Live CD, Banking security & Flash cookies

Discuss anything specific to using Puppy on a multi-session disk
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jcyeandle
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue 11 Jun 2013, 09:10

Live CD, Banking security & Flash cookies

#1 Post by jcyeandle »

Hello,
I'm new to both Linux and Puppy.
One reason for investigating Puppy (wary 5.3) Live CD is for 'single web session' banking security.
My laptop has WinXP on drive C:
If I boot from the Puppy live CD, and even with the hard drive unmounted, Macromedia Flash cookies are still capable of being stored on the C:drive!

My current solution is to physically pull the hard drive caddy out. The 'fresh-air' barrier so formed, seems to stop Flash cookies tunneling through Seamonkey and Puppy's OS.

I'm wondering if there is a more elegant solution to locking down all physically attached drives during a live session?

Puppy Linux (wary 5.3) is very responsive compared to WinXP on the same old laptop (Dell Inspiron 5160, 2.8Mhz, 2GB RAM) making me wonder where it all went wrong with Windows:-)

Jonathan

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Flash
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Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 16:04
Location: Arizona USA

Re: Live CD, Banking security & Flash cookies

#2 Post by Flash »

jcyeandle wrote:... My laptop has WinXP on drive C:
If I boot from the Puppy live CD, and even with the hard drive unmounted, Macromedia Flash cookies are still capable of being stored on the C:drive! ...
How did you determine this?

raffy
Posts: 4798
Joined: Wed 25 May 2005, 12:20
Location: Manila

user spot

#3 Post by raffy »

You seem to know your way around your PC, so try this:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=86526
or use fatdog64, as its browser runs as user spot.

User "spot" should not be able to access places owned by "root" (such as your drives).
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

jcyeandle
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue 11 Jun 2013, 09:10

Re: Live CD, Banking security & Flash cookies

#4 Post by jcyeandle »

Flash wrote:
jcyeandle wrote:... My laptop has WinXP on drive C:
If I boot from the Puppy live CD, and even with the hard drive unmounted, Macromedia Flash cookies are still capable of being stored on the C:drive! ...
How did you determine this?
Thank you Flash (!)
Your request for specifics prompted me to evaluate again what I was seeing....

-I manually cleared all Flash cookies on my C:/(Winxp) drive.
-I booted from the puppy live CD(RW) with all hard drives unmounted as the only 'save file' I'm using, for security, is on the CD-RW.
-Opened a web session on Seamonkey and checked for Flash cookies using the Macromedia 'settings site' and confirmed none.
-Browsed a known flash cookie site and 'temporarily allowed' the page using the 'No-script' options.
-Checked back with the Macromedia 'settings site' again and there is a flash cookie!
Ok, thanks to your prod I've gone back this morning to Win XP and checked 'It's' flash cookie storage, which is empty.

I now presume that the live Puppy session is still allowing flash cookie storage (why wouldn't it) but only in its own environment, which I've no current knowledge of but hopefully just in the storage scheme that it has explicit permissions (RAM) and not polled but unmounted drives. Phew!.

I've a lot to learn about Puppy Linux and the first thing I guess is to not bring everything across from Windows.

Would you point me to the Flash cookie storage location in Puppy's file system please?

I currently do know enough to go directly to my bank's site immediately after booting from the Puppy live CD, and I was trying to be cute and avoid a full reboot from CD if I needed to 'go on' from the bank to elsewhere (like here:-)).

Thanks again for the prompt pointer,
Jonathan

jcyeandle
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue 11 Jun 2013, 09:10

Re: user spot

#5 Post by jcyeandle »

raffy wrote:You seem to know your way around your PC, so try this:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=86526
or use fatdog64, as its browser runs as user spot.

User "spot" should not be able to access places owned by "root" (such as your drives).
Thanks Raffy,
I've got as far as knowing that my default Puppy session is running as an administrator and the implied consequences but I've yet to try out Spot. It's time I read a lot more about this aspect.....but it's fairly confusing to a Windows person at times.

Already though, Puppy is proving to be much more useful than my Windows set up. I just need to get a good grip on the OS file scheme.

Thanks again for your timely pointer to Spot,
Jonathan

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