Different actions on different passwords?

[Robert Moskowitz]

On 12/30/2013 08:03 PM, Bill Oliver wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Dec 2013, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 11:25 PM, Bill Oliver <vendor at billoblog.com> 
>> wrote:
>>
>>       In linux, is it possible to dictate two different actions upon 
>> login with different passwords?
>>
>>
>>
>> Short answer: no.
>>
>> Longer answer: in computing almost anything is possible if you really 
>> want to achieve it. Given that on Unix-style systems, including 
>> Linux, the login program can be changed, you can modify the source
>> to do what you want. Of course you'll need to have superuser 
>> privileges to install it in place of the system standard. Note that 
>> doing this may well open a can of worms, e.g. you might have to modify
>> the format of the password file (and hence the library routines that 
>> access it), possibly fiddle with SElinux settings, etc. etc.
>>
>> If the conditions are relaxed slightly you can get a partial solution 
>> using the standard login: write a Shell startup script (.profile or 
>> whatever) that allows the user to discriminate between the two
>> modes, e.g. by using a timeout, detecting the initial state of the 
>> Shift (or Control or whatever) key etc., in a way that is hopefully 
>> non-obvious to an observer. Probably not reliable enough for
>> serious use.
>>
>> Conclusion: better look for some other way to cover your tracks, and 
>> note that a forensic investigation can be carried out without having 
>> you log in at all.
>>
>> poc
>>
>>
>
> Yeah, that's what I thought.  I'm a little surprised that there hasn't 
> been a variant of linux developed for areas with intrusive government 
> surveillance.  I recently noticed that the government of Venezuela has 
> a government-developed distro (Canaima); think there's some back doors 
> in that?  One would think that there would be a movement to provide 
> anti-governmental variants.
>
> I know there's no perfect security.  Back in the day, I had an 
> acquaintance whose job was to break into houses and install keyloggers 
> on machines in people's homes.  Of course that was back when we still 
> believed in silly things like search warrants.
>
> Sigh.  I guess I'll just have to continue keeping my plans for world 
> domination on my brother-in-law's computer...  (Just kidding, NSA).

One approach is to put your important stuff on an encrypted partition 
that is not auto mounted.  Mount it only when needed, then unmount it.