Re: passworded screen savers with timeouts, why?

[Valdis Kletnieks <Valdis.Kletnieks () VT EDU>]

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 11:42:03 MST, Jim Dillon said:

> Adding a screen-blanker policy can add a layer of slightly less
> cumbersome yet "passer-by" defending security mechanism.  Locking a
> session out after five minutes can be a real pain to the user if a full
> login following policy (say 20 character passphrase, or 10 character
> hardened gibberish) has to occur every five minutes of inactivity.  I
> can easily be caught reading and re-reading a particularly provocative
> email for more than five minutes.

Amen to that - if you decide "lock after N minutes", being able to also
do a "blank after N-1 minutes" is very helpful.  This way, if you're
actually there but reading the screen, a simple whap of the mouse or
the shift key or something will restore things, but if you're not, it
will lock in another 60 seconds....

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