more secure because one can NOT boot a DOS disk & gain COMPLETE access. There is a freeware utility that will allow one to read NTFS partitions but does NOT allow one to make changes & the Pro version is expensive & that does allow one access. Xp Pro can encrypt files also. Even if one could read all the files on a system where are they going to copy them to another floppy disk? The reason I developed XpPe is so I could access, copy & modify all files on a system with an NTFS partition. If I can do it I'm sure there are other people that can do it & it's not as difficult as it use to be.
I don't think I was suggesting that you said it was or wasn't possible, but just
that I hadn't heard that it was... My original question, although perhaps poorly
expressed, was whether people could break through the Windows Screen Saver
password during lunch etc.
Stop & think about how much time they could have at the machine & I said I can get in 5 min. The last time I knew lunch was 30 min or more. If one is only interested in the casual passer by then maybe a screen saver is enough but only if the data that is on the machine is worth almost nothing. If the data is worth anything then skip the screen saver pwd. I bet I could get in without rebooting in 5 min as well.
Not so.... I simply wanted to know if WinXP screen saver password protection was
valid/useful during a lunch break while the system might be unattended.
It all depends on what is on that system. If it's payroll info then I would say definitely not but if it's your game scores then so what.
continued in next post ............
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Wayne D. Johnson
Ashland, OH, USA 44805
<http://www.wavijo.com>
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