Pandora for business

[patrick295767]

Business and financial activities are possible. 

With the Pandora, it can be useful since you can have your emails with you.

I like ncurses and Pandora pretty much. Here a shot.

  http://i.imgur.com/srstaXc.jpg

 

[cube48]

Oh, patrick, that PIM for ncurses looks interesting. Could you please describe it more please? Google doesn't give me any usefull results when I ask for "ncurses pim suite". Do you think you can share how one can get this installed on Pandora. Thanks!

 

[HolySmoke]

Oh, patrick, that PIM for ncurses looks interesting. Could you please describe it more please? Google doesn't give me any usefull results when I ask for "ncurses pim suite". Do you think you can share how one can get this installed on Pandora. Thanks!

Did you mean "nurses pimp suite"

 

[Kumaki]

The Pandy just simply isn't powerful enough to run the software we use at any useable speed.

You've said this several times. While I have no doubt this statement is true, the statement is completely irrelevant in the context of a discussion about security.

Put simply, you don't need to run a piece of software to steal or corrupt or manipulate the data it works with, and the Pandora is more than capable of running the tools necessary for such tasks.

- Neelix

Not if the data is on a cloud that can't be accessed except thru the software the Pandy can't run!!
And, like I said, any employee of mine would have access to the necessary logins and passwords...and would have a full PC or laptop to access it. So why would you dink around with a Pandy trying to make it do...what could much more easily be done from yourt laptop or PC...even assuming the Pandy COULD?

AND...even assuming the Pandy COULD...what's to stop the employee from buying one on their own hook and using it to create havoc?

Like I said...no extra security risk that doesn't already exist just by HAVING an employee in the first place.

 

[2bit]

Kumaki , I think they mean to say that the Pandora could indeed ( theroriticaly ) run the software necessary to hack in quite easily AS IT IS a full Linux environment , and though I am by no means a expert on the subject I agree . I understand what you are trying to get across what with how it would be easier to do such things with say a laptop , or desktop , but the Pandora isn't really that much weaker ( depending on the version you have ) in pure muscle than a 2009 NetBook .

 

[Kumaki]

But my point still is...okay, so what do you do about that? Refuse to hire anyone ho ons a Pandy? Fire them for buying one?

I mean....COME ON...that is totally ridiculous!

Some of these tech guys got the "security bug" so far up their nether regions...NO system is entirely secure. I know this.

But NOBODY has yet explained hy there is any ADDITIONAL security risk to any company...because they buy their employee a Pandy...versus said employee buying the Pandy on their own...THAT IS THE POINT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET ACROSS FROM THE START...and no one seems to ant to grasp that basic point.

They ant to argue about hat can and can't be done with a Pandy...but nobody has addressed WHY it is any increased security risk.

If it is such a security risk, the obvious answer is to not buy your employee a Pandy...fire them if they get one on their own, and refuse to hire anyone who already has one!

 

[patrick295767]

Hi Cube48, 

It is a "essential", fast, "vital" application (in my opinion) for various financial and business needs. I develop it. It remains pretty innovative in my opinion.

Advantage: it is not bloated as whatever X11-programs and one can use it over SSH, anywhere and anytime  It has sync and backup modules to be sure you never loose your data. Mostly I use on Linux, Windows, and Pandora with sync. I sync over USB until now, and would like to move to OTG.

You can PM me if you would like further information. It is copyrights.

Kind regards

Pat

 

[Binky]

But my point still is...okay, so what do you do about that? Refuse to hire anyone ho ons a Pandy? Fire them for buying one?


I mean....COME ON...that is totally ridiculous!


Some of these tech guys got the "security bug" so far up their nether regions...NO system is entirely secure. I know this.


But NOBODY has yet explained hy there is any ADDITIONAL security risk to any company...because they buy their employee a Pandy...versus said employee buying the Pandy on their own...THAT IS THE POINT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET ACROSS FROM THE START...and no one seems to ant to grasp that basic point.


They ant to argue about hat can and can't be done with a Pandy...but nobody has addressed WHY it is any increased security risk.


If it is such a security risk, the obvious answer is to not buy your employee a Pandy...fire them if they get one on their own, and refuse to hire anyone who already has one!

Calm down.

Its just that all the geeky pedants are upset by the implication thata pandora could never be a security threat.

A pandora could store all your passwords unencrypted.

Since its Turing Complete it could theorectically run software to access your database

It would take a huge ammount of unecessary effort to attack your network using a pandora, but it could be done.

