Privacy

[Robert Heller]

In message <200403120727.58319.wiswp at niue.nu>, Bill Wisse writes:
>On Friday 12 March 2004 07:08, Robert Uhl wrote:
>> Bill Wisse <wiswp at niue.nu> writes:
>> > Gnucash should be password protected.
>>
>> Why?  The OS already handles permissions and security, and does it
>> well.  
>
>The security I'm thinking about is a bit different.
>Example:
>House with one computer .
>Computer is running.

Presumably logged in as 'dad' or 'bill' (NOT 'root'!).

>There comes your son ( and friend) Dad, Dad can I burn my CD?
>Put in CD and start burning, but they can also click on GC and open it, not 
>that I have any secrets but they can.
>Password protected they can't.
>The other two Linux money programs I used before had an option to assign a 
>password.
>
>If anybody knows a solution for this problem ( apart from " don't let him do 
>that , or tell him to log in as a different user) I'll be glad to hear that.

What *specificly* is 'wrong' with 'tell him to log in as a different
user'?  Why is this NOT an option?  It should be the 'obvious' option. 

Unless you have a seriously old machine (say a '486 or a first
generation Pentium) or a machine seriously lacking memory (< 128meg),
there should be no problem for your son to:

1) Type Ctrl-Alt-F2, to get a fresh console, with Login: prompt.

2) Login in (say as 'son' or whatever his name is (billjr?)).

3) Type 'startx -- :1', to fire up a fresh X session.

   Run xcdroast or whatever.

   Logout

4) type Ctrl-Alt-F7 to return to your (sleeping) X session.

*Presumably* you have *your* session protected with a locking screen
saver.

The above leaves your existing session up and running (just sleeping
while you son is burning his CD).  The only down side is the additional
use of resources used.  But this is only a serious problem if your
machine is seriously lacking (eg it is a really old box or badly starved
from memory).

There should in fact be no reason your son shouldn't be able to fire up
GC, just not with *your* checking account, for obvious reasons.  Esp.
is he has his own bank account(s).  *I* had a savings account when I
was in 7th grade (12).  Hell, even a lemonade stand (typical child
business) is a business and there is nothing wrong with the idea using
GC to keeps its bookkeeping straight.

>
>-- 
>Greetings from
>
>/bill at 169 west , 19 south.  
>
>Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact, or fact are
>transmission errors."
>
>     
>
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                                     \/
Robert Heller                        ||InterNet:   heller at cs.umass.edu
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller  ||            heller at deepsoft.com
http://www.deepsoft.com              /\FidoNet:    1:321/153