Is there actaully anyway at all to keep user informatino hidden from root?

I have a server in my house, and i intend to force all my housemates to use it to download their email, using fetchmail. And of course, fetchmail uses plain passwords in it's .fetchmailrc file. so is there any way that i don't have their university passwords staring me in the face when i look at the file? They'd never know i had their passwords, and i'd never abuse them, BUT i'd like to not have them there for me to see. I could use a fetchmailrc file in each user acount, but that's pretty irrelevant as it's still there for root to see

don't login as root. you can't hide anything from root. that'll defeat the entire purpose of being the super user.

Way to state the bleedin obvious...

How can i never log in as root???

I'm suer there must be something under the data protection act or something...

simple answer: if you want something protected from root access, you need to encrypt it with a key root doesn't know.

never login as root?
what if you have to do maintenance and stuff. well you can always su but i don't think it's a good thing though.
i believe you'll have to edit your password file and place ! in front of root. i don't know how the format goes but take a look at it you'll see similar accounts that cannot login. they all have ! placed somewhere.

isn't abuse of passwords one of the perks of being root?

honestly tho, i think you're just going to have to trust your honesty on this one. i can't think of a way to keep the passwords in a .rc file hidden unless you go into the fetchmail source and tell it to encrypt it in the file and decrypt it when it sends it.

Yeah, thought so. I'll just have to tell them it's 'secure honest'. ahh well. we're all nice people.