[K12OSN] Security of Local Win2K Boxes when using K12LTSP

[Tom Haynes]

-----Original Message-----
From: k12osn-admin at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-admin at redhat.com]On Behalf
Of Ken Meyer
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 1:30 AM
To: K12OSN
Subject: [K12OSN] Security of Local Win2K Boxes when using K12LTSP


Recently, the net admin at one of the community colleges I am attending
(senior tuition waiver) told me that there had been damage to system files
on some classroom Win2K boxes.  He alleges this was due to some of the more
knowledgeable and well-trained students booting Knoppix and similar distros,
which ignore the Win2K permissions and allow such mischief, though I am not
sure how he is so sure that it was hackers powered by Linux that did the
damage.

--snip--


FWIW, I have a floppy labeled "rootboot" that I got off the web somewhere.
It resets the passwords on a win2K box. It works with NTFS, compressed
drives, etc. and it works well. I can imagine that students have access to
similar floppies, and once you change a password, you own the box and can do
anything you want.

Any idiot and his brother could probably mess with an NTFS partiton with the
right Knoppix-style boot disk. It could also be done from floppy but would
require command line familiarity.

Regards...   Tom