Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 14:45:38 -0500 From: Chris Johnson <cjohnson@palomine.net> To: security@freebsd.org Subject: Safe SSH logins from public, untrusted Windows computers Message-ID: <20020319144538.A42969@palomine.net>
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--17pEHd4RhPHOinZp Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline This isn't exactly FreeBSD-security-related, but it's certainly security-related, and I think it's likely to be of interest to many of the list members. I spend a lot of time in hotels, and most of them have Internet centers with Windows computers for the use of hotel guests. It's easy enough to download a copy of PuTTY and hide it in the Windows directory so that I can make SSH logins to my various remote servers. I worry, however, about trojans and keyboard sniffers and what-have-you monitoring my keystrokes, so I don't feel particularly safe doing this. So I thought I might stick a DSA key, encrypted with a passphrase used only for that particular key, on a floppy disk, and use that to log in. Without the floppy disk, the passphrase, if sniffed or recorded, would be useless. Question: if I plan on doing any work as root, would I be better off setting PermitRootLogin to without-password and logging in directly as root, instead of following the common practive of logging in as a regular user and then su-ing? su-ing would require that I type the password, and that's what I'm trying to avoid. Does anyone have any comments, or does anyone have a better idea? Thanks. Chris Johnson --17pEHd4RhPHOinZp Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8l5VhyeUEMvtGLWERAjtiAKDFS46unMYQMsXtaFKmvqH6AhAMNACeJEi/ BbyiXKX5+9DhPwJSugoIi0Q= =sIyu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --17pEHd4RhPHOinZp-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message
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