Secure remote computing

mike3411

Member
Jul 10, 2002
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Using portable applications like Firefox with my preferred extensions, bookmarks, even passwords is a great feature and I would like to begin using this over a home network or through the internet, however I am concerned about how to accomplish this securely without special software.

The best solution I have found so far is to use an SMB share in conjunction with Truecrypt to encrypt the data. The problem is, despite being multi-platform, this still requires the installation of at least one piece of software (Truecrypt). What is really needed is a way to securely load portable or network files, without requiring any local installation.

I've got a few ideas about how to do this, ranging from using other OS specific protocols like WebDAV and SSH, to trying to load a complete virtual machine using Qemu or some other VM software that can be run directly. But it seems like something other people would be interested in, so I was wondering if there is a known good way to do this, or if there are any suggested methods. Any help would be appreciated!
 

Zugzwang152

Lifer
Oct 30, 2001
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Why not use Remote Desktop Connection or VNC to give yourself a remote desktop on your trusted machine? Sure beats being paranoid about leaving trace files behind.
 

mike3411

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Jul 10, 2002
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Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
Why not use Remote Desktop Connection or VNC to give yourself a remote desktop on your trusted machine? Sure beats being paranoid about leaving trace files behind.

That might be the best thing, but is Remote Desktop really safe and trustworthy? It seems to have had a lot of flaws found, how reliable is the security?
 

Zugzwang152

Lifer
Oct 30, 2001
12,134
1
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Originally posted by: mike3411
Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
Why not use Remote Desktop Connection or VNC to give yourself a remote desktop on your trusted machine? Sure beats being paranoid about leaving trace files behind.

That might be the best thing, but is Remote Desktop really safe and trustworthy? It seems to have had a lot of flaws found, how reliable is the security?

Where are you getting that information? Links? A quick google indicates the last Remote Desktop-related vulnerability was in 2005.
 

mike3411

Member
Jul 10, 2002
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Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
Originally posted by: mike3411
Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
Why not use Remote Desktop Connection or VNC to give yourself a remote desktop on your trusted machine? Sure beats being paranoid about leaving trace files behind.

That might be the best thing, but is Remote Desktop really safe and trustworthy? It seems to have had a lot of flaws found, how reliable is the security?

Where are you getting that information? Links? A quick google indicates the last Remote Desktop-related vulnerability was in 2005.


Well 2005 wasn't that long ago. Can RDP really be reliable upon?
Not that it makes a huge difference, but RDP as far as I know is limited to 128-bit encryption, which seems to be lower than other similar systems.


Additionally, from http://www.mobydisk.com/techre...ng_remote_desktop.html "Remote Desktop is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack because it does not use a certificate to authenticate the server like SSL/SSH does"


Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
Why not use Remote Desktop Connection or VNC to give yourself a remote desktop on your trusted machine? Sure beats being paranoid about leaving trace files behind.

The other problem is that many things don't quite work properly. For example, even connecting to a computer on a local 100mbps network, video does not display properly. Other applications will also not function properly, and it is difficult to predict or work around this.