I came across a rather interesting walkthrough the other day which explains how to reset your Ubuntu password. The walkthrough is great as it tells you exactly what you need to do. However, when I started reading the comments on this post, it really got me thinking since it was “that easy” to get around a password.

One commenter on this post makes a great point which holds true for any OS: if someone can get physical access to your drive, they can get anything off of it they want unless the drive is encrypted. My thought on this is the only way someone can actually get physical access to my computer is if they break into my house, in which case I have far bigger problems. I generally do not keep anything sensitive on my system at all (email is all web based) and I would change all our banking information anyway in the event of a break-in.

Anyhow, this is just something to keep in mind, not to scare you or anything…