There is no aditional security threat unless the pandora is in the hands of a highly skilled (and malicious, and somewhat insane) software engineer

A pandora would be  more usefull to an evil hacker than an iProduct (and both would be less useful than a company PC)

Don't hire highly skilled, malicious and mad software engineers, and the pandora presents no additional problem

 

[patrick295767]

But my point still is...okay, so what do you do about that? Refuse to hire anyone ho ons a Pandy? Fire them for buying one?


I mean....COME ON...that is totally ridiculous!


Some of these tech guys got the "security bug" so far up their nether regions...NO system is entirely secure. I know this.


But NOBODY has yet explained hy there is any ADDITIONAL security risk to any company...because they buy their employee a Pandy...versus said employee buying the Pandy on their own...THAT IS THE POINT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET ACROSS FROM THE START...and no one seems to ant to grasp that basic point.


They ant to argue about hat can and can't be done with a Pandy...but nobody has addressed WHY it is any increased security risk.


If it is such a security risk, the obvious answer is to not buy your employee a Pandy...fire them if they get one on their own, and refuse to hire anyone who already has one!

Calm down.

Its just that all the geeky pedants are upset by the implication thata pandora could never be a security threat.

A pandora could store all your passwords unencrypted.

Since its Turing Complete it could theorectically run software to access your database

It would take a huge ammount of unecessary effort to attack your network using a pandora, but it could be done.

There is no aditional security threat unless the pandora is in the hands of a highly skilled (and malicious, and somewhat insane) software engineer

A pandora would be  more usefull to an evil hacker than an iProduct (and both would be less useful than a company PC)

Don't hire highly skilled, malicious and mad software engineers, and the pandora presents no additional problem

My problem that I have is the .muttrc and its content   

Why MUTT cannot implement SSL to protect the config data ?? It is time they do think about it. There are many possible ways rather than plain data 

 

[Binky]

Encrypt your entire disk/SD card?

 

[patrick295767]

Encrypt your entire disk/SD card?

not a bad idea actually

 

[Kumaki]

But my point still is...okay, so what do you do about that? Refuse to hire anyone ho ons a Pandy? Fire them for buying one?

I mean....COME ON...that is totally ridiculous!

Some of these tech guys got the "security bug" so far up their nether regions...NO system is entirely secure. I know this.

But NOBODY has yet explained hy there is any ADDITIONAL security risk to any company...because they buy their employee a Pandy...versus said employee buying the Pandy on their own...THAT IS THE POINT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET ACROSS FROM THE START...and no one seems to ant to grasp that basic point.

They ant to argue about hat can and can't be done with a Pandy...but nobody has addressed WHY it is any increased security risk.

If it is such a security risk, the obvious answer is to not buy your employee a Pandy...fire them if they get one on their own, and refuse to hire anyone who already has one!

Calm down.Its just that all the geeky pedants are upset by the implication thata pandora could never be a security threat.

A pandora could store all your passwords unencrypted.

Since its Turing Complete it could theorectically run software to access your database

It would take a huge ammount of unecessary effort to attack your network using a pandora, but it could be done.

There is no aditional security threat unless the pandora is in the hands of a highly skilled (and malicious, and somewhat insane) software engineer

A pandora would be  more usefull to an evil hacker than an iProduct (and both would be less useful than a company PC)

Don't hire highly skilled, malicious and mad software engineers, and the pandora presents no additional problem

Like I said.

And, again...why wouldn't a malicious software engineer use a standard PC or laptop to attack me, rather than dink around with a Pandy to make it do it...even if it could.

As I say...what are you to do...refuse to hire anyone who owns a Pandy? Fire someone for getting one? Both ideas are ridiculous.

And if any employee was found to have accessed my software and database in a way not expressly permissible in the first place, that would be grounds for termination. A CEM, as it were.

Again, my point is...someone smart enough to do it with a Pandy...if it COULD be done with a Pandy...would sooner just use a freaking PC or laptop and get me that way. Pandy, in and of itself...presents no real risk to security.

Hiring a demented, malicious software genius bent on destruction would be a security risk....with or without a Pandy. And a very stupid business decision.

 

[Neelix]

@ Kumaki

I don't think anyone is saying that the Pandora could do more damage to a network than a laptop or other computing device.

It is however, a much better target for a thief.

Consider this scenario:

---

Your business has expanded enough to hire a couple of part time employees.  They work on wifi connected laptops in your office. One of them carries a  Pandora which is also connected to your network.  This employee has a morning shift and leaves at the same time every day,  carrying the Pandora in a pocket.  They won't actually get a chance to use it for at least half an hour.    

A  tech savvy thief has targeted your business.  They've been casing the joint for a month and a half, have tailed your employees and know their routines, and have decided that this employee's Pandora is the weak point.

