How secure is screen sharing?

Hi: I have set up my MacPro 2008 to accept screen sharing for one user (me) and I access it from my MacBook Pro via airport/AP extreme (protected by WPA2 Personal) and built-in VNC. Everything works perfectly fine and just as smooth as can be expected from a Mac. My only concern is, whether the connection is safe enough such that my passwords cannot easily be intercepted, or if I need to set up an SSH connection. Any suggestions?
Thanks.

WPA2 offers its own encryption, so it's basically secure against anyone not on your LAN so long as they don't have (or break) you WPA2 encryption key.
That said, you might presume that someone has breached the WPA2 encryption or otherwise gained access to your LAN, in which case the VNC login (and frame buffer data) isn't secure. In that case, what you want is to setup SSH and use the Mac firewall tools to block access to VNC from any host other than localhost.

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How to set Screen Sharing to greyscale on Leopard 10.5

The new screen sharing feature (just a built in VNC client) is decent, although I would've liked it better if it gave an option to view the connected computer in greyscale (like Apple Remote Desktop can), so as to make the screen redrawing much quicker. This is how you do that:
To change this setting manually, open up the Terminal and type in the following command:
defaults write com.apple.ScreenSharing controlObserveQuality 2
This changes the controlObserveQuality setting within this plist file: “~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ScreenSharing.plist” file to 2, which is grey scale. To change it to a different resolution, substitute the number 2 with one of the following numbers:
1 = black and white
2 = grey scale
3 = 8 bit color
4 = 16 bit color
5 = full color
However, when you've connected and you're all happy that you have greyscale, if you then choose Adaptive Quality from the View menu in Screen Sharing, this will set the default back to 3 (8 bit color), and you'll have to run the Terminal command or edit the .plist file again - so, just leave it when you initially set it and all will be well!
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I tried the malisphoto.com solution it but it didn't work for me.
I even tried the one at entropy.com but that also didn't work.
I was very careful and successful in the command line (bash) and afterwards, phpInfo() showed that the GD library was installed, however, my localhost GD (gif draw) scripts still kept showing the same old error messages on my localhost (and not online): "Fatal error: Call to undefined function imagecreatefromgif()"
Perhaps I'm just wrong to think PHP GD will work on my localhost pages after performing these installations - perhaps I'm misunderstanding something? Am I'm trying to change a light-bulb with a jack-hammer?
I should also point out that both solutions made my localhost run extremely slow. After restoring my system, it's all working fine (but without php GD).
My system is a Power Mac 10.5.8 Leopard
This is really lame. Is Apple trying to shut out PHP now? Is PHP the new "Flash"?

How secure is internet sharing?

I apologize if this is a stupid question...I am new to sharing and not very tech savvy...just know enough to do what I need to. I recently discovered I can share my internet connection thru airport so I can connect my iPod Touch and use it online and I read the steps needed to do so.
My question is: how secure is this If set it up with the 128-Bit and 13 letter password? I'd like to set it up on my iMac at work, but am afraid of others being able to get on or access it, or my iPod Touch.
I appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks so much!

so long as you don't use the WEP (40 bit) setup, should be ok...
now anything that's wireless, someone could crack if they have enough time & data packets to scan for the keys. but they would be set back to 0 once the password is changed. also, I wouldn't be doing anything at work that you wouldn't want anyone else to see anyway.

How EXACTLY does Screen Sharing work on Lion?

I tried to connect to my best friend's MacBook but it wouldn't work.
Can anyone give me detailed information on how to set up screensharing on the Mac?
We don't want to keep using Skype for that because it is extremely laggy and keeps crashing like it's its favorite thing to do.

Il try it right now from a mac running 10.6.8 to an Air running 10.7....
Make sure screensharing is tunred on in sharing preferences on both computers
Open a finder window on the computer you wish to view/share from
find the computer you wish to share/view on the sidebar
click sharescreen on the black bar
enter credentials

Does any one know how to change how to set screen sharing in mavericks 10.9 to observe mode as default.

