sudo GUI frontend

[Joel Rees]

This touches on one of my gripes about Fedora (and RHE) -- the GUI  
authentication stuff is oriented towards su instead of sudo.

On Aug 20, 2008, at 8:21 PM, Anne Wilson wrote:

> On Wednesday 20 August 2008 12:05:34 Gilboa Davara wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> Can anyone please point me to a good sudo GUI front-end? (Password
>> dialog box).
>> While I'm using KDE 4.1, I don't mind using a gtk box.
>>
>> I tried using kdesu with or w/o the kdesurc - but it doesn't seem to
>> work.
>>
> '/bin/su -' does work, though in some cases you will need to add $u  
> (or is
> it %U?).


These su dialogues requires the user to know the root password.

If the user knows the root password, the user can log in as root. If  
the user picks up a keylogger and authenticates, whoever owned that  
keylogger now owns the machine. If you think carelessly, you might  
think that a running keylogger implies that the machine is already  
pwned, but you're ignoring the non-ideal behaviors of browser  
technology.

Also, there's the less tangible benefit, in that the correct use of  
sudo raises the general awareness that we shouldn't surf the web  
naked. (So to speak.)

--
Joel Rees