The locked-down desktop

[Robert Brockway]

On Sun, 15 May 2005, Mike Newman wrote:

> As for auto-login: I agree that it's not exactly difficult to log in,
> but most people I know will just create one account with no password
> and share it with everyone in the household. Worse yet is that the
> account invariably has administrator privileges

IMHO we as knowledgeable users/professionals have a responsibility to 
discourage bad habits such as this.  Afterall they don't know any better, 
but we do.  We should try to prevent them from being drawn into a 
situation which allows them to shoot themselves in the foot rather than 
encouraging them to go down that road.  People accept that they can drive 
a car better if they learn good technique.  The same is true of computers 
of course and the sooner non-technical users realise this the less pain 
they will experience when using computers (and to be honest many non-techs 
do understand this).

> Frankly the best solution is for people to recognize that computers
> are serious machines and that some degree of education is necessary to
> use them responsibly. However, some people simply refuse to get
> informed while insisting on having access to the services that a
> modern personal computer provides.

Fair enough.  If you explain to users why they should login, and use 1 
account per user and not use root access except when necessary then you
have done the right thing.  If they go ahead and follow the wrong path 
anyway it is up to them.

What I object to is for techs who know better to setup a system the wrong 
way in the first place (eg, providing auto-login on the belief users want 
this).

Ultimately the owners/administrators of a machine do have the right to 
ignore any advice provided and have their machines setup however they 
wish.  Professionally, if someone continues to insist on doing something 
the wrong way I will issue my objections in writing.

Cheers,
	Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc.
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: +1-416-669-3073 Email: rbrockway-wgAaPJgzrDxH4x6Dk/4f9A at public.gmane.org http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest (http://www.spi-inc.org)
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