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Can Ubuntu Save Online Banking?

Posted by timothy on from the make-that-virus-throw-an-error dept.

CWmike writes with a pointer to this ComputerWorld mention of an interesting application of Live CDs, courtesy of Florida-based regional bank CNL: "Recognizing that most consumers don't want to buy a separate computer for online banking, CNL is seriously considering making available free Ubuntu bootable 'live CD' discs in its branches and by mail. The discs would boot up Linux, run Firefox and be configured to go directly to CNL's Web site. 'Everything you need to do will be sandboxed within that CD,' [CNL CIO Jay McLaughlin] says. That should protect customers from increasingly common drive-by downloads and other vectors for malicious code that may infect and lurk on PCs, waiting to steal the user account names, passwords and challenge questions normally required to access online banking." (But what if someone slips in a stack of doctored disks?)

4 of 462 comments (clear)

  1. Convenience? by rschuetzler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't the point of online banking that it is convenient? And easy? For me, booting from a Live CD may be a piece of cake, but for a lot of people, it's far from that.

    Even if it is a great idea, 98% of the population won't latch on to something like this, and the 2% who might are probably already running linux

    1. Re:Convenience? by tpstigers · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, 98% of the population will only shy away from something like this is they're told what the process actually is. If they are told rather that it's their "Personal Online Banking Disc", and are then given instructions to walk them through the process, most people will happily buy into it. Most people wouldn't hesitate to install an app for this purpose, so the Live CD just needs to be marketed properly.

  2. Re:Reply by GIL_Dude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess for those people who shut down their computers more than once a day it would be fine. For those of us who reboot about once a month and use sleep / resume the rest of the time it is a terrible idea to be rebooting all the time to do banking (maybe twice a day sometimes, but at least a couple of times a week). Why would anyone want to put up with that? Even for folks willing to accept it, the bank would inevitably get a smattering of "the wireless doesn't work on my netbook" or something (even though Ubuntu live CD's are pretty good about support they can't manage to support every device). I would be more accepting of a VM or something though than a live CD for my own use.

  3. Re:Reply by Khyber · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Gives the user something physical to insert"

    Except the netbook owners, whom have no optical drive.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.