Mundane but important

[Farina]

Hi there, I want to work from my home more often, but am often stuck there without information I need from my office PC. If I just had a way to get information from my office pc when I'm away, I could save a lot of time and gas driving to and from. Anyone have ideas how I can securely access stuff from another machine? I've heard of LogMeIn, but I wish it felt more secure.

[haliv]

Logmein is pretty good for remote access. However, at work we use another program called Phonefactor for logmein to provide additional security. It provides 2-factor authentication using the mobile phone. You can download the application here:

http://www.phonefactor.com/downloads

[zcamov]

I've heard of LogMeIn, but I wish it felt more secure.

LogMeIn in of itself is pretty secure, the thing that is hackable is your usename and password.

20% of People use these triggers for passwords:



Your partner, child, or pet’s name, possibly followed by a 0 or 1 (because they’re always making you use a number, aren’t they?)
The last 4 digits of your social security number.
123 or 1234 or 123456.
“password”
Your city, or college, football team name.
Date of birth - yours, your partner’s or your child’s.
“god”
“letmein”
“money”
“love”



Also hackers use a thing called a brute force attack where they will literally generate all the possible password you have.

http://onemansblog.com/2007/03/26/how-id-hack-your-weak-passwords/

So I would look at 2-factor authentication.

[Farina]

Wow! I'm thinking twice about this remote access strategy. What's the skinny on 2-factor authentication? You imply that it could protect me from a variety of password sniffing methods, but more usernames and passwords layered on seem like they would be susceptible to the same drawbacks (plus, they would be a major pain!)

[gfxmaven]

Hi there, I want to work from my home more often, but am often stuck there without information I need from my office PC. If I just had a way to get information from my office pc when I'm away, I could save a lot of time and gas driving to and from. Anyone have ideas how I can securely access stuff from another machine? I've heard of LogMeIn, but I wish it felt more secure.

Another option would be Dropbox, which is what I use. It syncs a folder across machines (and that's it's only shortcoming imho) so you set up a folder structure within the Dropbox folder and get into the habit of storing files you would want to access remotely in that folder. Basically it'slike a super-charged My Documents folder. Great thing about Dropbox is that it's free at the moment (invite only) and multiplatform, so you can sync a mac with a windows machine. I think I have a couple of invites left so if you PM me I can send you one.

[Pony99CA]

Wow! I'm thinking twice about this remote access strategy.
Plenty of companies allow remote access, so let them worry about it. Do not try to set something up on your own (unless you own the company); that's a good way to get fired for circumventing company security.

What's the skinny on 2-factor authentication?
Two-factor authenticaion (done best) is "something you have, something you know". At some places, it's a smart card or biometrics (something you have) and a PIN or password (something you know).

Steve