security

[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Sep 05, 2005 at 05:15:03PM +0100, Lee Braiden wrote:
> On Monday 05 September 2005 17:06, Sean Sieger wrote:
> > Okay. Okay. You guys, with a default install of Hoary can someone crack
> > my machine in a way that they could see me log on to my bank account
> > with Firefox?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> Happier now? ;)
> 
> This is *always* possible.  It's less likely than with windows, if that's what 
> you're asking.

The fact of having a phone conversation at the same time doesn't make it
particularly more likely, though. The only risks that come to mind are
things like electromagnetic cross-talk between the telephone line and a
network cable that manages to be detectable from the other end of the
phone conversation (which is theoretically possible, but even in that
unlikely circumstance the attacker would only get network data which
would presumably be encrypted), or the person on the other end of the
phone somehow getting sufficient information from the sound of your
keystrokes to be able to reconstruct your authentication information.

Unless you have reason to believe that you're under surveillance by an
intelligence organisation with very substantial resources (in which case
I doubt you'd have mailed this list for help ...), I wouldn't worry
about anything like this.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]