Password Protection on OS 10.4

[steiney]

Hello All,

I have password protection enabled on my operating system so that I can lock the computer, and also so that a password has to be entered after the computer has been sleeping or has been closed. However, when starting the computer from being powered off, no password is required.

My question is: if the computer is in sleep mode or is closed, if someone powers it off and the turns it back on, will they be able to bypass the password protection?

I know I can set the computer to ask for a password before logging in after startup, but it seems that if the computer is in a password protected sleep, that the sleep image would make the computer remember that it was password protected, and would prompt for a password before logging into my account.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

steiney

 

[grapes911]

I think you are thinking a little too hard about this. I'm not sure why you'd want to rely on some logic as you suggested. Just set your computer to ask for a password when logging in. Is there a reason you don't want to do this?

 

[steiney]

Setting the computer to ask for a password at startup would be the easiest solution. I guess I am mainly curious how it would work without the computer set to ask for the password. I suppose I could find out by sleeping the computer, unplugging it and popping out the battery, then putting in the battery, plugging it in and restarting it.

In terms of a reason for not setting the computer to ask for a password on startup, I like being able to power on the computer, walk away from it, and come back when it is fully booted.

I was just wondering if anyone had specific knowledge one way or the other.

Thanks for your reply though!

 

[grapes911]

I guess I am mainly curious how it would work without the computer set to ask for the password.

It would bypass the password.

In terms of a reason for not setting the computer to ask for a password on startup, I like being able to power on the computer, walk away from it, and come back when it is fully booted.

Don't take this the wrong way, but for someone who wants to password protect their computer when waking from sleep, this doesn't sound very secure.

 

[steiney]

Yeah, that's a good point. The password protection when waking from sleep was originally implemented to thwart pranks and such from my roommates in college. Computers are just way too easily prankable.

Since setting it to ask for a password when waking from sleep, I have read a few horror stories of peoples laptops getting stolen, etc. and all their personal/private data is in the hands of some thug. That is what made me think of the fact that someone could bypass the wake up password prompt by restarting the computer.

I just changed the setting to ask for a password when starting up.

Thanks for your help!