virtual keyboars

[fonzali]

hi , I am using florence virtual keyboard on my ubuntu 14.04 machine . today I read an article which says scrambled virtual keyboards are safer than regular virtual keyboards . is there any scrambled virtual keyboard for ubuntu ? should I be concerned about using florence or onboard ? thanks

[rubberman]

Why are you worried? Do you think someone is hacking your keyboard/computer interactions? Yes, that is possible, but really unlikely unless you are up to something that the government is worried about, or someone is trying to steal information from your company.

A friend of mine developed a high-security Tempus terminal for the government that could not be hacked. The terminal itself was very tightly shielded from remote scanning, and the keyboard (a common weak point for computers and terminals) did not do any electronic communication with the system. It used passive LED's, shutters, and light pipes (fiber optics) to signal keystrokes to the CPU. No electronics were involved. It passed the most stringent NSA tests on the first try - unheard of in those days (the early 1980's).

[fonzali]

thanks rubberman , I am not doing anything high security but wanted to be safe while on internet . by what you said it is safe to use florence and onboard for regular use ( paying bills and stuff like that ) . thanks

[rubberman]

Keyboard loggers and such are not unknown on Linux systems, but are very rare. Getting them installed is not trivial, especially if you are not running as the root user, and your personal account requires a password to run applications as root via sudo. If you violate either of these principals, then you need to adjust your security policies, edit /etc/sudoers, and NOT log in and run as root! If you do that, you should be pretty safe from malware.

[fonzali]

thanks rubberman