My house has a front door which can be locked. I often leave it unlocked when I am out in the yard (and thus need access through the door on a minute-by-minute basis) or when I have guests over.
I side my house I have safes, medicine cabinets and a gun rack. Those things are locked all the time, and I only unlock the cabinet when I need to use the items inside the secure container.
So, too, I have a use account login. Sometimes I will hand my computer to a friend (or they sit at the computer, same thing) so they can do stuff. At no point does my friend's physical access to the computer imply that they need access to my bank account details. So those credentials are locked up in 1password to prevent casual theft.
Keychain Access and 1password both require a master password to unlock the ability to see stored passwords.
The argument about "having physical access negates security" is missing the point: there are different forms of physical access. I won't let visitors plug in random USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt devices for example. They have use of the machine, they have physical access. But if any of them made moves to dunk my computer in liquid nitrogen before removing the RAM, I would shoot them.
If the computer is locked, my password safe is locked. If someone steals the computer (or an NSA agent inades my house to freeze and steal the RAM), the key material is encrypted and thus still not accessible to casual inspection.
The attitude of "the NSA can break the encryption so it is not even worth hiding things from the visitor casually using your computer" is defeatist.
Rethink your assumptions. What are you protecting against? Do I need to switch to a guest account to prevent casual guests from seeing my credentials? How does that aid convenience?
Yes, thank you for explaining this so clearly. Of course I wouldn't knowingly give physical access of my computer to a malicious hacker, but if my friend asks to use it for 60 seconds while I take care of something else, I'd like to be able to do that without logging out and back in as a guest user. Convenience does matter in these kinds of situations, and deleting these "Show" buttons will make it more difficult for the untrained user to pull a prank or worse.
Comments
My house has a front door which can be locked. I often leave it unlocked when I am out in the yard (and thus need access through the door on a minute-by-minute basis) or when I have guests over.
I side my house I have safes, medicine cabinets and a gun rack. Those things are locked all the time, and I only unlock the cabinet when I need to use the items inside the secure container.
So, too, I have a use account login. Sometimes I will hand my computer to a friend (or they sit at the computer, same thing) so they can do stuff. At no point does my friend's physical access to the computer imply that they need access to my bank account details. So those credentials are locked up in 1password to prevent casual theft.
Keychain Access and 1password both require a master password to unlock the ability to see stored passwords.
The argument about "having physical access negates security" is missing the point: there are different forms of physical access. I won't let visitors plug in random USB, FireWire or Thunderbolt devices for example. They have use of the machine, they have physical access. But if any of them made moves to dunk my computer in liquid nitrogen before removing the RAM, I would shoot them.
If the computer is locked, my password safe is locked. If someone steals the computer (or an NSA agent inades my house to freeze and steal the RAM), the key material is encrypted and thus still not accessible to casual inspection.
The attitude of "the NSA can break the encryption so it is not even worth hiding things from the visitor casually using your computer" is defeatist.
Rethink your assumptions. What are you protecting against? Do I need to switch to a guest account to prevent casual guests from seeing my credentials? How does that aid convenience?
Yes, thank you for explaining this so clearly. Of course I wouldn't knowingly give physical access of my computer to a malicious hacker, but if my friend asks to use it for 60 seconds while I take care of something else, I'd like to be able to do that without logging out and back in as a guest user. Convenience does matter in these kinds of situations, and deleting these "Show" buttons will make it more difficult for the untrained user to pull a prank or worse.
Thanks for the precise and lucid argument.
I'm so angry right now that I can't even string together my sentences properly :)