Accessing sftp and smb folders via VLC player on GoS

tastazardo

I am running the latest version of GrapheneOS on Pixel 7 pro. I recently noticed something in the VLC player. This is my goto media player.

If I click on the Browse button, it shows me folders grouped by the Favourites, Storage (includes Internal Storage and the folders within it, and the Local Network.

The Local Network shows two folders within it, one with sftp icon and another with smb icon.

I recognize the folder name for the sftp icon, it's from my office laptop. The folder name for the smb icon is combination of alphabets and numbers that I don't recognize. something like GP-L-51FT7M4

If I click on the sftp icon folder, it shows an empty folder, but it is accessible. Now, this sftp share is from my office laptop, which is a secured Macbook pro, with different levels of corporate security policies applied. It is unlikely that it would have some sftp shared folder, which can be access without passwords.

The smb icon, on the other hand prompts me to enter a SMB user name and password, when I click on it.

First of all, I am worried what these two folders are? Why can I see them from VLC browse functionality? Second, how come the sftp folder (from my supposedly secure office laptop) is accessible without passwords. I am sure our office policies do not allow sftp or any other ports which may compromise data security to be enabled, even by mistake.

Any comments!

guser39

tastazardo this sounds like a better question for your work IT team or your home router support team.

If you're concerned about VLC having network access, you can revoke that.

Checking open ports and services on your MacBook... I don't use MacOS but on most Linux systems, you can run:

ss -tuln will provide information on [l]istening [t]cp and [u]dp services including the [n]umeric port number.

You can run it with sudo and the -p flag to get [p]rocess information, too.

Segmenting your network to block connectivity between personal and work systems can be done. You'll need to refer to your home router's documentation.

intelligence

Sounds like its a side-effect of the way that VLC shows these. It probably detected an ssh service on the network, but shows blank because it DOES NOT have access to it. If it could log in without a username and password, then it would show the contents.