Quick blurb on what is PAM
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Secure-Programs-HOWTO/pam.html
If the partition he's working on is vfat / NTFS then that would clearly explain it. I haven't seen a response regarding this yet.
That or perhaps PAM problems?
I wonder if any files/directories anywhere can be changed (say in /tmp for example).
PAM? What are you talking about?
Dennis