Yet Another useful paper

The Beach Bum jfh at rpp386.Dallas.TX.US
Wed Dec 21 10:37:58 AEST 1988


In article <12750 at bellcore.bellcore.com> karn at ka9q.bellcore.com (Phil Karn) writes:
>I too have my doubts about the effectiveness of shadow password files.  My
>fear is that it will make administrators complacent; they'll reason that
>since no one can get at the file, then there's no need to ensure on a
>regular basis that people pick hard-to-guess passwords.

I feel that shadow password files [ and I run one here ... ] raise the
amount of desparation required for an attempt to succeed.  Now, short of
a physical breakin, one would need to sit at a login prompt for quite some
time before getting a password broken.

Before the user didn't even need a shell login to steal the password file,
a UUCP login would have done.  This has been changed ...
-- 
John F. Haugh II                        +-Quote of the Week:-------------------
VoiceNet: (214) 250-3311   Data: -6272  |"Unix doesn't have bugs,
InterNet: jfh at rpp386.Dallas.TX.US       | Unix is a bug"
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