One would be really dumb to try to do everything on one's phone: banking, insurance payments, stock trading, plotting illegal activities while assuming messaging is totally unmonitored... as if anybody ever actually did that. Oh, and doing one's taxes over a "smart"phone... that's a real winner.
But sitting at home on Covid-19 break, it occurred to me that there's enough PCs/Macs/Linux/whatever machines around here to be apportionable to many different needs. Imagine if one were to use dedicated boxes for specific risk levels or hardware needs. Let's list a few:
SECURE COMMUNICATIONS AND FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS - This would not argue for Windows XP. This would argue for a current, constantly-updated, antivirus-equipped (if applicable) latest-thing desktop or laptop. Don't load free gambling programs on this one.
CASUAL COMMUNICATIONS, SOCIAL MEDIA AND VIDEOCONFERENCING - This also argues for frequent patching and up-to-date hardware. But heavy malware scanning and general lack of trust would be important.
GAMING - High-performance hardware requirements and total lack of trust are the driving issues here.
CLONE/BACKUP OF OTHER UNIT - Mainly with the business/financial computer, if you have a crash you may need a quick replacement to step in.
OFFLINE ARCHIVING - Important files need to be stored in a safe place. This box doesn't need to be networked and you might even unplug this one when not used. And it's a good backup for a backup; the only place big enough to copy over an outboard HDD is another big drive.
FIREWALL/ROUTER/PROXY SERVER UNIT - If you have heavyweight networking requirements, a filtration point might be needed.
ODDBALL COMPATIBILITY UNIT - Particular jobs or situations could demand a particular operating system, application, application set or configuration(s). If the boss says to set it up a certain way, this is the box on which to do that.
So I've suggested that you need a minimum of SEVEN computers in your Undisclosed Location.
So? What's so strange about that? (everybody peers into my room, shakes head, walks away)