As the employee leaves one day the thief 'accidentally' bumps into them,  and lifts the Pandora and the employee's phone.   The employee doesn't notice until they go to use it half an hour later, and by then they are a considerable distance away, and have no way to contact you.

Meanwhile the thief has done his research and come prepared.  He  finds an unobtrusive place to work within range of your wifi, sticks an SD card into the  Pandora,  boots from it,  chroots into the NAND and changes the login password, then reboots onto the main system, which, once logged in,  automatically connects to your network.  He then runs a packet sniffer from his SD card and starts capturing all the data your other employee is transferring back and forth from the cloud server via wifi.

---

Obviously my scenario is somewhat contrived, but I hope it makes my point.  I'm not saying you shouldn't use your Pandora in your business, nor is anyone else.  What we are saying is that you shouldn't be blind to the security risks that any such device may represent.

- Neelix

 

[patrick295767]

@ Kumaki

I don't think anyone is saying that the Pandora could do more damage to a network than a laptop or other computing device.

It is however, a much better target for a thief.

Consider this scenario:

---

Your business has expanded enough to hire a couple of part time employees.  They work on wifi connected laptops in your office. One of them carries a  Pandora which is also connected to your network.  This employee has a morning shift and leaves at the same time every day,  carrying the Pandora in a pocket.  They won't actually get a chance to use it for at least half an hour.    

A  tech savvy thief has targeted your business.  They've been casing the joint for a month and a half, have tailed your employees and know their routines, and have decided that this employee's Pandora is the weak point.

As the employee leaves one day the thief 'accidentally' bumps into them,  and lifts the Pandora and the employee's phone.   The employee doesn't notice until they go to use it half an hour later, and by then they are a considerable distance away, and have no way to contact you.

Meanwhile the thief has done his research and come prepared.  He  finds an unobtrusive place to work within range of your wifi, sticks an SD card into the  Pandora,  boots from it,  chroots into the NAND and changes the login password, then reboots onto the main system, which, once logged in,  automatically connects to your network.  He then runs a packet sniffer from his SD card and starts capturing all the data your other employee is transferring back and forth from the cloud server via wifi.

---

Obviously my scenario is somewhat contrived, but I hope it makes my point.  I'm not saying you shouldn't use your Pandora in your business, nor is anyone else.  What we are saying is that you shouldn't be blind to the security risks that any such device may represent.

- Neelix

and if you had a boot menu with pwd? no risk

we can make this boot, and you flash it.

 

[Neelix]

and if you had a boot menu with pwd? no risk

we can make this boot, and you flash it.

As far as I know there is currently no way to require a password at the boot loader stage, and as I noted above there are ways to change the login password without requiring a reflash as long as you have a way to boot an external OS.

And while nothing will ever entirely remove the risks, a big part of my point here is that you have to be aware of the risks so that you can make sure you take steps to reduce them.    The particular scenario I just suggested for example, would be thwarted by making sure that the software in question is always run via wired connection.   That doesn't mean there would be no other avenues for attack,  but knowing that one gives you a way to cut it off.    Denying that there are security risks on the other hand, is the arguably the biggest security risk of all.

- Neelix

 

[Binky]

But my point still is...okay, so what do you do about that? Refuse to hire anyone ho ons a Pandy? Fire them for buying one?


I mean....COME ON...that is totally ridiculous!


Some of these tech guys got the "security bug" so far up their nether regions...NO system is entirely secure. I know this.


But NOBODY has yet explained hy there is any ADDITIONAL security risk to any company...because they buy their employee a Pandy...versus said employee buying the Pandy on their own...THAT IS THE POINT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET ACROSS FROM THE START...and no one seems to ant to grasp that basic point.


They ant to argue about hat can and can't be done with a Pandy...but nobody has addressed WHY it is any increased security risk.


If it is such a security risk, the obvious answer is to not buy your employee a Pandy...fire them if they get one on their own, and refuse to hire anyone who already has one!

Calm down.
Its just that all the geeky pedants are upset by the implication thata pandora could never be a security threat.


A pandora could store all your passwords unencrypted.


Since its Turing Complete it could theorectically run software to access your database


It would take a huge ammount of unecessary effort to attack your network using a pandora, but it could be done.


There is no aditional security threat unless the pandora is in the hands of a highly skilled (and malicious, and somewhat insane) software engineer


A pandora would be  more usefull to an evil hacker than an iProduct (and both would be less useful than a company PC)


Don't hire highly skilled, malicious and mad software engineers, and the pandora presents no additional problem

Like I said.


