> On Tuesday 22 November 2011 10:47:12 pm Timothy Pearson wrote:
>> > Whenever my screen locks (e.g. from my screen saver or from manually
>> > locking) and I go to unlock, I'm told to press CTRL+ALT+Del, and it
>> says
>> > it's displaying that so the login screen doesn't get spoofed.
>> >
>> > When logging out, I get a window saying it's saving my settings.
>> >
>> > Both of these remind me of WinXP. The CTRL+ALT+Del thing is of WinNT
>> (XP
>> > is based on NT).
>> >
>> > Is there a way to turn this off?
>> >
>> > Also, if the CTRL+ALT+Del thing is used for unlocking, why not too for
>> > logging in?
>>
>> It is normally used for both unlock and login.  It is a generic
>> implementation of a Secure Attention Key (SAK), without which Linux is
>> actually less secure than Windows.
>
> Never heard of it, nor have I ever seen CTRL+ALT+Del in Linux

The problem boils down to the fact that I can make a perfect copy of the
login (or lock) screen, leave it running as a non-priviledged user (e.g.
on a public computer), and grab your password.  There is no way for you to
know the real login screen from a good fake.  The SAK allows the operating
system to reserve a secure keypress (in this case Ctrl+Alt+Del) that no
userspace application will ever be able to see, therefore preventing
emulation of the logon sequence before any passwords are typed.

>
>> The SAK support can be turned off in the KDM control center module.
>
> I don't see it anywhere under Login Manager or KDM Theme Manager. These
> are the only two modules that show up when I type kdm into the search box
> for kcontrol.

Look for Login Manager in kcontrol.

Also, if you really don't like the startup/shudown splash screens simply
select a splash screen other than "Unified".  Many users here like to have
feedback that their computer is actually doing something once logout has
been pressed, but to each their own. ;-)

Tim