My dad is considering getting one, but he's very concerned about security. He's only willing to consider one if the following are true:
1. It can be password locked, and all data is erased after a set number of attempts.
2. It is totally impervious to wireless attacks which may try to steal information off of it.
He's mainly looking for a device to act as a music player that could replace his current Casio BOSS which he has stuck with primarily because he's confident that it can't be wirelessly attacked, and that it erases all data after three failed attempts of inputting a password.
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I thought I saw upon the stair a little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today. Oh how I wish he'd go away.
Wow.
Your dad's reasoning falls exactly under the logical fallacy of "argument from personal paranoia." I'm guessing he's a Windows user?
So much security discussion is more ideology-based than practicality-based. As in, users want to have the feeling that they're secure, rather than actual beneficial results of being secure, even if they reap zero practical benefits. And people give up usability for this state of mind. (I don't even have a password set on my home computer because the usability costs of having to type it outweigh any "security" benefits, which are negligible.)
Kind of like how users want an operating system that is "open," whatever that buzzword means, to conform to their philosophy, regardless of being able to cite actual specific benefits.
Anyway, the iPod Touch fulfills both those criteria, so he's good to go.
But make sure he knows about the other security features it has instead, which provide a significantly better user experience than having to enter a passcode every single time he picks it up, which are "don't lose it" and "don't voluntarily broadcast personal information."
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
Has your dad considered simply abstaining from putting personal information on the device? That shouldn't be hard if he intends to only use it as a music player.
I don't think it's really possible to arrange for data to be accessible to only three password attempts, so long as the attacker has physical access to the disk with the data on it. Someone with sufficient patience and cunning could always find a way to get the data off the disk, if only in encrypted form.
Of course, software security can only go so far:
http://xkcd.com/538/
I don't even have a password set on my home computer because the usability costs of having to type it outweigh any "security" benefits, which are negligible.
You don't even want protection against an accidental 'rm -rf /'? Or do you just mean you use automatic login (to an account other than root, presumably)?
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"You blockhead!" -Cheez
You don't even want protection against an accidental 'rm -rf /'?
No. I don't use the terminal. Believe it or not, there are actually better designed ways to interact with a computer than typing memorized commands into it in order to get it to do anything.
Or do you just mean you use automatic login (to an account other than root, presumably)?
I use automatic login, yes, for the six or so times a year I boot my machine. But in addition to that, I don't have a password set for my user account.
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]
I just talked to him; he seems mostly satisfied, but he wonders how possible hacking into the iPod Touch while it is connected to a computer is.
Also, he stressed that he wants it to be able to store personal, financial, and other info, like his Casio BOSS currently does.
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I thought I saw upon the stair a little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today. Oh how I wish he'd go away.
>_<
Now he found out about the backup feature. It told him that he could delete the backups immediately after they were created. He said that the data could still be accessed off of the hard drive even though it was deleted. I told him that he could set it so that the backups would be encrypted, and then delete them, so that the hacker would have to both recover the deleted files remotely, and decrypt them, but he said that it was an unacceptable risk. I argued that it seemed equally if not more likely that his BOSS could get stolen and hacked, but he argued that in that case, at least he'd have knowledge that the data was in danger so he could do some things about it. >_<
And he doesn't want it as a separate device, because he says that the majority of the point of getting the iPod Touch would have been to make it so that he would not have to have both a thing to store data, and a thing to play music, but could instead have one device.
He's driving me crazy.
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I thought I saw upon the stair a little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today. Oh how I wish he'd go away.
I'm pretty sure you can disable any backups from occurring in the first place when connected to your computer.
Is your dad a political conservative as well?
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Seth: What are you making?
Evan: I'm just drilling holes. Last two weeks, **** it.
[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]
Alright.
And actually, he's a registered Democrat.
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I thought I saw upon the stair a little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today. Oh how I wish he'd go away.
Is your dad a political conservative as well?
I just threw up in my mouth a little.
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Ocarinakid
Can't you just disable wireless?
Can't you disable Aman?
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"...you should try reading my posts being getting all emo." --FoxMetal