In ML 10.8 there was a choice and default could be set. Thanks.

Unless you backed up your data somewhere, it's gone.
There are programs like Disk Drill Pro that may find a few recoverable files, but after doing a clean install it's doubtful that much of the data could be recovered in any useful format. And the more you use your computer, the more data is overwritten.

Screen Sharing to YOUR computer

I want to share a screen of my computer at work which is behind a firewall. I can do this with standard VNC clients such as COT VNC or JollyFastVNC by running the following
ssh -2 -N -l mylogin -L 5900:mycomputer.whatever.com:5900 ssh-machine.whatever.com
and then vnc'ng to localhost or 127.0.0.1 or mymachinename.local
I wanted to use screen sharing instead of the other two vnc clients and screen sharing was
a little too "smart". It kept refusing to connect to localhost because it said I was trying to
share my own screen. Does anyone have an idea how to "trick" screen sharing so that it
does what I ask and leave the rest to ssh tunnelling?

@Jay Gamel specifically, but to anyone who is having problems with Screen Sharing and thinks that since they don't use MobileMe that it must be something else ..
I have never used MobileMe, not even the free trial.
When I saw this post, I looked at the Mobile Me pref pane and since I had never logged in, there was no way to sign out, so I kept looking elsewhere.
Hours later, I read this email again and saw how timely it was, so I went back and looked again.
Even though I had never signed in, my AppleID was pre-populated in the Member Name field.
As soon as I cleared out this field, Screen Sharing started working again.
So, not only should you make sure you are signed out, but you should wipe out any information in either the Member Name or Password field.
I also noticed that, even after I solved it, as I continued to look at the issue, at some point the Member Name re-populated and sharing stopped working until I cleared it out again.

Pause screen sharing

Hey All,
First of all not sure if this is the right forum to post. This forum seems to be the closest.
We are using Lync 2013 and using Lync meeting option extensively. So far this has been so good, one single place for screens sharing and voice conference.
Have one problem though. I don't know how to pause screen sharing while sharing my desktop. It will be really helpful feature to pause your current screen that you are sharing. This allows user to switch to other programs and helps maintin privacy, specially
when with a larger group. One may want to check that important email for which a notification just popped-up, it won't be possible with current options. An alternative is to select programs that one wants to share and not share your desktop, but this shows
a blank screen to users when the shared program is minimized (or even restored).
Best Regards,
Himanshu

Hi,
The normal situation is when minimize the shared program, it will show: “There’s nothing to see right now-all the presenter’s windows are minimized.” When restore it, other users will see the program normally.
As you can share program at first, you can try the issue on other computer with your Lync account.
Please also update Lync client to the latest version and then test the issue again.
Best Regards,
Eason Huang
Eason Huang
TechNet Community Support

Screen Sharing through iChat over VPN

Does anybody know how to make screen sharing with iChat work over a VPN? It used to work for me but now it only seems to work in one direction. I was testing it earlier today and this is what I saw:
VPN client shares their screen with a machine on the physical local network - OK
VPN client requests the screen of a local machine - Fails with "did not receive data error" after a brief audio-only connection.
Local clients shares their screen with VPN clients - Fails with "dd not receive data"
Local clients requests the screen of a VPN client - Fails with "did not receive data"
The VPN is definitely the culprit, the machines can screen-share fine outside of it, and can curiously screen-share fine with the server on our local network when they are VPN'ed in, just not with each other. The server is running 10.5.4.
Anybody have any experience in making this work?

Livebox devices tend to be actually made by Sagem
See this list http://portforward.com/routers.htm
IS the model you have listed ?
It may help if the ports are opened by UPnP as Screen Sharing tends to use more random ports that basic Video/Audio chats.
10:23 PM Monday; January 21, 2008

Screen sharing privacy....?

