Booting and login - why are users not logged in automatically?

[Alan Pope]

On 24 March 2010 14:10, Phillip Susi <psusi at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> On 3/24/2010 9:54 AM, Evan wrote:
>> Why? I'm sure there are reasons, but my initial reaction is that any
>> computer which can easily be stolen (ie laptop/netbook) should
>> NEVER have auto-login enabled.
>
> Why?  Given physical access to the machine, bypassing login is easy.
>

That still wont guarantee access to user files. If you use ecryptfs
(the default encryption system for /home on Ubuntu live CDs) then even
having physical access won't give you immediate access to files in the
user home directory.

Cheers,
Al.