Never type your administrator password again!

francisg3

I always get annoyed having to type in my password every time I update Safari, install a new program, etc.



In addition, no one uses this machine other than me.



So now, I've reset my password to nothing. Blank. Every time I get asked for my password I hit "Enter."



Try it, you'll like it.

mrmister

Herm. Well, it kind of FUBAR's some of the safety net passwords are supposed to give...but on the other hand, if root still has a password, can you do too much damage?



The answer is probably yes, but for some folks who are OK with this, it is efficient.

francisg3

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmister

Herm. Well, it kind of FUBAR's some of the safety net passwords....

I've thought about that. It's not like you're disabling the password process altogether, just that you're choosing an easy password.



On my iMac, I just love never having to lift my hand off the mouse - I just hit the enter key with my right thumb.

kickaha

Quote:

Originally posted by francisG3

I've thought about that. It's not like you're disabling the password process altogether, just that you're choosing an easy password.

Ayup. And guess what every cracking script tries first? An empty password. Next is 'password'.



I really can't recommend AGAINST this practice highly enough. You're just setting yourself up for cracking by any random script kiddie that comes along.

placebo

Quote:

Originally posted by Kickaha

Ayup. And guess what every cracking script tries first? An empty password. Next is 'password'.



I really can't recommend AGAINST this practice highly enough. You're just setting yourself up for cracking by any random script kiddie that comes along.

Thanks to the eye-candy sheet animation in OS X, hacking passwords just got a little more difficult.



If you really want to protect yourself against disctionary attacks, th3n wr1t3 l1k3 th1s. It works.

luca

Or just come up with a basically random string of numbers and letters and use that. They're harder to remember, but once you memorize them, they're extremely hard to crack.

dmband0026

Are you really that lazy that you can't type in your password? Even if no one else uses your machine, your leaving yourself open to a whole world of problems there. Just use a password. It's stupid not to.

ibrowse

"We've advanced our nuclear missile program and found a way to cut out some of the extra steps, making it much easier to manage. First off, you no longer need to turn the key and press these buttons to fire a missile, just flip this switch and it's on it's way. Not only that, we've put the switch where everybody has access to it."

francisg3

Whew! I can feel the heat. ss



Are you trying to tell me someone over the internet is going to hack into my computer unless I have a password on my OS X account?



Maybe I need an education here. In OS 9, there was no such thing as a password. And I don't remember people ever getting their OS 9 machines hacked into. It never was a concern, actually.



Now that I'm in OS X, I have an easy password, and now I'm vulnerable ?



If I boot into OS 9, am I safer, or more at risk?

ghost_user_name

You're no more at-risk than you were with OS9.

But you're no safer, too. That's the big thing.



The big push with security in Mac OS X is to make it safer than Classic Mac OS was. In Classic, you ran everything as root. You and any of your software were free to do anything destructive that they wanted. Anything could go in and trash the System Folder and other important goodies. The security structure in Mac OS X is set up to stop that.



There aren't any efforts that I know of that are out there trying to crack Mac users in particular. This is all about taking preventative measures, though. It's like insurance. Sure, you may not think you need it today, but in the event of a freak disaster, you're going to be kicking yourself hard for not making that small effort.

ghost_user_name

You guys want to guess my password...



You wont get it...



Because I am a safe computer user that does not like to run the risk of an unprotected system.



Unix-like systems are great for staying safe.

c-bear

I don't get why typing in a simple password is so much of a hassle that one opts not to do it and leave themselves (even marginally) vulnerable?

alcimedes

Quote:

So now, I've reset my password to nothing. Blank. Every time I get asked for my password I hit "Enter."

so.....



what IP address you connecting from?

cybermonkey

Quote:

Originally posted by alcimedes

so.....



what IP address you connecting from?

Naughty moderator, trying to bait this unsuspecting fellow

kickaha

To add to what Brad said...



Under Classic (9), everything (security, FTP, web serving, file sharing) was Apple's own proprietary protocols. Sure, people could go find out enough to crack them, but no one bothered. Too few computers.



Now, we're using the *same* protocols as everyone else, more or less, which means that the same tools that the crackers have built to get access to Unix boxen around the globe can now be targeted at us. Whoo.



But.



The tools and protocols we're using offer a pretty darned spiffy amount of protection *if* you use a little prevention and common sense.



A blank password satisfies neither.



For instance, one could (heck, *I* could) sniff traffic on your network (say, your ISP's public traffic?), and see your IP, see your username when you access your mail elsewhere, and say "Hmmm... I wonder if..." and *blam*, I can log in as you, and do anything to your files you can. Fun, huh? IP addresses and user names are frequently *not* sent hidden, because the protection is in... you guessed it... having a good password. You're basically advertising your IP and username on a regular basis, and having zero password protection only makes you vulnerable is someone *does* decide to target you.



Is it *likely*? Well heck, I dunno - I'm on a good ISP, and see a crack attempt a couple times a month into my server. (I see Windows virus attacks a dozen times a day...)



So, changed it to something non-empty yet?

pensieve

Francis, without being too blunt, this is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You still have to enter something, it's just one keypress instead of 8 or 9. Is it really that fast? Personally, I LIKE knowing what needs to install stuff in non-usual places.

lungaretta

I thought i'd add a word of advice if you are using a simple (or blank) password for your administrator account: turn off any services that you have running under sharing.

the MOST important being "Remote Login" which allows A.N.Other to ssh into your machine and sudo all sorts of things which you REALLY don't want to happen.

bauman

Quote:

Originally posted by lungaretta

I thought i'd add a word of advice if you are using a simple (or blank) password for your administrator account: turn off any services that you have running under sharing.

the MOST important being "Remote Login" which allows A.N.Other to ssh into your machine and sudo all sorts of things which you REALLY don't want to happen.

And please put your firewall up.

code master

I f you don't want to be enetring passwords, can't you set your keychain to be always unlocked so that you enter the password at login, and everything is open from that session?

ryaxnb

Quote:

Originally posted by francisG3

I always get annoyed having to type in my password every time I update Safari, install a new program, etc.



In addition, no one uses this machine other than me.



So now, I've reset my password to nothing. Blank. Every time I get asked for my password I hit "Enter."



Try it, you'll like it.

I only make my admin password more then 0 characters when a program doesn't work without it (some programs, like delocalizer, NEED you to have a password.)

P.S. While writing most of this post I saw a McAffee VirusScan PC ad. How ironic, Mac OS X v10.1 and later don't have any viruses!

ghost_user_name

Quote:

Originally posted by ryaxnb

How ironic, Mac OS X v10.1 and later don't have any viruses!

10.0 has viruses? I never read about any.