confidential data storage: home PCs v. company servers (was Re: TurboTax - Linux?)

[Aleksandar Milivojevic]

James Ralston wrote:
> I think you underestimate the strength of the defenses that can be
> prepared from some second-hand PC hardware, the Fedora Core
> distribution, and the application of a little knowledge and time.

I perfectly agree with almost everything what you wrote, and don't find 
what I wrote to be really contradicting.

I was talking in general, what you can find in an average home.  Not 
abuot what you can do if you have a bit of salt in your head.  Average 
user has AV software with license that expired at least year or two ago 
(so his AV isn't really working), crappy firewall with UPnP enabled (so 
that any piece of spyware can dig holes through it) and nice collection 
of at least dozen trojans happily running oh his/hers machine.  Average 
home user goes to the store, buys a box, and it simply works.  He uses 
it once a week, and does absolutely no configuration/maintence on it 
(nor wants to be bothered with it).  He thinks he has AV, because that's 
what sales person told him (in reality he got 90-day license bundled 
with his PC, most pepople will never extend it).  You say Linux. 
Average home users responds with "is it something for eating, or new 
soap brand"?  Hack, I even saw people connecting ADSL modems to LAN 
ports of those small router/firewall boxes you can buy cheap nowdays 
(because local ADSL provider gives instructions/support (and software 
for connecting, which you really do not need at all) that only works 
with ADSL modem connected directly to PC).  Configuring broadband router 
to authenticate over PPPoE (two clicks in web browser) was too complex 
task for them.  That same average user will turn off Windows firewall 
first time something doesn't work (and some "tech support" person asks 
him to try turning it off and walks him through the steps), and simply 
leave it off so that his favorite MP3 sharing application works... 
Should I continue or simply stop now and have my lunch?

-- 
Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic at pbl.ca>    Pollard Banknote Limited
Systems Administrator                           1499 Buffalo Place
Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276                     Winnipeg, MB  R3T 1L7