shared computer question

macflymacfly
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
just wondering....i am thinking about starting a user account on a colleagues computer. of course he is the root user but i am not sure if this means he can also have access to my email. i know he can change whatever permissions at will so will this allow him to take my email and read it?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    macflymacfly Posts: 256member
    anyone? bueler?
  • Reply 2 of 7
    glitchglitch Posts: 22member
    Yes, as root he would be able to read your email.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    On ANY shared computer system, SOMEONE always has access to everything on the machine.

    In a large-scale setting, this person is usually an IT administrator.

    In a single computer it would be the owner of that computer... (or whoever first set it up.)

    However, they may not know that they have access to your files .... or how to get to them...
  • Reply 4 of 7
    macflymacfly Posts: 256member
    but how would he be able to read it? i tried it out by setting up two different accounts on my powerbook. i reset the permissions on the other mail files and made a copy of the mailboxes and put them in the public drop box. when i went in through the other account and double clicked the imapmbox file it started up mail and displayed what email was in there for a split second and then it disappeared. i could not actually read anything. i tried replacing the mailbox file in my account with the new one and the same thing happened. i could not actually read anything. are u sure this can be done?
  • Reply 5 of 7
    rara Posts: 623member
    If he is running his account as root, then he has access to EVERYTHING. Only about .0000001% of users ever run their account as root (not the smartest thing to do).
  • Reply 6 of 7
    giaguaragiaguara Posts: 2,724member
    use encryption on your emails if you are paranoid about that.



    i send the emails i dont want any ISW people to see always encypted.





    GnuPG works fine, you could use PGP or Thawte too.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    macfly ....



    logging in as "root" is DIFFERENT from logging in as the origional "administrator" user.



    basically, "root" bypasses all of the protections UNIX imposes on a multi-user system... If you don't know how to log in as root, then you probably shouldn't do it anyway ...the possibility to really screw things up is pretty easy at that point.
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