Is there any way to lock the remote screen? Our security admin will not allow VNC on our VPN for Mac screen sharing as screen on controlled Mac turns on and anyone can watch what you are doing. Any ideas? Guessing may need to install Third Party software.
Thanks in advance.
Andrew

I don't have an answer to that question, but your security admin really ought to be aware that having untrusted people around machines with sensitive data is inherently insecure. If the concern is that janitorial staff or whatnot may be able to get access to sensitive data after hours, note that they could do that already with nothing more than a hard drive containing Mac OS X, unless the data is encrypted somehow. The same would be true of Windows.
So if your admin's concerns are justified, you obviously need something more secure than screen sharing, but you also need some form of encryption in place, if you don't already.

I want to be able to monitor my teen daughter's computer from home using screen sharing. Anyone know how to set up screen sharing when my daughter's school has her computer set up for Apple Remote Desktop?

I want to be able to monitor my teen daughter's computer from home using screen sharing. Anyone know how to set up screen sharing when my daughter's school has her computer set up for Apple Remote Desktop?

ARD won't be as smooth as you think over the Internet and be a security risk for your daughter.
Your best bet would be to install nannyware, then when she's asleep you can review the logs.
This is the best and Mac friendly
http://www.internetsafety.com/

IChat screen sharing security/encryption

I'm going to be using iChat for the first time and want to use the screen sharing feature between two computers running 10.6. iChat's documentation says:
"While every screen sharing connection uses encryption, the highest level of security requires both participants to have MobileMe subscriptions with encryption enabled. If this is the case, you will see a lock icon in the screen sharing window."
Neither I nor the person I'm going to do screen sharing with has a MobileMe account. I'm wondering:
1. What is the difference between the encryption that "every screen sharing connection uses" and the enhanced security allowed with MobileMe accounts? How does this compare with, say, doing VNC over an SSH connection? Is it adequate for the usual "family help desk" tasks, which may involve typing passwords?
2. I understand that one can get a free MobileMe account which only has iChat capabilities. Does this free MobileMe account enable iChat encryption, or do I have to pay to get that?
Thanks!

re 1)
I am not aware that Screen Sharing is claiming to be Encrypted in each and every connection.
As far as I am aware it uses a modified Apple Remote Desktop engine and is a VNC connection tied together with a Audio Chat (two separate Ports/Data streams in tandem) and that a problem connecting either part will result in failure of the whole connection.
It is claiming to be encrypted in each and every connection -- as I quoted in the original post, "While every screen sharing connection uses encryption..." This is from http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iChat/5.0/en/17157.html

Screen sharing security question

I recently set up my imac to allow screen sharing from my MBP. On my iMac I randomly see the screen sharing icon appear in the menu bar despite not being connected. Is this normal?
Also i setup security so that it should only be me that is able to connect via password to my iMac, yet there is aslo an option to connect as a guest which connects & shows the imac screen & allows me to do things.
I thought the whole point of setting access only to me was that no-one else ( eg guest) could connect.
i am a bit baffled here, can anyone help me out?
TIA,
john

I would not consider the presence of the screen sharing icon normal. I encourage you to open terminal and run the command
netstat | grep vnc
the next time you see it. This will return either nothing (bringing you back to the prompt ending in $, or return a line such as this:
tcp4 0 39 10.0.42.116.vnc-server 10.0.42.243.54233 ESTABLISHED
In this case, my Macintosh is 10.0.42.116, and the computer connected to it is 10.0.42.243.
By this method you can determine if there is a glitch causing the icon to appear or if there is actually a connection being made to your Macintosh.
What you are probably experiencing with the guest account is a bit of confusion related to how Finder thinks of computers.
The Guest/User Account is not for Screen Sharing, but for File Sharing.
When you clicked "Share Screen..." the first time, regardless of if you connected to file sharing as Guest or Registered User, you got a box requesting "the username and password to share the screen of (computer name)." There, you probably selected remember password in keychain, and that is why you are not being prompted again, and why you are connecting to screen sharing as a guest. (You're actually connecting to screen sharing as your registered user, but you are connected to file sharing as a guest).
To change this behavior, (on the client Mac) navigate to Applications, Utilities, Keychain Access. There, you will find an entry with a blue @ sign as an icon, and your destination PC's name. The Kind will be Network Address and when you select the line the "Where" in the info viewer panel will begin with vnc://. When you find this line, press the delete key to remove the saved password, and don't tick the "remember" checkbox again.

