Shoutbox

Today i did something weird...

A friend of mine gave me his laptop at school, I go down to the library, plug it, turn it on (everything's fine so far) then poof i get to the login screen and the *beeep* didn't tell me he had a password...

Lazy as i am, i didn't feel like going around looking for him so i decided to try to be a 1337 haXX0r () and bypass the password using elementary (aka lucky) means. I type in various random things... nothing works, and on top of that there was no hint so i just gave up... or did I?

I reboot the pc into safe mode and ... ( ) it never asks me for a password... "sweet" i think, then i realise that i probably won't be able to access most of the stuff on the computer if im not logged in normally... so just out of further curiosity i open the accounts window where you can change the password... and... surprisingly enough, you can just change it without any problem then reboot normally and go in...

Now my question is... why? What's the point of having one then?

I knew there were rather "easy" ways of bypassing the password... but this just seems... TOO easy.

Yeah i just went to the account place and changed his password, then when i rebooted the new one worked

He obviously did not change the hidden Administrator account.

First Rule in securing your computer, Disable the Administrator account, make another one with a different name and a secure password

quote:

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Originally posted by Ezra
He obviously did not change the hidden Administrator account.

First Rule in securing your computer, Disable the Administrator account, make another one with a different name and a secure password

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Isn't like that with my school's laptops. They changed it, but luckily I'm an admin on my machine . I get up to all sorts of nasty things (no, not pr0n) on my computer and then laugh when the support people can't fix it. It's rather fun, but gets kind of boring.

Lol. Funny story. But what happens if you forget your password ,theres no guest account and no hint. The only (probely not..) way round it is to go into safe mode and change the password.

Yeah well you can also use it "maleciously" which is why i find it weird that it's possible... very dodgy MS... they never told me to take off any administrator account

but i'm prety sure they do tell you to change the admin password while you set up windows.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ningc_Maniac
Today i did something weird...

A friend of mine gave me his laptop at school, I go down to the library, plug it, turn it on (everything's fine so far) then poof i get to the login screen and the *beeep* didn't tell me he had a password...

Lazy as i am, i didn't feel like going around looking for him so i decided to try to be a 1337 haXX0r () and bypass the password using elementary (aka lucky) means. I type in various random things... nothing works, and on top of that there was no hint so i just gave up... or did I?

I reboot the pc into safe mode and ... ( ) it never asks me for a password... "sweet" i think, then i realise that i probably won't be able to access most of the stuff on the computer if im not logged in normally... so just out of further curiosity i open the accounts window where you can change the password... and... surprisingly enough, you can just change it without any problem then reboot normally and go in...

Now my question is... why? What's the point of having one then?

I knew there were rather "easy" ways of bypassing the password... but this just seems... TOO easy.

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i know i might be flaming Microsoft again here but i somewhat dont care,  , if you could do that, just goes to show you there's still NO SECURITY in Windows , where as Linux /unix there is  another good reason to switch

i usually limit the spare admin account

quote:

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Originally posted by Demz
i know i might be flaming Microsoft again here but i somewhat dont care,  , if you could do that, just goes to show you there's still NO SECURITY in Windows , where as Linux /unix there is  another good reason to switch

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There IS good security in Windows. The problem is NOT the OS, but the USER himself!!! It is very obvious that if you wish to secure your PC in a proper way that you need to enable ALL the security settings in a proper way, not some of them... All this is even clearly explained in the help sections when you're dealing with the security priveledges of Windows and also in other places like lizard.boy explained. So don't blame microsoft for this, instead blame the user who cba to read something or do something in the proper and logic way... And this is exactly the same as in *NIX.