EXACTLY!!!! In fact, how do I know that Symantec's Norton Internet Security isn't doing the same with my Windows XP systems. An interesting dilemma. In the latter case, there are enough savvy people monitoring what NIS does that it would show up quickly and devastate Symantec. That's their disincentive. On the Treo, unless it were a company like Symantec or Palm itself, one couldn't trust it any more than one might trust any other app. Handyshopper could be mining for credit card numbers. Agendus could be quietly sending bank account numbers and pin codes. And so on.
"I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?" Still, with the amount of "corporate data" on handheld devices, I'm surprised this hasn't come up before, driven by corporate I/T folks and management who have had many very public embarrassments because of "missing laptops" lately. Until I cleaned it up, I had just about as much sensitive information on my Treo (unprotected until recently) as on my laptop. Cheers, Don ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Craig Froehle Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 6:08 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Treo] A firewall for the Treo - a necessity now?! While it _could_ be made, I doubt it would be worth anyone's time to do so -- the threat it counters is just so minute. And even if one _were_ available, Don, how do you know that IT wouldn't be sending off your private data somewhere? ;-) On 2/20/07, Don Ferguson <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:don%40ferguson.us> > wrote: > The discussion about AventVoice sparked a line of thought I wanted to > explore further. > > > > I have not until this point, in all the years of having Palm devices and > all the more recent years of having data-capable Treos thought much > about the prospect of an application - from whatever developer, small to > large - having the unfettered ability to send data off of the Treo to a > remote system. Any application could, for example, raid my address book > or calendar for whatever information I keep there. > > > > Now, I don't keep much in the way of private information in my address > book anymore since I'm using hosted Exchange and didn't want my credit > card and other information stored there (that's why I'm using eWallet > currently), but still would not want all of my contacts, calendar and > task information sent to somewhere else for perusal by someone else. > That's one of the reasons I don't prefer Gmail since it was reported by > reliable sources that Google searches and indexes all emails placed > there. > > > > Anyway, is this line of thought new to me, or has this occurred to > someone else and are there applications that can control which > applications are allowed to send data over the data connection? A > firewall for the Treo (at least for outbound traffic). I don't think > much of antivirus programs for the Treo, but a firewall might be needed, > sooner rather than later! > > > > Thoughts? I looked online and found nothing about Treo or PalmOS > firewalls, even in concept, except in one post written in Chinese, which > I don't read!! :-) > > > > Cheers, > > Don [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
