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say I have a reverse tunnel from my computer to my shell account online. Does that make me more susceptible to being hacked?

I want to use it for my macbook pro from my dorm room. Cheers

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I'm not sure what you mean by "a reverse tunnel from my computer to my shell account online". The usual way to connect from a macbook to a shell account is to simply open Terminal and type "ssh othermachine". This is not, strictly speaking, an ssh tunnel (either forward or reverse). Are you setting up a tunnel so that your shell account can access files or other resources on your macbook? – Doug Harris Jan 7 '10 at 17:12
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It might make you more susceptible to attacks from that server. It all depends on how you have the reverse tunnel set up. It is not usually any less secure than a regular ssh tunnel, but it does give the other computer a little more access to your home PC.

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Right. Expanding a bit on what Joshua said... this will do nothing to enhance or diminish the risk of being hacked from other sources. If your macbook is on a shared wifi connection in your dorm and you have ports open, those are just as vulnerable as you were before you initiate your ssh connection. – Doug Harris Jan 7 '10 at 17:10
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