XKCD: It's more than a comic

Even when you have to take a leak?

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Quite honestly? Yes. Though I also physically lock my computer. With a lock.

"The marvel is not that the Bear posts well, but that the Bear posts at all."

I would probably have that problem. With my eminently more steal-able phone.

Well, it's always logged in to Facebook and emails anyway.

"Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri, quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes."

I took the trouble of deleting my smartphone's email accounts other than the passworded Hotmail app one when I noticed the basic Mail app didn't allow not saving the password.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

First off, my email's got its own password, so if someone steals my phone they ONLY get my email. Second off, I have a desktop rather than a laptop and still don't stay logged in to anything financially or save such passwords. Third, the strip is still hilarious.

((Although of course what he's ignoring is that that's not the real reason the whole "admin account for installing things" to exists—it's not there to protect you, it's there to allow the IT department to stop the masses from wrecking their computers and installing viruses. I assume.))

Your funny quote here! (Maybe)

FWIW, there are the options of either having a password on BIOS (which is still potentially bypassable by draining the CMOS battery) or going whole-hog with an encrypted harddrive. But yeah, most of us aren't going to go nearly that far. Heck, I have a hard time using separate password for the various important services...

And with it, possibly your passwords to some websites. Getting your e-mail is very dangerous.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

The best security yet is not to store personal identifying information like your social security number or your bank account numbers on your PC. Just assume that someone is going to get your account ID, sooner or later, and work from there.

That kind of stuff is best kept offline anyways :V

I don't really care too much if someone breaks into my Yahoo! mailbox for the fourth time, I already have my Gmail account set with a different password.

The three finest things in life are to splat your enemies, drive them from their turf, and hear their lamentations as their rank falls!

If someone has physical access to your computer, you have to assume that they could break any security that you have in place. There are things you can do to make it harder, but the enemy of security is time. Locking your screen before leaving it alone is a stopgap; it deters casual intrusion but not anyone serious about it.

The thing about requiring an admin password to modify your computer settings isn't for anti-hacker security; it's about stopping technophobes from accidentally uninstalling their operating system and stuff like that. It can also be a safeguard against external intrusion (email viruses and crap like that), but not physical access.

edited 17th Apr '13 6:38:18 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Long story short, if they can steal your device (and they're determined enough to actually do it), you're boned.

edited 17th Apr '13 6:39:23 AM by KylerThatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Though I would note that some peoples' credit cards and wallets wouldn't be harder to steal and raid than their computers and phones.

Certainly know which ones I'm more attached to.

edited 17th Apr '13 7:30:18 AM by UltimatelySubjective

"Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri, quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes."

And, as pointed out in a previous strip, lead pipes are a lot cheaper than super-computers when it comes to cracking passwords.

You mean like "Either I break your account, or I break you"?

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Security did touch on another aspect of computer security.

If they want your password then the weakest part of the system may be you.

"Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri, quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes."

It's known in some circles as argumentum ad baculum.

In any security system, the people are always the weakest link.

edited 17th Apr '13 7:35:00 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Many accounts can be broken by simply guessing the password. Simply because people like to choose passwords that they can remember easily. There were some xkcd scripts about this. Such as here and here.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.

At the very least, if the people aren't the weakest link, you're doing something wrong.

Or Rubber-hose cryptanalysis

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Indeed. It'd be easy to keep the data safe if those pesky humans didn't want access to it again later.

Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?

The dichotomy between user and admin accounts is a relic of multi-user systems, and only particularly relevant on systems where multiple users actually log in. If you're actually fastidious about using an unprivileged account for normal use, then it might confer some extra security, but that's not a huge bonus.

And the thing about locking your screen is that (if implemented properly) it'll require the thief to shut down the computer and use a boot disk or something to get access, which wipes out passwords in memory. Of course, this is only actually useful if you use whole-disk encryption.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

The real advantage of using non-privileged users on single user systems is that it protects better against malware, It doesn't prevent them getting on to your computer, but it prevents them getting themselves deep into the system, unless you unwittingly give them root privileges.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.

It prevents them from sneaking into your system at user level, yes. It can't do much about software exploits, though.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Integration by Parts

Calculus ;_;

Moon◊

I just had an exam with those types of problems...

People are mirrors. If you smile, a smile will be reflected.