[LINK] RFI: Multi-User Capability on User Machines

[Roger Clarke]

Chris's post makes clear to me that I still haven't been precise 
enough in the way I've formulated my question.  (This is harder than 
I thought!).

I'm not concerned about whether users can be running concurrently.

I'm concerned about whether separate users, using the machine at 
different times, can rest assured that their data is secure against 
the prying eyes of others who have access to the machine.

One test-case is siblings in the same household.  Can Big Sis avoid 
her love-letters being accessed by Kid Brother?

Another, more relevant test-case is flatmates in the same household. 
Can each flatmate establish their own relationships with, for 
example, eBay and Amazon, confident that their profiles (server-side) 
and cookies (client-side) won't be polluted by their flatmates using 
the machine?

Clearly this depends upon Big Sis and Flatulent Flatmate religiously 
logging out every time they leave the machine.

But if they do so, can they be confident that their profiles and 
cookies are inviolate?

I'm intentionally overlooking those with super-user privileges on the 
device (or their equivalent in other-OS-speak), and seriously smart 
operators who can fire up the disk-drive on a different machine and 
extract whatever they want from it.


At 16:06 +1000 4/9/06, Chris Maltby wrote:
>>  Roger Clarke wrote:
>>>  Can anyone nail for me the date and version of Windows that delivered
>>>  the feature on end-user machines?
>
>On Mon, Sep 04, 2006 at 02:19:53PM +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote:
>>  As far as I'm aware, they still don't.  You can get Remote Access,
>>  Remote Assistance and Terminal Services, but it is hardly multiuser
>>  ala Unix/Linux/OSX
>
>I'm with Howard on this. The standard end-user device has a single
>active user session. That session can be remote when there isn't a
>user using the keyboard/video/mouse. Or a remote assistant can share
>your session if you permit it.
>
>You can have lots of inactive users, or get one of the server editions
>which allow multiple active "terminal" sessions, but your MS PC is
>still a "personal" computer.

-- 
Roger Clarke                  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
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Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW