Re: Show what I'm doing, show what you're doing

[Gregory P Sweet <gps03 -at- health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us>]

There really are not any unsecured screen sharing applications on the
market today. GotoMeeting, WebEx, Adobe Connect, are the big players in the
marketplace.
WebEx and Connect offer free version of their products that allow for up to
3 participants.
WebEx and Connect both allow remote participants to take over Mouse and
Keyboard from the presenter, but there is no security concern there since
the presenter can cancel the access by just clicking on the screen.
Connect allows you to create pods for just about anything, including
multiple screen sharing pods you can assign to the remote participants --
handy if you want to watch a group complete a task ala the instructor
standing behind the row of students.
All 3 provide the ability to share your entire desktop or specific
applications
WebEx and Connect can also share single documents
WebEx and Connect everything shared is also a whiteboard with group
annotation if allowed.
Goto does not allow group annotation

Since I've been using WebEx for about seven years that where my expertise
lies. One of the major security features of WebEx (at least before Cisco
bought them, not sure how much of this Cisco has torn down, they don't talk
about it) was the Mediatone network -- WebEx owned and maintained a
private, world-wide, real-time switched network. None of what you shared
was persistent on the network it was just switched from your machine to
your remote participants. Once the pack was at the remote participants
there was nothing on the servers to steal.

Most of these systems work and achieve the efficiency they do (think
broadcast slides to 3000 end points with fraction of second latency)  by
taking a snapshot of your screen and broadcasting it. Then they constantly
take snapshots (like a movie camera) but only transmit the pixels that
change, so even if some data did leak out, chances are it would be a
useless slice of screen near the mouse. Someone would have to break in and
steal the whole stream to get anything useful. In most cases, unless you
record the session and store it on the hosts servers or upload documents to
the host servers, nothing persists after the session.

-Greg

techwr-l-bounces+gps03=health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com wrote on
11/16/2012 12:14:08 PM:

> From: "McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>
> To: "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
> Date: 11/16/2012 12:14 PM
> Subject: Show what I'm doing, show what you're doing
> Sent by: techwr-l-bounces+gps03=health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Among those of y'all with ordinary permissions and access to your
> company-provided
> computers and networks, what (if any) methods do you use to share a
> live screen
> with another person?
>
> For example, we use Go To Meeting a lot  for  presentations to
geographically
> dispersed groups, or to have far-flung participation in discussions that
have
> a visual component.  The meeting owner, by default, has her/his/
> their screen and
> activities broadcast to all callers, and can choose to relinquish
> being the visual
> center-of-attention to other participants as they make their
> individual presentations
> or show some process or situation.
>
> Are there any security concerns?
>
> Is this the sort of thing that two people in geographically separate
> offices of one
> company might use, so that one could demonstrate something to the other,
or
> one could help the other configure or debug a tool or product?  I mean, I
know
> it COULD be, because I've done it, via my manager's GTM account, while he
> didn't have any meetings scheduled. But are there better ways when
> it's just two
> or three people involved?  Notwithstanding any potential security
concerns,
> when (say) techwriter and developer are discussing/demonstrating
pre-alpha
> product, it just seems overkill to send all that material out to some
distant
> third-party entity (host) just so it can come back into the company
network
> to reach another desk.  I mean, we still host our own Exchange Servers
for
> worldwide in-company e-mail, so that we DON'T leave our mail to somebody
> else's infrastructure.
>
> Are there other current apps that make more sense for one-to-one
> screen-sharing
> activity?
>
> Our IT dept., of course, can take over our systems remotely, for IT
> reasons, but
> I'm not interested in giving out that ability to any old person in
> the company.
> Show-and-tell, yes. Relinquish control, no.
>
> I use Remote Desktop and !m (NoMachine) to remotely work my own machines,
> but that's not shared sessions. If I log into a Windoze box with RD,
> that action
> pre-empts and closes any local session I might have had open. If I log
into a
> Linux box with !m, my local session can remain alive, but the !m session
is
> separate, and the one is not visible to the other - except for mysterious
file
> changes that might occur.   :)
>
> I know there are various tools out there, some of which have been around
since
> the 90s, I'm just interested in what's in current use, and why you
> (or your employer)
> prefer it.  Also, why do you TRUST it, when your visual
> conversations are company-secret?
>
> Oh, and I have Windows 7, as do many other co-workers (cow-orkers), but
many
> still run XP until their PCs come up for replacement.
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> -          kevin
>
>
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