carlton68 Posted December 5, 2007 Report Share Posted December 5, 2007 shhht keekwai! you should know gawguy is a bit paranoid when it comes to computer security. While you're right you'll give him a heart attack. As munchie suggests the room mate is probably quite harmless. Gawguy, WEP is weaker than WPA. WEP encryption can be broken while WPA can't. However it needs knowledge, determination and some hardware to break WEP. I wouldn't be too worried about that. After all your room mate could just access your computer directly. About the router, does it have several (probably 4) lan ports additional to the wifi? When you want to access the internet, do you need to activate some dial-in? Now back to reality. If I was you I'd be more concerned about that guy breaking into my girlfriend rather than breaking into my computer. Ok, he'll probably do both... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keekwai Posted December 6, 2007 Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 "Now back to reality. If I was you I'd be more concerned about that guy breaking into my girlfriend rather than breaking into my computer. Ok, he'll probably do both..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gawguy Posted December 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 If you ever left your PC for a few minutes without locking the desktop (requiring a password to reopen) you should be more concerned that your roomie installed a keystroke logger than worrying about your passwords being intercepted via network traffic. It requires a pw to reopen and I rebuild my hd frequently from a mirror image. Also if your PC is physically available while you're away from home it's a simple matter to boot from a CD that has an operating system on it like Knoppix or UBCDforWin and copy files off your PC. Are you saying this will bypass a locked IBM hd ? That would surprise me. If you have your browser save passwords these can be recovered this way. Also resetting the password or creating an admin accouunt to have full access to the PC is an easy task with the tools available. Again, I rely on the locked hd as first line of defense. But your comments are the kinds of issues I'm looking for. I leave my laptops in the front room when I am out during the day. If I go off overnight, they are locked in my room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gawguy Posted December 6, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2007 shhht keekwai!Gawguy, About the router, does it have several (probably 4) lan ports additional to the wifi? When you want to access the internet, do you need to activate some dial-in? Now back to reality. If I was you I'd be more concerned about that guy breaking into my girlfriend rather than breaking into my computer. Ok, he'll probably do both... I'll have to check on the ports etc when I get home in two weeks. G/F has locked her heart and soul, only for me. Hates r/m w a passion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gawguy Posted December 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2007 About my "paranoia" - I have almost all of my cash assets in online bank accounts. My biggest concern is theft from the accounts. If people can do this from anywhere in the world, I think I should be concerned about my techie roommate inside my apartment. * * * * * I would like someone to please respond to my question about LOCKED IBM Thinkpad HARDDRIVE. There was a comment that there are programs now that easily bypass passwords and if my computer was physically accessible I would be vulnerable to having the hd copied or files copied. Or worse a keylogger installed. I have tried to put up several layers of security. 1) Locked hard drive 2) Windows requires a password 3) Critical Word and Excel files require a password. 4) Some important files are in True Crypt "vault" QUESTION: Can someone get around the hd password and copy files or the whole drive // and/ or install a keylogger? Thanks, Gaw Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted December 9, 2007 Report Share Posted December 9, 2007 Do your banks offer an RSA key option? It generates a unique key for each session. FOB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coss Posted December 9, 2007 Report Share Posted December 9, 2007 There is a lot of stuff that can compromise your security. Now if you bought a Mac, you'd have two advantages. 1 no-none's ever cracked one, though there have been proof of concepts. 2 so many people have been brought up on Windows, there just isn't the desire to learn a whole new ( and difficult) OS to have a go at it, takes too much time. JMHO Coss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamui Posted December 9, 2007 Report Share Posted December 9, 2007 I have tried to put up several layers of security. 1) Locked hard drive [color:blue]If it is encrypted and password protected it should be fairly safe (but I don't know the encryption method)[/color] 2) Windows requires a password [color:blue]this doesn't matter, you can boot any PC with a Linux CD (like Knoppix) You should add a BIOS password for the BIOS itself and the BIOS boot, which prevents anybody to boot the computer at all.[/color] 3) Critical Word and Excel files require a password. [color:blue]this doesn't matter, software to crack MS files is easily available[/color] 4) Some important files are in True Crypt "vault" [color:blue]IMHO this is the only real safe place for your data[/color] QUESTION: Can someone get around the hd password and copy files or the whole drive // and/ or install a keylogger? [color:blue]see answer to 1.), but I think it should be no problem to take the HD out of the computer and create an image of the data, but this won't help the hacker if the data are encrypted.[/color] [color:blue] also Installing a key logger needs administrator rights. You should never run you PC as an admin.[/color] Note: [color:blue]- If you are so concerned about security I would either recommend to switch to Vista (prof. or ultimate) or to Apple. - concerning homebanking: never do it using your browser, but use a special software like Quicken. This adds another level of security.[/color] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gawguy Posted December 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2007 I have tried to put up several layers of security. 1) Locked hard drive [color:blue]If it is encrypted and password protected it should be fairly safe (but I don't know the encryption method)[/color] **Okay...IBM Thinkpad hd locked. I don't know if that automatically means encrypted. I don't think so. Isn't it a pain and a slowdown to have the whole hd encrypted? And what if something goes wrong with the encryption. I have lost whole batches of data with True Crypt. But only once or twice. ** - concerning homebanking: never do it using your browser' date=' but use a special software like Quicken. This adds another level of security.[/color'] ** Now this is interesting! The thing is I'm on about 10 banking sites and I wonder if they all have that interface. Otherwise, I have no use for Quicken. ** Thanks a million for your response. It shed a lot of light on my issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.