Comment 31 for bug 10550

Mac OS X allows a user with admin rights to disable file permissions on external disks (dvd, cd, usb/firewire hard drive).

this must be possible on ubuntu too, this is one of the most common problems i have with friends right now, they burn a disk on os x, does not work on linux, they plug in a usb drive to copy some files, does not work, need to fiddle with root, this gets really annoying on laptops where that person is the only user. what are they supposed to do, know how to remount a disk ignoring permissions? open documents as root, many do that, sure a bigger problem than having a way to ignore / overwrite file permissions to allow the person currently logged in to read/write to external disk, in most cases they can take the disk smash it at the wall anyway, its an external disk, if a removable drive that is plugged in during a user session should not be used by that user, something else is wrong.