You'll have to forgive me for asking this but I obviously don't know as much about computing as I hoped I did.

In a conversation with a Classmate about an unrelated subject he told me that he doesn't actually Log In to our website. He simply clicks the Bookmark for the site on his browser Bookmarks bar and is taken to the website where he finds himself automatically logged in.

How does he do this? He knows less about computing than I do so is unlikely to have set this up himself.

Thanks

On the sign-in page there is an option to "keep me logged in" which sets a login cookie that lasts longer than a single browser session. They could then bookmark the page and as long as they don't clear cookies on that browser they are able to return without logging in again.

Jessica
Class Creator Support

Once a person is logged in they do not have to login again. Browsers save the cookie that CC stored. For example, I just click a "bookmark" and instantly arrive here. Same for our website.

Since he made a bookmark knows a little bit here.

Thanks, Jess and Jack.

I was aware of the 'Keep me logged in" option but didn't realise it lasted forever if you didn't clear cookies.

Now I know and I'm assuming that there's no security risk if the user is the only person ever likely to use their computer. Presumably, it's not advisable if you share a computer with others who you may not know as well as you think you do. Isn't there also a danger if your computer ends up in someone else's hands and you haven't cleared everyything first? E.g. you sell it on or you pass away (morbid thought) and your computer ends up in the hands of someone unknown to you.

Thanks, again.

Selling a drive vs the morbid other possibility. One is controllable, the other you might want to give somebody data for access - if you think that would help.

Since current systems require a user to login when booted it requires a bit of expertise to access a system.

It is possible to take a drive and take the data from that to another computer and thus get your credentials for anything you have saved. If you encrypt your drive that becomes moot, unless "the man" were involved. IMO, not worth encrypting since it can cause more issues for you than potential theft if something happens and you want to access your old data.

If you sell your computer, boot from another device, then wipe the drive with programs made for that purpose. They write data over the drive. (Or you could take the drive out and temporarily access with another computer.)

If you don't write over the drive and just delete files, it's fairly trivial (using readily available programs) to scan the drive and recover all that stuff. I helped my daughter recover a bunch of photos once for I think $29.