obnoxious keyring, password three times, blah blah blah

[BuddyThirteen]

Just like haqking said.. removing your password leaves your system/keyring/anything else pretty much vulnerable.
Like I said use the pam usb modules or something similar but DON'T leave your password "blank"

I left the user password intact, but I blanked the keyring. The keyring is a nuisance and I feel that the user password is sufficient to protect my system from baddies. I mean, what does the Keyring protect? My Gwibber login? I honestly don't know what else, so let me know if it's the sole layer of protection between an accidental keystroke and the self-destruct button. Then I might put it back up.

[haqking]

I left the user password intact, but I blanked the keyring. The keyring is a nuisance and I feel that the user password is sufficient to protect my system from baddies. I mean, what does the Keyring protect? My Gwibber login? I honestly don't know what else, so let me know if it's the sole layer of protection between an accidental keystroke and the self-destruct button. Then I might put it back up.

your keyring is exactly what it says, it is like your keyring in your pocket with house key, shed key, car key, personal safe key or whatever.

Any keys stored on your system for use for connection to your wireless networks for example. It is a master key to unlock all your stored keys/passwords so that you only need to enter one.

I mean it is not a major concern if physically you are the only uses your machine for example, it is just bad practice to use blank passwords so best to maintain what security you can to avoid headaches

[BuddyThirteen]

I mean it is not a major concern if physically you are the only uses your machine for example, it is just bad practice to use blank passwords so best to maintain what security you can to avoid headaches

Yep. Only dude on this machine ever. I'm actually pretty thorough when it comes to computer security-- using TrueCrypt for personal files, KeePass to generate awesome passwords (you should see the password for my bank, I used the full 64char limit and activated even non-ASCII characters). I used to use a variant of the same password for everything, but now I like the idea that if anyone cracks one of my passwords, they can't just copy/paste to get access to everything I have.

But anyway...

[haqking]

Yep. Only dude on this machine ever. I'm actually pretty thorough when it comes to computer security-- using TrueCrypt for personal files, KeePass to generate awesome passwords (you should see the password for my bank, I used the full 64char limit and activated even non-ASCII characters). I used to use a variant of the same password for everything, but now I like the idea that if anyone cracks one of my passwords, they can't just copy/paste to get access to everything I have.

But anyway...

thats good. depending on how you use it the keyring can be like a key to the safe where all your other keys are stored which makes the security of all the locks null and void

but sounds like not too much of a problem for your particular situation. I just never recommened a blank password for anything, though i tell people they can fix this keyring issue by supplying one i still never condone it.

For me i use complicated passwords for everywhere i can use one.

[mcduck]

I left the user password intact, but I blanked the keyring. The keyring is a nuisance and I feel that the user password is sufficient to protect my system from baddies. I mean, what does the Keyring protect? My Gwibber login? I honestly don't know what else, so let me know if it's the sole layer of protection between an accidental keystroke and the self-destruct button. Then I might put it back up.

The keyring keeps the information stored in it encrypted when the keyring is locked. This means that even if somebody gets physical access to your computer they can't get your passwords and other keys. (physical access counts as root access, compromising all files on the system that aren't encrypted)

Also, you might only have Gwibber password there, while other people can actually have some PGP encryption keys, important server passwords and whatever things that really shouldn't get in the hands of other people. Not even in the worst case of a stolen computer.

So how necessary the keyring password is simply depends on how important data you store there.

(what comes to the user password being enough to protect you, that's exactly how it works. If you use a password login that will unlock the keyring for you, so you normally don't need to do anything extra to get the security the keyring can give you.)