On 12/30/2013 08:03 PM, Bill Oliver wrote:
On Tue, 31 Dec 2013, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 11:25 PM, Bill Oliver <vendor@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
In linux, is it possible to dictate two different actions upon
login with different passwords?
Short answer: no.
Longer answer: in computing almost anything is possible if you really
want to achieve it. Given that on Unix-style systems, including
Linux, the login program can be changed, you can modify the source
to do what you want. Of course you'll need to have superuser
privileges to install it in place of the system standard. Note that
doing this may well open a can of worms, e.g. you might have to modify
the format of the password file (and hence the library routines that
access it), possibly fiddle with SElinux settings, etc. etc.
If the conditions are relaxed slightly you can get a partial solution
using the standard login: write a Shell startup script (.profile or
whatever) that allows the user to discriminate between the two
modes, e.g. by using a timeout, detecting the initial state of the
Shift (or Control or whatever) key etc., in a way that is hopefully
non-obvious to an observer. Probably not reliable enough for
serious use.
Conclusion: better look for some other way to cover your tracks, and
note that a forensic investigation can be carried out without having
you log in at all.
poc
Yeah, that's what I thought. I'm a little surprised that there hasn't
been a variant of linux developed for areas with intrusive government
surveillance. I recently noticed that the government of Venezuela has
a government-developed distro (Canaima); think there's some back doors
in that? One would think that there would be a movement to provide
anti-governmental variants.
I know there's no perfect security. Back in the day, I had an
acquaintance whose job was to break into houses and install keyloggers
on machines in people's homes. Of course that was back when we still
believed in silly things like search warrants.
Sigh. I guess I'll just have to continue keeping my plans for world
domination on my brother-in-law's computer... (Just kidding, NSA).
One approach is to put your important stuff on an encrypted partition
that is not auto mounted. Mount it only when needed, then unmount it.
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