If they can get to your console, you've already lost. And I know it might be OT to put it in this subthread, but just to bin up some of my responses:
- Yes, this is a repost, and yes, I had a similar reaction to many of "people still don't know about this?!", but if someone comes away using SSH with keys after reading this article, then it's worth it. It'd be nice if every programmer out there had some sys admin experience, but it's not going to happen.
- SSH keys depends on KDE or GNOME? That ought to surprise the Windows and Mac users (not to mention all those BSD/Linux/UNIX users who don't use KDE or GNOME) who use SSH keys. Last I checked (last time I logged into a freshly booted system), you ran ssh-add on first login, and if that doesn't work (or you have to do it for each shell/session), check the man page for keychain[1].
