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Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

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Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#401

Post by m463 »

destroy-2A wrote: post #31

Try working in banking for 20 years, stuck behind at least 1 layer of citrix living in citrix inception. Latency for every keystroke, your brain starts to add latency to latency that is not there to compensate for a life lived wearing citrix latency goggles.

Don't worry, I'm sure that will all be folded into microsoft teams soon :)

More seriously, I'm reminded of something a friend always said.

You need to have a response time of 1/10 of a second or less for something to be interactive. I remember that but I wonder if the brain fixes it like it ignores your blind spot.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#402

Post by Yeroc »

dugmartin wrote: post #232
digdugdirk wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little confused as to what benefic the "MagicDNS"/Tailscale aspect is adding? Is this faster than a traditional VPN? Is the VSCode remote development extension not able to function with a traditional VPN?

It just makes sshing between the machines by name very easy. You can do the same thing by assigning permanent IPs to all machines in the mesh and then updating all your host files across all the machines in the mesh. Life is too short for that.

Bizarre. Most VPNs used in a workplace would take care of name-based host resolution (ie DNS) for you. This is not a new thing unique to Tailscale.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#403

Post by Huh1337 »

hulitu wrote: post #344
aleksiy123 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one more point I would like to add to the "less friction to start." This is the killer feature for education. No more do students have to set up their own envs. Figure out PYTHONPATH. No more do educators need to debug installation issues on 3 different OSes. Teachers distribute a pre setup env which they know works for what they are trying to teach. Students go straight into writing code and building things…

> There is one more point I would like to add to the "less friction to start." This is the killer feature for education So now the children have 2 entities spying on them: the school and the cloud provider.

Huh? It's not like the children aren't using Google and Microsoft services by the truckload already. Every single one has Android/iOs phone. They use Gmail and YouTube and browse the web. And the schools use it too - MS Windows, Office, Google Classroom, Drive... Practically nothing changes with a cloud desktop.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#404

Post by vorpalhex »

the8472 wrote: post #96

Another one is an unholy confluence of corporate compliance bullshit Connecting to the remote machine needs to go through corporate SSO (in a browser) that then starts the native remote client. Policy requires MFA, strong, frequently changed passwords and Windows Hello on the laptop. Policy also requires screen lock after 5 minutes. For some reason policy also requires disabling copy-paste to remote machines. The end…

I had a similar problem that required me having to auth 36 times a day.

I told them to fix it or I was opening a health claim for back issues from having to 2factor.

Took them a few weeks but now I auth once or twice a day.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#405

Post by selykg »

zmgsabst wrote: post #241
selykg wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the IT guy for a new non-profit. We aren't separated yet from the company that created us, but we're in the process of separating. I get to decide all this fun stuff. I had a very brief talk with the IT team for the larger parent company when I started and explained this stupid password rotation thing, as I came from a security background, they wanted nothing of it. Set in their ways. For the new non-profit that…

NIST agrees, as if their update a few years ago. > Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically). However, verifiers SHALL force a change if there is evidence of compromise of the authenticator. https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html#memsecret

Thanks for the direct link, putting this in my back pocket when the discussion inevitably takes place.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#406

Post by vbezhenar »

aleksiy123 wrote: post #259

I would have agreed until I started working at Google. Also, you should completely avoid having Remote Desktop and instead use ssh + an editor that works with remote files. At Google we have a custom fork of VSCode running in browser and builds can either be distributed or run on my Linux VM to utilize build cache. I liked it so much I started doing a similar setup for small side projects. Just boot up the Cloud Cons…

What languages does that setup support in Google? JS/TS I guess obviously.

How do I replicate it with self-host? What keywords should I google?

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#407

Post by cardanome »

petercooper wrote: post #350
cardanome wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just encrypt your hard disk? Please don't say something like you don't trust encryption. We have known cases where even state actors could not crack encrypted devices. Not to mention the remote communication you have would be easier to monitor and possibly decrypt anyway. Sure, in theory you would need a kill switch in case some special forces come through your window while you are working on you laptop and f…

Why not just encrypt your hard disk? While this is a good idea, note that in some countries it is an offence to not hand over keys or passwords when requested (or can rapidly become one - like in the UK) so not carrying data with you in the first place can defend against that.

What is stopping them to force you to give access to your cloud providers though?

I think there are solutions to make hidden partitions. You would have have to create a clean, plausible system to show potential attackers.

Still feel that clouds providers are a bigger attack surface than encrypted local data. To get you cloud data an attacker would just need to be able to compel you to give the password. With local data, they also need to get physical access to it. You could for example decide to not take your laptop to a potential dangerous meeting and store it somewhere safe.

Plus, cloud provider have way more attack surface area. They get regularly hacked. Some state actors already have back doors or can otherwise compel the provider to hand out your data.

The more I think about the more I think storing sensitive data in the cloud is not a good idea for privacy and security.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#409

Post by AtlasBarfed »

cardanome wrote: post #14

I don't get the use case. Why would you even consider using a cloud desktop? Even a very low-spec laptop is going to run a simple graphical desktop environment like Xfce just fine. Watching a youtube video, browsing the web and even video conferencing can be handled with any new-ish laptop. And in reality, you still want a reliable laptop with decent keyboard, long battery life, good display and so on. So you won't e…

I'd like a sync'd work env that does local as well as remote-from-anywhere ability.

The fact that Microsoft failed at a dozen sync frameworks (as chat is for google, sync was for Microsoft) and in 2020 this is still not really doable.

Also, I still can't find a good guide for spinning up a desktop in AWS.

Re: Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think

#410

Post by petercooper »

cardanome wrote: post #407
petercooper wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just encrypt your hard disk? While this is a good idea, note that in some countries it is an offence to not hand over keys or passwords when requested (or can rapidly become one - like in the UK) so not carrying data with you in the first place can defend against that.

What is stopping them to force you to give access to your cloud providers though? I think there are solutions to make hidden partitions. You would have have to create a clean, plausible system to show potential attackers. Still feel that clouds providers are a bigger attack surface than encrypted local data. To get you cloud data an attacker would just need to be able to compel you to give the password. With local da…

What is stopping them to force you to give access to your cloud providers though?

Here's my thinking: If you're travelling to a country with nosy officials and you needed access to a lot of sensitive data, if it were on your regular (but encrypted) hard drive then it would be more visible if they asked to see the machine. With that data online, it could be in a system you only access by a URL you remember which they can't see. You can show them a normal desktop.

Still feel that clouds providers are a bigger attack surface than encrypted local data.

If you are actively being targeted, I agree. I was thinking more the "curious official" folks seem to run into when travelling. Since the mere possession of certain plain text documents is a criminal offence in my country, this has the potential to catch people unawares.

I think there are solutions to make hidden partitions. You would have have to create a clean, plausible system to show potential attackers.

This is a good tradeoff and would probably be fine unless they're really out for you - a whole other ballgame.

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