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Thread: News - Microsoft offers $650 off Surface Pro 3 with MacBook Air trade-in

  1. #17
    Get in the van. Fraz's Avatar
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    Re: News - Microsoft offers $650 off Surface Pro 3 with MacBook Air trade-in

    "complete lack of any security options, at all." I do wonder if we're talking about the same product.

    Nearly every one I know chooses the Air as well. About the only point I'd agree with on your above post is that the screen isn't great. It's also not that bad either. More than good enough for writing code, and working in a terminal. Anyway, clearly you aren't interested in Macs in the slightest, so I guess I won't waste my breath discussing them further with you

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: News - Microsoft offers $650 off Surface Pro 3 with MacBook Air trade-in

    Quote Originally Posted by Fraz View Post
    "complete lack of any security options, at all." I do wonder if we're talking about the same product.
    No key management hardware. No biometrics options. No hardware two factory (ie Smart Card) options. The vendor provided FDE has proven to be useless, no enterprise encryption offerings either.

    I've never worked for a company that would allow it for key staff (ie devs!).

    What security features would make someone get a mac in your line of work?
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  3. #19
    Get in the van. Fraz's Avatar
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    Re: News - Microsoft offers $650 off Surface Pro 3 with MacBook Air trade-in

    I thought FileVault2 and the various patches since its release had addressed most of the concerns of the original (rubbish) FileVault? At least, my employer is more than happy with the level of security it offers.

    As to the biometics + two-factor options. Yes, it certainly doesn't have those. I'd certainly be interested to know how much more secure those additions truly make things. Physical access to the device is a pretty overwhelming advantage, regardless of such gadgets.

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: News - Microsoft offers $650 off Surface Pro 3 with MacBook Air trade-in

    FileVault1 was so bad, the main problem with FileVault2 is a lack of a keystore which many feel makes breaking in much easier, not to mention the default policy of allowing a thunderbolt / firewire drive access to memory. I remember someone talking about using that wireless networking exploit showing a proof of concept compromise of the keychain.

    Whilst a TPM / BioMetrics are no panacia, the fact you've got simple direct policy management demanding these makes it a lot easier, where as the default from sleep behaviour allows this to be done from a "locked but booted" mbp.

    Hence why I said complete lack of any security options, I've never worked at a place that allowed them, as I'm CTO at the current place, I'm just continuing trend, the web guy has an exemption, but he has no access to confidential materials.

    But do you get the ghist of my post? back in 2010 the air was useless for any kind of power user, now it's much less useless (except for that screen, that is kind of useless, not enough resolution for much workspace imsho).

    With physical access to the drive and TPM it's very unlikely that someone can do anything short of brute force or not normally economically viable TPM key extraction.

    BioMetrics I think have their place as a great second password, it allows for a weaker first password which is more user friendly, I mean be honest, looking at my current password for our "sensative" things, there is no way in hell the user would type that each time. Despite what xkcd said HorseStapleBattery isn't very good against modern dictionary attacks, it has to lower entropy. Add in a finger hash, or a really, awful long one in case of biometric failure, and you've got a much better protection that will probably survive a modest brute force.

    Again, it depends how professional the environment is, if you are doing something thats entirely open source, have an air gap for the private key, then this matters not.
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