A New Zealand security researcher has published a software tool allowing attackers to quickly gain access to Windows systems via a Firewire port.

The tool, which can only be used by attackers with physical access to a system, comes shortly after the publication of research on gaining access to encrypted hard drives via physical access to memory.

Researcher Adam Boileau, a consultant with Immunity, originally demonstrated the access tool at a security conference in 2006, but decided not to release the code any further at the time. Two years later, however, nothing has been done toward fixing the problem, so he decided to go public.

more.. link to news article

I'm not surprised.
I used to work at a university here in St. Louis.
The average time for a unprotected system to be compromised was 30sec.
FBI would show up, and we'd have to show them around.
I Would be totally Linux (Ubuntu 8.04), but I don't have enough money to buy Phped ide. I was lucky enough to find Engin site for 109, and its only available for Win. It also doesn't help that I'm an Access & AutoCAD developer.