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I always bring my laptop with me; as I have no mobile and email is my only mean of communication with friends/family.

When I need to check my mail I usually do it SSHing from my work machine to my laptop (via company wifi) and start muttm. I prefer using mutt rather than a web interface, too bloated for my tastes. I also check my agenda, use newsbeuter, vim notes there. I like the way I have configured my laptop, I like using it.

I realized a few days ago that this setup is potentially quite dangerous! SysOp could sniff my password, could hijack ssh, could do a lot of harmful things!

So I was wondering: I have a Desktop and a laptop which are less than one meter distant, I want to share the mouse/monitor/keyboard of the Desktop, what is a secure way to do it?

It should be a very 'inconspicuous' solution (you know, I don't want my employer to think I am hacking the intranet). So the smaller, the better!

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    A little paranoid about your SysOp. Apr 9, 2013 at 19:14

2 Answers 2

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You can use a VNC setup depending the OS you are using on those machines to see what other machine's monitor has, and to use your keyboard and mouse as if they were connected to that machine. I assume one of your systems is running some linux distro, if there is an X running I think VNC setup can be possible.

This part of the answer was based on the assumption that monitor wasn't included on the question.

I think Synergy is the easiest way to solve your problem. With Synergy you can use one set of keyboard / mouse on multiple machines. The machine with that set should be set up as the server and the rest as clients.

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  • Thanks, but I would need to share the monitor too (and if I got that right, it' s not possible with Synergy, right?)
    – Atwlsw
    Apr 9, 2013 at 19:00
  • If the remote computer uses a Windows OS, which I doubt, you may want to use RDP. Apr 9, 2013 at 19:16
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Your SysOp / IT person controls your desktop and no matter what you do he or she can always change things and will always be able to track what you type. Even if this requires changing drivers of binaries. (Not that that might be easy, but it can be done).

So far for all the technical answer.

Now we get to the non-technical part:

  1. Why do you think he or she would do that?
  2. What makes your computer more interesting than the others at work?
  3. Why would the IT person risk going to jail? What are you storing in your mail that is that important to him/her ?

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