And, again...why wouldn't a malicious software engineer use a standard PC or laptop to attack me, rather than dink around with a Pandy to make it do it...even if it could.


As I say...what are you to do...refuse to hire anyone who owns a Pandy? Fire someone for getting one? Both ideas are ridiculous.


And if any employee was found to have accessed my software and database in a way not expressly permissible in the first place, that would be grounds for termination. A CEM, as it were.


Again, my point is...someone smart enough to do it with a Pandy...if it COULD be done with a Pandy...would sooner just use a freaking PC or laptop and get me that way. Pandy, in and of itself...presents no real risk to security.


Hiring a demented, malicious software genius bent on destruction would be a security risk....with or without a Pandy. And a very stupid business decision.

We agree.

He would use a pandora instead of a laptop because he doesn't think sensibly (remember this is an mad expert cracker - perhaps he's allergic to windows!)

As long as you don't hire demented, malicious software geniuses bent on destruction, a pandora is not a security risk

 

[Kumaki]

@ Kumaki

I don't think anyone is saying that the Pandora could do more damage to a network than a laptop or other computing device.

It is however, a much better target for a thief.

Consider this scenario:

---

Your business has expanded enough to hire a couple of part time employees.  They work on wifi connected laptops in your office. One of them carries a  Pandora which is also connected to your network.  This employee has a morning shift and leaves at the same time every day,  carrying the Pandora in a pocket.  They won't actually get a chance to use it for at least half an hour.    

A  tech savvy thief has targeted your business.  They've been casing the joint for a month and a half, have tailed your employees and know their routines, and have decided that this employee's Pandora is the weak point.

As the employee leaves one day the thief 'accidentally' bumps into them,  and lifts the Pandora and the employee's phone.   The employee doesn't notice until they go to use it half an hour later, and by then they are a considerable distance away, and have no way to contact you.

Meanwhile the thief has done his research and come prepared.  He  finds an unobtrusive place to work within range of your wifi, sticks an SD card into the  Pandora,  boots from it,  chroots into the NAND and changes the login password, then reboots onto the main system, which, once logged in,  automatically connects to your network.  He then runs a packet sniffer from his SD card and starts capturing all the data your other employee is transferring back and forth from the cloud server via wifi.

---

Obviously my scenario is somewhat contrived, but I hope it makes my point.  I'm not saying you shouldn't use your Pandora in your business, nor is anyone else.  What we are saying is that you shouldn't be blind to the security risks that any such device may represent.

- Neelix

Seeing as I live in Shitsplat America...this is inconceivable. My business is out of my home, and that home is at the end of an unpaved, dirt road. Anyone who doesn't belong here sticks out like a sore thumb. You have heard of towns that have just one traffic light, right? MY TOWN HAS NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS!!

This may not be the case, however, when I move to North Carolina.

However...the Pandy in my business would not be connected to wifi, or need to be...to do the work in uestion. the application of Pandy in my business is a couple of custom-made apps which do not require Internet connection to use, and which contain no personal data. Therefore...any employee connecting to our wifi with their Pandy...would be grounds for termination.

Furthermore, any person wanting to hook to my wifi...will give me their computer, and I will type in the pass. No-one but me is going to know our wifi login, so they are not likely to be able to log into our wifi with a Pandy. This is NOT to say that they couldn't log into a different wi-fi somewhere else...and then, with their own login...get into our software...assuming the Pandy COULD handle it, and I seriously doubt Pandy could do it at all...and if it could...not at any useable speed.

The risk IS out there...but it comes far more from PCs and laptops than from Pandoras.

P.S. for those unfamiliar with the phrase "Shitsplat America" it refers to VERY rural America...where almost no-one lives.

 

[Neelix]

Funnily enough though I've never heard that precise phase before, I immediately understood its meaning.

- Neelix

 

[Binky]

...assuming the Pandy COULD handle it, and I seriously doubt Pandy could do it at all...and if it could...not at any useable speed.

Why should the mad hypothetical cracker genius use your software? He could write his own native pandora software for messing up your database.

The use of a pandora to compromise your IT security is vanishingly unlikely, but not impossible

I think this thread tailed off into the realms of the hypothetical many pages ago

 

[Neelix]

I'll just leave this here...

Inigo Montoya: You are sure nobody's follow' us?

Vizzini: As I told you, it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable. No one in Guilder knows what we've done, and no one in Florin could have gotten here so fast. - Out of curiosity, why do you ask?

Inigo Montoya: No reason. It's only... I just happened to look behind us and something is there.

Vizzini: What? Probably some local fisherman, out for a pleasure cruise, at night... in... eel-infested waters...

- Neelix