[techtalk] request for ideas

[Just This Girl]

No, the disk would not automatically execute, but if you allow Linux to
boot up off of floppy, and someone else sticks their floppy in that
drive then hard-reboots the computer, you have an issue.

Also, who the hell knows what is on that floppy disk that could
contaminate or crack your system? If you allow it to automount, you are
taking a risk that there is a program on that disk designed to exploit
security holes which the user can now execute as the floppy has been
mounted.

Ideally, for the paranoid of us, one would set their bios to boot off
the harddrive only, password-protect bios, and continue to leave
mount/umount of the floppy device solely under the control of root.


Jim Browning wrote:
> 
> Just This Girl wrote:
> 
> > I rather like the security of having to mount/umount, and having to have
> root
> > access to do so. It prevents suspect users from inserting boot disks that
> could
> > have undesired consequences.
> 
> Now I'll really show my lack of Linux familiarity, but are you saying that
> "mounting" the drive performs the same function as an autostart ("winspeak")
> function? So that a boot disk inserted into an automounted drive would
> automatically execute? The manner in which I'm accustomed to thinking of
> "mounting" a drive is for the operating system to be instructed to become
> aware of its existence (like the concept of DOS "mounting" a double-space
> compressed drive) - but not execute files/programs on that drive until
> instructed to do so.
> 
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