[Discuss] Cutting the phone line

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:40:13 -0700
Rich Braun <richb at pioneer.ci.net> wrote: 
> The Obi110 box is capable of a lot of things I've yet to figure out. 
> I just use it in its default settings. You plug it into your LAN switch, 
> plug a phone's RJ11 cord into it, go to the obitalk site and enter the 
> unit's serial number. Then enter your gmail account credentials. Done.

Sounds cool.

But I get worried again.  You know how each time there is a security breach and someone posts thousands of login credentials, complete with unencrypted passwords, we all tsk-tsk and shake our heads wondering how those programmers could be so silly?

Well, if you expect some third party to login to Google on your behalf, what choice do they have?  Unless Google implements some special on-my-behalf feature for this case (they kinda do for gmail), your password is sitting on some disk, and that disk's backups, in the clear.

If you only use your Google credentials for Google Voice, or keep a separate account for Voice, whatever parts of your life that you have let Google have, can leak through another hole, a hole that is hard to secure.

-kb

-- 
Kent Borg <kentborg at borg.org>