Screen sharing security?

I'd be interesting to hear thoughts on the security of the screen sharing feature of Leopard.
Is the content of the interaction protected or encrypted in any way?
How easy would it be for someone to engineer a screen sharing 'attack' on a computer (without the users consent, obviously)?

iChat Screen sharing requires that you Accept the call.
It also contains an Audio component so you can talk to the person involved.
As with any iChat A/V related chat it is Peer-to-Peer on a 1-1 basis.
Given that it does go through many server on the internet between you and your Buddy (like a telephone call would) it does not go through the AIM servers like a plain text chat does.
On the other hand the data is not encrypted unless you both have @mac names and IF anyone was actually at those Internet servers in between the data could be read.
However you can end a Screen Share with the keystrokes Control+Esc
From iChat Help
*About screen sharing security*
When you share your screen with a buddy, the buddy has the same access to your computer that you have. Share your screen only with trusted parties, and be particularly careful if you receive a request to share your screen from someone who isn’t in your buddy list.
If the request comes from someone in your Bonjour list, remember that the person’s name is not necessarily accurate, so his or her identity is uncertain.
While every screen sharing connection uses encryption, the highest level of security requires both participants to have .Mac accounts with encryption enabled. If this is the case, you will see a lock icon in the screen sharing window.
If you need to quickly end a screen sharing session, press Control-Escape.
Realistically it as dangerous as opening an email that you don't know the origins of and then opening a file contained in it.
I personally have not tried transferring stuff from one computer to the other.
So I don't know if there are any alerts to say a file is being sent. I would expect a progress bar at least but then again this may not be the front window.
There is/was one Virus that was in the wild for the Mac OS X.
It did involve iChat.
To get it you had to have been sent an email and open what looked like a .jpg file.
It would then spread to your other Bonjour Contacts via iChat.
i.e. you had to do quite a lot yourself to actually get this virus.
Ryan M who posts in iChat 3 posted a fix.
In terms of how secure compare it to having to login in here at Apple.
It's over the net and you have the control to end it but it is possible for people in the right place at the right time to read the data.
if you give info away about yourself here such as your ID and password then people could use that (but the login page itself is a secure page).
These questions are always hard to answer as an idea of a security risk tends to be a personal thing.
10:26 PM Wednesday; June 4, 2008

How can I set up a screen screen sharing VNC at a resolution higher than display?

I have a mid 2010 MacBook Pro 13in, and i have set up screen sharing to access over VNC. I want to view my mac on my 1920x1080 display hooked up to my PC. But when i do it is not full screen, it is the same resolution as my MBP. how can i run it at a higher resolution only over VNC?

As Cvid suggests, I create my "frames" in Photoshop. Not sure about all versions, but my PS has several Actions, just for frames, and I have made a few more, with a different "look."
I Save_As PSD, and just Import those as Footage (I do not need the capability to work with the individual Layers).
Good luck,
Hunt

How to disable 'select display' on screen sharing?

One improvement in Lion is Screen Sharings 'asking' of the current logged in user as to whether or not it is ok to share the screen. While I understand the need for this in a multi-user environment, this is a unnecessary level of feature for most home users. In fact, it's been a total pain and I'd like to know how to disable it. Trying to remote support parents has become virtually impossible as they are unsure as to what it means to allow screen sharing when I attempt to connect.
Anyone know how to disable this feaute and let Screen Sharing work as it did pre-lion?

Apple menu > System Preferences > Sharing > Screen Sharing > Allow access for: account you want to log into
Connect as that user.

How secure is screen sharing?

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