Issues w/ Gnome "lock screen" applet in FC5?

[wwp]

Hello Philip,


On Thu, 11 May 2006 12:14:46 -0600 Philip Prindeville <philipp_subx at redfish-solutions.com> wrote:

> Aaron Konstam wrote:
> > On Wed, 2006-05-10 at 23:28 -0600, Philip Prindeville wrote:
> >   
> >> Is there an issue with the "Lock screen" applet thingie that
> >> plugs into the upper panel?  I tried enabling it, and while
> >> clicking on it brings up the screen saver, it doesn't seem to
> >> lock the screen at all (not in a password-protected way).
> >>
> >> I've checked "lock screen when screen saver is active".
> >>
> >> Click "lock screen" on the applet's menu only brings up
> >> the screen saver.
> >>
> >> What am I missing?
> >>
> >> -Philip
> >>
> >>     
> > Are you doing this as root where the screen can not be locked.
> >   
> 
> Yes, I'm logged in as root...  Which seems to me when you MOST want to
> protect a machine against unauthorized access.  Right?

Wrong :-). Running as root is at least two vulnerabilities more: first if
someone get access to your keyboard, (s)he has root access. And, if any
(networked or not) software you run as root contains malicious code or has a
backdoor/hole that can be exploited by another malicious software, the
malicious code get root access to the whole system. You should run as a
'normal' user (non-root) and su to root when you need to perform sysadmin
tasks only.

Such topic has been widely discussed and nowadays' systems try to restrict
what root can do (such as getting access to the display, like in your
situation). Of course no-one can force you to avoid being root :-).


Regards,

-- 
wwp
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