4 ms·

That could have interesting implications for the Chrome Notebook (I haven't really used one, but based on what I've heard). The potential appeal of the Chrome

That could have interesting implications for the Chrome Notebook (I haven't really used one, but based on what I've heard). The potential appeal of the Chrome notebook is its security-by-simplicity. If the only thing you can do is use Chromium, then your notebook is basically as secure as Chromium itself is (in theory, at least). The irony is that we're essentially moving back to the way computers were a few decades ago - people used terminals to access a central computer. We moved to personal desktop computers for a while, then laptops (and mobile phones). It'll be interesting to see if the rise of interest in 'cloud computing' means that, in five years, our primary computers will just be portable terminals to access some main computer remotely. Personally, I might be fine with that. Network speeds/reliability aside, everything I do could be accomplished easily over SSH, with X forwarding for a few applications. It's possible that these simple tools that we've had for decades could be packaged in a way that appeals to a more general use case.

freehunter 15y ago
Back in the early days of ChromeOS, there was a much less restricted security model than I presume exists today based on what I'm reading. I haven't use it in a while, though, so I do not know how it works these days. Basically when I installed it, it had to be compiled by you and installed on an SD card. You could easily change a setting on the system and drop to a shell. It was running on a stripped-down Ubuntu installation, so you could actually install Firefox inside of ChromeOS. It was nice having the base, fast-boot installation combined with the ability to basically run a full system if you needed to.
benmathes 15y ago
I hope we go the way of the dumb terminal from an ease-of-use standpoint; I want my data to just "be", and not have to worry about syncing/backups/etc. From the freedom/privacy standpoint, however, I'm not sure. I find it surprisingly easy to imagine a US government agency empowered by anti-terror laws to get access to my data. This is why I want encrypted cloud computing for all my stuff. I dunno if the large players could actually do that and have the US govt be ok with it.
- epscylonb 15y ago
  How can you verify the security of the "cloud" hosted data?.
  - tommi 15y ago
    The encryption key must reside only on trusted (client side) devices to allow your data to be hosted by a third party without them actually seeing your data.
    - mooneater 15y ago
      (Golf clap)... and in practice how would one verify such a scheme?
      - nl 15y ago
        What do you mean? Verifying that data going across the wire is encrypted is fairly easy to do. You check the data going out is encrypted and that it is encrypted when it comes back. Is that enough verification for you? Depending on how much you trust the vendor you can go further - run it in a debugger and check where it gets the key for example.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        mooneater 15y ago
        Of course I agree with you, it is possible in theory. I was being cynical about the full picture -- you need to trust the client hardware and its software are completely malware-free. Which... is kinda hard to verify.
        BCM43 15y ago
        How do you verify that the key is not being sent over the network by malicious software?
debaserab2 15y ago
Chromebooks already have a built-in shell called CROSH, which provides a very limited command set but does have an SSH client.
- eddieplan9 15y ago
  terminal emulator != shell just like xterm != bash
  - modeless 15y ago
    ... and Chrome OS also provides a terminal emulator to go with its shell.
    - eddieplan9 15y ago
      and that makes terminal emulator the same thing as shell?
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      The confusion here is that presumably "SSH" is not something "provided" by the shell, but merely something that you can run with the shell.
      - gwillen 15y ago
        I'm not actually sure that's true. It's not a full-fledged ssh client; it may well be a shell builtin. (It can't be the standard openssh client, because that lets you escape to a real shell.)
- grandalf 15y ago
  how does one access this?
  - meastham 15y ago
    Ctrl-alt-t
amorphid 15y ago
Until we have inexpensive access to the Internet at broadband speed on mobile networks w/ no cap on data usage, I want the option to work offline.
kurtextrem 15y ago
Chromebooks have already a CMD

freehunter 15y ago

Back in the early days of ChromeOS, there was a much less restricted security model than I presume exists today based on what I'm reading. I haven't use it in a while, though, so I do not know how it works these days. Basically when I installed it, it had to be compiled by you and installed on an SD card. You could easily change a setting on the system and drop to a shell. It was running on a stripped-down Ubuntu installation, so you could actually install Firefox inside of ChromeOS. It was nice having the base, fast-boot installation combined with the ability to basically run a full system if you needed to.

benmathes 15y ago

I hope we go the way of the dumb terminal from an ease-of-use standpoint; I want my data to just "be", and not have to worry about syncing/backups/etc. From the freedom/privacy standpoint, however, I'm not sure. I find it surprisingly easy to imagine a US government agency empowered by anti-terror laws to get access to my data. This is why I want encrypted cloud computing for all my stuff. I dunno if the large players could actually do that and have the US govt be ok with it.

epscylonb 15y ago
How can you verify the security of the "cloud" hosted data?.
- tommi 15y ago
  The encryption key must reside only on trusted (client side) devices to allow your data to be hosted by a third party without them actually seeing your data.
  - mooneater 15y ago
    (Golf clap)... and in practice how would one verify such a scheme?
    - nl 15y ago
      What do you mean? Verifying that data going across the wire is encrypted is fairly easy to do. You check the data going out is encrypted and that it is encrypted when it comes back. Is that enough verification for you? Depending on how much you trust the vendor you can go further - run it in a debugger and check where it gets the key for example.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - mooneater 15y ago
        Of course I agree with you, it is possible in theory. I was being cynical about the full picture -- you need to trust the client hardware and its software are completely malware-free. Which... is kinda hard to verify.
      - BCM43 15y ago
        How do you verify that the key is not being sent over the network by malicious software?

debaserab2 15y ago

Chromebooks already have a built-in shell called CROSH, which provides a very limited command set but does have an SSH client.

eddieplan9 15y ago
terminal emulator != shell just like xterm != bash
- modeless 15y ago
  ... and Chrome OS also provides a terminal emulator to go with its shell.
  - eddieplan9 15y ago
    and that makes terminal emulator the same thing as shell?
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    The confusion here is that presumably "SSH" is not something "provided" by the shell, but merely something that you can run with the shell.
    - gwillen 15y ago
      I'm not actually sure that's true. It's not a full-fledged ssh client; it may well be a shell builtin. (It can't be the standard openssh client, because that lets you escape to a real shell.)
grandalf 15y ago
how does one access this?
- meastham 15y ago
  Ctrl-alt-t

amorphid 15y ago

Until we have inexpensive access to the Internet at broadband speed on mobile networks w/ no cap on data usage, I want the option to work offline.

kurtextrem 15y ago

Chromebooks have already a CMD