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thecounthahaha

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 17, 2010
156
8
Hi,

I've just received an email from my ISP warning about port 5900 being open due to a VNC server.

Now, I know this, but possibly hadn't realised the implications. I do IT support for elderly family members who don't live near me, and do the following:

Their Mac mini: Screensharing on with password (8 characters as there's a limit). NoIP address enabled so I don't need their IP address. Port 5900 open.

My mac: I log in via screensharing using the NoIp address, password, then log in as their Mac user and login. It's then as if I'm on the same local network.

As I understood it that was fine (lots of methods showing this) but the ISP implies that this isn't encrypted and or not safe. Is that correct?

I do this with several relatives, so would like to make it safe if so!

How can I encrypt the process? I'm not a coder, so terminal is doable but not something I'm confident with but I'm happy to give it a go! If I can't encrypt it is there another method or some software that I can use for a handful of machines?

Thanks very much!
 
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